Weekend Fiction Break is Back!

For those who are new to Bold. Blue. Adventure., I had a feature a few months back, called Weekend Fiction Break, where I posted short fiction. I'm bringing it back from hiatus this week. Calliope's Coffee House has provided me with a writing prompt in the form of an abstract picture (Click here for the link), and I'm sharing my story for your enjoyment. Cheers.

Smiley the Bandit

In a place a bit like our own but much more real, there was a boy named Smiley. Smiley was a very brave boy. Every day, Smiley’s mom sent him to school with a sandwich packed in his lunchbox. Each day, the bully in the hall would demand that Smiley give him the sandwich or get beaten up. Smiley, being wise, as well as brave, would give the sandwich up, because he knew that the bully had little enough to eat at home, and the lack of a sandwich was not a thing to fight over. He would eat his fruit pack instead and come home with a rumbling stomach. Each day, he kissed his mother on the cheek and told her what a tasty sandwich she’d made him.

This routine continued for many years, until one day, Smiley was kidnapped by a band of roving gypsies on his way to school. This sort of thing was rather common where Smiley lived, and Smiley kept his shoulders straight, held his head up and high, and pretended he hadn’t a care in the world. He knew that sometimes the gypsies sold the kidnapped children back to their families for a premium, so for the time being, he was content to wait in the back of the gypsy caravan.

One day the caravan was attacked by fire-breathing dragons, and in the confusion of the battle, Smiley got a hold of a knife that someone had dropped, and managed to free himself from the caravan. He was ready to run for home when he saw a tiny girl about to be swallowed by the dragon. With only his knife to protect him, he ran after the girl and rescued her from the dragon by stabbing it in the eye.

Many of the gypsies witnessed his act of courage, and afterwards he was treated differently. He was allowed to roam freely throughout the caravan, and everyone, it seemed, wanted to talk to him. Although he missed his mother, he enjoyed learning the art of knife fighting and archery with the other gypsies. As time went by, he began to notice that despite their penchant for kidnapping, when the gypsies stole, it was to keep themselves from starving, and goods were shared equally between the gypsies. Because of the Anti-Gypsy Law of ’83, they were unable to work for a living, nor buy and sell through conventional means with the outside world.

Before Smiley had realized it, a number of years had passed and the old gypsy king had died. Smiley had by now become another member of the gypsies, and he was unanimously elected the gypsy king. Smiley, who was as brave as ten men, was considered the best gypsy king since Guriek the third.

Under his rule, the gypsies stopped kidnapping children and instead focused on exacting a portion of the goods of those who passed through their territory. Before long, wise travelers took an extra portion of goods to give to the gypsies, but more than one ruler unwisely tried to tangle with King Smiley (or Smiley the Bandit as he was called outside of the gypsies).

Smiley grew weary one day of his kingly duties and desired to see his mother one last time, if indeed she still lived. He set out in disguise to see her, but before he could reach her, was spotted by someone familiar with him in his childhood.

Smiley was not well-liked in the outside world. That is to say, he was utterly despised. The fact that he had grown up in the outside world was part of it perhaps. He was quickly tried and found guilty of a great many crimes. His mother, who was still alive, was not allowed to visit him in prison, but on the day they hung Smiley the Bandit, she watched from the crowd, wailing and waving her handkerchief .

I'm Longing For the Beach

If only the weather would cooperate.

Booking Through Thursday

This week's question:

Have your book-tastes changed over the years? More fiction? Less? Books that are darker and more serious? Lighter and more frivolous? Challenging? Easy? How-to books over novels? Mysteries over Romance?

Well since graduating from college, my book reading has changed from 10 pound textbooks with $150 pricetags back to leisure reading. More than anything, I'd say book blogging has changed the amount and type of reading I do. Before blogging, I was looking for ways to get more book recommendations. I would have trouble finding books I liked at the library. Now my wishlist is so long its a wonder I make any progress at all.

I've read my first graphic novel recently (and enjoyed it immensely). Pretty much every book I've read because of "My Year of Reading Dangerously" have been books I would not have normally read. I love that! Even if every book hasn't thrilled me, at least it gets me out of my reading rut.

One thing that hasn't changed is my enjoyment of YA fiction. I loved it as a teenager, and I thought I'd grow out of it eventually, but that hasn't been the case so far. I just realized the other day that I've already read the 12 books required for the YA reading challenge. I don't think that will stop me from reading more, but gosh, already?

One big change for me is that I used to read a lot more science fiction than I have been reading these days. Personally, I think the Sci-Fi Experience should have lasted longer.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Author: Mohsin Hamid
Rating: 5/5
Reason for Reading: Recommendation from Wendy

Let me set the scene for you. I think the book cover does it better than I could hope to, so I will share:

At a cafe table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful encounter.

Doesn't that sound intriguing? Along with the title, I had to pick up this book.

The reluctant fundamentalist is a man named Changez. In this book, he relates the story of how he fell out of love with his one-time adoptive homeland of America. To the mysterious American, and the reader, he relates the perfect life he had built for himself in New York. A graduate of Princeton, he'd begun working a high-paying job at the prestigious valuation firm,
Underwood Samson, and spending his spare time courting a beautiful classmate. The turning point, he explains, happened after September 11th.

The change isn't immediate. After 9/11, the ghosts of his girlfriend's past begin to envelop her as she withdraws from him. And as he watches New Yorkers absorb the impact of the terrorist attacks, he begins to question where his loyalty truly lies.

This book gives fresh perspective to an event that has been so picked over, so analyzed, it seems a wonder that there can be anything new to say about it. Through Changez's eyes, we get a glimpse of what the American policies and sudden upsurge of patriotism post 9/11 must have looked like to those who were most deeply affected by the "war on terror". What it must have felt like to be stopped at every security point in the airport, to be looked at with suspicion because of the simple act of growing a beard.

When we arrived [at the airport], I was separated from my team at immigration. They joined the queue for American citizens; I joined the one for foreigners. The officer who inspected my passport was a solidly built woman with a pistol at her hip and mastery of English inferior to mine; I attempted to disarm her with a smile. "What is the purpose of your trip to the United States?" she asked me. "I live here," I replied. "That is not what I asked you, sir," she said. "What is the purpose of your trip to the United States?" Our exchange continued in much this fashion for several minutes. In the end I was dispatched for a secondary inspection in a room where I sat on a metal bench next a tattooed man in handcuffs.... As a consequence, I rode to Manhattan that evening very much alone.

This is a simple story, even more effective because it doesn't hit us over the head with facts or rhetoric or black and white ultimatums. It simply asks us to be quiet for a minute and look at a familiar event through different eyes.

Other reviews:
Marg

First Impressions

Ponderings...

When meeting people for the first time (in real life) I have the tendency to come across as a bit reserved. I'm an introvert by nature. I can be silly and outgoing, but usually only around people I know. I've been thinking lately how first impressions in real life can contrast with first impressions online. Because of the virtual nature of contact between people online, I may have made a completely different impression on you as a reader of my blog than I would have had we met in real life. I sometimes share personal thoughts and opinions with the world on my blog that I probably wouldn't were we meeting for the first time in person (although if you met me in person, I'd introduce myself by my full name, not an internet moniker). I've been thinking about why that is. The social norms are simply different between introductions online and in person, I suppose.

That said, the person writing the blog is still me, Kim L. I love reading, my puppy, and my husband (although not necessarily in that exact order, lol). The person I present to you on this blog is what I want you to know about me. When I post, I always keep at the back of my mind that future employers, not to mention my parents (oh horror) might stumble across my webpage sometime.

My Strangest First Impression

There is a story about first impressions that simply cracks me up. This is a story about a person who I managed to make a significant first impression on. This person would happen to be my husband's boss. The story starts with the trouble I was having with a bill from our internet provider. Our internet had been turned off because of the ISP's incompetence. I was sick and tired of sitting on hold, then talking forever to a customer service rep on the phone only to have them fail to help me. Finally I decided to write a letter of complaint. I had kept dates and times of conversations I'd had with the customer service reps, and I was going to let 'er rip. I wrote the most scathing letter you can imagine. No, I wasn't rude, but I let them know that they were not living up to their tagline "Our Spirit of Service". I told them who I'd talked to and what exactly they had or hadn't done. I told them exactly what had happened and in no uncertain terms exactly what I wanted them to do about it to fix the problem.

I wanted to fax the letter, so I emailed it to my husband, who was in the midst of printing it at work when his boss happened to pick up the letter and read it. He had not met me in person at the time, so this was his very first impression of me. My scathing letter left a deep imprint, because the first time he met me, he said, "We use (unnamed internet provider). Don't kill me!" In fact, when my husband is annoyed about something at work, he threatens to have his wife write a letter. This tends to get the desired response.

So how about you? Any good stories about first impressions either online or in person?

Stardust

Author: Neil Gaiman
Rating: 5/5
Reason for Reading: Once Upon a Time Reading Challenge, Mythopoeic Award Challenge

I was very happy to finally get my hands on this book. I requested it quite a while ago from the library, but when it finally came in, I didn't quite get the library on time to pick it up. I called the library, and pleaded with a librarian to put it back on the hold shelf for me so that I could pick it up. Which she so nicely did for me.

Anyhow. This book is about "a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire" (as the first line informs us). The village of Wall is a perfectly ordinary place, except in the fact it lies next to Faerie.

I'll let Gaiman describe Faerie for you:

A question like "How big is Faerie?" does not admit a simple answer. Faerie, after all, is not one land, one principality or dominion.... Faerie is bigger than England, as it is bigger than the world (for, since the dawn of time, each land that has been forced off the map by explorers and the brave going out and proving it wasn't there has taken refuge in Faerie; so it is now, by the time that we come to write of it, a most huge place indeed, containing every manner of landscape and terrain). Here, truly, be Dragons.

When a young man from Wall named Tristan journeys off in search of a falling star to bring back to the woman he loves, he has no idea of the adventures that await him in Faerie.

He doesn't know about the powerful witch who is in search of the star for her own nefarious purposes or the significance of the broken necklace she carries. He plans to be in and out in no time, which means of course that nothing will go according to plan.

This fairy tale by Neil Gaiman is silly, irreverent and fun. The star that Tristan finds, is, to his surprise, a girl, with a good deal of annoyance for having to fall onto earth. She is further irritated at Tristan for taking her back towards Wall. The story is structured so that we have knowledge about Tristan that he himself doesn't have. It gives the story urgency because we know what dangers Tristan is going to face, even if he doesn't.

Stardust follows fairy tale conventions, but this is Gaiman. His books tend to have a twisted sense of humor, and this book is no exception. Some of the encounters Tristan has with different inhabitants of Faerie were laugh-out-loud funny.

"My name is Tristan Thorn," said Tristan... His breakfast companion had packed up the morning's breakfast - fire, pans and all - and made it vanish into his pack.

He removed his hat, pressed it to his chest, and looked up at Tristan. "Charmed," he said. He tapped the side of his pack: on it was written: CHARMED, ENCHANTED, ENSORCELATED AND CONFUSTICATED. "I used to be confusticated," he confided, "but you know how these things go."

(Okay there's undoubtedly better examples, but that last line cracked me up).

For those of you who haven't read Neil Gaiman yet, this book would make a great introduction. If you already know you like him, then you should definitely read this one. Between American Gods and Anansi Boys, he has become my newest favorite author. I thought I was all done with the Once Upon a Time Challenge, but I was happy to slip this book in.

Margaret A Edwards Challenge Wrap Up

The Challenge: Read 3-5 books by winners of the Margaret A. Edwards award Feb 1-June 1 2008

Books Read:
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Messenger by Lois Lowry
The Giver by Lois Lowry

Highlights:
I loved my introduction to Orson Scott Card in Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Both were amazing reads I probably wouldn't have picked up except for this challenge. I enjoyed revisiting a childhood favorite, The Giver, and finally finishing Gathering Blue.

Lowlights:
Compared to The Giver and Gathering Blue, Messenger was a bit of a disappointment.