book 46 - Rhonda Wilcox "Why Buffy Matters"

[jazzy_dave]

Rhonda Wilcox "Why Buffy Matters" (I.B Tauris)





This is a splendid read for Buffy fans who sense deeper meanings to the stories in the Buffiverse but tend to get strange looks from their educated friends . . including those friends who says it is an obsession of mine. So be it.

Wilcox is one of the founders of Slayage, an online academic journal dedicated to Buffy Studies, and this is a collection of essays mainly based on the many papers she has given at conferences around the world. I am struck by the clarity of her insights and the positively poetic, sensitive and often wryly humorous way in which she reads the Vampire Slayer and her universe. It is this aspect of Wilcox's writing in this volume that gives the book such wide appeal.

Given that the book is a collection of different conference papers and essays, and was not originally conceived as a book, it hangs together as a narrative remarkably well, and makes a good job of tackling the entire series and all its major characters.

However, sometimes,  Wilcox's analogies can seem a little stretched - e.g she seems to be intent on equating Buffy with Dickens, especially Esther Summerson, which I think is a bit tenuous, but her theories are always intriguing. For example the connection between Spike and light is something I now see when I watch the episodes back but didn't really clock at the time.

Overall, not only an important contribution to the literature and extremely interesting read, but a fun one too! An engagingly written book which i highly recommend.

Comments

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

I was telling hubby that the characters alone were a reflection of real people, real difficulties and their lives are exaggerations on the struggles of learning, growing and adapting to change (whether it be mundane or fantastic).

*HUGS*

[thespian15.livejournal.com]

Buffy and Charles Dickens?
Hugs, Jon