Shannon Costello

Saturday, February 16, 2008- 1:02:57 (steep hills)

August 2009 1:11:22 (trail run- steep hills, river crossings)

Monday, July 4, 2011 59:03.1  (hot, some hills)

I haven’t run enough 10Ks to really compare, but it is nice to have a time under 1 hour.  I think the sprinklers, though delightful, were distracting- one finds one’s self zig-zagging on the course so as not to miss a one.  I ran the first mile in 8:16.  I can never decide if this means I should slow down or if, knowing my inherent laziness, I should just get all the speed I can out of me while I can.  I was at a 9 minute pace by the 3-mile mark.  It -er, my pace- was all downhill from there.

I like how Augustine embraced his culture on one hand and yet was wholly separate from it on  the other.  He does not hesitate to use the secular writers (mostly Virgil in this book) and his knowledge of science (salamanders that live in fire, worms able to survive only in hot springs) to make his points regarding eternal punishment.

He seemed hospitable to his culture, sat it down and talked with it.  In his writing he comments on both the good and the bad.  I feel that American Christians, in sharp contrast, often fail to engage the culture.  In fact, some seem to strike out in fear…

I’ve been riding the red line twice a week lately.

There is a certain beauty in infrastructure and trains.  I like looking at construction projects from high up on a bridge, or wondering about the tracks left in a tremendous pile of gravel- did a tractor really go up there?  I loved discovering that the train reverses when it disappears at the end of the red line; I had thought it must just loop around.  Even better was the day I realized that you can see out the front if you sit in the very first car.

There are people that deliberately wait in the hinterland of the platform so they can get on the first car.  I don’t know if that is because they like the front or because it is less crowded, at least until we get to Metro Center.  Often it is standing room only, crowded enough so that I inch out of my seat and toward the door one or two stops before I get off.  (No doubt it shows my inexperience that I’m afraid I won’t get off in time.)  The automated voice always reminds us to “please move to the center of the car.”  One day, when it was really crowded, a man called out that very reminder, and a small chuckle rippled through the car at everyone’s uncomplaining obedience.

There was a bigger laugh the day a man exited the train leaving his blackberry on his seat.  “Somebody left their blackberry!” a man hollered.  The rest of the car took up the cry:  “Blackberry!  Blackberry!”  Someone grabbed the blackberry off the seat.  Since it was too packed to walk it to the door themselves they simply passed it forward.  All kind of hands reached out, moving toward door.  “Doors closing!” said the automated voice.  The owner’s hand received the phone and disappeared just ahead of the closing doors.  Everyone cheered.  “That never happens,” I heard someone say.

At night, on the way back, it’s different.  Around Dupont Circle there are people in business suits and lots of young people dressed very nicely, probably going to all of those interesting restaurants I pass on my way to the Alliance Française.  But as the train makes its way back toward Glenmont, the crowd thins out and is no longer quite so hip.  The people don’t seem as pretty and their clothes don’t stand out in the same way.  One man, older, makes his way down the car.  “Anybody got a dollar?”  I keep my eyes on the French poetry I’m studying.  Later on, at the end of the line, I watch as a young man leaps over the turnstyle and gleefully dances his way up the escalator.  Behind me, somebody spits against the wall.  I shove my smartcard in my wallet and hurry up the stairs to the parking garage.

Your article is thought-provoking which is one of my favorite kinds of writing. You are obviously an accomplished writer, and if not, you should be.

"At Land’s End I had my first view of the Pacific Ocean…The water is such a deep wonderful blue and the sound of the waves breaking on the beach and their whisper as they flow back is something to dream about."

Who says Laura can’t write?

Laura was visiting Rose in San Francisco when she wrote the letters in this book…to "Manly" from "Bessie."  It was fun fitting Laura into what was going on at the time.  She read in the papers about the war in Europe…heard Fritz Kreisler play…crossed the bay by boat since there was no bridge yet…and rode street cars through the streets of San Francisco.

On the other hand, how about the letter from Rose to Manly, warning him that Laura is getting fat, probably from eating too many scones…

It would take about 12 hours to drive from De Smet, South Dakota, to Mansfield, Missouri. Laura, Almanzo and Rose started out at 8:40 on July 17, 1894 in their wagon with its thermometer (until it got lost) and their hen coop hanging off the back.  They arrived in Mansfield on August 30.

For someone who didn’t want to marry a farmer, Laura knew an awful lot about what she was seeing. She recorded the crops they passed, commenting on acreage and quality.  This was Laura’s personal diary, and there are certainly flashes of Laura unplugged:  ”Mrs. Cooley and I went to a house to buy milk.  It was swarming with children and pigs; they looked a good deal alike.”

More pictures of the real Laura come from Rose, who wrote the introduction and conclusion, and supplied the captions for the pictures (one of which was taken by Laura herself- the thought gives me chills).  Laura whistled.  And carried a revolver.  But Almanzo wouldn’t let her use an axe…but the cross-cut saw was ok.  Rose, by the way, had her own strong personality- I wouldn’t have wanted to cross her.

They picked up a stray dog on the way, which they named, believe it or not, Fido.  The dry weather is what drove them out of South Dakota…so it was interesting that they met up with people traveling in both directions, including people specifically looking to live in South Dakota.  Laura and Almanzo apparently arranged to get their mail in Fort Scott- there were letters waiting for them there.

It is almost overwhelming to read this stuff, and to look at prints of photographs taken over a hundred years ago, and to think about what it must have been like…

Today one of my co-workers brought in her 1932 edition of Little House in the Big Woods with illustrations by Helen Sewell.  The drawings of Ma and Pa looked exactly right.

Mr. Mason.  Mr. Varner.  Eric.  Jessica.  Angela.  Mr. Banner.  Mike.  Coach Clapp.  Tyler.  Lauren. Ben Cheney.

How long did it take you to catch on that all of these are characters from Twilight?  Now compare what you know about those characters to what you know of Prue from The Hunger Games, Pol from The Thief, or the Parvarti twins from Harry Potter.

It was only after I finished re-reading Twilight recently that I was struck with how flat Bella’s classmates and teachers are as characters.  We know little about them.  They don’t contribute to the plot. They are really there so they can be a foil for Bella (the boys by conveniently falling in love with her, unlike the boys in Phoenix).  Bella herself doesn’t care about them, which makes her look bad.    Jacob doesn’t even stand out in this first book.  He is short and gullible for the first half and spends the second half carrying messages for his grandfather.  I think those people are a lost opportunity from a writing perspective.

I suppose some of the blame for the writing quality of Twilight can be blamed on poor editing:  “The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born.”

A quick scan of the first chapter reveals a lot of dashes, I think too many (too bad- I love dashes myself!).  As I read further I realized that some of the dashes replace more appropriate punctuation.  Sometimes there are word choice issues.  Here’s a sentence I don’t like:  “I pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too.”  The word ‘later’ is jarring; perhaps ‘then’ would be a better choice.  In other areas the sentences do not flow well together:  “Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.  But the cause didn’t matter.  All that mattered was the effect.  And tomorrow would be just the beginning.”

It may be only fair to mention here that Stephenie Meyer specifically calls herself a story teller and not a writer.  That may be why I get the feeling that sentences don’t move beyond utilitarian to artistic.  (In contrast I’m thinking of Shannon Hale’s writing, where it is not surprising when one bumps into some gorgeous sentences.)

There are some minor plausibility issues (besides the whole plot itself!).  Edward tells Bella that she can’t smell blood and is surprised when she can.  Where does his idea come from?  Bella, by the end of her first week at school, can recognize most of the 300 students in her school.  Really? And why must they take Bella back to Arizona?  Couldn’t they hide her at their house and go on the offensive with the tracker?

There are definitely some telling versus showing problems.  Edward sometimes speaks “with unfamiliar cadences and phrases that better fit the style of a turn-of-the-century novel…”  I don’t remember any examples of that at all. I don’t even see how a speech of Edward’s, taken out of context, could be distinguished from a speech of Bella’s.  I think it is Jane Austen who is supposed to be really good at writing distinguishable character speeches.

Turning back to character, why does Bella fall for Edward so unconditionally and irrevocably?  Since Twilight is supposed to parallel Pride and Prejudice, let me point out that Darcy first begins to contemplate Elizabeth’s fine eyes and, along with the rest of us, is completely won over by her lively character.  He later admires her for how she helped him see his own faults. In contrast, Edward initially stays away from Bella because he wants to kill her, but decides that he is so attracted to her he is going to try to be close to her anyway.  This makes him look weak.

Elizabeth is turned off by Darcy’s pride, but as she gets to know him she begins to do his character justice.  And it doesn’t hurt that he saves her family from complete disgrace.  Bella, on the other hand, is never really turned off to Edward.  While Elizabeth’s and Darcy’s characters help drive the plot in Pride and Prejudice, in Twilight the plot unfortunately appears to be driven by hormones.

My own romanticism is such that I will naturally prefer a book set in an imaginary world full of kings, queens, thieves, and spies to a book that imagines a future for North America that is truly horrifying and, in certain senses, all too close to reality.  Diplomatic intrigue and uncertain loyalties are more fun than a desperate scrabble for survival.

With my natural bias safely acknowledged, I’m going to rate The Hunger Games as a 9.5 out of 10.  But The Thief gets a 9.8.

Both are well-written books that easily pass multiple re-readings. Each gets you asking questions from the very first line and jumps quickly into the plot without getting bogged down in exposition (in looking at them I realize that my November novel is completely bogged, no, cemented down in exposition- what was I thinking?).

The Thief has a better opening line:  "I didn’t know how long I had been in the king’s prison."  We immediately know something about the setting of the novel and are faced with a compelling question- what on earth is Eugenides doing in prison?  On the other hand, The Hunger Games begins with "When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold."  Yes, questions are raised, but the other person could just be reading upstairs.  The Hunger Games quickly makes up for this difference in the plot exposition.  Repeated ominous references to the Reaping have the reader wondering what it is that Katniss hates and dreads so much.  Important background information is provided in small chunks that are relevant to character movement in the first chapter.  And the ending of chapter 1, with Prim’s name getting chosen, is explosive.  Eugenides is stuck in the king’s prison and can’t move around as much, though we are given intriguing tidbits about his past and the plot gets going ten pages more quickly.

Both authors create characters that seem to live, starting with the protagonists and keeping it up right through the supporting characters to the antagonists.  We know them, their actions, and how they matter to the plot.  All I have to do is say their names and images come to mind.  Haymitch.  Sophos.  The Magus.  Prue.  I do think Eugenides is a more unusual and intriguing character.  That may be partially because he doesn’t trust or acknowledge the reader enough to tell most of what he is thinking.  Katniss never shuts you out.  And Eugenides is driving the plot while Katniss is doing her best not to drown in it.  Not her fault, of course- The Hunger Games is certainly a plot-driven novel.

The Hunger Games stops more than it ends- a pet peeve of mind.  It isn’t as bad as some- Katniss has made it home, but her relationship with Peeta is fully unresolved and that is very much on Katniss’ mind.  And larger questions have been raised- it seems that winning will not be the guarantee of security Katniss had expected.  These are important questions.  I resent not having the answers in my hands.  There are unresolved questions at the end of The Thief , but they are reasonable.  Weddings are questions of the more distant future- there are definite feelings to act on yet.  And Eugenides has stepped back from the whole story and processed it.  There is a definite feeling of an ending.  You are pleased to find out there are more books, but they are a gift from the author to you- a glad surprise rather than a must-have.