"...but it ended in tragedy."
One of my favorite Simpsons quotes. Poor Milhouse. Bemoaning the crash and burn of his grade-school love affair. And yet... and yet... the little bespectacled dork has a point.
Romeo and Juliet is considered by some to be the most romantic, most tragic, most passionate and beauteous love story of all time.
Poppycock, sez I.
It's no tragedy. That play is a comedy!
"What?" you say. "Have you lost your Shakespeare-addled mind?" you say.
I have not.
That play is, in fact, a farce that hinges entirley on catastrophically bad timing, one wacky friar's "cunning plan", and the gross inadequacies of the Italian postal system back in the day.
Did you know that it's entirely likely that most of Shakespeare's audience would have considered Romeo and Juliet to have been justly served by their fate? That's right. Elizabethan society looked poorly on the kind of impetuous disregard for social convention and hotheaded recklessness shown by the two lovers. They would have thought the end unfortunate but... enh - what are you gonna do? They got what was coming to them.
How's that for romantic?
You want romance from Shakespeare? Real romance? I give you Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing. Often considered to be nothing more than a frothy romp, nothing too deep and meaningful, I put it to you that - in fact - the love story in this play is far more profound than that which springs up over the junior Montagues and Capulets.
Here we have a couple of stubborn, set-in-their-ways adults - determined not to give in to the painfully obvious attraction that has been building between them over years - rather than overnight - and, when forced to confront the truth of their mutual attraction, they act like a couple of giddy schoolkids, profess their love, demand oaths of bloody revenge for wronged relatives (Beatrice), promise - after some fiery convincing - to exact said revenge (Benedick), take the time to solve a mystery Scooby-gang style, and through a bit of clever deception make absolutely certain that everything will turn out all right for everyone (not just themselves) in the end.
That's what I call romantic.
Don't believe me? Rent the Brannagh/Thompson movie and watch as these two go from adversarial, to goofy-smitten, to deadly serious, to giddy joy all in the name of love and honor.
And, I have to say, the scene where Beatrice is on the garden swing and Benedick is diving through the fountain is one of the all-time cinematic greatest visual representations of true love ever committed to celluloid, in my opinion!
Now... don't get me wrong. I still have to wring my hanky out after a good production of Romeo and Juliet - a good one mind you - I just think that, maybe it's reputation as Shakespeare's most romantic play might be a teensy bit misleading.
All that aside, and speaking of love... I LOVE Jillian Cantor. I LOVED her first book The September Sisters and I cannot wait to dive into The Life of Glass. Congratulations, Jillian, on the release of your second book. And for everyone reading this post - what are you waiting for!?!! Go leave a comment for a chance to win TLOG!
Have a Happy Valentine's Day kids! And - remember - don't listen to the crazy friar!
That whole "faking your own death" thing might sound like a good idea at the time but.....
Showing posts with label The Life of Glass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Life of Glass. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Girl With the Frizzy Hair
I decided to choose beauty as this week’s topic, because that’s the first topic that came to mind when I thought about THE LIFE OF GLASS. In the book, the main character Melissa believes there are two types of people in the world – the outwardly beautiful people and inwardly beautiful people. Her mother and her sister clearly fall into the first category, as her mother was once a beauty queen, and her sister is a frequent beauty pageant contestant. But Melissa does not see herself as beauty queen material, nor would she ever want to. While her sister, Ashley, worries about make-up, becoming queen of the spring formal, and losing enough weight to be a size double 0, Melissa likes to wear baggy sweatshirts, she avoids make-up at all costs, and she worries about dying like her father did a few years earlier. But when a new beautiful girl moves to town, everything changes for Melissa, and over the course of her freshman year in high school, her ideas about beauty, life, and love are tested.
When I was writing the book, I thought back a lot to my own teen years and thought about my own ideas on beauty. I was not one of those beautiful girls like Melissa’s sister, certainly no pageant queen or even a pageant queen wanna be. But I do remember the idea of beauty being on mine and my friends' minds a lot as a teenager. When I was Melissa’s age, I knew girls who starved themselves to be thin and then fainted in gym class, girls who were made fun of by other girls for not being thin enough, girls who wore too much make-up and looked ridiculous, and girls who didn’t wear enough and were teased for being “ugly.”
And then there were those girls who always looked perfect. Who showed up every day at school, with straight shiny gorgeous hair that never fell out of place, girls who were tall and skinny and dressed in designer clothes and dated the most popular boys. I was not one of those girls. But I kind of always wondered about them, which is why I created the character of Ashley – just to see what would happen, just to see what she was really like.
But me, I was the girl with the always out-of-control curly frizzy hair. I thought a lot about my curly hair when I was writing the book, because even all these years later, even with a multitude of anti-frizz product and straightening devices, I still take issue with my hair. And it occurred to me, that maybe I wasn’t the only one, that maybe, for everyone, there is one thing, that one thing that makes us question our own outer beauty. Maybe that’s just part of what makes us human. Melissa and Ashley sprung from there, and this was also part of why my original working title for the book was “Beautiful.”
So what’s your one beauty issue? Leave a comment or do any of the other things listed on our sidebar to enter to win an Advanced Review Copy of THE LIFE OF GLASS! And you'll also be entered to win $100 giftcard to Amazon at the end of the month!!
When I was writing the book, I thought back a lot to my own teen years and thought about my own ideas on beauty. I was not one of those beautiful girls like Melissa’s sister, certainly no pageant queen or even a pageant queen wanna be. But I do remember the idea of beauty being on mine and my friends' minds a lot as a teenager. When I was Melissa’s age, I knew girls who starved themselves to be thin and then fainted in gym class, girls who were made fun of by other girls for not being thin enough, girls who wore too much make-up and looked ridiculous, and girls who didn’t wear enough and were teased for being “ugly.”
And then there were those girls who always looked perfect. Who showed up every day at school, with straight shiny gorgeous hair that never fell out of place, girls who were tall and skinny and dressed in designer clothes and dated the most popular boys. I was not one of those girls. But I kind of always wondered about them, which is why I created the character of Ashley – just to see what would happen, just to see what she was really like.
But me, I was the girl with the always out-of-control curly frizzy hair. I thought a lot about my curly hair when I was writing the book, because even all these years later, even with a multitude of anti-frizz product and straightening devices, I still take issue with my hair. And it occurred to me, that maybe I wasn’t the only one, that maybe, for everyone, there is one thing, that one thing that makes us question our own outer beauty. Maybe that’s just part of what makes us human. Melissa and Ashley sprung from there, and this was also part of why my original working title for the book was “Beautiful.”
So what’s your one beauty issue? Leave a comment or do any of the other things listed on our sidebar to enter to win an Advanced Review Copy of THE LIFE OF GLASS! And you'll also be entered to win $100 giftcard to Amazon at the end of the month!!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Announcing This Week's Giveaway!!
Tracy has a crazy week this week, and since it's my week to give something away in our month-long blogoversary I offered to step in and announce the weekly prize! I'm going to be giving away an Advanced Reader's Copy of my upcoming release, THE LIFE OF GLASS. Here's the jacket description:
Before he died, Melissa’s father told her about stars. He told her that the brightest stars weren’t always the most beautiful—that if people took the time to look at the smaller stars, if they looked with a telescope at the true essence of the star, they would find real beauty. But even though Melissa knows that beauty isn’t only skin deep, the people around her don’t seem to feel that way. There’s her gorgeous sister Ashley who will barely acknowledge Melissa at school, there's her best friend Ryan, who may be falling in love with the sophisticated Courtney, and there’s Melissa’s mother who’s dating someone new, someone who Melissa knows will never be able to replace her father.
To make sure she doesn’t lose her father completely, Melissa spends her time trying to piece together the last of his secrets and completing a journal her father began—one about love and relationships and the remarkable ways people find one another. But when tragedy strikes, Melissa has to start living and loving in the present, as she realizes that being beautiful on the outside doesn't mean you can't be beautiful on the inside.
This is a lyrical tale of love, loss and self-discovery from the author of THE SEPTEMBER SISTERS.
And here's what a few fabulous authors have said about the book so far:
“The hardest tests of adolescence don’t come in English, Algebra, or Biology. They come in those defining moments, when we are asked to know ourselves and to follow our true hearts. In THE LIFE OF GLASS, the supremely engaging Melissa McAllister has reached her crucible moment. She’s sweet. She’s confused. She’s believable. She’s the right kind of soul for our times."--Beth Kephart, author of Undercover and the National Book Award finalist The Slant of Sun
"THE LIFE OF GLASS is a beautifully rendered novel. Cantor is pitch-perfect, capturing the thoughts and mind-set of her characters with a precise familiarity that will have teenagers nodding their head in recognition and adults wistfully looking back. A must read."--Cecilia Galante, author of The Patron Saint of Butterflies
Because the book has a lot to do with beauty, we'll be blogging about that topic all week! To enter to win, all you have to do is comment on this post or any of the others this week, and/or do any of the other things listed over on the sidebar. >>>>>> You'll also be entered to win $100 to Amazon that we'll be giving away at the end of the month!
Before he died, Melissa’s father told her about stars. He told her that the brightest stars weren’t always the most beautiful—that if people took the time to look at the smaller stars, if they looked with a telescope at the true essence of the star, they would find real beauty. But even though Melissa knows that beauty isn’t only skin deep, the people around her don’t seem to feel that way. There’s her gorgeous sister Ashley who will barely acknowledge Melissa at school, there's her best friend Ryan, who may be falling in love with the sophisticated Courtney, and there’s Melissa’s mother who’s dating someone new, someone who Melissa knows will never be able to replace her father.
To make sure she doesn’t lose her father completely, Melissa spends her time trying to piece together the last of his secrets and completing a journal her father began—one about love and relationships and the remarkable ways people find one another. But when tragedy strikes, Melissa has to start living and loving in the present, as she realizes that being beautiful on the outside doesn't mean you can't be beautiful on the inside.
This is a lyrical tale of love, loss and self-discovery from the author of THE SEPTEMBER SISTERS.
And here's what a few fabulous authors have said about the book so far:
“The hardest tests of adolescence don’t come in English, Algebra, or Biology. They come in those defining moments, when we are asked to know ourselves and to follow our true hearts. In THE LIFE OF GLASS, the supremely engaging Melissa McAllister has reached her crucible moment. She’s sweet. She’s confused. She’s believable. She’s the right kind of soul for our times."--Beth Kephart, author of Undercover and the National Book Award finalist The Slant of Sun
"THE LIFE OF GLASS is a beautifully rendered novel. Cantor is pitch-perfect, capturing the thoughts and mind-set of her characters with a precise familiarity that will have teenagers nodding their head in recognition and adults wistfully looking back. A must read."--Cecilia Galante, author of The Patron Saint of Butterflies
Because the book has a lot to do with beauty, we'll be blogging about that topic all week! To enter to win, all you have to do is comment on this post or any of the others this week, and/or do any of the other things listed over on the sidebar. >>>>>> You'll also be entered to win $100 to Amazon that we'll be giving away at the end of the month!
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