Book Blog #311: Working on a Song: the Lyrics of HADESTOWN by Anaïs Mitchell

 

Title: Working on a Song

Author: Anaïs Mitchell

# of Pages: 257 (paperback)

Genre: Nonfiction, Plays

Rating: ★★★★★

Synopsis: In this book, Anais Mitchell takes readers inside her more than decade's-long process of building the musical from the ground up--detailing her inspiration, breaking down the lyrics, and offering thoughtful annotations of Hadestown. Fans of the musical will love this deeply thoughtful, revealing, and open look at how the songs from "the underground" evolved and became what they are today.

Review: I love the musical Hadestown, so of course I love the book that describes the process of it becoming what it is today! 

*Disclaimer: I don't consider there to be spoilers in talking about the contents of this book since it is nonfiction. A lot of the points I am talking about here have already been discussed online. I'm also not considering any Hadestown spoilers to be spoilers in this review. 

Hadestown is by no means a new musical - it's been put on as an album and as a production many times before it ever reach broadway. When I was becoming obsessed with the Broadway album, I was surprised to find another album of songs that were similar, but with slightly different lyrics. Turns out some records of other versions of this musical exists out there, and that there is a lot more to the story that what is presented in the Broadway production.

In Working on a Song, Mitchell goes song by song and describes how each on evolved from Off-Broadway (NYTW) -> Citadel Theater in Edmonton -> London's National Theater -> Broadway. The Broadway production is already an amazing masterpiece, but this book shows that even a masterpiece has imperfections. Some decisions Mitchell didn't seem happy about, but cuts and edits had to be made in for the sake not letting any given act run too long or to make it more palatable to a Broadway audience (e.g. cutting out some of the more obviously lines alluding to sexual abuse between Hades and Eurydice). 

It was also cool to hear how the perception of the musical changed from 2006 to now and how different parts of the musical stood out to people depending on the sociopolitical climate (e.g. sexual undertones between Hades and Eurydice's contract during the surge of the #MeToo movement, Hades capitalistic wall during Trump's campaign + presidency). 

The part that stood out the most to me was actually the note on "We Raise Our Cups." Before reading this book, I would almost always listen to the soundtrack all the way through (rather than skipping around to my favorite songs). However, whenever I would get to the final song, I was always pretty disinterested. I wasn't a fan of the song, and the story at that point is over (it felt more like a farewell for the live performance that I didn't feel was necessary when only listening to the soundtrack). I was happy to hear that Mitchell's feelings weren't dissimilar - "I tried to cut 'We Raise Our Cups' from Hadestown in every single production we did post-NYTW" (254). But I was really touched to hear what the song was meant to be saying particularly about the following lines:

Some birds sing when the sun shines bright 

Our praise is not for them

But the ones who sing in the dead of night 

We raise our cups to them

... Some flowers bloom

Where the green grass grows

Our praise is not for them

But the ones who bloom in the bitter snow

We raise our cups to them

I never closely examined these lyrics until this book when Mitchell explains this is meant to be praise for Orpheus "not because he succeeds, but because he tries" (255). The idea that it's not about merely being praised for weathering challenges but also trying for things that might even be doomed to failed (as Orpheus was doomed to fail in this old tragedy). Mitchell relates these experiences to a flower - the flower is the beautiful success that most people see and recognize, but all of the experiences and failures are the seeds and the roots that made the success possible. It really supports the idea that all experiences help build character and make you the person you are today, whether they are good and bad. Just like Mitchell's writing process, even experience that might not seem relevant can result in some sort of success later down the line. 

The meaning of this song is actually very inspiring, especially for those who suffer from imposter syndrome that otherwise might hold them back from certain experiences and opportunities. The worst you can do is fail - and that failure can help bring you one step closer to success somewhere else. 

For fans of Hadestown - I would HIGHLY recommend this book. If you haven't seen the musical yet - I think it is a must watch (regardless if you want to read the book or not) and definitely required content to fully appreciate Working on a Song.

Book Blog #310: The Oceanography of the Moon

 

Title: The Oceanography of the Moon

Author: Glendy Vanderah 

# of pages: 319 (paperback)

Genre: Adult, Romance, Mystery

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Synopsis: After the untimely deaths of her aunt and mother, young Riley Mays moved from Chicago to her cousins’ Wisconsin farm. Here she found solace in caring for her extraordinary adoptive brother, exploring the surrounding wild nature, and gazing at the mystical moon—a private refuge in which she hides from her most painful memories. But ten years later, now twenty-one, Riley feels too confined by the protective walls she’s erected around herself. When a stranger enters her family’s remote world, Riley senses something he’s hiding, a desire to escape that she understands well. Suffering from writer’s block, bestselling novelist Vaughn Orr has taken to the country roads when he happens upon the accommodating, if somewhat unusual, Mays family. He’s soon captivated by their eccentricities—and especially by Riley and her quiet tenacity. In her, he recognizes a shared need to keep heartbreaking secrets buried.

Review: This was just....not good. I wish I didn't waste the time reading it.

I picked this book on a whim - I saw it on the shelf, didn't know anything about it, and saw it was pretty highly rated on Goodreads (with a low but decent amount of reviews). I only let myself walk out of the building with one book that day, and this one was the lucky winner.

I should have left it on the shelf.

Here's what I liked:

- It was a relatively quick read (with spotty reading sessions, I finished it in a week). The writing and plot is simple enough (+ there is some repetitive points) where you can practically skim it and still get the same experience.

- The cover is pretty, in a simple way. Very ambiguous, definitely some better covers out there (and I bet other designers/artists could have come up with a better cover based on the book), but overall I have no problem with it. 

And as for what I didn't like...

The most obvious offender is first person POV switching. I know this is something I am particularly sensitive to a fault about. Sometimes POV switching is justified (although I still believe that every first person POV switching story can be told better from third person and/or without any POV switching). Sometimes the POV switching doesn't even bother me that much because it's not too disruptive to the flow of the story. 

This was not one of those books. The POV switching was COMPLETELY unnecessary - it is a prime example of why I STRONGLY dislike it when a story is told like this. The Oceanography of the Moon is told from two perspectives - Riley's and Vaughn's. Throughout most of the book, these two characters are interacting with each other, which means there's A LOT of duplicate information for the reader to slog through. 

For example, Riley might mention from her perspective that Vaughn seems to be experience a certain emotion, only for Vaughn to tell us in the very next chapter the EXACT SAME THING but from his perspective. The problem? There is NO new information in doing that. Riley's perspective is good enough, and if it's important to know that she is wrong, then we can find out the same time Riley finds out. 

The second offender is the writing itself. I haven't read Vanderah's other books (and based off of this one, I'm not sure I ever will). However, for this book, her writing simply is not believable. Generally, the characters' dialogue does not sound realistic. There's a moment when climate change is mentioned by people who are supposedly passionate about the topic. However, it was mentioned at such a superficial level to the point that I assume Vanderah did not do enough research on climate change to write a character that could convincingly talk about the topic. Additionally, the romantic development is minimal - way too quick for what I would expect based on the characters and the situation they are in. 

Now, I can usually be overly critical and tear apart a trashy romance BUT a lot fo the time I still end up enjoying it because I am a HUGE sucker for trashy romance (or of course non-trashy romance). When I realized this book was not well written, I thought to myself - "at least we will get some good romance action later on." NOT. I can usually ignore poor character building if the author is able to convincingly write about two people's relationship with the assumption they are deeply in love with each other. Unfortunately this didn't work either because all the hot and heavy moments (regardless if there was sex or not) fell flat. I was not emotionally engaged at all. Anytime a romantic moment came up it was either not described in enough detail (physically, emotionally, you name it) or it was cut short to chug along with the plot. 

The final big offender was the plot. I didn't realize there was even an actual story to read until half way through (I went in blind, didn't read the synopsis), which means this book really lacked focus. The beginning part of the story was so full of fluff and boring. I was not interested in any of these characters nor their backstory and didn't realize that Vanderah intended for the reader to be interested in the mystery of Riley and Vaughn's past until half way in or so. I also was curious on if more would come from the "magic" aspect (no, I didn't even know if this was a sci-fi/fantasy or not, and it was not apparent in the beginning of the story either). On the other hand, the second half of the book read like a soap opera (no spoilers) in the way that soap operas make a bunch of "shocking" reveals and random dramatic things happen at "convenient" times. There was no redeeming section of the book. 

I was flip flopping between 1 and 2 stars while I was reading because I wasn't sure if 1 star was too harsh. But by the end, I, not feeling stimulated emotionally nor intellectually by this book, decided that 1 star is appropriate. 

Don't read this book; it's not worth your time.