Book review: As You Wish by Cary Elwes

The thirty-first book I read in 2018 was As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden.  Drop the "Inconceivable" (or, perhaps, use it as Vizzini did), and it's pretty much what it says on the tin: a behind-the-scenes from the movie, at least as remembered by the participants nearly three decades later.

On top of being one of the most delightful, most well-written, most well-cast, most well-directed movies ever made, "The Princess Bride" is also notable for preserving in amber, at the absolute height of their attractiveness, two of the most ludicrously good-looking people in the history of the world, Elwes and Robin Wright (later Robin Wright Penn, later just Robin Wright again).  Frankly, were I one of them, I'm not sure I could harbor unadulterated good feelings toward the film, in that it endures as a living testament to the truth that neither one of them is as good-looking as they used to be, but I guess that's an occupational hazard of being a film actor.

I already knew some of the "inconceivable" tales, but not by any means all.  For example, that Mandy Patinkin and Elwes tried to one-up one another in fencing practice rather like Doug and Kate battling to get on the ice first in "The Cutting Edge."  That Westley was originally supposed to jump into the lightning sand feet-first to save Buttercup but Elwes didn't feel like it looked cool enough so he come up with the much-more-dangerous head-first dive.  That Wallace Shawn is scared of heights and was terrified during the Cliff of Insanity scene.  That most of Billy Crystal's and Carol Kane's dialogue was improvised.  That Elwes broke his toe before shooting the final scene with Buttercup in his Dread Pirate Roberts guise and was both in great pain and desperately trying to conceal it from Rob Reiner in the fear he'd be fired and the part recast.  That Christopher Guest actually did knock Elwes out hitting him with the butt of his sword. 

Sadly, the lackluster release of the film led all involved to fear that their labor of love had been in vain.  It was the video release that led to the widespread popularity of "The Princess Bride," and if VHS did nothing else for the world, that is enough.

Book review: Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace

The twenty-eighth book I read in 2018 was really two books, an omnibus edition of the fifth and sixth books in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy series, Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself.  As a child, I was never a fan of Lovelace; I recall trying to read Betsy-Tacy and quitting, unutterably bored.  Betsy never found a magic wishing coin or traveled through a wardrobe into another world or met a witch or even, like Laura Ingalls Wilder, took a covered wagon out west and dealt with Indians and blizzards and wildfires.  She was just a little girl going about everyday life in a small town, and I couldn't have cared less.

The next book in the Mother-Daughter Book Club series, however, is based on the Betsy series, particularly these last books dealing with her high school years and past, so I thought I'd give Betsy another try and see if she got any more interesting as a teenager. 

More interesting, yes, but likable, not particularly.  In what is now a trope (hello, Harry Potter), each of the next four books in the series deals with one school year in Betsy's life.  In the first book, Betsy is getting ready to start high school as a freshman.  The family moves away from her childhood home across the street from Tacy's house on the Big Hill and into a larger, more modern house nearer the center of town.  Between her older sister Julia and Betsy, they make the Ray house a frequent destination for school friends, both boys and girls.  In the second book, Betsy is a sophomore and travels to Milwaukee over Christmas to visit Tib, who moved away since the childhood books.

There's not a great deal more action than in the books chronicling Betsy's childhood years; instead, the narrative focuses on Betsy's ambitions for popularity.  Tacy is firmly sidelined in favor of more typical high school girl friends, not only by Betsy, but also by the author: although Betsy seems to "learn her lesson" a time or two over the course of the stories and spends time with Tacy, Lovelace glosses over that time off-screen, clearly preferring to depict the popular girls.  While morally questionable, it is this very choice that makes the books interesting today, in their portrayal of a very different style of adolescence: shirtwaists, pompadours over rats, putting on powder with a chamois skin (acceptable for decent girls) and putting on rouge with a rabbit's foot (the behavior of actresses and loose women), dance cards, a school teacher openly courting a senior girl, etc. 

While I have decried Sweet-Valleyism in the Mother-Daughter Book Club, these books serve as prototypes.  Each can't resist an early description of Betsy's slim waist and peaches-and-cream complexion, in prose little different than each installment of Sweet Valley High's description of the physical perfection of the Wakefield Twins, right down to Jessica/Betsy twirling around in front of a mirror and complaining about her physical flaws.

Betsy is decidedly boy-crazy, not in the sense of falling for any particular boy but more longing for the power which she discerns in her older sister Julia of being able to lead one around on a string and then drop him for a new model when she gets bored.  Her obsession with popularity leads to her failure, in each book, to achieve the academic goals she has set for herself.  One presumes that this will culminate, in her senior year, with academic triumph.

Book review: The House of Unexpected Sisters by Alexander McCall Smith

The twenty-seventh book I read in 2018 was the eighteenth installment in Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, The House of Unexpected Sisters.  There's actually no paying job in this book, as Precious and Grace take on a charity case (literally!) and turn down a client at the end of the book because they don't agree with her motivations.  Perhaps McCall Smith is getting Mma Ramotswe confused with his other protagonist, Isabel Dalhousie, for whom money is no object.

The pro bono case the agency takes on is that of Charity (get it?) Mompoloki, a widow with young children who lost her job at an office furniture store for what she insists are unfair reasons, but the real meat of the story deals with Precious Ramotswe's discovery of a secret which casts a shadow over her memory of the daddy, the late sainted Obed Ramotswe.

Book review: Pies and Prejudice by Heather Vogel Frederick

The twenty-sixth book I read in 2018 was the fourth book in Heather Vogel Frederick's Mother-Daughter Book Club series, Pies and Prejudice.  The girls are entering ninth grade, and their book for the year (clearly) is Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. 

But the girls aren't all entering ninth grade together.  Jess already abandoned the public school last year when she moved into a boarding school dorm, despite living in the same town the school is in; this year, Emma and her family are spending the school year in Bath since her father sold the novel he'd been working on.  Technology to the rescue, as Mr. Wong hooks up videoconferencing equipment for book club meetings.

The Hawthornes work a house swap with a British family with two sons, one of whom is handsome and charming while the other is distant and arrogant ... and I'm sure you can see where this is going.  There's a lot of boyfriend stuff this time around, as Megan falls for Bingley, uh, Simon, Becca goes to the Spring Formal with Zach Norton, Jess and Darcy finally get together, Stewart breaks up with Emma, and the author rips off pays homage to The Cutting Edge with Cassidy and the Darcy-stand-in, Tristan.

Frederick sprinkles the background with Austen Easter eggs, like the choir director Mr. Elton, the teacher Ms. Bates, and Emma's Knightley-Martin School.  The rather ham-handed title is derived from a baking business the club begins to pay for an airline ticket for Emma to fly home for spring break (which, coincidentally, is the same week as spring break at Alcott High and Colonial Academy), which in turn follows a sudden and convenient passion to learn cake decorating on the part of Jess and her mom.  It's pretty out of left field.

The Sweet-Valleyism is a given with this series by now, but my main concern was mean-spirited actions of the girls seemingly being condoned by the author.  Megan finds her niche in high school by publishing an anonymous "What Not to Wear" blog, trashing the fashion choices of her schoolmates.  She is eventually found out, and her mom forces her to apologize; but she receives considerable positive affirmation for her exploits from a magazine publisher who implicitly tells her to wait until she's 18 and then she can make fun of others with impunity for a paycheck. 

Emma's father's novel (besides being awful -- Frederick really shouldn't have posted a supposed excerpt) contains thinly-disguised caricatures of people he knows, prompting a feud with Mrs. Chadwick, whose doppelganger is particularly unattractive.  (And I've read reviews of the series who point out that continually mocking a character for the size of her posterior is hardly a feminist undertaking.) 

And Emma herself has a story published in the Knightley-Martin school literary magazine mocking a group of girls at the school before flying back to the US consequence-free -- a public shaming for which her father and one of the girls' relatives congratulates her.  Emma (with Frederick) excuses herself with the assurance that no one but the girls being made fun of will know it's them and they deserve it, but given that the bad fairies in the story have the exact same nicknames as the four girls in real life, it's a ridiculous conclusion. 

For a series that has gone out of its way to redeem Becca Chadwick and Savannah Sinclair, it's petty to dump on Annabelle Fairfax and her satellites.  And for a series based on celebrating female characters, to condone mockery of (other) female characters for their weight and fashion choices is backwards. 

Book review: Game On! by Dustin Hansen

The twenty-fifth book I read in 2018 was Game On!: Video Game History from Pong and Pac-Man to Mario, Minecraft, and More by Dustin Hansen.  I was the last reader in the household to read this book, as the kids found it at Half-Price Books and Tommy read it after them.

Unlike Tristan Donovan's subtitle, this one has an accurate range: Hansen starts with Pong in 1972 and works his way chronologically through important, innovative and successful games, ending with Overwatch in 2016, the book's publication date.  The explanation of why I was the last in the family to read this book might lie in the confession of how many of these games I haven't played.  Pong, yes, on the Atari 2600; Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and E.T.  the Extra-Terrestrial, ditto.  I never played Zork, although I did play a later text-based game by Infocom, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Tetris, yes; Myst, yes.  Pokemon Yellow I played a few times on my nephew's GameBoy.  And Wii Sports.  That's it.  Eight out of thirty-nine "games that shaped us all," in the author's words.

While my experience with the particular games Hansen singles out obviously skews early (and Atari-centric), I have a hard time accepting the validity of any list of great video games that doesn't include Baldur's Gate.  To me, the author's list is console-heavy.  In completing his history up to the present day, he sacrifices a bit of perspective.  Will Angry Birds and Overwatch really go down in history with similar impact to Pong and Pac-Man?  Who's to say?

The text is explicitly aimed at kids -- the epilogue says that "today's gamers -- that means you, gamer -- are going to school to become the game developers of tomorrow," and a discussion of video game ratings begins to describe the content of Adults-Only-rated games and breaks off, "...well, how about we cover that when you're an adult." -- despite the author's celebration of games like Farmville expanding the definition of gamers beyond adolescence.  As such (and probably because Hansen works in the industry and doesn't want to burn bridges), the text is very rah-rah, with no negative details about anyone or anything mentioned.  For example, Toys for Bob, the studio that would eventually create Skylanders, had been focused on making video games of kids' movies, but "[m]ovie games started to get a bad reputation.  Gamers were tired of buying games based on movies they loved, only to be disappointed when the games didn't deliver the experience they expected."  Was Toys for Bob putting out uninspired, cash-grab games?  You'll never know from this book.

Tristan Donovan, of It's All a Game, has a book of his own out on video game history.  Hansen's book makes me want to read it to see some of the warts he has undoubtedly excised.