I get to touch my Spirit Bear again.

[kippurbird]

So, we return to Spirit Bear. Are you ready to have your spirit touched? I know I am and I'm sure you'll be touched too.

When we last left Cole (our hero)he and Edwin got rid of Cole's anger by rolling a stone down a hill. "Slowly Cole let go of his ancestors and allowed the stone to become his anger. He knew that he had quit blaming others, including his father, for his problems. As long as blame still existed, so would his anger. He had to let go, the same way he let go of this rock. With that thought, Cole sank to his knees and placed both his hands against the rock. With a grunt, he shoved it down the slope.

As the rock tumbled faster and faster, Cole felt his body growing lighter, and when the rock smashed to a stop at the bottom, he felt as if he could fly."

So, Cole got stoned with a stone? Is that what they're calling it? Also, I have "I can fly higher than an eagle" stuck in my head now. But this is besides the point. Cole has just had a sudden revelation. He has to let go of his anger and stop blaming people and then all of a sudden he feels as free as a bird. While only a few paragraphs ago he thought the entire idea was completely and utterly idiotic, his turn around rate is amazing.

Then he sees his Spirit Bear. Or so he thinks. He's not sure. He goes back to camp to where Garvey (his parole officer) and Edwin are. He sits and then... he reveals to the two of them that he's sorry about his attitude and he realizes that he'll not get over his anger unless he quits blaming everyone else. Garvey asks why the change of heart.

Cole bit at his lip. "I just realized that I'm not a bad person. Nobody is," he said. "People are just scared and do bad things. Sometimes people hurt each other trying to figure things out."

Okay, so when did this happen? When in any of his entire thought processes did he suddenly realize that he wasn't a bad person? I have not seen in any point in time he thinking about this sort of thing. Needing to let go of his anger, a bit, but actually think that he's not a bad person (which I tend to disagree with, but then again I'm of the theory that it's your actions and not your thoughts that prove if you're a good person or not) hasn't been seen. Also, if we look back at his thoughts as he did his bad actions, he wasn't afraid at all, in any time, he just did it because he was angry, or hating, but never mentioned that he was afraid. He thought he was in the right the entire time. So where has it come from? Some have suggested his ass. Of course Garvey and Edwin are suspicious. Cole is like it doesn't matter if you believe me or not and goes about making the camp ready. This of course, proves to the two adults that yes, he is serious.

He then works on his cabin happily. I think he's still stoned. At the end of the day, he has a roof, window and handle for the door. Garvey and Edwin say that he did a good job and then mention that he'll have to build furniture. How is he supposed to build furniture with no one telling him how? I don't know. Anyway, Cole decides to make a feast, with spaghetti and biscuts and Snickers bars. He uses the blanket that Garvey gave him as a symbol of trust at the beginning that mysteriously didn't burn, as a tablecloth.

Then Edwin asks what dance should they dance that night. Cole suggests the Spirit Bear dance. They ask him if he saw the Spirit Bear and Cole says yes he thinks he did. They ask if he's afraid of the bear, he says, no I'm more afraid of being left alone. Yes. Cole is more afraid of being alone than with the same island with the thing that nearly killed him. With normal people, if they have a terrifying accident they become weary of whatever caused the accident. I fell off a horse and was sorta scared of getting back on the horse. And I only took a tumble. After a major car accident, you are probably going to have a great deal of trouble getting back into a car. If you've been beaten up by someone, you're not going to want to be around them. However, Cole apparently has been changed so much that he's forgiven the Spirit Bear for mauling him... or is no longer afraid of it because he knows it won't hurt him... or something.

After this, he dances the Dance of the Spirit Bear with Edwin keeping the beat. He dances as if he was the bear vanishing in and out of sight and then attacking him before wandering off proudly into the night. Edwin and Garvey then dance the dance of the Spirit Bear. Garvey scaring
Edwin by screaming boo at the end. This is supposed to be funny. Of course, I'm so bored with the book I just sort of shrug and go huh, can we move on. Where's the plot?

Mind you, we're 173 pages into a 240 page book and nothing has happened, we're not building up any tension or moving towards a climax. Cole is making epiphanies all the time, from somewhere, but we don't see him trying to struggle with it as he comes to these realizations. He just has them and we move on. He doesn't think about them. But then again, he's not a thinking character, he just does shit. Still, there could be some way for him to come to these revelations, perhaps during his time on the island as he tries to survive, but at the rate we're going, he's not going to have time to live on the island, or at least, we won't be able to see him live on the island but instead get a summary of it.

The next morning Cole gets up eagerly for his swim in the ice cold lake. He doesn't need to be woken up by Edwin, and in fact they ask if they could come with him. If we remember, the previous day, Cole had been horribly grouchy and wanting to skip a day. Now, he's all happy happy, joy joy about it. He proudly leads the way and strips without hesitation. Garvey and Edwin join him. He does not take in how the two older men look, and doesn't glance to see if their groins are hairless or not. But instead he goes to get in touch with himself. We have not seen any transition from yesterday to today on how Cole suddenly wants to go do this. No thoughts or suggestion that today would be any different from yesterday. He just does it. It's as if the part where he discovers why he wants to do it ended up on the cutting room floor. In a book like this, where a character's transformation from "bad" to "good" his thoughts and motivations are the most important things to show. Any time he makes a transition from a bad behavior to a good one, it should be shown so the readers can understand and believe his journey.

They take the Ancestor Rock up the hill and roll down the anger and walk back laughing and joking as if they were all friends, as if any tension between them didn't exist any more. Garvey and Edwin leave, but not before giving Cole a knife. Garvey says it can destroy or heal. When Cole asks how it can help him heal, Garvey says, "Use it to carve. If you discover what lies within the wood, you'll discover what's inside of you. It helps you to heal." Not to be snarky or anything, but generally, wood is inside wood. But then again there are those who say that when they carve they aren't carving something out but merely releasing what was inside the stone/wood/thingy. Still, I don't think Cole is going to be very good at carving (unless he's really Richard Rhal in disguise).

Edwin then says, "But you can never heal completely until you discover one thing." When Cole asks what it is, Edwin says if he told Cole he couldn't discover it. And now we move into our hokey part of the program where the character learns to discover something inside of them self that makes everything okay. Things like... love... or compassion... or something.

Cole watches Edwin and Garvey leave and gets choked up, realizing that if he doesn't do it right this time, he won't get a second chance.

So, next time we get to see Cole living on the Island. Yay.

Comments

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

It's not my spirit that's touched by this, but I am sure that the author is touched.

What do you figure out by smashing a guys head against the pavement?

"Hmmmm I wonder what sound this will make..." *bock bock* sounds "Were those boc boc or bock bock sounds? Better check again."

You know someone ought to beat the snot out of Cole and go "Oh I'm not a bad person, I will have to have a nice cry about this afterwards! Remember you got to forgive me if you're to heal!"

As for the cabin, the builds it in three days?

How?! Does the idiot who wrote this thing have any idea just how difficult it is to build any kind of cabin? Sure the pioneers could build one in a few days, but they had neighbours and family to help them. Not to mention that they were used to a lot more hardship than Cole would be, there's nothing in his history to suggest that he has any experience whatsoever with manual labour.

Apparently there's this belief that morality and manual labour are linked; so if you become virtuous then automatically you become a good labourer. I don't know where it comes from. It seems to be a very American belief though.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

What do you figure out by smashing a guys head against the pavement?

"Hmmmm I wonder what sound this will make..." *bock bock* sounds "Were those boc boc or bock bock sounds? Better check again."


That sounds like a Mythbusters thing. =D

How?! Does the idiot who wrote this thing have any idea just how difficult it is to build any kind of cabin? Sure the pioneers could build one in a few days, but they had neighbours and family to help them. Not to mention that they were used to a lot more hardship than Cole would be, there's nothing in his history to suggest that he has any experience whatsoever with manual labour.

Not only that but he does it with his gimpy arm. Obviously he's gone to the Paolini school of writing.

Apparently there's this belief that morality and manual labour are linked; so if you become virtuous then automatically you become a good labourer. I don't know where it comes from. It seems to be a very American belief though.

I think it's more that if you're virtuous then you'll apply yourself to your labor more readily because it's the good thing to do... or something.

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

It's actually a Protestant value that just happened to be most exemplified in the past by people associated with America, like pilgrims.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

Am very tired, so one comment:

When I saw "goes to get in touch with himself" about the bathing scene, I read it as (due to my tiredness): "goes to touch himself". Which, considering what he'd just been looking at, was ALL SORTS OF WRONG. >_<

Meh. Hey, you've read Terry Goodkind?! Can I see the snark on THAT?! (personally likes the villains in that series far more than the heroes) ...And I ignore about the second half of EVERY character arc, because I swear the characters are good until you get to know them to any extent. >_< Cliche, but at least not total WOMG sluts...

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Get in touch with himself... touches himself... what's the difference? >.>

I have read the Sword of Truth series and I have mixed feelings about it. I would maybe write something about it, if I figure out how to put it into words.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

Have you heard of the Westeros Forums?

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=21835
http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=9693

Anyway, look for threads in the Literature section of that forum that start with Goodkind. They have extensively mocked Goodkind... sadly, they've begun to repeat their own jokes. >_>

[evil_plotbunny]

We have this in our collection and in the near future I'll be sorting to figure out what goes into storage and what we hold onto while we're in temporary quarters (we've got the go-ahead for an expansion which will start next year).

I hadn't read this, but I don't think it will be making the cut. ;)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Mwahaha... we have the go ahead for expansion too. It was supposed to start last May. Now it's... when we're ready.

I think it should be making the cut to the free books department. =D

[evil_plotbunny]

The groundbreaking is supposed to be next spring. I don't know when we'd be moving out. The current thinking is that we'll move into an unused firehouse less than a block away, which I find cooler than it deserves.

It may just do that. I need to do some drastic weeding on the YA collection as it doesn't fit in the current space.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I think that's awesome. There's something neat about firehouses. And the idea of a library in one. Though the irony of what if a fire broke out in it would be cruel.

We're shifting things around because we don't have space. It feels more like busy work.

[evil_plotbunny]

It's an older firehouse and once we get the confirmation that that's where we're moving I'll do a squee post on my journal with a picture of the outside at least.

It was too small for the newer fire engines and they're building a new firehouse around the corner, so it's not as though we wouldn't have instantanious response. (Both fire and police don't have much to do in this town so a false alarm will bring out several trucks. ;)

Busy work is having to relabel all of the YA items in the computer because if they're checked out it isn't obvious that they're YA. And it's a large YA collection (15-16 bookcases). But that's next on the "free time" agenda after fixing the summer reading books that got screwed up when we went to the new system.

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

And for your next trick, I ask that you 'review'/spork/whatever "Lexicon Triumverate" by that racist motherfucker Kennith Eng.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Is that the Asian guy who writes all this raciest stuff?

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

Bingo!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I may do that, out of sheer stupid curiosity.

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

Noooooo! Her brain might break!

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

She survived Eragon and Eldest, didn't she?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Are we playing "What can we give Kippur to review before her brain breaks"?

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

Oh! Oh! House of Leaves!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

You know, maybe I should make a post of suggestions for books I should review next.

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

I'm actually not trying to break your brain with that suggestion. It's a phenomenal book and I highly recommend it. I don't feel like typing out HTML font tags again, but it's just wrong not to make that one word blue when typing out said books title.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I've heard good things about that book. My friend has it. I may have to steal borrow it off of him.

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

You fail to understand, but who can blame you? It is indeed hard to believe just how excretably BAD Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate is. Therefore I've included a little quote below:

Time is not a concept. It is a word. And like any word, it can be manipulated according to one's subjective state. Just like quantum mechanics and relativity are unified in that they require perception to create reality, every passing trice can be toiled at one's will - or against one's will. Yet, in the tides of linear moments and unfolded space, there is a realm beyond which any ordinary creature can reach. One must forget everything he has learned and retained only the one thing that matters in existence if he's to attain the ultimate state of omniscience - the essence of the Lexicon.

Across the lands of the ever-changing World, between the globe's poles and past the dying terrain of Aurahelm, there laid the prominent kingdom of Drakemight. It was a civilization as grand as it was elegant, a place where knowledge towered above all else. Architecture stretched to the skies in the forms of simple geometric shapes, complex and intelligently crafted, but untainted by the opposing thumbs of man. No, this was a kingdom of dragons, undimmed in splendour amidst the fabric of glorious earth, striving to survive and striving to understand all that laid within comprehension.

In front of the walls that surrounded its perimeters, there was a single dragon that stood guard under the dusk sky. Perching upon the edge of the stony barricade, he watched over the mossy, rock-speckled plains that lay past the city, making certain that no attackers breached. Or, at least he was supposed to be watching. Instead, however, his green eyes were fixated on a book in his emerald-scaled talons, deeply engrossed in the physical and scientific laws it dictated upon its pages. He was aware that his actions were an explicit violation of collective code, but he wasn't worried. His battle-scarred plate armour and tarnished scabbard were enough to remind him that he had quite enough experience to combat any poor soul that dared to assail his post.

"Interesting," muttered Dennagon to himself. "The force of gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared on this planet, but not in space. I wonder if 'space' actually exists."

His eyes crawled down to the bottom of the page. He did not want to stray in his thought, for he felt that he had not read enough today.

I on the other hand have read quite enough, but if you want more you can find it here

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

Personally, I found that excerpt in its entirety to be excellent humor.

...Excellent UNINTENTIONAL humor. *rolls eyes*

*a brief spork*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

*sniggers* Drakemight.

Now then, it never ceases to amaze me when people give creatures that aren't human, human lifestyles. I mean, if you look at a dragon, they aren't really made for making books or building cities. Also, why would a dragon need a sword? They have, as mentioned, talons, which are often better than most swords, and you have more of them. Not even Saphira, the dragon who needs to wear armor, needed a sword. In fact dragons are generally not built to properly wield a sword, as they're four legged creatures and not two legged. They wouldn't have the balance needed to swing a sword.

"Interesting," muttered Dennagon to himself. "The force of gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared on this planet, but not in space. I wonder if 'space' actually exists."

That being said, if the society is advanced enough to know about the exact measurements of the force of gravity, generally speaking they'd know that it exists, unless our author is trying to be philosophical.

Re: *a brief spork*

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

Dare you to read the full sample provided?

Re: *a brief spork*

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

I read part of it. I am horrified beyond words.

Re: *a brief spork*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I skimmed. My eyes started to glaze over.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

He has to build furniture? Like, chairs and stuff? Does the author have any idea how much work goes into even the most basic of three-legged stools, nevermind something that's actually comfortable to sit in for any period of time? I don't care how many times Cole failed shop class, if by some miracle he manages to construct anything even approaching furniture, it had better be the wobbliest, splinteriest, most uneven and ill-constructed piece of junk ever seen.

Or else!