disappoint...ing

To complete my review of The Last Templar (see below), I will begin with, "Boo. Hiss." I hope this book isn't considered a thriller, though I fear it is. There was little that was thrilling; hell, there was little that was even surprising. The last page or so was not terribly expected, but it was also not terribly well written. Actually, it was quite poorly written, as well as poorly reasoned. I feel cheated of the time I spent reading it. I like fiction. I like fiction that uses history as a base. I even like fiction that jumps around in time. However, when the historical base is inaccurate, incomplete, or incompetently portrayed, my respect for the text is lost. Perhaps I'm too much of a purist, but to me, claiming "it's fiction!" does not give a writer permission to alter history or even misrepresent historical fact. At the very least, Khoury inaccurately presents Biblical textual history, and as an area in which many people do not even have a good working knowledge, much less expertise, I frown on this use of creative license. As often as people are told, "You can't believe everything you read," we often still do.

We made the mistake of renting Journey to the Center of the Earth (in 3D!). A bottle of wine did not fool us into believing this was a decent film. Oh, was it bad! Particularly painful was the scene of the thirteen-year-old receiving a call from his mom while battling an ocean squall--in the center of the earth. Man-eating plants, a T-Rex, characters falling hundreds of miles and landing without bruises, and characters being ejected from the center of the earth via a volcanic tube gushing magma and water without receiving burns or bruises are just a few of the treats awaiting viewers of this soon-to-be-classic movie.

I have had two weeks of pleasant surprises on the nighttime reading front, however. Jon reads to me most nights before we go to sleep; we started the tradition in Korea when he thought it might help me sleep and we went through The Iliad and The Odyssey. Since then we've read things like the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Chronicles of Narnia series, and the Bible. On Christmas we started... Harry Potter. I have been firm in my resolve to NOT read any of the Harry Potter books for the last 5 1/2 years. I have been stubbornly resolved to stay off that particular bandwagon. The whole phenomenon just felt too cultish. It was talked about everywhere; people lined up to buy each new book at midnight on the release date. Creepy. Plus, I'm certain there was at least a hint of literary snobbishness in there somewhere (my M.A. thesis was on Shakespeare after all. Where in the world does pop children's sci-fi fit in my life?). However, we finished book one in a week, I'm almost embarrassed to say. I'm thoroughly enjoying Mr. Potter's adventures and find Rowling's narratives to be quite amusing. I frequently catch myself laughing out loud. I'm probably the one person on the planet to be this far behind the times, so surely no one needs my opinion or critique of this particular series, I'm just admitting I was ... wrong about it.