Books Blog: books.elliottback.com

So far I’m highly skeptical that a man long dead can produce a book, except by black arts. According to Christopher Tolkien, the author proper, his father painstakingly collected the pieces of the legend into a complete story told only in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien. I don’t buy it; it seems like just another publicity stunt to milk his inheritance. However, if you want to buy this book, Amazon will definitely sell you a copy:

I do love this Amazon review, though: “In Children of Hurin we are again drilled with endless, boring lists of places and names (all of which rhyme of course: Joe, son of Bloe, cousin of Schmoe, sister of Doe, father of Moe, Foe, and Hoe). In the meantime, those of us that purchased a FICTION book to read an actual STORY are left snoozing in our chairs after having to sift through endless page upon page of descriptions of boring people and boring things that mostly have no relevance to the story.”

Entertainment Weekly decided to ask Stephen King about Virginia Tech shooter Cho Heung Sui’s writings to glean a glimpse of the lines between fiction and violence. The short essay is particularly insightful, as it suggests what I’ve been thinking as well–the only link between disturbed writings and massacre is a distinct lack of talent:

For most creative people, the imagination serves as an excretory channel for violence: We visualize what we will never actually do. Cho doesn’t strike me as in the least creative, however. Dude was crazy. […] He may have been inspired by Columbine, but only because he was too dim to think up such a scenario on his own. On the whole, I don’t think you can pick these guys out based on their work, unless you look for violence unenlivened by any real talent.

King also suggests that the media coverage Cho Heung-Sui could win was a contributing factor the VT shootings:

But that was in the days before a gun-totin’ serial killer could get top billing on the Nightly News and possibly the covers of national magazines.

For more information, please read the Virginia Tech Massacre and Seung Hui Cho articles on wikipedia.

A contronym or antagonym is defined as a word which is in itself its own antonym. They are special cases of homographs, different words which share the same spelling. Rinkworks has a long list of them, some highlights of which I will share here with you:

1. apology - admission of fault in what you think, say, or do; formal defense of what you think, say, or do
2. dust - add fine particles, remove fine particles
3. oversight - error, care
4. pitted - with the pit in, with the pit removed
5. rent - buy use of, sell use of
6. table - propose (in the United Kingdom), set aside (in the United States)

There are doubtlessly many many more out there, so leave tons of comments for us in the hopes of acquiring more of these beautiful words!

87 years old, and the author of such fantastic American novels as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat’s Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973), Kurt Vonnegut just passed away. He died last night in his New York home. Morgan Entrekin, a long time family friend, reported the death as brain injuries as a result of a recent fall.

The International Herald Tribune recounts his most formative memory, the firebombing of Dresden:

The defining moment of Vonnegut’s life was the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, by Allied forces in 1945, an event he witnessed firsthand as a young prisoner of war. Thousands of civilians were killed in the raids, many of them burned to death or asphyxiated. “The firebombing of Dresden,” Vonnegut wrote, “was a work of art.” It was, he added, “a tower of smoke and flame to commemorate the rage and heartbreak of so many who had had their lives warped or ruined by the indescribable greed and vanity and cruelty of Germany.”

He also attended Cornell University, my alma mater.

We may not have to wait for his term to end before we can see George W. Bush leave office. Yesterday our Chief Executive nearly blew himself up while inspecting a hybrid car by putting the electric charger into the hydrogen port. This would surely be worthy of the Darwin Award:

Bush blows self up plugging in car (imagined)

Fortunately, Alan Mulally the CEO of Ford averted disaster:

“I just thought, ‘Oh my goodness!’ So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front,” Mulally said. “I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen This is all off the record, right?”

This reminds me greatly of the infamous segway photo where George W. Bush fell off of his segway personal transporter. Trouble (and clumsiness) certainly follows this president around. Or maybe it’s because he got 1206/1600 on the SAT. Natural selection does have a way with us that borders on fate and the eerie!