Summer Reading; Some Are
Writing
Astral
Facts, May-June 2015
Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating,
a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world
in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.
Fanfic As You Like
It!
Now that school is out for the summer just about
everywhere (except for those of us teaching summer school and/or supporting those
doing the instruction), it only seems appropriate to turn to the traditional
summer reading lists. While some of us
can turn to the shelf with all the new materials on the bucket list, quite a
few of us might choose to go back to re-experience the old favorites.
Somewhere in between we can find those doing both by
combining old and new. Like most of us,
they wish the stories could have turned out differently or perhaps they
recognize characters have acted in unreasonable ways just to please the author. Even sometimes, the book has ended without
finishing the story.
While most readers
might just accept that as the way life is, others haven’t been so
complacent. Rather than taking the
lemons of life and making lemonade, they trade those lemons for prunes, make
prune juice, and let things flow! They
are the ones who have created and participated in “FanFic” – the action of continuation
or alteration of the text by its fans.
For example, why not revise all the “Harry Potter”
stories into a feminist version of something like a “Harriet Potter and ….” series? The child of the muggle dentists could then
be Herman Granger, who has the book smarts but not the dauntless courage of the
female protagonist. Could you image a good girl/bad boy relationship between
Harriet and Draco Malfoy with Harriet’s nurturing feminine character in
conflict with her role as “the girl who lived”?
More than just a love triangle, let’s put Herman Granger and Ron Weasley
into the mix to create a “love rhombus” with Harriet as the hypotenuse!
Dip your quill in the inkwell and take it from there …..
For inspiration, read what others have done: Google “fanfic”
and your favorite book or author. Try it
with “Shakespeare” and over 2100 stories show up on 77 pages, including those
little-known versions of scenes such as “Fresh Off the Gondola” and “The
Twisted Balcony Scene.” These go much beyond the more passive cinematic version
of Leonardo DiCaprio and street gangs in LA with its agonizing “balcony” scene
in the swimming pool.
We could also try to rewrite the texts in the style of
another author. For those expecting academic content, here is a link to the final scenes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as
if Ayn Rand had written it:
For those of us who prefer a lighter summer vacation
fare, how about just rewriting Liam Neeson’s short phone statement from the
film Taken (which we now know is Taken 1)?
Here’s how Ralph Jones would imagine it done by Dr. Seuss,
Shakespeare, and Hemingway:
The
original: “I
don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you’re looking for
ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money; but what I do have are a very
particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career;
skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go
now that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you.
But if you don’t…I will look for you…I will find you…and I will kill you.”
DR.
SEUSS
“No
I don’t know who you may be,
I
don’t know what you want from me.
I
have no money but I do
Have
skills that would endanger you!
If
you let my daughter go
I
won’t chase you, no! no! no!
But
if you keep her, oh dear me,
I
will find you, you will see.
Not
only will I catch you, I
Will
make sure that I watch you die!”
WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE
“I
know thy voice but know not who thou art.
Nor
can I profess to know thy mind.
If
ransom be thy motive, know that I
Hath
money only for the clothes that cloak
My
skin. In place of coins I hath acquired
Valuable
knowledge of the sort that breaks
The
backs of men like you. Return my girl.
If
she and I are reunited, thou
Shalt
have no cause to hear from me again.
But
lo, if you should choose a different path
(O
God! I can scarce imagine such a fate),
Scouring
land and sea I will find you
And
with my sword I will remove thy tongue.
A
plague upon you! I will not rest until
Thy
body rots six feet beneath the earth.”
ERNEST
HEMINGWAY
“Will
kill you if you do not return daughter.”
These and four others are posted here:
http://the-toast.net/2015/06/09/liam-neesons-taken-speech-written-by-seven-famous-authors/
So this summer as the sands of time trickle through the
hourglass, spread them out on an exotic beach, with pen, Ipad, Kindle, or other
device in hand (and a cool drink with a little umbrella also at hand) and
create your own reality: some are reading and summer writing!
Walter Lowe
Astral Facts is a somewhat regular presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices during the academic year.
Astral Facts is a somewhat regular presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices during the academic year.
