That Thing Calvin

   It's 4/20 today-- date is somehow significant, isn't that that marijuana thing?, but I only saw it at first as being the date of one week after 4/13. But really, the really interesting thing about it being the 20th is that some of the most popular posts on this blog of all time were published on the 20ths of the last few months... The number one, Foot Selfies, was published on February 20th, and the fifth most, Bearbear Magic User, was published March 20th. And it being April 20th, I'd better have some good post for you, yes?

   But no, I think I'll go to bed. I'm super tired, and busy juggling the consequences of having skinned a squirrel carcass in the bathroom today, and I've got homework due for Family History class right before that starts tomorrow morning that I need to get on. And I don't need your freakouts over the squirrel thing, though I suppose if there are, it'd be just one more that I'd need to deal with...

   ...they're always male, why are they always male, don't any female creatures ever die?, but no every animal corpse I stumble across always had belonged to a dude...

   But if I really want to have a top-ten-hits, twentieth-worthy post, I suppose I should tell you about CALVIN, by Martine Leavitt. It's required reading in some course somewhere, apparently, because it was in the bookstore, among the collection of textbooks while I was textbook shopping Monday; I wasn't about to buy it from the bookstore when some kid who had that as required reading might need it instead of me but I saw it and knew I had to read it and I downloaded it to my Kindle ASAP when I got home (by this point the squirrel was already chilling safely in the freezer-- I'd used the bookstore's shopping bag to pick it up and transport it, beforehand transferring the textbooks from the shopping back to the art supply cases containing the required art kits for my design/color and drawing classes.)

   Calvin by Martine Leavitt. It's a novel, about exactly what it sounds like. I can't say enough about this, so let me just spew for a bit.The idea of what Calvin would be like without Hobbes is brought up a few times, how incomplete he'd be. Transformative, is a word used to gauge fair use-- and it is, very transformative. It's just so instantly nostalgic, but it doesn't ride on those fumes even a little, standing on its own legs not just as a commentary on Calvin and Hobbes internally, within the fictional canon, but externally, the impact it had on the world, and why it was and why it came to an end.

   Never so frequently before have I laughed and cried at the same time. Or had my mind and soul so thoroughly penetrated by a work of fiction. Every time I thought that I understood the significance of the story, the hidden underlying meaning, a few paragraphs later the book not only acknowledged that meaning in words, but also threw in a further twist I didn't see coming.

Amazon.com

   I'd get into specifics, but I'd hate to spoil anything for you-- I mean, it's not a very long book, by any means. I really want you to read it! I suppose having the plot revealed to you beforehand wouldn't spoil anything, the central concept, but it took my breath away how far the author was willing to go with it. I can't adequately explain what I mean without going super deep into it, though, and, I'm still tired, though the squirrel thing has resolved itself peacefully it seems, now that meanwhile my story has been explained.