what is the point of it all?

I just finished Mirror Mirror, by Gregory Maguire. It was ok. I feel like there was probably a point in there somewhere but I don’t know what it is. Maybe if I talk through the plot, I’ll figure it out:

There is a guy, who is widowed, and he has a young daughter and they live in Italy, but he is originally from Spain. One day, there are some distinguished visitors called the Borgias. These characters (Lucrezia and Cesare) are based on real people who lived during the renaissance. They were sort of like the de Medicis… the father was the Pope and they weilded a lot of political power. They were also flamboyant, attractive, and really big on incest. Those crazy Italians!

Anyway, the father gets sent on a quest to find a bough from the tree of knowledge by Cesare. He asks Lucrezia (who he is sort of blackmailing since he saw her try to murder her own child) to look after his daughter Bianca. Years pass and the father doesn’t come back. Then Cesare comes to visit and gets the hots for young Bianca. Lucrezia gets jealous and sends Bianca out to be murdered by a hunter. The hunter takes her out but doesn’t kill her. She falls at the foot of a hill and these weird, stone-like, dwarf-like creatures take her in, but she is in a deep sleep. They wait for years for her to wake up and she finally does. She bleeds menstrual blood all over them and some other weird things happen.

Meanwhile Cesare dies of syphillis and the father is helped by one of the stone-dwarf things and escapes from prison and gets the bough from the tree of knowledge and comes back, but his daughter disappeared 6 years ago. He goes off looking for her. Oh, and there is a mirror hanging in their house that the stone dwarf things made and through it Lucrezia sees that Bianca is still alive. Her son (the one she tried to kill, who is actually the product of her incestuous relationship with her brother, and is kind of “not all there”) finds Bianca and is tricked into showing his mother where she is. So she tries to kill her a few more times (one time dressing up like a giant penis). Finally, she manages to poison her and she sleeps for several more years. then the hunter who was sent to kill her finds her, kisses her and she wakes up. The end.

??? (baffled look). I don’t know what to say. I liked Wicked better. I’m also ready for a book that makes sense, so I think I’ll read Suite Francaise next.

What’s that I see coming from the sky? Rain? Confetti? Bird poop? Why no! It’s the beginning of the reading BLIZZARD!!!! I see Samara has posted something too, but I haven’t read it yet and will for now ignore it, because I have something much more important to say. I have started my Wildcard pick. I bought this at the airport, coming back from my wonderful trip with Samara and Ursula. I absolutely hate flying post-911, but the only thing that makes it worthwhile (except for the potential frisk from the lovely TSA ladies) is the chance to buy a book, guilt-free, from the airport bookstand. Going to a normal bookstore, like Borders, I generally feel obligated to buy something literary, but at the airport, it’s a free-for-all and a great excuse to buy trashy novels. This is where I discovered Tom Robbins and Carl Hiassen after all. This time I opted for “Mirror Mirror” by Gregory Maguire. I’m haven’t infiltrated into literary circles enough to know whether this qualfies as trash or literature, but whatever.

The only other thing I’ve read by the esteemed Mr. Maguire is Wicked, which I thought was wicked brilliant. I used to be a little skeptical of authors who based their stories off of existing stories, and that is pretty much all this guy does. Wicked was based on the Wizard of Oz, Mirror Mirror is based on Snow White. But hey, let’s face it, there are about 7 plots in the world and we’re all basically working off the same ones, so why not be blatant about it, no?

Anyway, I’m on page 52 and not completely absorbed in it yet. And he uses a lot of big words. Now I’m an educated person. I at least have a bachelor’s degree. In my family, that is considered pretty low, but frankly I have no desire to get a master’s degree. Samara and Ursula (and even Jon) think they are all hot stuff, but I’d personally rather sit by the fire with a glass of organic, sulfite-free red wine and a good book than study for a master’s degree. Anyway, I digress (too much sulfite-free red wine tonight)…what was I talking about?

Oh yeah… big words. I was an english major and am a writer, but I am a copywriter. That means that I pride myself on writing words that people understand. Like real people. Like Sarah Fucking Palin. She’s got the right idea. Darnit and Hockey Mom are words that Joe Plumber understands. But Gregory Maguire is not Sarah Palin, so I am keeping a running tally of words to look up. I still think he’s brilliant, but it sometimes happens that I read an entire paragaph and have no idea what has just happened. Here’s a sampilng of words I don’t know:

Simony

crozier

infessura

infans Romanus

Nereids

ostler

Well, there are a lot of other ones too. Besides this one, I’ve also picked out my controversial pick for the Blizzard. It’s called “Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha, and Christ Unveiled” by Acharya S. I figure that if the author has only an initial as her last name, this has to be Real, True, Contoversy. I got this from Jon’s stash. Sweet.

Well, happy reading. I’m going to read Samara’s post now.