See Beth write. Funny, funny Beth.

When you feel like you have some amount of wisdom to impart to the world, you write non-fiction.  Biographies, self-help books, documentaries.  When you feel like you have some amount of wisdom to impart to the world but you don't feel like airing all of your business, you write novels.  Though, novelists still can not escape the way the schema upon which they have built and experience their lives creeps into their pen.

Since I was 11, I remember a particular quote.  Always.  It comes from Whoopi Goldberg in the role of a lounge singer disguised as a nun.  She relates the story of famous poet, Rainer Maria Rilke who had a fellow write to him and ask, "I want to be a writer.  Please read my stuff" to which Rilke replied, "Don't ask me about writing.  If, when you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing. . .then you're a writer."

So here I am at 2:06am, tired of reading (unheard of!) but not sleepy enough for rest.

Because I want to write.  I don't even know what.  I have nothing to say.  No great concepts or ideas or turns of phrase.  I consume books like fire and enjoy every moment.  But I also feel inadequate of developing anything as grandiose or memorable as the page-turners I stick to like a barnacle.  And because I refuse to be a hack, I abhor the thought of coming out with anything that's been done before.  And yet, there is nothing left.

And so, in succumbing to the fact that I am forever destined to write my thoughts both freely and for free, I suppose it would be fun to take a closer look at one of my most recent reads.

Enchantment by Orson Scott Card

Let me begin by declaring my true and chaste love for Orson Scott Card.  This man is quite possibly a real living genius.  Though I know he always spends a few pages of each of his books thanking those who help him weed his way through the writing process, all props must go to this guy for the wondrous complexity he is able to weave into his storytelling.  He writes amazing characters.  Who are different from one another in more than name and title.  And while he is a science fiction writer, he lends me new eyes and ears to what that genre is really all about.  Not spaceships and aliens.  Not lame and unrealized uses of holo-decks and lasers.  And definitely not an excuse to fill a few hundred pages with explosions, promiscuity and the promise of imagined new and foreign worlds at the expense of plot and deep thematic elements.

I am working my way through each and every one of Card's novels.  I had an opportunity to purchase his humongous book of short stories for the mere price of $8.00 at Powell's in Portland but, blast if I didn't just put it back on the shelf and move on.  I sing a lament of regret.  I have read (almost, I think, maybe, I don't know, there's always one or two that crop up out of nowhere) all of the Ender series.  I loved, loved, loved the Shadow series and was thrilled to have Bean back in my life again.  Although, of the Ender books, Speaker for the Dead will be my absolute favorite forever and ever, Amen.

I've enjoyed a few stand-alones like Pastwatch:  The Redemption of Christopher Columbus and The Worthing Saga, both excellent and full of political intrigue and frightening glimpses into the human condition, past, present and future.  I adored the Alvin Maker series.  If that became a mini-series that religiously followed the books to the letter, I would probably swallow my own tongue.  I wish I had a 'knack'.  That series merits its own attention at a later date.

Enchantment was very different from his previous novels.  Contemporary fantasy rather than science fiction.  Not what I was expecting but then. . .I never know what to expect from this guy.  Except greatness.  Of which I've never been disappointed.  Enchantment was literally enchanting.  Leave it to Card to take a fairy tale and make it both as grim as we all know they originally were but rooted in realism, in a world where magic makes sense. You don't doubt it because to doubt would be unnatural.  No one else but this guy could make such smooth transitions from the modern, sensical world to an ancient one that centuries of history have gotten wrong.  I found myself believing every word with far more conviction than anything I've found in a history book.

Why?  Because it's just so human.  And so real.  Card knows people.  As individuals.  Not lump sums.  He knows how they work.  How they play.  How they think.  How they interact.  How they alter their own realities.  I challenge anyone to find a one-dimensional character in any of his books.  Even if they have one line.  Even if they have no lines.  A nameless, mute soldier, one of thousands of others, is a real human being in his tales because of the way he shapes up a situation, the way he paints the scene, you can't help but believe this young man has a life.  Things that happened to him before that chapter that are not written and things that will happen to him afterwards that are not spoken about.  He is a man among other men and other women and he's alive.

I must admit that I am not the most politically savvy person around. . .so I do get somewhat lost amid the bureaucratic business that so often accompanies Card's literature.  I learn though.  It forces me to be a part of the proceedings.  I start to care.  If only a politician in the real world could do so much for me.

Card's love stories are real love stories.  Heartbreakers.  His 'damsels in distress' are more often than not real heroes in some way or another.  I've read a lot of books with what I can only imagine the authors believe are strong females.  But, word to the wise, just because a woman is aware of and seemingly in charge of her sexuality does not make her a contender for heroine of the century.  When a woman jumps into bed with a guy right away, even if a big deal is made about how it's HER choice, it still does not make her the ideal in my eyes.  She's not using her sexuality.  The authors are.  And I am not impressed.  Card's women are built tough.  Mothers and homemakers are quiet fighters but fighters nonetheless.  They are pure martyrs, not always with their lives but with their freedoms, their relationships, their well-being.  Y'know. . .what REAL strong women are.

Card's women are assertive and even aggressive when need be, but they aren't written that way to assume some sort of masculine acquirement.  It is not as if to say, "Hey, look ladies!  You don't have to burn your bras anymore, here are some girls you can really look up to.  Oops, I mean women."  Case in point:  his Women of Genesis series.  His women are soldiers who are afraid but persevere.  And even better, his men are allowed to be afraid.  Not because they are weak like many novel writers decide - the sniveling lawyer that rains on everybody's parade but can't stand his ground when he has to tell the truth or the corrupt cop who stomps around like he owns the place but hightails it at the first sign of real danger.  Card's men have weaknesses.  Even the hero.  Because human men have weaknesses.  They don't always do the right thing.  And not because they're bumbling idiots who can't do anything right without a woman around to tell him so.  They are not stereotypes or deux ex machinas for what NOT to do or be.  They aren't warnings.  They're just people.  In a world.  Where things happen.  Good and bad.

In a nutshell, Enchantment is about a boy named Ivan (or Vanya) who is born in Ukraine where he finds a mysterious meadow full of eerily moving leaves and a sleeping maiden in the center.  He is afraid and runs away from it, then travels with his family to America where, as a grad student, he returns to his homeland for research.  He finds the meadow again, does not run this time, and is suddenly transported back to the 9th century with this maiden who turns out to be a princess in a Russian version of Sleeping Beauty.

It is described as mixing magic and modernity but you might be surprised in what century each is found.  Although this book was quite different from Card's usual foray into science fiction, I still enjoyed it.  I read a few reviews that said it wasn't magical or whimsical enough.  Well.  Then they completely missed the point.  I don't read Card for whimsy.  I do not read his books that deal with magic and trickery for whimsy.  Nothing about Card is quaint or comical.  People complained about the second Narnia movie for this very same reason.  Not as magical as the first.  Get on the boat, people.  The second book is all politics.  It is intrigue and deception.  It is war!  Not every piece of entertainment about magic is going to give you scampering fairies and happy little gnomes.  Sometimes the fairies hate the gnomes.

Every one of Card's books deals with either magic, spaceships, alien creatures, acts of daring-do, adventures on the high-seas, and a LOT of religion but none of his books are actually about any of that.  Those are tools. Merely implements to drive the real stories forward.  What his stories are about are people.  When I read Card, I don't get caught up in the environment or the fact that he's got little kids floating around in space or people who can move through time.  What I do get caught up in are stories about families, about duty, about the selfish desires of the heart and the noble decisions of great minds.  About children with both incredibly destructive and altruistic talents.  And what happens when you put them in the same room.  I get caught up in notions of faith.  Of love.  Of having more than one right choice, or sometimes, none at all.

Although, I will say. . .after having read a Card book, I'm ready for some Where's Waldo.