Luka is a boy who lives for two things: the lively tales of his imaginative, storytelling father, and video games. One day at a circus, he curses the tyrannical ringmaster to lose control of his animals, and to lose his tent in a fire. Nobody is more shocked than Luka to discover that both of these take place within the day. Two of the freed animals, a dog named Bear and a bear named Dog, become Luka's steadfast friends. But evil cannot safely be used for good; the ringmaster is entitled to a return curse, which he uses to claim the life of Luka's beloved father, Rashid Khalifa. The agent of this transaction is a being called Nobodaddy, who looks and acts almost exactly like Rashid, but who, Luka suspects, is a monster inside. Nobodaddy allows Luka the chance to save his father by transporting him to the World of Magic to steal the Fire of Life. For this task, Luka will need all of his wits, as well as friends he can only imagine, to overcome the immense obstacles in his way, and to learn just what Nobodaddy and the World of Magic really are.
In case the name Salman Rushdie rings a bell, you may have heard of him as the guy who angered the entire Muslim world with a controversial account of Mohammed in his 1988 book The Satanic Verses. The book was banned in twelve countries, and Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, even issued a fatwā against him, or a mandate for his execution. So he hid out in the UK for a while. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)
If all this sounds intense, you may be surprised to learn that Luka and the Fire of Life is a children's book comprised of good, old-fashioned fantasy. Most of the characters in a negative position are purely of Rushdie's invention, although he makes Aphrodite and Ra the Supreme look a little silly, among others. I guess he hasn't shaken off the tendency to explore religion on his own terms. In a case like this, I can say he's engaging in healthy inquiry, though of course I haven't seen what he thinks of my own religion. His gods can be a little flat for an adult audience, even while the rest of the story thrives for all ages. In fact, I'm interested that he heaps so much mythology into the story when he's able to invent such rich characters of his own.
I heartily approve of the broad plot structure and the themes used to carry it. Rushdie paints solid themes in such a fresh, new way. One of these themes is childhood interest in video games, to which I'll accept objections. But for the rest he uses imagination, consequence of actions, vanity, time, religion, and friendship to great advantage. No matter how silly the characters, they have some way of linking the themes to values. Thus the memory birds, giant ducks with elephant heads, are Luka's conscience when it comes to his consequences on time and the past, and the Insultana of Ott keeps him humble.
The villains are wonderful as well. Aag is a great example of frothy wrath, the kind of person who can't see reason. The Aalim are characterized so well before we even meet them. Nobodaddy, the bogey behind the whole mess, is no Sauron, but not every villain has to be. I suppose that's my greatest praise for the book: it does what it can without bringing the same old story out of the essential themes. Life, after all, carries the same values no matter whose it is, and everyone's experience gives him a different way of discovering these universal adventures.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Review: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
Elizabeth Bennet is one of five sisters presided over by their fussy mother and nonchalant father. The family has a problem: if Mr. Bennet dies before one of his daughters marries, the entire family will lose their estate to his nearest male heir. Although this conundrum sends Elizabeth careening between parties, balls, and rumors, she is determined not to accept the hand of any suitor that doesn't suit 'er (and I have a blog, too!). Among the throng of eligible men is Mr. Darcy: a rich stranger who tends to offend people by his aloof discomfort in social situations. Elizabeth disdains Darcy more than any of the other airheads who come knocking at her door, and is completely surprised when he proposes, too. Her reaction is to chew him out for all his offenses, to which he responds in kind. But their separation, and realization of his pride and her prejudice, are enough to bring this famous couple to improve themselves enough to be likable when they inevitably meet again.
Remember when I talked about the dangers of reviewing something everyone knows? Today I up the ante by reviewing something everyone loves. Among my friends and neighbors, Jane Austen is probably the single biggest reason by which ladies seem to be more literate than gentlemen. Statistically, that's incredible.
But get out your rotten tomatoes: Pride and Prejudice underwhelmed me entirely.
In order to be fair, I consulted a friend who is much more literate than I am, and who can't seem to keep herself away from this story. I must admit that the lessons she draws are both timeless and vital. The fundamental crux of the novel is the shift in character (sorry, Lawrence*) that love makes possible. It's easy, says my friend, to woo someone who loves you. It's worth it to change for someone who loves you. But Elizabeth and Darcy both had no reason to believe that after their initial altercation, either would see the other again. To improve who you are for someone who has essentially vanished from your life is virtue of the highest class. It's work without a paycheck. It's religion without reward.
In spite of all this, it's not Austen's direct commentary that bothered me. Sure, her characters are well-developed. Yeah, I guess she's witty enough for the 19th century. Mr. Bennet in particular is hilarious. You might say that what got under my skin was the exact society Austen portrays so well. It was like reading a script of the family parties at which you're forcibly reminded that there are relatives who love nothing better than offhandedly trying to evaluate your life. That doesn't bother me for five hours to make my parents happy, but it was rough to read three hundred pages of it on my own time. On the first hand, however, Elizabeth's conversation with Lady Catherine, being exactly how I would like to behave on some of these occasions, is an appropriate payoff. It just doesn't satisfy the trouble to get there.
This book may not hinge entirely on social obstacle courses, and that's probably the whole point. But if you dislike meddling relatives, gossiping neighbors, or really the thought of anyone who reads their own perspective onto your actions, then start running. In this sense, Pride and Prejudice acts like a fantasy novel in which the hero graphically slays his enemies while fighting for peace, or any romance literature that praises chastity in titillating terms. There's a way to raise up vices by condemning them, so don't be fooled by the moral of any story.
*Actually, I'm not sorry. D. H. Lawrence was a jerk.
Remember when I talked about the dangers of reviewing something everyone knows? Today I up the ante by reviewing something everyone loves. Among my friends and neighbors, Jane Austen is probably the single biggest reason by which ladies seem to be more literate than gentlemen. Statistically, that's incredible.
But get out your rotten tomatoes: Pride and Prejudice underwhelmed me entirely.
In order to be fair, I consulted a friend who is much more literate than I am, and who can't seem to keep herself away from this story. I must admit that the lessons she draws are both timeless and vital. The fundamental crux of the novel is the shift in character (sorry, Lawrence*) that love makes possible. It's easy, says my friend, to woo someone who loves you. It's worth it to change for someone who loves you. But Elizabeth and Darcy both had no reason to believe that after their initial altercation, either would see the other again. To improve who you are for someone who has essentially vanished from your life is virtue of the highest class. It's work without a paycheck. It's religion without reward.
In spite of all this, it's not Austen's direct commentary that bothered me. Sure, her characters are well-developed. Yeah, I guess she's witty enough for the 19th century. Mr. Bennet in particular is hilarious. You might say that what got under my skin was the exact society Austen portrays so well. It was like reading a script of the family parties at which you're forcibly reminded that there are relatives who love nothing better than offhandedly trying to evaluate your life. That doesn't bother me for five hours to make my parents happy, but it was rough to read three hundred pages of it on my own time. On the first hand, however, Elizabeth's conversation with Lady Catherine, being exactly how I would like to behave on some of these occasions, is an appropriate payoff. It just doesn't satisfy the trouble to get there.
This book may not hinge entirely on social obstacle courses, and that's probably the whole point. But if you dislike meddling relatives, gossiping neighbors, or really the thought of anyone who reads their own perspective onto your actions, then start running. In this sense, Pride and Prejudice acts like a fantasy novel in which the hero graphically slays his enemies while fighting for peace, or any romance literature that praises chastity in titillating terms. There's a way to raise up vices by condemning them, so don't be fooled by the moral of any story.
*Actually, I'm not sorry. D. H. Lawrence was a jerk.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Review: Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage (2006)
Firmin the rat, runt of the litter, is born in a bookstore and must munch on the inventory when his siblings hog all the other food. It turns out that a diet of paper more than makes up for its lack of nutrition: Firmin soon discovers that he can read, and becomes voracious for stories rather than their bindings. When his family moves out to join the next phase of their gutter-dwelling lives, Firmin embarks on his own quest to devour all the classics. But so many vicarious adventures leaves him unfulfilled, and he endeavors to make his way in the wide world with a heartbreakingly human understanding of himself as an outsider to people and rats alike.
I've never seen Ratatouille, but after reading Firmin, I can only hope that Remy the Rat (as I believe he's called) speaks exactly like Firmin. The book is great precisely because Savage knows just how to write like a rat with a tendency to romanticize. Firmin narrates in long, colloquial sentences and a double dose of self-deprecating sarcasm. He walks a tightrope of knowing he's romanticizing and doing it anyway, which style gives this character a level of depth beyond what you often see, even in the most celebrated novels. Firmin's contradiction is one between lowliness and great dreams, which is healthily modern without being modernistic. He's adorable precisely because he tries so hard to avoid self-pity.
The plot itself is modest, which is appropriate given that it's supposed to be the autobiography of a rat. There's a touch of the inverse-culture trope in which the rats find the humans disgusting, and Firmin is a freak for wanting to cuddle with human women rather than violently mate with his own siblings, but fortunately the theme there isn't overdone. Most of Firmin's time is spent speculating on the gutters through the lenses of the great authors, and later on through an author of Savage's invention, a broke old man named Jerry Magoon. Magoon is the spitting image of both Savage's picture on the dust jacket and of Vonnegut's Kilgore Trout, even down to the fact that he writes short, bizarre science fiction books that elaborate on the poverty of the human condition in a not-so-subtle way.
In spite what you might think from the summary, Firmin is definitely not a children's book. Even from a lowly perspective, it can make you want to laugh or cry. It's a picture of the individual with spirit: perhaps not someone who can shake the world, but who feels its weight nonetheless.
I've never seen Ratatouille, but after reading Firmin, I can only hope that Remy the Rat (as I believe he's called) speaks exactly like Firmin. The book is great precisely because Savage knows just how to write like a rat with a tendency to romanticize. Firmin narrates in long, colloquial sentences and a double dose of self-deprecating sarcasm. He walks a tightrope of knowing he's romanticizing and doing it anyway, which style gives this character a level of depth beyond what you often see, even in the most celebrated novels. Firmin's contradiction is one between lowliness and great dreams, which is healthily modern without being modernistic. He's adorable precisely because he tries so hard to avoid self-pity.
The plot itself is modest, which is appropriate given that it's supposed to be the autobiography of a rat. There's a touch of the inverse-culture trope in which the rats find the humans disgusting, and Firmin is a freak for wanting to cuddle with human women rather than violently mate with his own siblings, but fortunately the theme there isn't overdone. Most of Firmin's time is spent speculating on the gutters through the lenses of the great authors, and later on through an author of Savage's invention, a broke old man named Jerry Magoon. Magoon is the spitting image of both Savage's picture on the dust jacket and of Vonnegut's Kilgore Trout, even down to the fact that he writes short, bizarre science fiction books that elaborate on the poverty of the human condition in a not-so-subtle way.
In spite what you might think from the summary, Firmin is definitely not a children's book. Even from a lowly perspective, it can make you want to laugh or cry. It's a picture of the individual with spirit: perhaps not someone who can shake the world, but who feels its weight nonetheless.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Review: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859)
When I first created this blog, I held a single idea that would make it readable. I would review every book I read, more or less without discrimination, and the reviews that mattered most would sort themselves to the top. Ideally, there would emerge, unintentionally, a handful of books nobody else has bothered to write much about, and I would help people by adding my fifty cents to the Google bin.
Of course there's a catch. In order for that to work out properly, I review everything I read, including work that already has its fair share of attention. So, forgive me if I occasionally don a literary hat a few sizes too large.
I present to you: A Tale of Two Cities.
It's the late eighteenth century, and Western Europe is cooking up a ruckus. The rich are swallowing up all they can and leaving everyone else with nothing, which results in a state of near-anarchy outside of mansions and manors. Men and women must distrust everyone they see on the street. Lucie Manette, a French teenager, journeys to the Defarge wine shop in order to recover her old father, a physician who, when under great stress, hallucinates that he is a shoemaker. Lucie brings her father safely to England, where her presence restores his mind and the two aid in the acquittal of Charles Darnay, a French nobleman who has sworn off his aristocracy and his allegiance to either country's elite. But unbeknownst to the Manettes and Darnay, Madame Defarge and her husband are stirring the oppressed French people into a national revolution gone wrong; when the power balance finally crumbles, nobody is safe from a new invention and embodiment of mob justice: the guillotine.
My surface impression of this book is that, more than anything I've ever read, it resembles a Disney film. We start with a simplistic, emotional landscape of historical romanticism, followed by the strong damsel with whom everybody is going to fall in love. There's a father figure, some crowd scenes that could make one or two lovely musical numbers, and an evil woman with a relatively ambiguous plan and some humorously animated, wicked facial expressions (Dickens repeatedly describes Madame Defarge's eyebrows). Two characters fall in love, while the villains storm the Bastille and do lots of violent things to nonspecific people. Then by some twist of fate, one of our protagonists winds up in the villain's clutches, and it's up to all of his spunky friends to save him at the last second.
Of course, Dickens came first, and this is no criticism. It's also important to read the book as a novel and not as a historical text. These characters never existed, but they make great analogies for problems that have survived the French Revolution. If I'm a sucker for any trope, it's for average characters who are caught between two dangerous ideologies. The notion of a wealthy elite that steps on everybody else is common, easy to understand, and probably won't ever go away. But its sinister counterpart, the people who can justify their sins and violence by the fact that they have been wronged, is more important to unravel because it applies to more of us. Sure, Charles Darnay is heroic by refusing to be Evrémonde, but see how few poor people resist sweeping France with violence. Dickens warns about possible side-effects of reaction, which at its heart can be little more than personal resentment.
I've met people who find Dickens' style to be boring or overwhelming. Neither was the case for me in this, my first Dickens book. Most of his prose is simply descriptive, but not boring, and he strays from it only for key points of heightened tension, or for sarcasm. It's droll British sarcasm, but this only makes it better.
I enjoyed this read quite a bit, beyond simply checking it off my list of books other people have read that I haven't. Its success as my first post-college classic proves to me that re-education is never a thing of the past.
Of course there's a catch. In order for that to work out properly, I review everything I read, including work that already has its fair share of attention. So, forgive me if I occasionally don a literary hat a few sizes too large.
I present to you: A Tale of Two Cities.
It's the late eighteenth century, and Western Europe is cooking up a ruckus. The rich are swallowing up all they can and leaving everyone else with nothing, which results in a state of near-anarchy outside of mansions and manors. Men and women must distrust everyone they see on the street. Lucie Manette, a French teenager, journeys to the Defarge wine shop in order to recover her old father, a physician who, when under great stress, hallucinates that he is a shoemaker. Lucie brings her father safely to England, where her presence restores his mind and the two aid in the acquittal of Charles Darnay, a French nobleman who has sworn off his aristocracy and his allegiance to either country's elite. But unbeknownst to the Manettes and Darnay, Madame Defarge and her husband are stirring the oppressed French people into a national revolution gone wrong; when the power balance finally crumbles, nobody is safe from a new invention and embodiment of mob justice: the guillotine.
My surface impression of this book is that, more than anything I've ever read, it resembles a Disney film. We start with a simplistic, emotional landscape of historical romanticism, followed by the strong damsel with whom everybody is going to fall in love. There's a father figure, some crowd scenes that could make one or two lovely musical numbers, and an evil woman with a relatively ambiguous plan and some humorously animated, wicked facial expressions (Dickens repeatedly describes Madame Defarge's eyebrows). Two characters fall in love, while the villains storm the Bastille and do lots of violent things to nonspecific people. Then by some twist of fate, one of our protagonists winds up in the villain's clutches, and it's up to all of his spunky friends to save him at the last second.
Of course, Dickens came first, and this is no criticism. It's also important to read the book as a novel and not as a historical text. These characters never existed, but they make great analogies for problems that have survived the French Revolution. If I'm a sucker for any trope, it's for average characters who are caught between two dangerous ideologies. The notion of a wealthy elite that steps on everybody else is common, easy to understand, and probably won't ever go away. But its sinister counterpart, the people who can justify their sins and violence by the fact that they have been wronged, is more important to unravel because it applies to more of us. Sure, Charles Darnay is heroic by refusing to be Evrémonde, but see how few poor people resist sweeping France with violence. Dickens warns about possible side-effects of reaction, which at its heart can be little more than personal resentment.
I've met people who find Dickens' style to be boring or overwhelming. Neither was the case for me in this, my first Dickens book. Most of his prose is simply descriptive, but not boring, and he strays from it only for key points of heightened tension, or for sarcasm. It's droll British sarcasm, but this only makes it better.
I enjoyed this read quite a bit, beyond simply checking it off my list of books other people have read that I haven't. Its success as my first post-college classic proves to me that re-education is never a thing of the past.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Review: Against All Things Ending by Stephen R. Donaldson (2010)
I've already written a little bit about the Thomas Covenant series, of which this is number nine out of ten. Consider it bias, or don't, but just assume that this review will be somewhat more positive than the mark.
Against All Things Ending picks up where Fatal Revenant left off: Linden Avery has just linked the magic of three powerful artifacts to summon the soul of Thomas Covenant from the Arch of Time, back to a human body. But in reviving her lover and the Land's savior, Linden has activated two unforeseen consequences. First, in becoming incarnate once again, Covenant goes nearly mad shedding millennia of personality and experiences because they don't fit into a human mind; he's back to being a deranged leper. And the combination of wild magic and Law to reach past the boundaries of death and time has shifted the balance of the earth and awakened the Worm of the World's End, an unstoppable monster that will now consume the earth in only a few days. Even Covenant himself, were he in full possession of his mind and his complete power, could never out-muscle the Worm. Faced with apocalypse, Linden leads her companions in search of her possessed son, whose talent for inter-dimensional contraptions could be the only way to trap the Worm and save the world. But her trip, effected by costly bargains with many magical beings, brings her within reach of She Who Must Not Be Named, a slumbering titan as old as Lord Foul (the main antagonist) himself, who embodies all the fear, grief and rage of a world betrayed...
For those of you who even read that paragraph, you probably figured out to start with the first book. Hell, this is my favorite series, and I struggled to figure out what was going on.
But guess what: it was worth it.
No, this wasn't the best Thomas Covenant book for me. It has neither the cohesion of Lord Foul's Bane nor the climax of White Gold Wielder. And somehow it manages to be more melodramatic than either, without the payoff. Consider this: the book is about apocalypse, but it's not the last in the series. I'm not spoiling anything by telling you that the Land is still intact at the very end of the book.
This is more than can be said for most of the characters. Donaldson has never squeamish about killing his main cast (which he's done to Covenant twice now), but this book takes it a step higher. The real tension of the book, much greater than the threat of armageddon, is the fact that the book begins with a lineup of characters whose abilities and stories make each of them crucial to the defense of the Land... but one by one they die horribly. It's like a cosmic game of Jenga, which, now that I think of it, is a great way to describe Lord Foul's plans to someone unfamiliar with the series.
Donaldson never drops a storyline without finishing it, and it's incredible to see the way he continues to weave the threads together, even while creating new ones. For certain, the real reason for all the deaths is probably to untangle the knot a little bit. He also picks up dozens of Chekhov's guns, including some he dropped a full eight books ago. If you give it the time and space in your brain, it's a dazzling act of juggling, but it gets confusing if you're distracted for even a page.
One feature that gave me mixed feelings is that by now everyone has superpowers. It was nice back in Lord Foul's Bane when everybody knew a little bit about Earthpower, and Covenant's wild magic was still locked away. Now, aside from Lord Foul, there are three villains (Joan, Kastenessen, She Who Must Not Be Named) trying to tear apart the world with their bare hands, even if you don't count the Worm, which seems to be succeeding. The Insequent are wizards who can teleport, travel through time, and defeat armies singlehandedly. Linden has even more firepower than these, and can heal any wound. Roger Covenant can shoot lava from his hand, and he seems to find armies to serve him the way you or I would order pizza. The Elohim all have powers like Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan, and Esmer has all their magic plus the ability to negate Thomas Covenant.
It becomes a little overwhelming.
This is why to me, the only two pervading important trends are Covenant's mental lapses and Linden's encounter with She Who Must Not Be Named. I think that's what Donaldson was going for with She Who Must Not Be Named: a character he could definitively say was top dog (except for Covenant, Lord Foul, the Worm, Horrim Carabal... never mind) in order to get our minds off of searching for a deus ex machina already hidden in everybody's Superman complexes. Sure, it's not quite as good as her fear of death in the Second Chronicles, but part two of anything is rarely as exciting. As for Covenant, anything but a relapse of leprosy would have thrown away his credibility as our grouchy protagonist.
This may be a wasted post, because those of you who read eight Covenant books were going to read the ninth, or you weren't. But this is a story which, I firmly believe, receives too little attention, so go ahead and introduce or re-introduce yourself to the darkest dream you'd ever give your life to save.
Against All Things Ending picks up where Fatal Revenant left off: Linden Avery has just linked the magic of three powerful artifacts to summon the soul of Thomas Covenant from the Arch of Time, back to a human body. But in reviving her lover and the Land's savior, Linden has activated two unforeseen consequences. First, in becoming incarnate once again, Covenant goes nearly mad shedding millennia of personality and experiences because they don't fit into a human mind; he's back to being a deranged leper. And the combination of wild magic and Law to reach past the boundaries of death and time has shifted the balance of the earth and awakened the Worm of the World's End, an unstoppable monster that will now consume the earth in only a few days. Even Covenant himself, were he in full possession of his mind and his complete power, could never out-muscle the Worm. Faced with apocalypse, Linden leads her companions in search of her possessed son, whose talent for inter-dimensional contraptions could be the only way to trap the Worm and save the world. But her trip, effected by costly bargains with many magical beings, brings her within reach of She Who Must Not Be Named, a slumbering titan as old as Lord Foul (the main antagonist) himself, who embodies all the fear, grief and rage of a world betrayed...
For those of you who even read that paragraph, you probably figured out to start with the first book. Hell, this is my favorite series, and I struggled to figure out what was going on.
But guess what: it was worth it.
No, this wasn't the best Thomas Covenant book for me. It has neither the cohesion of Lord Foul's Bane nor the climax of White Gold Wielder. And somehow it manages to be more melodramatic than either, without the payoff. Consider this: the book is about apocalypse, but it's not the last in the series. I'm not spoiling anything by telling you that the Land is still intact at the very end of the book.
This is more than can be said for most of the characters. Donaldson has never squeamish about killing his main cast (which he's done to Covenant twice now), but this book takes it a step higher. The real tension of the book, much greater than the threat of armageddon, is the fact that the book begins with a lineup of characters whose abilities and stories make each of them crucial to the defense of the Land... but one by one they die horribly. It's like a cosmic game of Jenga, which, now that I think of it, is a great way to describe Lord Foul's plans to someone unfamiliar with the series.
Donaldson never drops a storyline without finishing it, and it's incredible to see the way he continues to weave the threads together, even while creating new ones. For certain, the real reason for all the deaths is probably to untangle the knot a little bit. He also picks up dozens of Chekhov's guns, including some he dropped a full eight books ago. If you give it the time and space in your brain, it's a dazzling act of juggling, but it gets confusing if you're distracted for even a page.
One feature that gave me mixed feelings is that by now everyone has superpowers. It was nice back in Lord Foul's Bane when everybody knew a little bit about Earthpower, and Covenant's wild magic was still locked away. Now, aside from Lord Foul, there are three villains (Joan, Kastenessen, She Who Must Not Be Named) trying to tear apart the world with their bare hands, even if you don't count the Worm, which seems to be succeeding. The Insequent are wizards who can teleport, travel through time, and defeat armies singlehandedly. Linden has even more firepower than these, and can heal any wound. Roger Covenant can shoot lava from his hand, and he seems to find armies to serve him the way you or I would order pizza. The Elohim all have powers like Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan, and Esmer has all their magic plus the ability to negate Thomas Covenant.
It becomes a little overwhelming.
This is why to me, the only two pervading important trends are Covenant's mental lapses and Linden's encounter with She Who Must Not Be Named. I think that's what Donaldson was going for with She Who Must Not Be Named: a character he could definitively say was top dog (except for Covenant, Lord Foul, the Worm, Horrim Carabal... never mind) in order to get our minds off of searching for a deus ex machina already hidden in everybody's Superman complexes. Sure, it's not quite as good as her fear of death in the Second Chronicles, but part two of anything is rarely as exciting. As for Covenant, anything but a relapse of leprosy would have thrown away his credibility as our grouchy protagonist.
This may be a wasted post, because those of you who read eight Covenant books were going to read the ninth, or you weren't. But this is a story which, I firmly believe, receives too little attention, so go ahead and introduce or re-introduce yourself to the darkest dream you'd ever give your life to save.
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