The Reader Travels

You can’t have a hitchhiking jag without talking about Douglas Adams, right? Of course, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy travels an altogether different kind of road. It may be time to revisit these travels because right now, the only rules I halfway remember are carrying a towel and humoring a Vogon about his poetry.

My first encounter with these books was watching my dearest friend laughing hysterically as she read them in 1987. At the time, I was studying hard in college and didn’t have time for recreational reading, so it wasn’t until I met my man in 1992 that I actually read them. And then I understood the answer to life, the universe and everything. Of course, I still don’t know the question.

When Douglas Adams died, I was on a voyage of my own. I recall hearing about his death as I stood at a roulette table on a cruise ship somewhere in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. As is my wont, I paid tribute to Mr. Adams for halloween that year. My Zaphod Beeblebrox costume was even beneath the production value of the BBC television series. But still, I find Zaphod’s second head every October, its one eye staring back at me from the costume bag in the hall closet, and I rejoice the influence of the writer’s life.

I had a special yellow library card when I was growing up that only allowed me to check out books from the young adult section. There was a whole world of books in that library, but beyond the kid stuff, I only had access to one lonely bookcase from Judy Blume to Paul Zindell, one long row of self-esteem and anti-drug propaganda bound in hard back.

Ahead of Judy Blume, there was a book by Anonymous called Go Ask Alice, which was turned into a TV movie in 1973. It’s written as the diary of a teen-aged girl who gets all spaced out on drugs. The movie includes the ever-popular “White Rabbit” performed by Jefferson Airplane, you know the one, “One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the ones that Mother gives you don’t do anything at all….”

Anyway, not that I think getting spaced out on drugs is a good idea, but this sort of mind control hogwash is just rude. Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing the movie, purely for its soundtrack and camp value.

So, I’m on my road trip now, and it seemed only appropriate that I actually read Alice in Wonderland, which would have been a much better choice than any of the crap on the young adult propaganda aisle. It’s quite the magical trip, fun for all ages. Just don’t try to read too much into it, especially when you get to the hookah-smoking caterpillar on the edible mushroom. Just enjoy the ride.

The Blood of the Templar is not so much a road trip book as historical fiction with a fantastical twist, but there’s a long journey from the holy lands to Paris then London and back again. It even opens with a chase scene.

The Knights Templar have long been a subject for conspiracy theorists and lovers of intrigue. Most recently Dan Brown brought these theories to the masses with The Da Vinci Code (which I haven’t read); and popular movies like National Treasure took us on parallel adventures connecting the Masons and the Templar to ever more layers of conspiracy. And we mustn’t forget The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which was a conspiracy in and of itself.

But no one has dared to speak the real truth about the Templar, that the inner circle lived in darkness and actually fed on the blood of their enemies. Not until now. 

What I really like about this book are the historical elements. We see the tensions between the Knights Templar and their rival Knights Hospitaller (a.k.a., the Knights of St. John).  But the best part is looking deeper into the holy struggle between Muslims and Christians, where both sides are righteous and both eternally flawed.

My first introduction to Tom Robbins was through his book Skinny Legs and All, and it changed my life, taking me on a very unexpected journey and giving me a direction to follow for years to come.

Tom Robbins set me free. I figured, if he can give a bunch of inaminate objects personalities and purpose beyond their original function; if he could make a can of beans and a sock and a spoon and a stick and a conch shell speak; if he can take them all on a pilgramage to the holy land, then why can’t I grant a magical life to a magnolia tree?

Not that as a writer I could ever compare myself to the hilarious and mystical Mr. Robbins, but I can still be inspired by him.

Even though my grandmother had always challenged me to write her family history, I knew I could never have enough facts to make it more than fiction. I wanted to use the magnolia tree as a symbol of her life, of the generations of women in her family. I never imagined I could make the tree more than a symbol, but the conch shell and the painted stick, those wielders of magic and protectors of ancient religions, have granted her real life.

As I start to shop for publishers, I do wonder, though, who will be my audience. Lovers of family drama who are also fans of Tolkien’s ents? It’s a thin line, but I know you’re out there.

Some people like to read more into the Middle-Earth tales than the author intended. They like to think that Lord of the Rings was about the evils of industrialism, just because the bad guys ripped up a few trees.

Well, in the spirit of reading more into something than was intended by the author, let’s talk about the mysoginy of J.R.R. Tolkien. For one thing, everything’s all about this male camaraderie, but that’s not even the half of it.

If you have read The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, you may have noticed that the most treacherous adventures happened inside of caves. And what is a cave, but a big hole? And a big hole is all a mysoginist sees in women. Right?

So, when we follow poor Bilbo into the orc caves, where it’s dark, and he can’t see his way out, it’s really just a metaphor for losing himself in a relationship with a woman. Finally, he takes his ring and leaves the cave to find himself free and empowered in the light of day.

Many cave terrors happen throughout the course of the hobbit tales - a fight with a dragon, orcs, goblins, a mighty cow of a cave troll and the infamous balrog, that bitch from hell. All I’m saying is, it’s possible J.R.R. didn’t think too highly of women. See what I’m saying?

We’ve been skirting around Middle Earth for the past three weeks, and we’ve finally arrived. J.R.R. Tolkien took the stories of the mythical ring and turned them into a whole new genre of literature.

Like many fantasy adventure books, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings include maps to help you with your journey. And while you’re traveling, you’re bound to run into people who speak different languages. Tolkien was a linguist, and he built his stories around the need to share his elven languages with the world.

What a wonder are these travels, rich with magic, culture and language, good food, drink and smoke. Oh, and the geography is fantastical - hills and mountains, plains, rivers, forests. Be wary of the caves, though.

The badger thought he would be defeated by a big burly blonde German warrior, not nerdy little Malcolm Fisher in his beat-up car. He really was Expecting Someone Taller.

Tom Holt brings the cursed Rhine gold ring to modern-day England by way of Ingolf the giant, disguised as a lowly badger to escape the greedy hands of Wotan and his army of valkyries. Malcolm’s life is turned upside down when he runs over the talking badger, inherits the ring of power and unleashes the wrath of gods who all think the ring is rightfully theirs.

Holt is a fan of Wagner, who composed a whole series of operas called The Ring of the Nibelung. He’s also quite the comedian, and Expecting Someone Taller will make you laugh out loud (if you’re one of those people who laughs out loud).

Of course, when I think of Wagner’s viking operas, I have another funny image in my head. The song goes, “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit…” I think Holt just had a thing for rabbits and decided to kill a badger instead.

If you want to immerse yourself in the Norse myths, Thorarinn Gunnarson can take you travelling on the wings of valkyries, soaring from the heavens to the tree that gave birth to the gods on earth, to the Rhine river and beyond. His novels Song of the Dwarves and Revenge of the Valkyrie are a fun way to learn all about the origins of the world and the forging of that pesky ring, blessed with power and cursed with blood.

My first step in writing this entry was to retrieve these two books from my shelves so I could spell the author’s name. The second step was to look for a biography in the back of the books so I could maybe figure out if Thorarinn was a he or a she. That having failed, I looked it up on the Internet.

That’s where things got interesting. Every reference I’ve found refers to Thorarinn as “he,” but that’s about all anyone can say about this mysterious writer, other than the fact that “Thorarinn Gunnarsson” is, in fact, a pseudonym.

I really enjoyed this piece on the myth of Thorarinn Gunnarsson. He has not only rewritten the Norse myths, he has made of himself an all new mythology. And I am now convinced that Thorarinn is no mere Viking. He must truly be Odhinn himself.

From Avalon in the British isles, we travel across the North Sea to enter the mainland via the Rhine River. The river has a rich and magical history, whose mythologies gave birth to modern day fantasy fiction. If Middle Earth were a real place, this is where it would be.

Stephan Grundy’s Rhinegold takes us back in time and imagination, where we can take part in the wicked games of the Norse gods - Wodan and Loki and others. We learn the tale of the ring forged from gold found in the Rhine River. There are dragons and dwarves and gods making magic.

But this is no ordinary fantasy. In fact, it’s one of the most righteously violent books I have ever read. Sure there were wars and battles aplenty in Tolkein’s works, but that’s not what I’m talking about. This is man to man, man to beast, cutting to the bone.

Some of the best scenes are of the hunt, one man, one blade. It makes me think what wimpy sportsmen we have today, hunting with guns. If you can chase that animal down and grab it with both arms and wrestle it to the ground as your knife stabs into it, and your heart beats faster as you feel your prey’s heart stop, well then, you, my friend, are a sportsman.

In Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Forest House, mushrooms are the drug of choice. In her poisoned haze, the high priestess can see the past, the future and the present. Like the Druids, San Francisco’s youth are also famed for their appreciation of hallucinogens, even if they do lack the sensibility and spirituality of Avalon’s priestesses.

In actuality, the priestesses don’t have any more sense than the trippin’ hippies of the ’60s. They’re still self important, immature and insecure, worshipping self destruction. But at least they’re not doing it because everyone else is doing it, like a bunch of sheep. They kept it to a few high-placed individuals, seers, who sacrificed their well being for their people.

It was okay when LSD was limited to people like Aldous Huxley and Carey Grant, mature individuals exploring the recesses of their minds, privately, like Plato’s philosopher kings. But the masses would only abuse this gift. “Hey man, let’s drop acid and go to Six Flags. Won’t that be righteous? Duh, huh.”

We can blame it all on The Beatles, right?