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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2010
Like a few reviewers here, I didn't really know what to think when I saw this at the bookstore so close to the comics section of Indigo. So I flipped through a few pages -- like some prospective readers do when deciding whether or not a book is worth buying -- and what I found in there was infinitely relatable to my experiences growing up, and growing up with Star Wars.
Tony Pacitti's narrative is extremely conversational, caustic and witty, and filled with Star Wars metaphors that always seem to refer back to the films. Sometimes, even for a tremendous fan like myself, it can almost seem like there are too many metaphors yet the parallels he invokes are very striking, sometimes even heartbreaking. Through the lens of Star Wars and the ever-mythical struggle of Light verses Darkness, Pacitti talks about everything from childhood bullying, to friendships, early and failed romances, missed chances, adolescent angst, card-collecting, comics reading, college, disappointment, hope, and a place that might initially seem like escapism but ultimately is an ideal in itself: perhaps a coping mechanism, but also a mythological teacher that puts certain essential constants into perspective.
I think what really sticks out at me is the idea that to Tony Pacitti and other fans, Star Wars is both the teacher that guides and ultimately in some ways has to be surpassed. To borrow a Star Wars metaphor, it is like the kindly Jedi Master who guides your first steps into a larger world or context, and then the twisted Sith Master that in an act of Nietzschean overcoming you have to throw down a Death Star shaft to achieve full circle for yourself.
In essence -- in addition to its clever sentences and moments of painful honesty -- this parallel is what I really appreciate in "My Best Friend is a Wookiee": that an idea such as Star Wars can be one of those things that you can both identify with, and challenge as it changes alongside of you. It is how you accept these changes in the thing you love and in yourself, and your realization what what you've gained from it that makes all the difference in your life. All Jedi must face the Dark before and during their service to the Light, and even Yoda states that you take with only what you bring with you into the Platonic Cave of the Dark Side: where you need to actualize yourself.
Like all of us, Tony Pacitti faces this Darkness and accepts what he finds there in the narrative of the Star Wars universe and its mythological roots in reality. It seriously makes me want to talk about my Star Wars story. Indeed, the last part of this book asks readers who their best Star Wars friends were during their youth and mine ... is an obvious choice.
Tony Pacitti's narrative is extremely conversational, caustic and witty, and filled with Star Wars metaphors that always seem to refer back to the films. Sometimes, even for a tremendous fan like myself, it can almost seem like there are too many metaphors yet the parallels he invokes are very striking, sometimes even heartbreaking. Through the lens of Star Wars and the ever-mythical struggle of Light verses Darkness, Pacitti talks about everything from childhood bullying, to friendships, early and failed romances, missed chances, adolescent angst, card-collecting, comics reading, college, disappointment, hope, and a place that might initially seem like escapism but ultimately is an ideal in itself: perhaps a coping mechanism, but also a mythological teacher that puts certain essential constants into perspective.
I think what really sticks out at me is the idea that to Tony Pacitti and other fans, Star Wars is both the teacher that guides and ultimately in some ways has to be surpassed. To borrow a Star Wars metaphor, it is like the kindly Jedi Master who guides your first steps into a larger world or context, and then the twisted Sith Master that in an act of Nietzschean overcoming you have to throw down a Death Star shaft to achieve full circle for yourself.
In essence -- in addition to its clever sentences and moments of painful honesty -- this parallel is what I really appreciate in "My Best Friend is a Wookiee": that an idea such as Star Wars can be one of those things that you can both identify with, and challenge as it changes alongside of you. It is how you accept these changes in the thing you love and in yourself, and your realization what what you've gained from it that makes all the difference in your life. All Jedi must face the Dark before and during their service to the Light, and even Yoda states that you take with only what you bring with you into the Platonic Cave of the Dark Side: where you need to actualize yourself.
Like all of us, Tony Pacitti faces this Darkness and accepts what he finds there in the narrative of the Star Wars universe and its mythological roots in reality. It seriously makes me want to talk about my Star Wars story. Indeed, the last part of this book asks readers who their best Star Wars friends were during their youth and mine ... is an obvious choice.
