Access Documents

The Lost Years of Merlin
Author: T.A. Barron

Merlin is, without doubt, the greatest wizard of all time. He was there even before the Arthurian legends were born. We know so many things about his supposed origin and deeds. About his parents, about the red and white dragons, about the kings he served, about his death – even his triple deaths. One of the most recommended sources to learn more about Merlin is Nikolai Tolstoy’s The Quest for Merlin. But we’re not talking about Tolstoy’s book here.

As author T.A. Barron observed, we know so little about Merlin’s childhood and teenhood. After Merlin was born, there was a good deal of lost years before he emerged as a full wizard. With that in mind, T.A. Barron started writing his teenage Merlin saga. The first book is called The Lost Years of Merlin. I approached the book cautiously due to a newspaper’s review boasting about the book printed on the cover – any book claimed to be better than Harry Potter must be treated with most care. After reading the book, while unable to decide whether this first book proves to be something more worthy than Harry Potter, I have to underline the fact that I love it.

( The story of an inbetween land… and an inbetween boy )

Now on to the second book - The Seven Songs of Merlin.

Fictions
The Aleph
A Universal History of Iniquity
Author: Jorge Luis Borges

If I want to write something about Borges, what should I write?

There are countless pieces out there written about Borges – pieces by people who are more authorised and more well-versed than I am to discuss and criticize Borges. So maybe I should start with just a simple claim: I love Borges.

I read Chesterton first and I can understand why Borges loved him.
I read Eco first and I can understand why he loves Borges.

Borges is a master in story-telling. You don’t need me to tell you about it. He drew and borrowed stories from various sources and rewrote, retold, and twisted them into something truly his. He created false history, writing it in a style ever-so convincing as if they’re true – or too good to be true. His fascination with blood-and-guts, mirror and labyrinth is apparent throughout the three books that I read (with some considerable distance between the first two titles mentioned and the third): Fictions, The Aleph and A Universal History of Iniquity.

( Logic will break your heart )

Hoot
Author: Carl Hiaasen
In Indonesia published as Uhu by Gramedia Pustaka Utama

This is perhaps one of the best children/pre-teen novels I’ve ever read in my life. It’s a prize-winning book, anyway. Witty, funny, and sharp, Hoot tells the story of a lovable character named Roy Eberhardt. His family moves all across America several times and ends up in Coconut Cove, Florida. Previously, Roy lived in Montana and he really loved it there that he felt so sorry for moving to a place as flat as Florida. Plus, in his school he is nicknamed ‘cowgirl’ (which makes him feel that he shouldn’t have said that he comes from Montana) and gets bullied by stronger, bigger, smoking Dana Matherson. But it’s because of Dana that one day Roy sees the strange boy running with no shoes outside the school bus. Roy decides to chase the boy one day, and thus he becomes involved with a series of vandalism and chutzpahs intended to save some owls from destruction caused by the building of the 469th branch of Mother Paula’s Pancake House.

Who is the strange boy? Roy only knows him by the name that the boy’s step-sister, Beatrice Leep, uses to call him: Mullet Fingers (because he can catch mullets using his fingers only). The boy has chosen to forget his own name and made Beatrice to vow not to tell his real name to anyone. Mullet Fingers, a regular truant and a master of escaping from horrible schools to where his mother sends him, decides to do all he might in his wild ways to save the owls by himself. But Roy wouldn’t let him do it alone.

( Hoot! )

( Comments on the translation )

The Invisible Man
Author: H.G. Wells

So what is The Invisible Man?
Few, if any, critics of novel pay serious attention to it nowadays. Perhaps only fans of science fiction and H.G. Wells cheer The Invisible Man as one of the milestones in the genre of science fiction. Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen brought the Victorian myth back to life, although as a different Invisible Man, because like perhaps everbody knows, the Original Invisible Man won’t be able to join the League after what happens to him in the novel.

And I don’t know how many people think of how kinky the novel is. A naked, albeit invisible, man running around? Just think of the times when he has to struggle with people who try to capture him…

( Because invisibility equals being black )

Monster Mission
Author: Eva Ibbotson
In Indonesia published as Misi Monster by Gramedia Pustaka Utama

Minette and Fabio never like their current ‘homes’. Minette because she has to shuttle between her dad’s and her mom’s – her divorced parents hate each other and each thinks know what’s best for their daughter, although their main concern is themselves. Fabio because he’s not happy to spend his time in a boarding school where he gets mocked just because he’s not quite English. He is the son of an aristocratic English father and a Brazilian dancer. His father has died, while his mother wanted to live with another man, so she sent Fabio to his English grandparents who think that education under strict rules is what a child needs.

But Minette and Fabio don’t know whether they love their new life in The Island, where the Aunts who kidnap them bring them to. They have to work hard there, helping the Aunts saving marine animals that are victims of environmental accidents and degradation. At least, the Island is far more beautiful than their parents and grandparents’ houses.

( But animals are not the only living things they have to help! )

( Comments on the translation )

Deep France: A Writer's Year in the Béarn
Author: Celia Brayfield

I didn't know where the Béarn was.
I didn't even know who Celia Brayfield was, although the cover of the book stated that she's a best-selling writer.

I bought it over some misunderstanding. I was looking for a book that would help me to understand more about Calais. I thought Calais was in Gascony (I previously misread an information in another book), and because Deep France seemed able to teach me many things about Gascony, I bought it. So much for my French geography.

The Béarn proved to be far, far away from Calais. I opened up a map of France and found it to be a dot down in Southern France, near Spain, in the Pyrenees, in the French Basque countries. A rural gem hidden in deep France. You may not have heard about the Béarn, but you must have heard about some Béarnais - The Three Musketeers and Cyrano de Bergerac. Yes, they are real historical figures eternalized by the writings of their later-generation Béarnais fellows.

( At least there male on male gang rape doesn't happen at your front steps )

The Unending Mystery
Author: David Willis McCullough
Publisher: Pantheon

Labyrinths and mazes have always been sources of fascination. Some critics of James Joyce’s Ulysses even mapped the Dublin of the book to show that it’s a maze that Stephen Dedalus must walk and escape.

The most famous story about labyrinths must be the one of Theseus, Ariadne and Minotaur. It is so well-known that there is no need for me to repeart the story here. (The English word 'clew' - a ball of yarn, such as the one Ariadne gave to Theseus - evolved into 'clue', something that helps you solve a riddle.) For me, the horror of a maze came from reading a short story by M.R. James titled ‘The Maze’. The Maze in the short story was an ‘penetrans ad interiora mortis’ – the path to the centre of death. The lesson is that mazes are dangerous.

Wait. Is there a different between a labyrinth and a maze?

For centuries, the two words have always been used to refer to the same thing. But lately, they have different meanings: a labyrinth is a whirling, puzzling but not branched path heading towards the center, the goal; a maze has branches, traps and dead-ends, designed to make you difficult to get to the center or even to get out. A maze requires your decisions and memory, a labyrinth requires your patience and dedication.

( Does it stem from our collective unconsciousness? )

Herr Der Diebe
Also known as: The Thief Lord, Pangeran Pencuri
Author: Cornelia Funke

Depressed youngsters want to become adults as soon as possible.
Depressed adults miss their childhood and want to become children again.
How many books have explored that subject? And those books usually end up patronizing: cherish your youth, enjoy your time being children, there is a time and place for everything. (‘And it’s called college,’ says Chef in South Park.) While the adults? Well, they’re usually left seething, agonizing over their lost childhood, or realising that they’re now adults, time goes by however, nothing left to do but keeping on… etcetera etcetera.

While built on the similar problem – of youngsters and adults wanting to change positions – Cornelia Funke’s Herr Der Diebe tries to give different solutions to the problem.

( Get on the merry-go-round )

My final word? Read it, and feel the magic yourself!

Heh yeah.
Now I have to think about the icons.
And the content of course.