Tote bag and Moleskine consumerism

I am such a bag-ho. Er, bag-a-holic? Or perhaps bag dependent...yeah.

Anyhow, I've been drooling over the simplest things...the new Lands' End tote bags. Especially the one in orange. My kids go on so many overnights that I'd love to get them a tote each, even if Mermaid already has a bag she likes to use! And maybe order one for Roadtrips (not that I go on many these days) a few for the grocery store (I already have tons of reusable bags thanx to Trader Joes) and one or two for the beach/daytrips! *sigh*

It's not as if I use all the bags I own. I already have a large size tote that I packed up midsummer for the beach or for the waterpark, but neither child wanted to go to either by that point! So it sat in my room, all packed up with no place to go.  :-(   I may have to repurpose that tote for other things, like storing my Asus, writing pads, pens and other paraphanalia for those rare times I go to the coffee shop now to write.


My other vice, blank books and date books was expressed earlier this week. The local Borders now carries the full line of Moleskine date/calender and blank/lined books, and I drooled at the sight of this one. After a week and half, I finally had the chance to go back and grab it. Now...I have to start USING my growing collection of blank books and stuff. Or maybe I'll just buy a tote and plunk them all in it.

Swan Song by Robert McGannon

First off, let me say that one of my favorite books from a while back is McGannon's Boy's Life. It was a magical mystery tour of boyhood in a small southern town, with a flavor all its own even though it covered some of the same types of material a Twain or a King has covered. It had McGannon's own stamp on it, and was positively stuffed with plot, subplots, mysteries within mysteries, and possibly redemptions even of those whom you wouldn't think deserve redemption, even in a small way.

Swan Song came out sometime later than Boy's Life (I think; I'll have to check the copyright dates). It's about as unlike Boy's Life, a gentle magical story of growth, death and living, as you could get. Some of the themes in Swan Song are similiar, but that's what happens when you read books written by the same author!

Swan Song takes place just before, during, immediately after, and then seven years after a nuclear war has devastated the world. In America, the remnants of the population deal with a nuclear Winter of zero degree days (30F if they're lucky) and subzero nights. Among the survivors is a former bag lady who regains her sanity and faces her personal demons thanks to a amazing glass ring veined with precious metals and rubies, diamonds and other stones. The ring is the size of a crown, with five spikes coming out of it, and thanks to some incredible magic, the nuclear bomb that destroyed New York City melded it into an incredible device. It sends her on waking dreams to find something (she doesn't know what) that only years later she can put the clues together and find whom the ring belongs.

Meanwhile, also wandering through the devastation are a little girl, and a giant black man (who becomes her gaurdian). The little girl, Swan, is part of the key to waking the earth. But she's opposed by a monster walking the earth. He's never given a name directly, but it's hinted he's called Legion, and is full of hate; as he wanders the landscape finding survivors, he makes them horrible things to each other and to themselves.

A third group is headed by a former Colonel in the Air Force, and his sidekick is a boy, the real brains of the operation. They grow a brutal army of thugs, kill anyone who isn't perfect (ie, has no keloid growths and scars on their bodies) and are eventually taken over by the walking Evil with a roving red eye. Meanwhile, shortly after the nuclear bombs have contaminated the world, about 60 to 65% of the population develops hard growths over their skulls and faces. These are later called Job's Masks.

Now, there ARE a fair number of similarities between Swan Song and The Stand--not the least of which is a living supernatural evil with the requisite red eye. I have no way of knowing how much King's work influenced McGannon's own work, but looking past King's possible influence, you can clearly see Tolkien's enormous presence in the structure. McGannon doesn't follow the form of Lord of the Rings as clearly as King does in The Stand. Some of the tropes are inverted (the savior isn't a male). Instead of Mordor being one place, it's everywhere. Swan Song's inhabitants live in the horror that Tolkien describes in Mordor, and King likens to a type of civilization in The Stand.

What I liked about Swan Song was the major presence of women in the novel. Swan, the title character, is female, and grows from the child we meet to a young woman later on. Sister is the former bag lady and now keeper of the crown. Sherrie is a prostitute (recreation lady) with the Army of Excellence. And later, we meet Glory and her son Aaron in a little woebegone town in Missouri called Mary's Rest, after the Virgin Mary, one presumes. All of these women are strong, are their own personalities and characters, and have their own opinions and make their own decisions.

If anything, Swan Song is a darker book than The Stand, going into detail with the horrors of the aftermath of a nuclear war and winter, the loss of hope, the cruelty of people to one another and the treatment of the dead. McGannon doesn't hold back on much. It's not full of 'gratuitous' horror except for one section. If anything, he hits the right note of desperation with some of his characters, and the emergence of hope, and what people become willing to fight for.

In an interview (click this link) McGannon explains why he left writing for a while (there was an empty period when he stopped writing) when he read criticisms calling him "the poor man's King". I've seen this accusation in an Amazon review about Swan Song and although I can see how someone could think that, the person who says that isn't thinking about the tradition both writers come from; they're about the same age. There are regional differences.

After reading Swan Song, The Stand, and Earth Abides, to read a series of books like Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series...you can understand my disappointment with her handling (or *not* handling) of the plague/end of the world trope. Do I recommend this book? Yes, especially if you like this subgenre. It does get very bleak, though. It's worth reading.