Jupiter Ascending gets smart about fairytales

You might have heard a lot of noise about this movie Jupiter Ascending. You might have heard it's awful, it's poorly written, it's very very pretty, it's awful (but in the fun way). There's a common strain here. Because this movie is openly glittery, absurd, fantastic, and ridiculous, because it embraces its tropes and archetypes so wholeheartedly, nobody seems to take it very seriously.

So let's try taking it seriously.

I mean what the heck, right?

A few critics have called Jupiter Ascending a fairytale, a Cinderella in space. They're half right - it's a fairytale, but it's not Cinderella. Well, not entirely. It's also Tam Lin.

For people who didn't grow up around a bunch of Celtic folklore nerds like I did, Tam Lin is the classic tale of a lord's daughter who wanders into the Forbidden Wood (because seriously has anyone ever done literally anything other than wander into that place?) There she meets hunky knight Tam Lin, sleeps with him, goes home, finds out she's pregnant, goes back, finds out he lives there because he was enthralled by fairies an unspecified number of years ago, and finds out ADDITIONALLY that the fairy queen plans to kill him in about a month. One month later she steps out to meet him and proceeds to save his life by yanking him off a horse and wrestling him to the ground as he transforms into all manner of wriggling wildlife. She then hauls off  takes home her young shirtless nubile prize noble knight and marries him. The end!

Make no mistake - Jupiter Ascending is a fairytale. Even though they're technically human the Abrasax are fairies, and even though he's a shirtless doggie on SPACE ROLLER SKATES Caine is Tam Lin. That's important, because in fairytales - the old fairytales - fairies are monsters in their just as vicious and vampires and werewolves. And the Wachowskis understand them better than almost any creator I've seen barring Terry Pratchett (may he rest in peace).

At the core, every monster we imagine up represents something dark in ourselves. Vampires represent repressed desire. Werewolves represent repressed fury. And fairies...fairies represent privilege.

As beings of privilege, fairies are Better Than You, and they'll do anything to convince you of that - trick and tempt you, bedazzle and beguile you - because if they can convince that your place is at their heel, they've won. You're theirs.

But here's the secret. Fairies can't create. They can't build, they can't craft, they can't cook or weave or write. All they can do is consume, so they build a world of glamour to convince others to feed their hunger. That glamour is a lie of course, but it's a lie strong enough to build empires on.

Privilege is the fairies' power, but it's also their weakness, because they're bound to follow its rules. They have to behave gracefully and glamorously, or they lose their grace and their glamour. And once you can see beyond all that glitz and glamour and power...they're really not that impressive. You don't have to serve them anymore.

You're free.

Let's take a look at that word. Glamour. It's no coincidence that we use it, a word once used for the magic of lies, to describe the rich and powerful in our own society. Much as the fairies shape beauty and lies, our elites use their power and their privilege to shape the definition of beauty to their own ends. We see them in magazines and advertisements in all their glory, and we want to be like that - and we can. For just a small monetary fee right now, and a larger fee over time in the form our diminishing self-worth.

It's a glamour more real than any fairy could cast.

But it's still just a lie.

Matt Stover's Test of Metal puts us at the labyrinth's heart

I've played Magic: the Gathering since I was pretty young, but I make a point of not reading the licensed tie-in novels. To put it bluntly, they're not very good; at best, a guilty pleasure. In fact, I probably wouldn't have opened Test of Metal at all if not for one small detail: Matt Stover's name on the cover. A long time ago in a town far, far away, I read his novelization of Star Wars Episode III, and found it far better than the actual movie. Okay, I thought. This could be worth my time.

And it was.

Under Matt Stover's hand, what could have easily been Another Stupid Contract Novel becomes a genuinely deep discussion of how power stifles understanding and how trial and insight can help us become the best versions of ourselves. It’s about changing and becoming the person you need to be, and then, when that person is no longer the right person, becoming again.

Particularly brilliant is its labyrinth motif. There's much discussion of their design and purpose, but the true stroke of genius is Stover's careful eye toward structure. Test of Metal isn't just about labyrinths; it is a labyrinth, circling around and around until we end at the middle: the center, the goal, the answer. And like our antihero Tezzeret, we you don’t learn the solution so much as we become the person at the center, the person who understands themselves and the nature of the puzzle.

In a labyrinth, power is weakness, because having power makes us impatient, simple, direct. Power entices us to cut straight to the goal…but a labyrinth has no goal. There is no prize, no treasure at the center; the treasure is who you become by following its path. The center isn't a destination, it's just a signpost marking the end of the journey. The journey is the trial, and the trial is its own reward.

Even if you don't play Magic, I'd pick up this book. Some unfortunate casual sexism aside, Stover has crafted in Test of Metal a work of keen insight into the nature of human growth and progression.

Read it once to reach the center, to understand the puzzle. Then read it again

"Memoir of an Independent Woman" takes a walk through history

I don't read memoirs. It's not that I think poorly of them; it's that I don't think of them at all. I'm very pleased to say that Tania Grossinger's Memoir of an Independent Woman convinced me otherwise. In many ways, it’s exactly what it says on the cover: a powerful and personal tale of the life of an extraordinary and fundamentally Jewish woman in during a time of great cultural change in America.

Structured as a series of letters to the daughter she never had, Ms. Grossinger builds this story of her life not as a timeline but as a set of thematic threads woven together partly by time and place, but more by conceptual association. This is a wise choice, creating a rambling, conversational tale covering themes ranging from family to career-building to romance to mental health. She delivers it through anecdotes about her early life at Grossinger’s, the resort hotel that attracted America’s elite, to the who’s-who of historical personalities she met working in PR, to her rocky relationships both familial and romantic, to her later work as a travel writer. These little bits of history often touch on difficult and personal subject matter, but Tania approaches all with commendable grace and insight, reflecting as much on her own perspective and actions as the events around her.

Before reading her book, I had the good fortune to speak with Tania, who generously took the time out of her book tour for a call. Speaking with her in advance brought her story to life in a way I'm lucky to have experienced. With her voice and her unique, rambling style of storytelling fresh in my mind, it was almost as if she were reading the book to me herself. Few writers can convey their style of speech as written word, but Ms. Grossinger does so with an understated grace that is truly remarkable.

Often funny, sometimes bitter, always fascinating and wise, Memoir of an Independent Woman binds the personal and the historical into one thoroughly charming whole. For anyone interested in what it means to be a Jew in America, a woman in America, or a person in America, I recommend it. For anyone interested in American culture or history, I recommend it doubly.

Memoir of an Independent Woman: An Unconventional Life Well Lived was published by Skyhorse Publishing in 2013. It can be found here.