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Thank you for reading,
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Allen W. McLean
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These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.
I first read Holes by Louis Sachar when I was ten years old for a grade five elementary school reading assignment with the rest of the class, a few years after the movie was released. Back then, it stuck with me for its explanation of the Yelnats family being lucky rather than having good or bad luck.
Now, upon reading almost twenty years later, what I loved about this story was how the cast displayed the effects of prolonged stress and anger on one's morality, where children like Stanley have to choose between being friends with or bullying one another, all in the name of freedom of digging another hole.
The desert of Camp Green Lake hardened both body and soul of the camp counselors and the kids alike. Though, this led to Stanley’s appreciation for the slightest relief and an inclination toward the least stressful position, which would end up saving him and the others. Mind you, the other kids were sentenced for juvenile delinquency just like Stanley [though he was wrongfully convicted], but the novel is quick to tell their stories and the situations that led to the present, where they each found themselves in positions of distrust and punishment, regardless if they told the truth or lied or indeed committed a felony.
Holes also is unafraid to jump between narratives and time periods in order to convey just what the reader needs to understand, with a conversational narrator that guides readers along with effortless ease; remember to gauge your expectations just a bit when reading this as an adult as, again, I first read this when I was ten and the movie is a Disney Pictures presentation.
The men of the Yelnats family were quick to blame their misfortunes and poor luck on a cursed ancestor, all of whom were named after the ancestor's son, an integral plot point to one of the narratives, while characters like Stanley's mom help the Stanleys appreciate what good fortune they do have.
The youngest Stanley Yelnats had used this good sense to trade a day-off for the knowledge that he might be able to find another treasure that would give him and the agreed-upon leader of the kids a day off from digging each, and it was this adherence to morality that would, without his immediate knowing that it could, lead to his entire family's liberation. This tough-love approach led to the story's curses being described as natural occurrences like the yellow spotted lizards and the drought that crippled the once prosperous Green Lake, where only those good enough to bear it would reap its fruits.
All this is symbolized as a form of God's divine justice, where Green Lake’s torture was turning hearts cold since the Wild West. The Warden of Camp Green Lake grew up digging holes her whole life--herself a descendant of a cursed ancestor, too, but in stark contrast to Stanley. Like most takes on generational trauma, this story says one is unrestricted by another’s past and one is able to break away from preconceived notions of hereditary curses, rather than blaming every issue on others and thus stripping oneself of said ability. It is less about blood relations and more about being a good person, which in turn unlocks the goods of the past; this was shown in Zero telling the truth, he was a good kid who did something bad without realizing, but he still did good in the end despite all the bad being done to him, where in the end he was saved by Sam’s sunken boat until Stanley rescued him.
Stanley Yelnats and Hector Zeroni overcame what had been said to be impossible odds, dealing with their stress and suffering one literal step at a time. With their journey from Camp Green Lake on the edge of the dried up lake out to God’s Thumb where Sam’s onions grew, readers thread all these plot points together in a gradual, yet satisfying experience meant to inspire children to overcome their less apparent obstacles, like it did for me so many years ago. I believe, under all the dirt and drama, Holes is a story about the benefits of literature on children, with Hector and Stanley’s bond over teaching Hector how to read, and with devices like palindromes and poetry used in the background to serve ethical lessons that were still constructive to the plot.
The poem that was shared between the Zeroni and Yelnats families signified, to me, how one becomes blind to opportunity when they believe they have poor luck, and I thought the palindrome Stanley Yelnats was a great metaphor for being able to see one’s so-called bad luck as its mirror opposite.
Holes was, and still is a fantastic story that I think parents and children alike would enjoy and should still read and watch today.
Thank you for reading,
Until next time!
Allen W. McLean
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Subscribed readers on Patreon have access to an archive with exclusive photos and captions that will be featured in upcoming paperback APRILandALLEN's Roadmap books. https://www.patreon.com/posts/aprilandallens-87480393
Happy Pride Month! April and I have been attending events here in Brampton and the Greater Toronto Area, celebrating the parts of our identities that we love to express through our work. The Overseer, a prominent character in my more recent works, is a non-binary superhero that I am writing about in order to cope with and express this perspective that I and others I know experience.
Also, the Brampton Library’s 2023-2024 Local Authors Showcase is taking place at the Gage Park Farmers Market on Saturday June 17th between 8am and 1pm!!
My story “Together in Forever'' is being added to the Brampton Library catalogue, and readers have the opportunity to connect with authors while browsing the other vendors during one of the weekends of Brampton’s annual Farmers Market.
Come visit our table to get the paperback books, homemade stickers, self-printed art and polymer clay charms we will be selling--they make great presents for the readers you know and love! [I intend to update this post with our menu before the event]
Huge thank you to Julia and the rest of the Brampton Library faculty for all the assistance and for giving local authors this opportunity to connect with others!
Here are some images from our Local Author Showcase table!
Thank you everyone for coming out! We met new friends and saw familiar faces during a warm summer morning and afternoon. Was a real great day, made even better because later that evening we got to spend an early Father's Day watching The Super Mario Bros. Movie with my dad while eating dinner with my side of the family.
I will add these to the upcoming Roadmap update, too.
Thank you for reading and for getting something from the sales after the photos!
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[ UPDATED 20230616
For those who are unable to join us at the Farmer's Market for the Local Author's Showcase, there is a week-long Kindle eBook sale and promo on some of the stories that can be found at Brampton Library.
Thank you again for reading and for visiting our shop!]
Now for the review...
I have always enjoyed reading adaptations from Titan Publishing, and Greg Keyes’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm was a great tie-in novel that I am thankful for over how it captures Caesar and this version of the franchise.
Keyes blended relatable and tragic original characters, such as Malakai, with more recognizable members of the series, including Gary Oldman’s Dreyfus and all the other sasquatch-like evolved apes--like Koba and Maurice--who are more inexperienced and are still learning about their changing world.
Firestorm takes place in the San Francisco Bay redwood forests area from “Rise” before civilization fell by the time period of the sequel movie, “Dawn”. Its story is really carried by its connection to that series; the best parts of the book in itself were its multiple points of view, which seldom converged [in a good way], along with its depiction of Caesar’s colony’s thoughts, memories, motives and inner conflicts.
The rest of the book’s highlights come from the interactions between members of Caesar’s colony. Some favourites include Cornelia and Caesar’s relationship, him recognizing Koba overcoming his vengeance, the government’s coverup of the previous story’s events and insight into what the apes think about the humans and their technology [GPS trackers and TVs].
I had a few minor complaints, though.
The dialogue at times felt “cinematic”, for lack of a better word; there were some instances where I felt characterization was forced or edgy. I even found some spelling and grammar mistakes, which however did nothing to detract from the plot. As I said, the story is carried by its connection to the larger PotA series, and served to bridge the gaps between the movies by exploring aspects like the human Alpha-Omega extremists, and that is where Firestorm really works out.
Back to the good, there is a little neoplatonic idealism [aka. philosophy] that threads the book together, where characters accept and transcend the negative aspects of their apocalyptic situations. While both human and simian characters were faced with certain death and the fear of each other, the focus is without a doubt on the colony with apes like Caesar and Koba being used to explore topics ranging from Plato’s Cave to more abstract ideas such as the ALZ drug opening a kind of empty space in the minds of the apes, which explained the apparent fatal regression in the human’s.
Time to read the other novels based on this series.
Thank you for reading,
Until next time!
Allen W. McLean
...
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Briar Rose is the Sleeping Beauty fairytale by the Brothers Grimm. A King and Queen wished for a child, which went unanswered until being granted to the Queen by a frog.
In celebration, the new parents invite all the Wise Women, except one, to bestow their gifts on the princess just like this story's better known forms.
Before all the gifts were given, the uninvited thirteenth fairy interrupted their party and spoke only a curse, that the princess would prick herself on a spindle and die after she turned fifteen. The twelfth fairy, unable to prevent fate, was able to use her gift to alter the terms to be a century-long sleep, but the King nonetheless kept all spindles away from his daughter.
She grew up and was said to be beautiful and loved by everyone, but by the time she turned fifteen she had never seen a spindle before and her ignorance, never even knowing it existed, had led to her curiosity toward the first she ever saw [this one seems more like a lesson for the parents]. The entire castle falls into a kind of stasis as Briar-rose falls asleep after pricking her finger.
Over the next hundred years, a story spreads of a castle behind the wall of thorns, with many dying in an attempt to breach the bushes.
A Prince, after listening to the story, walked through the thorns and among the castle's beautiful flowers the day the curse was to be lifted. Queue the kiss upon awakening followed by an immediate bedding and wedding.
My immediate perception, shared by some other readers, was that the prince saved the agentless damsel in distress, but I believe that underneath this fairytale cliche hides the concept of predetermined fate, in this case from a curse casted by somebody else, where the prince was just the latest in a line of men who had died during similar attempts but who was just in the right place at the right time for Briar-rose to reawaken by herself, thanks to the twelfth fairy's gift.
The prince had little agency in Briar-rose’s fateful awakening, in this version of Sleeping Beauty, and he was in fact swept up at once into her Happily Ever After.
In the follow-up tale, the prince’s previous fate hindered his new royal family's when the prince’s mother--or first wife--was revealed to be part Ogre, further solidifying Briar Rose's lesson of overcoming one's belief in their own fate.
Thanks to you, I am now a VERIFIED BOOK AUTHOR with over TWO-THOUSAND (2000!) readers who have joined us on Medium! Need to stay in the Medium Partner Program? Please follow and turn on email notifications; I will follow you back! "Ado the Owl" and "Hector Blake" are available to read, right now, on Medium.
April's psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms; Electric Armchair - Rain At Night (Official Animated Music Video) [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAh2b8uSFdI ]
Happy Star Wars Day! I had read Kieron Gillen’s 2015 Darth Vader run while it first released and I often reread its 25 issues, spaced between its four books and one crossover event; Vader, Shadows and Secrets, Vader Down, The Shu-Torun War, End of Games.
These stories were part of the new Disney canon and featured a Starkiller like story with behind-the-Empire’s back adventures, introducing Doctor Aphra as a twist on the hidden apprentice trope, along with the titular Sith earning his title as Lord Vader while dealing with the Empire’s disrespect until then, when they all get their comeuppance.
Vader’s one of my favourite characters, and Gillen wrote him well with Mustafar flashbacks when disabled, fighting his PTSD rather than “the light” fighting against “the dark”. Vader is broken and he was trying to live with his actions instead of wiping them away. On my most recent read throughs, I kept visualizing Hayden Christensen behind the mask, like in the Obi Wan Kenobi series.
Vader is a straight up murderer, though; any who sides with the Empire is tyrannical and in the company of backstabbers who will both reward and punish insubordination.
Highlights of the series include cyborg clones, Vader being independent of Palpatine’s Empire, other Imperials like the monocle guy believing in the Empire more than the Emperor, thinking Vader was better for the Galaxy than Palpatine, and Vader using the Force and sheer plot armour to make statistical impossibilities possible.
Both as Anakin and Vader, he wanted to establish order and he believed in his faith to overcome any hindrance. This pitted science versus the Force as the ruling power behind the Empire, which was interesting because it showed how the Galaxy at large thought the Force was a fairytale, while acting as an example for Vader's manifestation-like Force usage, his stronger willpower and his being more attuned to one's structure--to what one believes in.
Thanks to you, I am now a VERIFIED BOOK AUTHOR with over TWO-THOUSAND (2000!) readers who have joined us on Medium! Need to stay in the Medium Partner Program? Please follow and turn on email notifications; I will follow you back! "Ado the Owl" and "Hector Blake" are available to read, right now, on Medium.
April's psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms; Electric Armchair - Rain At Night (Official Animated Music Video) [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAh2b8uSFdI ]
Fantastic Mr. Fox is a short novel by Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake, about the supportive Fox family unit’s cooperative survival.
Mr. Fox provides for his family by stealing from farmers Borris, Bunce and Bean, who are all caricatures of gluttony. During an escapade, Mr. Fox loses his tail while retreating from the farmers, becoming a symbol for how lucky he was to be in pain but alive while being so unlucky to be a fox without a tail.
The three become fixated on capturing the Foxes, going so far as to destroy the surrounding forest in an effort to dig up the foxhole, and they set up camp just outside of their cave to starve out the family.
When the desperate Mr. Fox and his hungry children go digging into the farm storehouses, readers are given a tough piece of moral philosophy to chew on, courtesy of Badger and Mr. Fox, in the form of their necessity to do wrong in order to survive and do good for others in need.
Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox confronts themes of duality, where a sly thief is heralded as a fantastic Robin Hood-esque hero, while the three farmers are shown to each be providing for those living or working on the farms in a similar manner to the burrowing animals--but Mr. Fox was fantastic because of his discipline and willingness to help those in need, juxtaposed with the fixations of the farmers and the rat in the cider basement.
Thanks to you, I am now a VERIFIED BOOK AUTHOR with over TWO-THOUSAND (2000!) readers who have joined us on Medium! Need to stay in the Medium Partner Program? Please follow and turn on email notifications; I will follow you back! "Ado the Owl" and "Hector Blake" are available to read, right now, on Medium.
April's psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms; Electric Armchair - Pleasure Pain (Official Music Video) [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWhBGFBqYu0 ]
Hansel and Gretel [also spelled Grethel] is one of the more grim fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, where the parents of our eponymous siblings plot to abandon their children in the woods over a lack of food and their [step]mother desiring more for herself.
It was said that scarcity was felt “in all parts” across the land, but the fact that the family had daily bread led me to think twice about their situation.
I believe that, just as the father was anxious over his apparent inability to provide for his family, the stepmother’s guilting and manipulation stemmed from an anxiety over being without, that the scarcity had the possibility of being manufactured or being otherwise exaggerated by the stepmother’s greed.
Beyond that deeper layer of understanding, the stepmother’s motives informed the sibling’s situation and helped to establish that Hansel and Gretel had the ability to overcome the hindrances that others were imposing upon them [the overcoming of which Hansel described as acts of God], and also that Hansel’s plans were susceptible to being foiled, too, as shown by his breadcrumbs being eaten by hungry birds.
The two experienced actual poverty while facing real starvation when they finished the only bread they were given in the woods, where their need made the Witch’s house more attractive and made themselves attractive to the Witch, who lured the children inside with her apparent abundance--which may have been what labeled this woman as a witch when others were said to be struggling.
The story’s themes distill into moral wisdom as, while trapped within the Witch’s goals of fattening him, Hansel again chooses to act toward his and his sister’s wellbeing, instead of indulging in being a blind glutton, by taking advantage of the Witch’s literal poor eyesight and making himself seem thin. Hansel’s cleverness shows that the method of overcoming every hindrance to one’s goals is universal, that one can choose between acting toward the hindering object, or continue pursuing one’s goals, which explains how Hansel, Gretel, their parents and even the Witch caused the story’s unfavourable situations while blanketing the other hindrances with their desire.
After Gretel saved Hansel by turning one of the Witch’s tricks around on her, the two returned home with the help of a duck, finding their evil mother had died and their father happy to have his kids, having wanted to be generous to his kids, but because he gave in once to the mother, he was compelled to do so twice.
The two main takeaways for me were as follows; one, that hindrances emit a kind of attraction regardless of its intended destination, as shown by Hansel's desire to survive helping Gretel but also attracting the Witch who was also attracting them with her house; and two, Hansel and Gretel’s story displays how to take the good from even the worst of situations, with the inability to do so explored by those hindered by their anxiety and greed, which highlights the core message of this fairy tale, the necessity of using one’s abilities to transcend the innate hindrances of one’s experience.
Thank you for reading,
Until next time!
Allen W. McLean
PS. April 23rd is HaikuPrajna Day, celebrating my haiku journey! May or may not have a surprise come the 23rd; still need to sort it out.
For the rest of the month, rolling $0.99 sales on the Amazon US and UK stores! Check out my Author Profile on Amazon here [ https://www.amazon.com/Allen-W-McLean/e/B0867C5D24 ] and remember to come back every Monday and Friday to download a free Kindle ebook. I will be sharing links to the books on socials throughout the rest of the month of April.
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Need more Bite-sized Insights to relieve your stress and suffering?
Thanks to you, I am now a Verified Book Author with over ONE-THOUSAND (1000!) readers who have joined us on Medium! Need to stay in the Medium Partner Program? Please follow and turn on email notifications; I will follow you back! "Ado the Owl" and "Hector Blake" are available to read, right now, on Medium.
April's psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms; Electric Armchair - Pleasure Pain (Official Music Video) [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWhBGFBqYu0 ]
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