Hey, I’m turning on a new leaf. I have a new web page, and so this is going to be my new blog. No major changes though -- I remain an accidental blogger, and proud of it. ;-)

I’m ending the year with a LTTR marathon. I’ve seen FOTR tonight, TT is going to be tomorrow and The Return of the King on early on Wednesday -- really early, as the show starts one minute past midnight. Second viewing so far is no less impressive than the first. If anything, it left me hungry for all the bits that had been cut out. I must get the extended version DVD -- though nothing bits watching this epic on a big screen.

Watching it tonight made me want to write fantasy, lol. What is so appealing of those epic tales? Is it the odds -- the ultimate sacrifice to avert the ultimate evil? Is this what makes it so catharsistic? The way it makes our daily squabbles look small and trivial? Aristotle insisted that real tragedy had to have high characters -- kings and queens, whose downfall carried significance beyond their own existence. Only that could bring about the true catharsis, the purging through pity and terror that cleanses and ennobles.

That brings about another interesting question, though: how to strike the right balance (or make the right choice) for our characters. Should they really be larger than life so what happens to them has larger meaning, or should they be just like us, realistic, erratic but ultimately insignificant if not just boring? Standard genre approach is to show heroes, people beyond the ordinary, like Aristotelian kings and queens. Literary world tends to dwell on the everyday and trivial and turning that into fine art. On the one hand, I sympathize with this approach and want real people in all their frailty and mediocrity should inhabit the pages of my prose because that’s what people really are. But then, it’s the larger than life heroes and heroines that we want to remember. Heroic tales have impacted our cultures and our collective psyche so much more than the best tales of the ordinary life. Everybody remembers Ulysses; who can mention Proust’s characters? Or even Kafka’s (except for Mr. K)? Though arguably, Proust’s and Kafka’s works have bigger artistic merit than Homer’s tales (although it’s hard to compare, really).

Oh well, I’m ranting. It’s 04:00; maybe I’d better go to bed?