This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.
You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Welcome to Fortress Fiction.
This is Story Over Everything episode 55, Fortress Fiction episode 7, I think.
It's been a little while.
I took a little break.
I was writing a book though, so it's okay.
But this episode of Fortress Fiction, I'm going to be talking about The Westing Game
from 1978 written by Ellen something.
Written by Ellen Raskin, will you believe it that as soon as I went away from the video
app, I remembered it was Ellen Raskin.
I saw the book cover title.
I didn't see her name.
I clicked on it because I downloaded it for the episode graphic.
And sure enough, there it was, Ellen Raskin right in front of me.
Unbelievable.
But maybe it is believable.
So anyway, so I'm talking about whether or not I believe this book belongs in the Fortress
Fiction and the short quick answer is no.
If I wanted to be, well, I don't want to be mean, so I won't say that.
But I almost thought about joking around or kind of saying that the reason I stopped doing
Fortress Fiction for a while was because of this book, which is not true at all.
Other things happen.
But yeah, this this was not a good book.
Well, one, I think this was not a good book.
Two, or it wasn't my taste.
Two, this is not a good book for children, which that's how it's marketed.
That's what it says it is.
And three, I don't think it was a good mystery either.
Yeah, that's the intro.
I'm going to take a break and I'm going to get back to it and give you as full as I can
my thoughts on the book, because it's been probably over two months since I read it.
But I do remember those three things that I brought up right away.
And we'll see what else I remember.
I'm not going to make this a long one.
It'll be possibly the shortest episode of Fortress Fiction ever.
We'll see.
And so I don't forget, I want to say one positive thing for sure.
And then also just jump to the end and try to suggest Ellen Raskin's other works.
This is Ellen Raskin's only fiction novel that she wrote.
She was an illustrator for some company and she did a ton of illustrations with like,
I think hundreds of illustrations for many books, a lot of book covers as well.
Notably, I believe she did covers for a George McDonald reprint of like the Princess and
the Goblin, Princess and Curdie.
I think that's accurate.
But she did, you know, in book illustrations for her picture books, I believe as well.
And I believe in the end of the note of the version I bought on Audible, because that
was the only way I could get it.
I couldn't borrow it from a library or anything like that.
I had to buy it, which it's just constantly doing business, right?
It's just part of the job.
Anyway, it's mentioned, I believe, by a friend of hers or I don't know.
I believe, I believe it was the actual voice of the lady who she was friends with wrote
about her and like it was nice.
It was very lovely.
And I think she mentioned that she wanted to see an adaptation of Goblin Market, which
is a classical thing that I've never read and I'd only heard of recently.
So that's kind of me.
Like my after the fact after I read the book and then as I was in the book, I was upset.
I was upset actually, like the first chapter of the first page for the first couple of
minutes of it.
I was irritated by stuff and I thought this isn't I don't like this.
I don't like this.
I don't like where it's going.
But the the afterwards, like the who she was as a person, I found there were a lot of admirable
traits.
I found a lot of things I liked and that I respect about her and her work.
And that's really neat.
But yeah, this book isn't for me.
Although it's interesting.
It was written in 78.
It sounds I try not to get too political.
Politics permeate everything.
So you have to a little bit a little bit.
And this is fortress fiction, which the object of it is to see whether or not these fiction
stories are worthy of being part of the foundation of morals and.
Ethos of children, because I don't think there should be any toxic or damaging or poisonous
and toxic was the same thing.
Right.
So very similar thing.
I don't think this should be anything like that promoted in children's fiction.
It may happen from time to time.
Like this book has some kind of toxic stuff in it that I didn't like.
And that's part of why it doesn't belong in the fortress fiction to me, because I would
never say, oh, my kids should definitely read this book.
It's going to help them be a better person.
I don't know what ill effect this book would have on children.
But there's no real merit in it.
And that's that's my problem with it.
And I mean, honestly, I didn't really find it that entertaining either.
However, despite the fact that I say that it was a was is a very competently written
book.
So I mentioned in the afterword is that apparently Raskin was making up this.
Mystery plot thing as she went along, she was basically panting the book and making
that part of it as she went along.
And the editor who gave the the afterword perhaps is what it's called.
Or maybe it's the forward and it's just audible, put six at the end in their productions.
She said that she had to help reign in the chaos and make sure it all fit, make sure
it was all logical.
And like, I guess it was logical, but it just seemed too goofy and really makes sense to
seem maybe it seemed to juvenile.
I don't know, but it was for kids.
So is that an excuse to do?
I don't really think you should write down or talk down to to readers or to children
as your audience, whatever the medium is.
And yeah, I did not like that.
But and yet I say it is a very competently written book.
Her prose is really good.
There's some flowery stuff that kind of bothered me.
Her prose is really good.
And she's like a very sharp cultural critic.
Like there's this black judge character, this judge character who happens to be black woman.
She says to herself at some point, I am the first black woman judge of this, that or whatever.
And she's shown to be an imperfect flawed human, which I think is wonderful.
She's in the cast as an imperfect flawed human, even the hero, even turtle.
And it's just it's a strange book.
It's a strange story.
I don't really get it.
I don't really what she was.
I don't really get what she was going for at all.
So one of the things, one of the biggest things that bothered me, it wasn't that there was
a black female judge and she was the first and she was, you know, breaking glass ceilings
or anything like that.
Didn't bother me.
That was great.
Whatever.
It's fine.
The second one was the, I don't know.
It is kind of like a, yeah, it's a very sharp cultural criticism of different things in
family.
And it turns out like the main character's mom is kind of a jerk.
And then she has an arc where she's less of a jerk and like her perfect, beautiful sister,
turtle, perfect, beautiful sister.
I can't remember now.
It's been too long since I've read the book.
She ends up getting scarred and kind of just figured and she kind of likes it, which again,
sounds like subversive, but she was lauded for her beauty and her like submissiveness
and compliance.
And then she rebels in this different, in these different ways throughout the book.
And I don't know, she doesn't rebel in a way that makes her a more person.
She rebels in a way that's kind of destructive and negative overall.
And I don't know, like everybody picks up the pieces of their lives because you need
to flash forward to like 10 years, 20 years, 30 years later, something like that, towards
the end of the book.
I think it's close to the 20 and maybe 25 at the most anyway.
And like you get to see where people are now and they've all kind of become better people,
but I don't think it's because of the events of the Westing name.
I think it's in spite of the events and like maybe they were kind of all thrown into each
other's trajectories because of this convoluted scheme that Westing came up with.
And I don't know, it's just, it's just weird.
Like it's just weird.
I don't really know what she was trying to say.
I didn't really get the story.
There were a few, like I said, it was comfortably written.
So there were a few moments where I was shocked, where I was kind of amazed by something that
she pulled off and where I thought like, oh, that's really compelling.
But then the rest of it is all not so great.
And it's, it was all a lot of the humor or a lot of the humor was very like random and
like mean spirited.
At one point it almost feels like this couple is going to get divorced.
At one point it almost feels like this couple is kind of like cheating on each other, like
having an emotional affair with this other married couple in the, who's in the Westing
game.
And it just, I don't know, like it's so uncomfortable.
It's so uncomfortable.
And it's like a very adult book.
And I said, you shouldn't talk down to your audience.
How can it be an adult book that talks, how can it be a book that has adult content in
it and yet talks down to his child audience?
I don't know.
I think we're asking to accomplish that feat.
Yeah, there was just things in there that just made me so uncomfortable.
And yet it was so like silly or goofy.
I think the silliness and the goofiness feels like it's talking down to children to me.
There was no, which this is like, I think this is the worst joke in kids stuff.
He's right behind me, isn't he?
But she can't remember who mentioned that, but I thought, oh my gosh, that is like such
a great thing to latch onto as that's a horrible bit of comedy.
And I don't know when that was funny.
Was that in Costello?
Was it somebody before that?
I'm talking 120 years ago.
Maybe it was funny, but it ain't funny now.
It has been funny for a long time.
I don't remember what I would have seen that in, but I've seen it in many children's media
things and I haven't liked it for a long time since I was young.
Anyway, so yeah, I think the goofiness and silliness of things kind of feels like it's
talking down to kids, but then like these very adult concepts and realities and things
that it brings in, scenarios that it brings in, I just don't like them.
It feels like a really weird, like a poison pill.
I hate saying that.
Like I feel really badly saying that.
And I try very hard to not criticize these books in such a way where I'm attacking the
people and where if I had any influence at all, I'd be calling for people to like boycott
or attack them or to ban them or anything like that.
I won't advise anybody read it.
I have the links on the website in the show notes.
If you want to go ahead and go through and get the book on Audible for yourself or read
the paperback or whatever, you can do that.
I have links to, I think Penguin Random House is the current holder of the title.
Things change all the time, right?
And pretty sure you can get it from them.
And I know you can get it on Amazon, obviously, if you're through them or whoever.
And you can also get it on Audible.
But still, I just, I wouldn't advise that you do.
I just don't think it's worth your time.
We only have so much time in this life.
Our life is precious.
You never know what day is going to be your last.
And I would hate for you to get this book and hate it and then die that day and think,
oh, the last thing I read was the Westinghouse.
It wasn't very good.
But like I said, I'm trying to be nice and I'm trying to catch things in an intellectual
way and explain my reasons for not liking some of these things.
And yeah, it is a little unfair that it's been so long since I've read this book, but
there you have it.
I'm being a little unfair, but I'm trying to be as fair as possible.
I'm trying to be nice.
And I did compliment Raston's writing because she is a skillful writer, even if I didn't
like the things that she wrote because those things are very, very exclusive.
You have the most amazing writer in the world who writes things that you don't like.
You can have the worst writer in the world who writes about things that you like and
you indulge it because they're speaking directly to you, preaching at the choir, so to speak.
Or you can reject it based on its merits and say, you know, it's great that you have all
these things in common with me and that you agree with me in all these ways, but I'm not
going to validate your poor writing and say that you should keep doing this because you
share my opinions or make me feel better about myself.
I'm going to be intellectually honest and say, yeah, the writing in here isn't very
good.
So I feel like I'm being okay.
And I'm being fair because I'm saying intellectually, from an intellectually honest perspective,
Raskin's writing is very competent.
However, it is distasteful to me or doesn't align with my tastes.
And I don't think there's anything in there virtuous or up raising for young minds to
be reading it.
So yeah, I told my daughter right away, like when I was a quarter through the book, I said,
I don't think this book's for me.
She encouraged me to ditch the book and read something else instead.
But I want to stick to the stuff that I have on my list.
And I'm just going to let the chips fall where they may to use a cliche down by the bay.
Hey, hey, hey.
So anyway, that's all I have to say for this.
So again, you can go check out, I mean, if you look through her bio, you can find some
of the books that she's illustrated, see her art.
I'm sure her art is wonderful.
I didn't personally look it up myself, but yeah, I didn't look it up myself.
But from the things that she did all this art on, I would imagine that her artwork was
excellent.
I mean, that's what she made a living off.
So whether or not I like it or you like it, she was good enough and she did things right.
So that publishers, you know, Trad Pub, back in the day when that's all it was, it was
Trad Pub was giving this woman money to make her life, her livelihood off of from illustrating
these books and book covers and whatnot.
So that's great.
So I was looking at her and definitely I was looking at that stuff more than I would look
at any of her other writing.
Or like I said, that's this really is the only thing the Westinghouse or the Westing
Game.
So I keep saying Westinghouse, isn't that like a computer thing now?
Anyway, the Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.
Yeah.
So again, I do not advise it.
I don't think it's worthy of being part of the fortress fiction.
I don't think it works.
I think if you try to build a foundation on this, things are not going to be good for
you.
So with that being said, going back real quick to me saying that I'm sticking to my list.
I was so relieved in doing the preparation for this and getting my notes ready, getting
my show notes ready, getting my post ready, my blog post ready over on mjwinter's.com
that I saw the next thing on the list.
I'm pretty sure this is correct.
This is a modern children's book.
Now I'm going to go back and read a classic children's book, which is a classic, which
is the Wizard of Oz, which spoiler, I'm going to tell you right now, I love the book, but
I encourage you to read it and I'm going to talk about it and I will try to take not longer
than 15, 20 minutes to talk about it, but it's a wonderful book.
I enjoy it so much.
That one I know for fact, you can get an audible.
They have it.
You can get it read by different people, like different celebrities and stuff.
There's a free version to pay for or use a credit board.
I know there's a free version on there, which is done by Phil Schennewehr.
Phil Schennewehr is the guy from Levervox.
I don't know where else he's from, but I was introduced to Phil Schennewehr on Levervox.org,
where he does all these free audio books.
I have a sneaking suspicion he's Catholic because there's a bunch of Catholic book stuff
that he's done, but he's also done tons of fantasy books, all of the original 14 Wizard
of Oz books by L. Frank Baum, and he's done a bunch of other stuff.
I love his vocal performances.
It's great.
I read the entire Wizard of Oz book, the first one, to my daughter with my own eyes off of
the e-reader screen years ago.
I've gone back and I've listened to those books again and again.
I'm in the middle of reading the Oz series to my kids right now.
It's wonderful.
The wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum is wonderful.
I get to talk about that and tell you all the reasons I like it in the next episode
of Fortune Fiction.
Go ahead and either buy it or you can get it for free.
If you look around, Project Gutenberg will probably have it for free as well.
It's definitely in the public domain.
Yes, that's what's coming up.
I already gave you spoilers as to the fact that I really like it, but you'll get to hear
why I like it.
Hopefully I'll lay out a cogent argument for the virtues of the book and why it belongs
in part of the Fortune Fiction.
Although, I love the book.
How virtuous is it?
I don't know.
I'll just review it from that lens, from that perspective and see what I think of it in
that context this time when I listen through.
Until next time, folks, take care.
This is MJ signing out.
Oh, before I go, I mentioned earlier that I kind of took a hiatus from Fortune Fiction
and during that hiatus I was working on my book.
I wrote a book.
Here's the pitch for it.
Magical Bugs Battle Monsters.
It's a middle grade book.
It's around 23,000 words and I think it's good.
I like it.
I'm having some people I know read through it.
I'm trying to hire an editor who I know personally, or not personally personally, but who I know
through knowing other people.
I'm going to print some hard copies of it, give it to some kids I know and have them
read it.
Yeah, I'm working on getting this thing done.
I hope that when it comes back I don't get a bunch of notes telling me to revise the
book, but I very well may.
You can learn more about that and keep up to date on the progress of me getting that
book published by going to the website.
I'm setting up a newsletter.
It's not sequenced yet, but you can definitely sign up for the newsletter and I'm going to
be tweaking that as time goes on because now that I've gotten all this writing of the book
out of the way and I've revised it and all these different things, I'm ready to shift
gears as an author entrepreneur and start doing what I need to do to make sure the book
is able to go out and it's as marketable as possible.
I have a great start to my book launch campaign and all that stuff.
So anyway, please look forward to that and if you value how I assess fiction, if you
like how I approach books or if you want to see if I'm a filthy hypocrite, then please
check out my book.
Stay tuned and check out that book and let me know what you think about it when it comes
out.
It's going to be called Robochronicles and that's all I'll share for right now and you
can check out more later, find out more on the website.
I hope you enjoyed that.
Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments or other feedback you might have.
There you can find all of my analysis, art and fiction.
I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime and more.
Look around, you're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well.
This has been a Story Over Everything production.