Thanks!

P.S. I hope to get back to blogging regularly soon!

“I was stunned by Mary Karr’s memoir, The Liar’s Club. Not just by its ferocity, its beauty, and by her delightful grasp of the vernacular, but by its totality–she is a woman who remembers everything about her early years.

I’m not that way.”

- from Stephen Kings’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Clare: It’s hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. It’s hard to be the one who stays.”

- from Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife

“Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.

If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.”

- From Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief

The first example that I have is a bit weird as Stephen King’s On Writing is part memoir/part writing instruction instead of a regular novel. However, it’s one of my favorite books and is also one of the best written modern books that I have read. In my opinion though, this opening is bit lackluster. While it delivers a clear message about what King’s childhood was not like – and does so with a bit of humor – it really fails to capture the essence of the book and caliber of the writing of the book. I’ll say it’s Ugly.

Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife is among my favorite romantic novels. It’s written in a unique style: alternating perspectives between the two protagonists Clare and Henry. The purpose of the first lines and first couple pages is purely to set up the crazy world of Clare and Henry while also introducing the the themes of the novel. All of these things can be seen in the first two lines of the book, and the writing is both simple and engaging. Definitely a Good opening.

Oh, young adult fiction. Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief is among the many recent additions to the genre of young adult fantasy. While this genre has a lot of shortcomings (such as way too much focus on vampires), there are many entertaining books in the genre. Rick Riordan’s series is particularly interesting as it incorporates Greek Mythology and could possibly be used in a middle school setting as a precursor the the common high school readings of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey. Anyhow, about the first lines. Not being the target audience of the book myself, it’s hard for me to judge the opening lines. I’d have to say it definitely catches one’s attention and is simple. I find the attitude a bit unnecessary and uninviting though. In fact, the whole second paragraph seems unnecessary to me. But it does it’s job. I’ll say it’s Ugly.

J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is probably the most famous and influential fantasy epic of all time. It’s also a set of books that I as of yet have not read in their entirety – though I do love the movies. Tolkien famously created a fantasy world for the books that he called Middle Earth. I know that he spends a great amount of time within the books detailing the setting, but as I said I stil have to read these books through to get an idea of just how he goes about dealing with his setting.

C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia came out around the same time as Tolkien’s fantasy – in fact the two were good friends. This series takes place in several worlds, though mainly our own and a fantasy world in which the country of Narnia exists. In this series children unwittingly find their way into Narnia from the real world. Lewis also plays with the idea of time, as the children can spend a lifetime in the world of Narnia, and come back into our world without losing a single second since they left. Other fantasy worlds also appear in the Narnia, as does an interpretation of Heaven. So, Lewis uses both the real world and created fantasy worlds.

In my mind, the next great fantasy series is Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, probably most famous for being offensive to Christians. I’m on the third book in this trilogy, and thus understand it enough to comment on the setting. The first book occurs in a fantasy world very much like our own, even with the same places. However, the world is different in various fantastical ways and the time period in this world is also hard to label, but seems to mimic what would have been the first half of the 1900′s for our world. Pullman’s trilogy plays with the idea of parallel worlds, and in the second book both our own real world and and third parallel world take turns as the setting. So, like Lewis, Pullman uses created fantasy worlds and the real world as settings.

The fourth important fantasy series is J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. This series takes place within our own world, yet almost forms a seperate world in our own by introducing a world of magic that is secret from the non-magical. In this way, it’s almost as if Rowling also uses both the real world and created fantasy world, which would mean that three of these fantasies use both the real world and a fantasy world. I may just end up doing the same.

Sitting in the deadly silence before

A lightning storm crashes upon my home

Turning over sad facts about my core

Rain falls, thunder roars within my very dome.

My father’s teachings fresh with me

A family’s anger pouring around

Cutting words that I have allowed to flee

From within me just like Satan’s hellhound.

Once I thought myself to be a hero

Here I am: a ghost of a villain.

My life nothing more than a sad zero

Alienated those that are my kin.

Lightning crashes, thunder roars; and I know

That you can save me from being so low.

On the flip side, this is now a pretty good series for the NHL. It will be going to at least six games and a seventh wouldn’t even surprise me as these two great teams continue going to battle.

I was surprised that Babcock elected to scratch Abdelakder over Leino. I’m a fan of both players, but Abdelkader has easily outplayed Leino in the playoffs so far. Not only does he have a pair of big goals, but he also has been throwing his weight around and would have seemingly been a better fit with Draper and Maltby. I’d expect seeing Abs in for Leino Saturday unless Datsyuk plays. Either way, Leino probably won’t be playing again in this series.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. …

When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley coem out.

The Salinas Valley is in Northern California. It is a long narrow sale between two ranges of mountains, and the Salinas River winds and twists up the center until it falls at last into Monterey Bay.

These are the opening lines from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. In my opinion, they are the three best American novels that I have ever had the good fortune of reading. The reason I offered the opening lines from each is for a kind of series of posts I plan on doing that I shall be calling Opening Lines: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly. See, whenever I write a story one of my major struggles is with having a satisfactory opening line or paragraph. I simply lose my desire to write the story if I am not satisfed with how it begins. I can guess at all kinds of reasons why this is, but the simple truth is that it simply is true. This poses a problem for me as I’ve been trying to write a certain story for several years now, and have yet to be satisfied with the story. Of course, since I haven’t been able to do anything more than attempt to start the story, the story has been constantly evolving and changing and well, getting quite a bit larger in both length and scope. Writing a sprawling epic is not an ideal project for a first novel length story, but it is my aim. Anyway, I plan on looking at the opening lines from some of my favorite stories and seeing what I can learn from them. I shall end up rating the lines as either good, bad, or ugly – a reference to the legendary Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone movie. So, without further ado, let us start.

When I read The Great Gatsby in high school my teacher had us memorize the first two lines. I didn’t understand why then, and to be frank, I still don’t. While an intriguing way to start of a story, and good insight into the character of Nick Carraway as being a reliable narrator, I don’t feel as if the opening lines are in any way essential to the novel. However, the opening lines are well-written and do provide insight into the narrator that earns his trust with the readers, so I have to say that this is a good opening.

The teacher that taught me To Kill a Mockingbird did not request that I remember the opening of the novel, however it has always stuck with me anyway. While I can’t recite it word-for-word, I can always remember the jist of it. It talks about the climax of the book indirectly – about Jem’s broken arm. More than that, almost every significant character is introduced within the first two paragraphs: Jem, the narrator Scout (though unnnamed at this point), Dill, the Ewells, and Boo Radley. It also clues us in to the fact that no matter what, we know that the narrator and her brother Jem are going to survive this story as they will discuss it in their future. I remember hearing that Harper Lee spent ten years writing To Kill a Mockingbird and that is at times evident in her attention to detail. This is a great opening.

John Steinbeck’s sprawling epic East of Eden I read for pleasure one summer, and instantly thought it was the greatest book that I had ever read. I plan on re-reading it soon, as it receives a lot of mixed reviews from people. The entire first chapter describes the setting of Salinas Valley, where a good portion of the book takes place. Being an avid fan of nature and the outdoors, I applaud dedicating an entire opening chapter to the describing the natural setting of the story. It’s something I would like to emulate at some point, but in order to emulate it one would have to have a story that remains in one setting for the most part. Also, I’m sure it is an absolute bore to quite a few readers. Still, it’s well-written and brings about a sharp image in the reader’s mind, so I’ll say it’s a good one.

The two games have been closer than the score indicates, as both teams have taken terms controlling play occassionally and more often simply scrapping it out. It’s not the high-octane, high-scoring series some people were hoping for and even some were expecting. I’m not sure why anybody expected that to begin with – last year’s series between the two teams wasn’t the highest scoring of affairs. Sure, both teams are among the most offensively gifted to ever take the ice in the NHL, but both teams are playoff teams first – offensively gifted teams second. And playoff teams play defense first hoceky.

There were three things last night that upset fans. First, Pittsburgh fans were livid over Zetterberg covering the puck up in the crease. I never saw a definitive replay showing that Zetterberg closed his hand over the puck, or any other part of his body. Until I see such a replay, I have to side with the refs on that one. I also know that something similar happened in game one, but was unfortunately at work and missed that play. The second thing also upset Pens fans, as some thought that Hossa hooked Dupuis’s stick leading to a Red Wings goal. However, I only saw Hossa get Dupuis’s stick, and never slash it. The last time I checked, lifting a player’s stick off the puck with one’s own stick was a good defensive play. The third thing upset Wings fans and some others, as Malkin’s mandatory one game suspension was rescinded by Colin Campbell. The penalty was for instigatin a fight in the last five minutes of the game. Once again, I’ve got to side with the officials – in this case Colin Campbell. The rule is to prevent teams from sending out goons to send a message in the last five minutes of a losing game. Malkin is no goon, and the fight was pure emotion.

This series has caused me to think more on the second round match-up between Detroit and Anaheim. I have to wonder how Pittsburgh would have fared in a match up against Anaheim, as I believe they were among the top three teams in this years playoffs. I also have gained a newfound respect for Ryan Getzlaf (and I instintively hate the Ducks, they cause the Red Wings too much trouble). In the playoffs, the Red Wings have managed to pretty much shut down Sidney Crosby yet weren’t even able to contain Ryan Getzlaf. So Getzlaf may not be the amazing talent that Crosby is, but in the playoffs he is much more of a threat in my mind. Also, I know many think the Ducks will be broken up this year, which really is a shame as much as I hate them. They are simply a great team, and with a little more offense would be near unstoppable.

One final thought: not nearly enough is being made out of how the Red Wings are winning without Pavel Datsyuk. Even when Datsyuk was healthy, he wasn’t scoring, and now the Red Wings don’t even have his defensive prowess on the ice and are still finding ways to win. I’m sorry but even the best teams in the league wouldn’t be able to do that in the playoffs, can you imagine Pittsburgh without Crosby or Anaheim without Getzlaf or Carolina without Staal or Chicago with Toews being the playoff teams they were? I didn’t think so.

Not only will Pittsburgh be looking to exact revenge against the Wings, but they’ll also be looking to prove Marian Hossa wrong. Hossa, who was with the Penguins last year, signed a one-year deal with the Wings believing it was his best opportunity to win a cup. Well, now he has to beat his former team to win that trophy.

On paper, when healthy, the Wings are still better than the Penguins even with Crosby and Malkin being monsters in the postseason. However, the Wings aren’t healthy. In the last game against Chicago the Wings were missing Lidstrom (captain, Norris trophy finaliste), Datsyuk (assistant capatain, hart finalist), Draper (assistant capatain, faceoff specialist), Lilja and Ericsson. This will set up for an intriguing series as even if those some of those players return, they aren’t likely to be a 100%.

Pittsburgh’s two stars have been able to run away with scoring in the playoffs. However, they have also played against three subpar defensive corps in my mind. While the Wings have played a more wide open game this year, their defense still is rock solid. The Wings also have played against arguably the best defensive corps ever iced in Anaheim, a great but young corps in Chicago, and a solid one with Columbus. And the Wings have played against three top-flight goaltenders while Pittsburgh played against two if you count Varlamov, who had played only a handful of NHL games before. What I’m saying is that with all respect to Philadelphia, Washington, and Carolina (three teams I quite like), Detroit has had to go through touger teams.

This could be good or bad. Carolina had a difficult path, and were spent by the time they squared off against Pittsburgh. Detroit is at least twice as deep as Carolina though, however they do have all those pesky injuries while Pittsburgh remains healthy. However, Hossa will be driven to play the best hockey of his life. Franzen never slows down in the playoffs, and neither does Zetterberg. Filppula and Helm are young and enjoying their added responsibilities and I see no reason for those two to slow down. The defense could be a bit different, even without Lidstrom, the pairing of Kronwall and Stuart will be something quite unlike anything Pittsburgh has so far faced. Osgood never seems to let anything get to him in the playoffs, and I’m expecting a good series from him.

All in all thise should be an epic series.

I’m trusting my Wings though, and am calling them in seven.