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This was of the funnest books I can remember reading in a long time. Gripping, funny and told in a totally original and authentic voice you can’t help but be hooked in by this part-Apollo 13, part-Castaway survival story.
Mark Watney is an astronaut, part of the third manned mission to Mars. Six days after landing on Mars a fierce dust storm forces Mark and his crewmates to abandon the planet. However during the evacuation Mark is left behind. Now he must work out how is going to survive on Mars until the next resupply mission. In two years time.
The majority of the book is told via Mark’s log entries detailing his survival. The log is written in a beautifully sarcastic tone where outright panic is only a hair’s breath away. There is plenty of self-deprecating humour and the log format works perfectly in detailing Mark’s day-to-day survival.
Mark is completely stranded. He has no way of communicating with his crewmates or NASA. He only has enough food and water to last half the time he needs. Mark puts to work his skills as an engineer and botanist to figure out if he can survive. The how is one of the most entertaining reads you will come across. Full of insane (but practical) problem solving you are glued to the book wanting to find out how Mark gets himself out of each new predicament he finds himself in. I defy anyone to be able to put this down once they start!
I lost my wallet somewhere between King and Market Streets in San Francisco after Game #1 of The World Series. Amidst my husband’s and my mad dash to catch the Bart in front of the legions of people swarming from behind us out of the ballpark; I somehow managed to drop a wallet. That’s a big piece of dirt to re-trace, and an impossible feat, even if I wanted to do it.
The point is moot anyway, because I didn’t even know I lost my wallet until I tried to tip the hotel shuttle guy at the airport the next morning. The realization that I had lost my wallet and that I could be stranded in Oakland without any money or access to money left me dazed and confused. I felt helpless, particularly since my husband had left on an earlier flight, and I wouldn’t be able to board my flight back to LAX from Oakland without my ID.
Without money in my pocket, my lips were parched and I needed something to drink. Without money in my pocket; I was suddenly starving, even though I grabbed some food from the complimentary buffet at the hotel. Without money in my pocket; I felt destitute and alone.
Standing in line, waiting to plea my case to a TSA agent, almost in tears about a lost wallet and the possibility of not being able to board a plane without my ID; I happened to notice the burn victim standing in line next to me. The features on his face were barely decipherable and his arms were marred with scars. When he caught me looking, he smiled at me. I forced my frustration and self-pity back down into the cracks and crevices of my being and smiled right back. I was in awe of him, and only imagined what he’d been through to get to his spot in line on this day. My troubles paled by comparison.
I somehow managed to get through the day. Whoever told you that you couldn’t fly without identification was wrong. TSA pulls you aside and asks you a sea of questions that only you could answer. Once they are assured that you’re not some terrorist disguised as a loser who dropped her wallet after a sporting event; they let you pass on through.
It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself. It’s much harder to be the guy who survived a fire of some kind that left him disfigured. Whenever I start to feel sorry for myself; I ask myself whether or not my problem is as bad as any of that. The answer; I hope and pray, will always be no.
Introduced first in 2007, authors debuting children’s books have formed a cooperative effort to market their novels. Last year, I featured many of the stories of how the 2k8 Novels Were Revised. This is part of the ongoing stories from the Class of 2k9 authors and how they went about revising their novels.
After yesterday’s posting about when to stop revising and send in a story, J.T. Dutton’s story seemed especially appropriate. Darcy
Freaked: A Revision Story
Guest Post
by J.T. Dutton
My first book,Freaked, leapt into the world three months ago. Since then, I’ve been trying to form ideas for a short blog on revision. I’ve seized on some good thoughts for the discussion, stuff I teach in my Composition classes, ways to revise to improve sentences or arguments through better examples. I am an intense devotee of the school of write and rewrite. “Nothing is so smooth it can’t be smoother” is one of my mantras.
But when I have to talk about the revising I did on Freaked, I feel shy. I read a lot and I can think of fifty or hundred novels that I see as perfect—every sentence, word, and scene. I’d like to be a “perfect” writer too, but the fact is, I’m not. I get muddled. I have reread Freaked at least three times since it came into print, each time cringing at the number of things I would change now that I’m older and wiser. This is after revising it hundreds of times over twelve years, with the last pass conducted by some of the smartest people in the writing business—the editors and copy editors at HarperCollins.
Surgeons Don’t Get “Do Overs”
My Dad reminded me recently, when I was expressing angst about my second book, Stranded, of a quote from Albert Einstein, “perfection is the enemy of good.” My Dad is a retired surgeon. In his field, he didn’t get do-overs. He had to believe in his skills, be courageous about them. He is always stopping to offer assistance at road-side accidents. He volunteers for an ambulance service and a local fire department despite the fact that he faces liability issues as the most prepared person on the scene if something goes wrong. (This is why some doctor’s don’t stop for emergencies.)
Dad has made it a lifetime practice to do what he can, when he can. He even “vacations” every couple of years at hospital in Haiti.
Revision is a great thing, but for people like me, it can lead to obsession and excuses not to share my work. At a certain point, I have to take my dad’s advice and admit that I can’t tuck every thread, that I’m flawed, that I make mistakes, but it’s better to offer the world what skills I have than to offer it nothing at all. In this way, I guess, the writing can be interesting, individual, and courageous, rather than perfect.
Thank you, thank you to Confessions of a Bibliovore for finding this. I love hearing the LOTR music in one part. I saw the Bayeux Tapestry as a child and it has fascinated me ever since.
Related: The King's Shadow by Elizabeth Alder, 1995
3 Comments on The Bayeux Tapestry, last added: 5/12/2007
This was of the funnest books I can remember reading in a long time. Gripping, funny and told in a totally original and authentic voice you can’t help but be hooked in by this part-Apollo 13, part-Castaway survival story.
0 Comments on My Identity Crisis as of 1/1/1900
Have you read The Invention of Truth: A Novel by Marta Morazzoni? It is about the Bayeux Tapestry. The story is still with me a dozen years later.
No, I have not read it. It is going on the list! Thank you.
Love the name of your blog! Having taught English, the term folk moot and images of the Bayeux Tapestry are always with me.
And thanks for suggesting The King's Shadow...Harold and William of Normandy are also great interests.