Same As It Ever Was...


I just completed my first week in my new job. The process of adjusting to private practice will be an interesting one. For one thing, this is very much an "eat what you kill" sort of profession: I only get paid for what I bill out. I will admit that the percentage of my hourly billing that I take home is quite generous as these things are normally determined in my profession but the firm I work for doesn't have a lot of work for me to bill right now. I signed on to be the trademark attorney in a patent law firm. Up until now, the firm turned away a lot of trademark work because they didn't have the "bandwidth" to handle it (on the other hand, they have more patent work than they know what to do with - if I were a patent attorney, I'd be up to my eyeballs with work). Now that I am there to pick up the slack, the firm must now gather the work up again. I suspect that will take some time. In the meantime, I try to busy myself with the litigation that floats around the office and assimilate the way the firm does things. Not a lot of billables in that mix.

I read the first volume of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, entitled The Runes of The Earth. As with the previous two series, the prose is lush and dense. Unlike the previous books, the protagonist is NOT the titular character. Dr. Linden Avery, who accompanied Thomas Covenant to the fantasy realm in which the series takes place, takes center stage. This is a good thing. Mr. Covenant is the ultimate expression of an anti-hero: a leper who denies the fantasy so vehemently that he is often at odds with his own self-interest, whose power is greater than any other in the Land but wielding that power could destroy the very fabric of existence. The previous series charts Covenant's development into a strong and compassionate man and his acceptance of his ultimate fate but the trip was long and relentlessly depressing. The series' saving graces were the above mentioned prose and the unique characters, locations and creatures he encountered on his journeys.

Dr. Avery is much more proactive, much more invested in her journey through the Land and the trials she must face. As a result, her story is more pleasant to read (although her conflicts are no less perilous). She assumes her role as potential savior more readily than Covenant did and the reader is not forced to reconcile the cognitive dissonance between the reality that Covenant embraced and the one he denied but had to deal with. Highly recommended.

And I also recommend the movie "The Incredibles". The animation gets better and better. And why aren't comic books (the chief inspiration for this movie) this good?