From the Bookshelf: In A Faraway Galaxy
Nov. 21st, 2013 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerThe Prequel Appreciation Society's review of "The Star Wars Heresies" made a direct comparison of it to a book "self-published" in 1984, calling "In A Faraway Galaxy" "the very best look at the first set of Star Wars films". It seemed a bold statement holding the older volume to a high standard, but it did pique my interest. When a quick search turned up some used copies for what seemed quite reasonable prices, I ordered one of them.
Perhaps with impressions of at least some "early" fanzines having been composed on typewriters and illustrated with naive zeal, I might even have been a little amused by the first impression as I cut open the package and pulled the book out its cover was "austere"; for some reason, I thought a bit of books from the 1960s as opposed to the 1980s. Inside, though, things looked quite professional, even if the textured paper kept me thinking of a "vanity" project. A Caltech bookstore inside the front cover also suggested the book hadn't just lurked in some underground of well-connected fans.
The first part of the book amounted to "character analysis," and at first I did sort of indulge in a casual impression of mine that to just talk about fictional characters (or fictional machinery or organizations) amounts to considering the work they're in a "mere" work of "documentary realism," in the end a common and perhaps not all that profound sort of fan discussion. Then, though, I started to get the feeling the characters were being looked at from a quite positive viewpoint, their courses through three movies treated as coherent paths, and all of a sudden I was reminding myself this book was from 1984. It's been all too easy to pick up disparaging comments here and there and get the impression Return of the Jedi whooshed by over the heads of an awful lot of vocal people, or at least had to be "worked at" over time to be seen as putting certain things together instead of just complaining about it not being "tough-minded" or something and in the end reducing certain characters to smirky, dismissive jokes about isolated moments, and I might even have thought here and there that more people could have done with having read this book right when it came out. Having toyed with the thought Han Solo might be interpreted through much of Star Wars as "not that terrific a person" through simple weariness with adulation of him, I might have been downright intrigued to be presented with the possibility of seeing his behaviour in that movie as showing he has more idealism than he'll admit. While I perhaps want to see Obi-Wan as fallible "as anyone else" (in part because it's more interesting me to see Luke in the end as standing up for his beliefs alone), the book seemed to have overtones of a very agreeable version of "Obi-Wan as always knowing the right thing to say," perhaps in part because I could apply my own hindsight and interpret the book's own interpretations as hinting at him "trusting in the Force" just as Qui-Gon can be seen as. Mentioning that Darth Vader (who "Darth" and "Vader" are used interchangeably to name in this earlier, less defined time) can sabotage himself, while it might carry a certain risk of tying into the smug building up of certain villains from the novels as "better than Vader," did offer an interesting comment about him attempting to corrupt Lando through forcing him to get involved in Han's capture. Again applying my own hindsight, I was able to think of interpretations of Palpatine acting throughout the new movies as implicating and corrupting the innocent (ultimately, of course, including Anakin himself).
After all of that, there was a very full essay about Star Wars as a "classical romance" and a graceful note on the Force in relation to Eastern mysticism. I noted the longer essay include "the Fool" as an archetype, but just as I had concluded who that was I was surprised to see Han placed in that role. Then, of course, I was amused by and accepting of the explanation. The essay might have been interesting by having been written before the application of Joseph Campbell to the saga became the expected thing to do, and was where I became more accepting of the comparison that had caught my attention in the first place. The later book might still feel more gracefully integrated to me, but the insights of the earlier one impressed me in part just by when they'd been written; they'd be impressive just appearing today, of course.
Perhaps with impressions of at least some "early" fanzines having been composed on typewriters and illustrated with naive zeal, I might even have been a little amused by the first impression as I cut open the package and pulled the book out its cover was "austere"; for some reason, I thought a bit of books from the 1960s as opposed to the 1980s. Inside, though, things looked quite professional, even if the textured paper kept me thinking of a "vanity" project. A Caltech bookstore inside the front cover also suggested the book hadn't just lurked in some underground of well-connected fans.
The first part of the book amounted to "character analysis," and at first I did sort of indulge in a casual impression of mine that to just talk about fictional characters (or fictional machinery or organizations) amounts to considering the work they're in a "mere" work of "documentary realism," in the end a common and perhaps not all that profound sort of fan discussion. Then, though, I started to get the feeling the characters were being looked at from a quite positive viewpoint, their courses through three movies treated as coherent paths, and all of a sudden I was reminding myself this book was from 1984. It's been all too easy to pick up disparaging comments here and there and get the impression Return of the Jedi whooshed by over the heads of an awful lot of vocal people, or at least had to be "worked at" over time to be seen as putting certain things together instead of just complaining about it not being "tough-minded" or something and in the end reducing certain characters to smirky, dismissive jokes about isolated moments, and I might even have thought here and there that more people could have done with having read this book right when it came out. Having toyed with the thought Han Solo might be interpreted through much of Star Wars as "not that terrific a person" through simple weariness with adulation of him, I might have been downright intrigued to be presented with the possibility of seeing his behaviour in that movie as showing he has more idealism than he'll admit. While I perhaps want to see Obi-Wan as fallible "as anyone else" (in part because it's more interesting me to see Luke in the end as standing up for his beliefs alone), the book seemed to have overtones of a very agreeable version of "Obi-Wan as always knowing the right thing to say," perhaps in part because I could apply my own hindsight and interpret the book's own interpretations as hinting at him "trusting in the Force" just as Qui-Gon can be seen as. Mentioning that Darth Vader (who "Darth" and "Vader" are used interchangeably to name in this earlier, less defined time) can sabotage himself, while it might carry a certain risk of tying into the smug building up of certain villains from the novels as "better than Vader," did offer an interesting comment about him attempting to corrupt Lando through forcing him to get involved in Han's capture. Again applying my own hindsight, I was able to think of interpretations of Palpatine acting throughout the new movies as implicating and corrupting the innocent (ultimately, of course, including Anakin himself).
After all of that, there was a very full essay about Star Wars as a "classical romance" and a graceful note on the Force in relation to Eastern mysticism. I noted the longer essay include "the Fool" as an archetype, but just as I had concluded who that was I was surprised to see Han placed in that role. Then, of course, I was amused by and accepting of the explanation. The essay might have been interesting by having been written before the application of Joseph Campbell to the saga became the expected thing to do, and was where I became more accepting of the comparison that had caught my attention in the first place. The later book might still feel more gracefully integrated to me, but the insights of the earlier one impressed me in part just by when they'd been written; they'd be impressive just appearing today, of course.