Auralia’s Colors - Jeffrey Overstreet (2007)
Monday, February 25th, 2008
The people of House Abascar are in perpetual winter — not only are the citizens are under constant threat from marauding beastmen, but the kingdom was stripped of color years before by the since-vanished queen. Now, only the royalty can enjoy color while the rest of the people are draped in grays and murky brown. Morale is low. Fear and paranoia are a given. All await a spring — a grand return of color and joy — that may never come.
At the center of Jeffrey Overstreet’s debut novel is Auralia, a young girl living with the outcasts and criminals camped outside of Abascar’s walls. She spends her time exploring, often collecting materials for the richly-colored weavings she makes. Her joy and compassion are a blessing for the downtrodden outside the city gates, as are the magnificent — and illegal — gifts she makes for everyone.
But while Auralia is the heart of the book and the catalyst for much of what happens, she isn’t the focus; Overstreet populates the Expanse with a great cast. There’s King Cal-marcus, broken by his wife’s disappearance and the ghosts of the past; Prince Cal-raven haunts the woods outside of the kingdom’s walls, drawn more to the outcasts than the aristocrats; and a humble, un-named ale boy who is quickly swept into the adventure. There are also numerous minor characters that richly populate the story.
Overstreet sidesteps some of the standard fantasy tropes and delivers something different, something wonderful. None of the characters fit into the standard fantasy archetypes — Auralia isn’t a harmless waif or tough princess, but a complex, tattered young girl that has a deep love and faith in things she doesn’t entirely understand. And instead of a novel based around swords-and-sorcery action or medieval political intrigue, Auralia’s Colors gives the cast room to breathe and move about and take their own path.
Sometimes the prose is a little too lush, but Overstreet writes beautifully. He’s not writing the story of Abascar — he’s painting it. I also wish the book could’ve fleshed out a few things that seemed glossed over. But that almost seems like a minor afterthought; Overstreet gets everything else right.
The allegorical aspects and themes are also woven into the story well enough that they don’t fall out on to your lap. It’s all pretty powerful stuff, from the children’s whispers and trust in the Keeper that haunts their dreams, to the power of imagination and beauty, no matter how rugged or worn it may seem. The attention to detail and nuance that he’s gained as a film critic (for Christianity Today, among others) pays off. Auralia’s Colors is an accomplished and satisfying debut, minor blemishes and all.
-Jason Panella
The people of House Abascar are in perpetual winter — not only are the citizens are under constant threat from marauding beastmen, but the kingdom was stripped of color years before by the since-vanished queen. Now, only the royalty can enjoy color while the rest of the people are draped in grays and murky brown. Morale is low. Fear and paranoia are a given. All await a spring — a grand return of color and joy — that may never come.
At the center of Jeffrey Overstreet’s debut novel is Auralia, a young girl living with the outcasts and criminals camped outside of Abascar’s walls. She spends her time exploring, often collecting materials for the richly-colored weavings she makes. Her joy and compassion are a blessing for the downtrodden outside the city gates, as are the magnificent — and illegal — gifts she makes for everyone.
But while Auralia is the heart of the book and the catalyst for much of what happens, she isn’t the focus; Overstreet populates the Expanse with a great cast. There’s King Cal-marcus, broken by his wife’s disappearance and the ghosts of the past; Prince Cal-raven haunts the woods outside of the kingdom’s walls, drawn more to the outcasts than the aristocrats; and a humble, un-named ale boy who is quickly swept into the adventure. There are also numerous minor characters that richly populate the story.
Overstreet sidesteps some of the standard fantasy tropes and delivers something different, something wonderful. None of the characters fit into the standard fantasy archetypes — Auralia isn’t a harmless waif or tough princess, but a complex, tattered young girl that has a deep love and faith in things she doesn’t entirely understand. And instead of a novel based around swords-and-sorcery action or medieval political intrigue, Auralia’s Colors gives the cast room to breathe and move about and take their own path.
Sometimes the prose is a little too lush, but Overstreet writes beautifully. He’s not writing the story of Abascar — he’s painting it. I also wish the book could’ve fleshed out a few things that seemed glossed over. But that almost seems like a minor afterthought; Overstreet gets everything else right.
The allegorical aspects and themes are also woven into the story well enough that they don’t fall out on to your lap. It’s all pretty powerful stuff, from the children’s whispers and trust in the Keeper that haunts their dreams, to the power of imagination and beauty, no matter how rugged or worn it may seem. The attention to detail and nuance that he’s gained as a film critic (for Christianity Today, among others) pays off. Auralia’s Colors is an accomplished and satisfying debut, minor blemishes and all.
-Jason Panella
One frosty Monday night, my compadre Jake and I ventured into the heart of Beaver Falls to obtain that nectar of the gods, more commonly known as ice cream.
I feel exhilarated by a website. This certainly isn’t the first time I’ve experienced a dramatic feeling from a website, but it’s the first time I felt the need or desire to phrase it that way.
Sometimes all I need is music I can think to. Often, a single song is my weekly, incessantly repeated thought process. This song is not what helps me get through the week, nor do I think music should; but it is a way to think my own thoughts along with someone else’s words and music. In fact, it is mostly the music of this week’s song, “the World at Large” by Modest Mouse, that encourage my thoughts — but the words evoke their own response as well.Even when I’m not listening to this song, it still floats in my head, starting with a simple guitar pattern and a soft drum beat, adding a xylophone and then a flute; it’s simple, yet it causes an emotional, melancholy sense of yearning. Every time I listened to this song this week, I slowed down and thought with the music. After awhile, I started listening to the words. It could completely depress a person, interpreting lyrics like “I like songs about drifters … why does it always feel like I’m caught in an undertow?” as being misunderstood and struggling against the world. But to me, the lines “If the world’s at large, why should I remain?” and “Walked away to another plan. Gonna find another place, maybe one I can stand” are about seeking change — wanting more out of life, yearning to see the world and fighting against the undertow to do so. The beat of the song, along with the words “float on,” give it a consistency, like moving forward, moving away from normality. I often want to do more with my life, and as much as I tell people that I’m just fine, the mantra of this song spins in my head: “My thoughts were so loud I couldn’t hear my mouth.”
In 2006, Bono humbly comes before a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC, to address politicians and faith leaders. He passionately delivers a speech about the AIDS crisis in Africa. This speech was published in the short book On the Move, which is accompanied by compelling photos from Ethiopia. He draws upon Scripture, and the fact that it is no coincidence that poverty is mentioned over 2,100 times in the Bible. This evidence is a call to action to end this tragedy, and break our hearts.
“There are times to read history, and there are times to make history. We live right now at one of those epic moments in the fight for human freedom. We no longer have to wonder how we might respond to our moment of truth. It is we who are on the stage, and we can change the winds of history with our actions. Future generations will look back and judge our choices and be inspired or disappointed”. -David Batstone
So here’s something we should all consider: the Gaza strip borders Israel and Egypt, yet it is not recognized as a part of either country. There have been and continue to be wars over the ownership of this land. It is presently being controlled — dare I say ruled — by Hamas, a group that has been described as “a murderous terror organization.” Israel, an ally of the United States, has decided to cut off power to the Gaza Strip as a form of “economic warfare.”