The Wolves of Midwinter

Friday, September 20, 2013

25 Days of Werewolves Day 1: Teilhard de Chardin 101: Omega Point


For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/


Information About the Book. Preorder Your Copy in Advance of October 15, 2013  Via Amazon/Barnes &Nobles Summary Taken from Amazon Product Page
The tale of THE WOLF GIFT continues . . .In Anne Rice’s surprising and compelling best-selling novel, the first of her strange and mythic imagining of the world of wolfen powers (“I devoured these pages . . . As solid and engaging as anything she has written since her early vampire chronicle fiction” —Alan Cheuse, The Boston Globe; “A delectable cocktail of old-fashioned lost-race adventure, shape-shifting and suspense” —Elizabeth Hand, The Washington Post), readers were spellbound as Rice imagined a daring new world set against the wild and beckoning California coast.Now in her new novel, as lush and romantic in detail and atmosphere as it is sleek and steely in storytelling, Anne Rice brings us once again to the rugged coastline of Northern California, to the grand mansion at Nideck Point—to further explore the unearthly education of her transformed Man Wolf.The novel opens on a cold, gray landscape. It is the beginning of December. Oak fires are burning in the stately flickering hearths of Nideck Point. It is Yuletide. For Reuben Golding, now infused with the wolf gift and under the loving tutelage of the Morphenkinder, this Christmas promises to be like no other . . . as he soon becomes aware that the Morphenkinder, steeped in their own rituals, are also celebrating the Midwinter Yuletide festival deep within Nideck forest.From out of the shadows of the exquisite mansion comes a ghost—tormented, imploring, unable to speak yet able to embrace and desire with desperate affection . . . As Reuben finds himself caught up with the passions and yearnings of this spectral presence and the preparations for the Nideck town Christmas reach a fever pitch, astonishing secrets are revealed, secrets that tell of a strange netherworld, of spirits—centuries old—who possess their own fantastical ancient histories and taunt with their dark, magical powers . . .
25 Unrelenting Days of Wolfish Ferocity, Festive Music with Pagan Underpinnings, Supernatural yarns with Febrile Passion, and Everything concerning the Wolfish World of Anne Rice's Opulent Gothic Wonderland.......

Countdown to The 
Wolves of Midwinter





Teilhard de Chardin 101: The Omega Point & Its Relation to Anne Rice's Wolf Gift Chronicles



Reading Teilhard De Chardin's text can be brutally difficult for individuals like myself, unaccustomed to reading abstract philosophy. Whenever I try to read hardcore, abstract philosophy, my brain feels shuttered and nonfunctional, as though the scattered neurons in my brain are struggling with valor and unabated enthusiasm to comprehend the deep implications of Teilhard De Chardin's theories. Strangely enough, I don't really feel particularly religious at this point in my life, but Teilhard De Chardin's ideas still deeply enthrall me with his ingenious theories about our place in the universe. For those who may not have heard of this brilliant, unorthodox thinker, Teilhard De Chardin was a very smart, progressive thinker in the field of biology during the early portion of the twentieth century. He believed that the theory of evolution shed a much deeper, more sophisticated light on the nature of the universe and how it may have been brought into being. Unfortunately, the Vatican at the time in the early twentieth century condemned such forward-thinking as blasphemous. Teilhard de Chardin was pressured by the Vatican to not publish his rather subversive works about his theistic evolutionary ideas. As such, they were not published till the sixties during the time of Vatican II, when the Catholic Church grew more accepting of a theistic idea of evolution.

 Being raised in a Protestant Fundamentalist world that was stubbornly myopic about scientific matters, I never heard of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin until two years ago. Then again, I barely even knew about the existence of Philosophy, mysticism, or the notion that Biblical text could be read in the same way people read fantasy books or poetry. Then again, most people raised in the unenlightened, darkened world of secretariat religion or separatist fundamentalism tend to build their concept of God within a small, dark space that obdurately refuses to accept mystery, doubt, and paradox that are an essential part of the make-up of the universe. This type of restrictive fundamentalism believes the existence of all things is rudimentary, dry, and unsophisticated. Teilhard De Chardin's theories, including his concept of the Omega Point,  are the antithesis of the mainstay fundamentalist theories that dominate the current Christian way of thinking. Again, his theories are not exclusively for Christians or evangelists. Teilhard De Chardin really wrote his theories to a more universal audience that goes beyond the cloisters of labels, and concerns himself with much deeper questions that go beyond the scope of convention. In many ways, he is no different than Carl Sagan, who was chiefly interested in the same types of existential questions:Why are we here? What is our purpose? Why are we even consciously inhabiting this universe, if we are led to believe that this universe has a beginning and endpoint with no underlying purpose for "being?" It is the latter question that the theory of the Omega Point strives to understand.




Definition of Omega:(Definition taken from FreeDictionary.com)

"omega [ˈəʊmɪgə]
n1. (Linguistics / Letters of the Alphabet (Foreign)) the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet (Ω, ω), a long vowel, transliterated as oor ō2. the ending or last of a series"
    Unsurprisingly, this word "Omega" designates an ending point, either within the realm of the universe's existence or a certain phase within someone's life. Essentially, it is a very agnostic word, when it relates back to the unanswerable God question. Teilhard De Chardin was an ordained, Jesuit priest, so his omega point theory definitely has Christian connotations. For agnostics or even atheists though, the word,omega point,   can still cohere with our view of the universe being intrinsically mysterious or beyond our knowledge. Certainly, Teilhard De Chardin thought the same thing, as many other intelligent religious thinkers do. Sadly, some of the more boisterous religious thinkers are the often the more puerile, limited thinkers of this group, who would have made Teilhard De Chardin's theory of the omega point  yet another dogmatic theory that adherents merely believe without question, but never really strive to reconcile or accept the paradoxes inherent in this theory. I think religious thinkers like Teilhard de Chardin or Madeleine L'Engle thought exploring and accepting paradox was a crucial part of their more relaxed notion of the word, belief.  

     Anyways, I was taken aback that Teilhard De Chardin's theory, though, was still very agnostic in my understanding.
According to his theory, Omega Point simply relates to his theory that as the universe evolves and unfolds, material and conscious life progressively becomes more complex.  Of course, his theory does relate back to the divine, when Teilhard de Chardin postulates that the omega point is the highest, predesignated stage of consciousness, where humanity or some other form of more evolved conscious life reaches the last phase of consciousness. Of course, my agnostic mind has no problem with this theory because it simply explicates the possible trajectory of conscious life, but it never provides any clear, determinant theories, as to when the omega point will be reached or any tangible sense of the factors that are constitutive of  beings that have reached the highest stage of consciousness.  
  Relating to Anne Rice's works, this theory was very influential in the theistic evolution that was presented in Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil, where Memnoch leads a reluctant, atheistic Lestat into the heavenly realms. This is where Anne Rice provides a much clearer illustration of Teilhard De Chardin's theory of the Omega point through her mastery of creating a complex, Faustian myth that presents a hero struggling with the meaning of existence and possibility that the whole construction of the universe was created through a form of theistic evolution. This form of theistic evolution is presented in Teilhard de Chardin-influenced way, where  all material life is progressively evolving to an indeterminate end-point, where the highest stage of consciousness and material complexity within life is reached. In terms of Lestat's own development, the immortal consciousness of a vampire is already proof enough that biological life itself has the capacity to evolve and change over time. In Blood Canticle,  Lestat strives to be a saint, as though to reach that higher level of consciousness as a vampire that will allow him to potentially transcend his more primal urges as a vampire. It is this insatiable primal urge, which St. Augustine would have phrased as concupiscence,  that is still frustratingly intrinsic to all material life.
 

   In Anne Rice's The Wolf Gift, the duality of the man-wolf is one of Anne Rice's most interesting mythological hybrids, which further emphasizes her continued exploration of the Teilhard de Chardin's notion of the omega point. During one particularly poignant scene when Reuben is seeking contrition from his Brother Jim, a priest, Reuben broodingly reflects upon whether God can really exist, when all material and conscious life seems to onerously struggle with the knowledge of one's own vices and paradoxical motivation within a theistic or even agnostic sense of the universe:

    "Do you think Teilhard de Chardin could have been right? That we fear God does not exist because we can't spatially grasp the immensity of the universe; we fear that personality is lost in it when maybe it is a superpersonality that holds it all together, a super-conscious God who planted evolving consciousness in each of us-"(The Wolf Gift 221)
This quote brilliantly encapsulates Anne Rice's own contention about Teilhard De Chardin's omega theory, which is a struggle to comprehend within a universe that seems as ineffably complex as our own selves or more evolved forms of biological life, such as werewolves or vampires.  Interestingly, Nideck Point (the mansion that Reuben Golding eventually purchases) and the woods that surround this majestic, divine oasis are coexistent, and they structurally mirror the interior of dual nature of Reuben's own psyche. Even with this greater psychological complexity, the omega point is still an elusive end-point for any of the Morphenkind (Anne Rice's clever monicker for werewolves).

    In The Wolves of Midwinter,  the forest plays an even more pivotal role, as Anne Rice reveals more forms of highly evolved species with preternatural senses that continue to present Anne Rice's creative way of experimenting with the implications of  the omega point within a world, where all biological life naturally has certain primal urges or limitations at all stages of evolution that sometimes can prevent a spices for a certain span of time from evolving to the next stage of existence until reaching the indeterminate Omega Point. Again, the omega point was never meant by Teilhard De Chardin to relate to New Age theories about the end of the world being caused by alien intervention. It was merely his theory of trying to understand the mechanics of evolution and a hypothetical look at where life will continue to evolve, according to his theistic understanding of the world.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Stormlight Archive Book#1: Way of Kings Read-Along


For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/


 



















Preorder your copy on either Amazon (Kindle)/ Barnes and Nobles (Nook)




Way of Kings Readathon Information:


   Yesterday, I managed to announce the impending "25 Days of Werewolves: Wolves of Midwinter Countdown" without much fanfare. Without much further ado, I am also divulging some details about an upcoming readathon of the first of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive  books that will take place at the start of this October. For anyone that knows of my history of failure on this blog, you are more than abundantly aware of my previous failed attempt to do both a Game of Thrones and Wheel of Time  Readathon that garnered no interest. With that in mind, you might be asking, " why the hell would you be trying again, when a Stormlight Archive Readathon  in the planning stages serves to remind you of how both previous readathon attempts failed in the end?"
(Goodness, the self-deprecatory tone of the above post does nothing to capture the overall epic nature of any readathon, involving a fantasy series with such a wide scope and myriad number of characters, like Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series.)
   Even if no one partakes in this readathon this time around, I plan on doing this readathon mainly for myself. See, the current job market has given ample time to be lazy and intellectually inactive, as though I have been lying in hibernation for months. Therefore, the planned Way of Kings  readathon is my attempt to reawaken my mind, and revitalize my excitement for the upcoming sequel to one of my favorite epic fantasy novels of 2010.

    Each week, I will be doing a very thorough post about 5 chapters of the book until the beginning of March, when the next book in the series is released. I am already having some acute doubts about this daunting plan, since my past readathon record is a statistical failure. Nonetheless, I want to try to do this readathon properly this time without confronting the problem of spontaneously losing interest or getting easily sidetracked by other things. Lately, my days have recently felt very interminable and long,; I am hoping this regimen of reading five chapters a week to help rebuild my energy reserves.

How can I participate in the readathon? 
   Later this week, I will be constructing an additional page at the top of my blog that will be ideally next to the one, entitled "Countdown to Wolves of Midwinter." This one will bear the title "Way of Kings  Readathon," which might not sound regal enough for such a majestic book title and appropriately large-scale promotional campaign for the release. Either way, I think "Way of Kings Readathon" supplies all my interested readers with a succinct, enticing summary that will hopefully interest them in joining with the readathon.
   Stop being so damnably discursive, how can I participate in this upcoming readathon, featuring such an epic novel??
    Starting on the first week of October and coinciding with the first of my weekly blog posts here, you can tweet your instant responses to areas of the text by using the hashtag   #WOKreadathon. I'll be following suite, and using the same hashtage for all my eloquent or non-eloquent responces to certain areas of the novel that excite, frustrate, or enlighten me. You can add questions, quotations, grievances, youtube links with power metal songs that seem to reflect the high-octane energy of a particuliar action sequence. Essentially, you are free to write anything you want, as long as it is under the Twitter character limit of 150 characters or less.

   More updates will be coming soon, Keep checking my Facebook fan page for more updates!!

   Also, you are allowed to start tweeting under "WOKreadathon," before the readathon officially starts, only if you are are metaphorically dying of impatience about the upcoming release of Brandon Sanderson's sequel to the Way of Kings.

 
  If you are not gleeful or feeling enough fervor about the release of Words of Radiance,  here are some pertinent and intensely exciting links that will surely make you extremely excited for the upcoming sequel:
**    TOR.Com Blog post About the Lavish Cover Reveal for Words of Radiance
**Download the cover as a variegated, expansive wallpaper that will pervade your mind with wandering nerd thoughts about the upcoming large-scale battles, new worlds, and comprehensive characters guaranteed to make you "geek out," come March 2014!!

   

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

25 Days of Werewolves: Coming Dangerously Soon!


For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/





25 Unrelenting Days of Wolfish Ferocity, Festive Music with Pagan Underpinnings, Supernatural yarns with Febrile Passion, and Everything concerning the Wolfish World of Anne Rice's Opulent Gothic Wonderland.......


In more succinct terms, this day shall be officially named "The 25 Days of Werewolves:" The Witching Hour before either the ghoulish daze of Halloween or the  nightmare that exists during the midwinter days that encapsulate the twelve days surrounding "Christmas"


Details About "The Twenty Five Days of Werewolves"

Start Date:9/21/2013

Frequency of Blog Posts: Every single day!!

   
For fans of werewolves and Anne Rice's Wolf Gift Chronicles, I'm very excited to help assuage your impatience, and help sublimate the raging excitement for the The Wolves of Midwinter into something productive. Rather than wile away the hours in fretful anticipation until October 15th comes about, why not spend some parcel of your time here at A Bibliophile's Reverie,  pondering the literary history of werewolves, the ways that films and music in the past has represented this supernatural creature. I also have some posts planned that will provide an introduction to Teilhard De Chardin's theories called "Teilhard De Chardin 101." There will be a spate of posts that any seasoned werewolf/ Anne Rice fan will practically howl over!!

      Remember that Day 1 begins this Saturday, September 21, 2013? Also, there will be contests galore during the countdown period. I assure you that I will try to remember to post on all twenty-five days. If I do commit such a grave, unforgivable error, a stampede of werewolves will surely have my head!!



Be extra vigilant during these next 25 days, beginning this Saturday! If you miss one of the posts, you'll be incurring the wrath of the "Midwinter Wolf Vengeance Demons." (Rest assured that these wolves don't really exist!!)


Check out my Facebook Fan Page that will be keeping everyone up-to-date on the latest events for the "Twenty Five Days of Werewolves"

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Day 2 of Five Smoldering Days of Cthulu


For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/







                   Amazon(Kindle Edition)/Amazon (Print Copy)


 Five Smoldering Days of "Cthulhu:" The Epic Review of the Lascivious Masterpiece, Dripping with romantic alien slime





    It appears that our regularly scheduled blog post for the last two days have gone inexplicably missing. Then again, it was the inappropriately named holiday, Labor Day, yesterday, thus there was no cause for posting anything new for today.  As promised, here is my gushing review of the year's best romantic story, paying homage to one of the great writers of supernatural fiction: Serra Elinsen. Serra Elinsen has set all our hearts aflame and aflutter with one of the


Warning: This review contains overwrought prose/purple prose. The writing style is apt, matching the precise vividness of Serra Elinsen's eye for detail. 


Review:
       
Serra Elinsen has set all our hearts aflame and aflutter with one of the most romantic, poignant pieces of literature  ever since William Faulkner confused, but positively dazzled everyone with The Sound and the Fury.  Just as that masterpiece was William Faulkner's magnum opus, Serra Elinsen's brilliant expose of the nuances new-found love and instantaneous romance is her own magnum opus, and deserves literary accolades of all types. How is this story different from Twilight? It takes Stephenie Meyer's own purple prose, stilted dialogue to the next level; it makes purple prose that would have made Ernest Hemmingway shoot himself at the sight of the wholly complicated overuse of such powerfully dynamic adjectives. Shakespeare might have sighed dramatically, and drowned himself Ophelia style at Riley's preciously prosaic Shakespearean speech. The level of detail in the prose renders such a rich image in our heads that I felt my brain oozing in a viscous liquid that might have radiated like toxic ooze and inadvertently created the Teenage  Mutant ninja turtles.
    I apologize for not conducting any research for this review or carefully moderating my speech. Serra Elinsen's prose is written in free-form; it is a stream of conscious purple-prose that would put Virginia Woolf to shame.  The overcooked sentences are reminiscent of Sylvia Plath's poetry that portentously speaks of death by an oven. If Adromeda Slate does not have any gloriously hot man to fall deeply ad irrevocably in love with him, she would meet the same fate as Sylvia Plath, all due to her own self-abasing ways. The only difference is that Andromeda Slate has more insipid reasons, which will confuse any snobbish readers. Yet readers of superficial, yet strangely deep fiction (the purple prose has the power of rich duplicity) will somehow see depth in Andromeda Slate's romantic torment over whether or not Riley (the super smexy Chthulu monstrosity) reciprocates her feelings. When Andromeda Slate blankly describes her empty lifestyle, devoid of Riley's reciprocated feelings, the tumult of her sadness plucks at our feeble heart strings, as though our heart strings could be plucked to play sophisticated piano concertos.

     Dear Reader, I sobbed so much whilst reading this highly eloquent piece of literature. Unlike Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson might have no criticisms  for this fine work of art. It supersedes Hamlet  with sophisticated superficiality,its voluble love interest,  and exceedingly blank female heroine. Eventually, colleges will use this text for psychoanalytic studies that scrutinize the attraction of such shallow literature. Eventually, Serra Elinsen will write three more books that will hopefully extent this plot into infinity, and possible throw in a pedophile werewolf-alien into the mix that imprints on the half-alien, half-human infant that Riley and Andromeda conceive

    I really love Serra Elinsen's work, and I cannot wait to read more of her work! She is a mesmerizing talent and a luminary in a world of young-adult fiction that just isn't as preciously romantic. No one writes such great purple-prose, calculated to dispose us into believing in the existence of romance that requires no hardship.  After reading this, I'm definitely Team Riley because he is affable, intelligent, and speaks in an antiquated Shakespeare diction that is no longer in use.  For guys like myself, we can really take a lot of inspiration from him; why we'd even look as much as fools as the Brady Bunch did in that 1996 remake of
the show?



Links of Interest
Author's Website
Author's Twitter
Author's Facebook Page


      Be on the lookout for the insider's look at Serra's backstory on how her dream transfigured her life, and took her out of the doldrums of her "stay at home" mother lifestyle. Here at "A Bibliophile's Reverie," we are the place that will help bring Serra the needed attention that she deserves!!