League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

.
I love a good movie

I love a good book even more

Now, you have to realize that I am one of the luckiest on the face of Planet Earth. I have taught English Literature to Ninth Graders. No; I did not find this assignment in Dante's Fifth Circle, though some do. I love sharing well-told tales with everybody, and I get inordinate pleasure seeing and sharing the clever ways a story is whittled out and glued together.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was originally a comic book. Whoops! 'Scuse me . . . a graphic novel. "Crap." I despise political correctness as gelding the language. I haven't read comic books probably since sixth or seventh grade. And, simultaneously, I don't really care how "classic" a book is if it doesn't interest me. Period.

So . . . The League . . . I turned up my educated nose at it the first time the kids brought it home from Blockbuster. Then I was at home, bored out of my gourd, so I slotted it. . .

Oh, what a hoot! What a joy of synthesis, connecting all the different writers of the Belle Epoque" into a Harry Turtledove-ian stage-setting for World War One.

Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Ishmael, Dracula (Mina Harker), Dorian Grey, Tom Sawyer. How much fun could you really have in a classroom with this? I can see Principals covering their ears and running for the doors. "Bless their hearts!"

I keep toying with setting up Captain Ahab's (Ahab's his first name; we don't know his family name) having a son (we know he has a child) named John. That's a typical enough name for that time. If Ahab's last name were Dunbar then we could have an interesting progression from east coast whaling to Great Plains buffalo hunting . . . well, the mind can ramble.

Please come to this masquerade. The masque is not mandatory; it just makes things more fun. Bring snicker-snacks or dessert or something munchable for four other people. RSVP on Facebook.

Y'all come.

.