U Krakovianki

Reading Barzun...

2012-01-27T13:06:00.004+01:00

As part of a sincere effort on my part to insure that in 2012 I do read some of the serious books on my "to be read" list, I've been working my way through the essays in Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning by one of my favorite contemporary heroes in the realm of education: Jacques Barzun.

There are 15 essays in this book under three headings: First Things, Curriculum, and Advanced Work. I've finished the first section, and as is usual for me when I read this sort of thing, there are copious amounts of underlining and comments penciled into the margins.

Perhaps when I've finished I'll be able to articulate the primary message of the book; but for now, I'll just share a few quotes.

Teaching is an art, and an art, though it has a variety of practical devices to choose from, cannot be reduced to a science.

Again like governing, teaching is telling somebody else how to think and behave; it is an imposition, an invasion of privacy. That it is presumably for another's good does not change the unhappy fact of going against another's desire--to play, whistle, or talk instead of listening and learning: teaching is a blessing thoroughly disguised.

The computer, moreover, does not teach, does not show a human being thinking and meeting intellectual difficulties; it does not impart knowledge but turns up information pre-arranged and pre-cooked.

Knowing something--really knowing it--means being able to summon it up out of the blue; the facts must be produced in their right relations and with their correct significance. When you know something, you can tell it to somebody else.

For my readers who know who Charlotte Mason is--narration, yes?

There is more, about the hazards of fragmented knowledge, and importance of understand the relations that exist between subjects, but that should be enough to whet the appetite of anyone who has an appetite for this sort of reading in the first place.

Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff

2012-01-16T08:00:00.001+01:00

Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff is one of those little books that you can pick up and begin enjoying instantly. No "read 50 pages to see if the story captures your attention" needed. I was laughing out loud by page two.

Helene Hanff is better known for 84 Charing Cross Road, which I have also read and enjoyed. In this book, she traces her life from her early ventures in autodidactism (I may have made that word up--spellchecker doesn't recognize it--but I give spellchecker a withering glance, and use it anyway) to her late-in-life success as an author, after years of financial leanness.

"Q" in this case is Arther Quiller-Couch, author of many books, including lectures on writing and literature.

I love the story of how Hanff, at age 18, selected Quiller-Couch's books from among other similar works. She was working through the authors alphabetically at the library, and must have looked at quite a few of them before she made it to "Q." She eventually purchased all his books, and they planted the seeds of her desire to own and read still other books--many of which she ordered from Marks&Co at 84, Charing Cross Road. As her relationship with the book-shop employees became the foundation of her first truly successful work, and opened many doors of friendship, travel, and opportunity for her, she realized that she ultimately owed "Q" a great deal, on many levels. Thus the title: "Q's Legacy."

This is a short book--I read it through in a day or two, as a light change from Anna Karenina--and I think most enthusiastic life-long readers would enjoy this additional peek into Helene's life, and all that 84 Charing Cross Road meant to her.

I acquired my little paperback copy of this book via a generous giver at Bookmooch, and penned inside the front cover is the brief notation "London, Foyles, 1991." On my brief trip to London in 2009, I spent an evening in Foyles--a truly wonderful memory--and I'm pleased to know this book about Helene Hanff comes from a place I've visited, on Charing Cross Road itself!

More Books for 2012

2012-01-13T08:00:00.001+01:00

I enjoy crocheting...with thread. Tiny hooks and size 30 thread make me happy. Sometimes I use sewing thread (the color selection is wonderful). Everything I make is essentially useless, but I like to think I'm adding something beautiful to the world when I do it. But my real reason for crocheting is that I find it relaxing--nothing so peaceful and mesmerizing as making round upon round of perfect stitches and seeing a lovely pattern emerge. Love it.

But although I like to thus occupy my hands, the pleasure is increased many-fold if I have a good book to listen to while I work. Librivox is one of the nicest things that ever happened to me. I really love them, and I hope, someday, I'll have time and resources to record something for them, as a small repayment for the many, many hours of enjoyment I've had from them.

I have a number of interesting books on my "to listen" list for the upcoming year. I might have another go with Eleanor Porter and listen to The Road to Understanding. I'm interested in continuing my acquaintance with Edith Wharton, and I have my eye on The Bunner Sisters. Or perhaps The Glimpses of the Moon.

The Return of Alfred by Cecil George Jenkins sounds like it might be fun. It's a case of mistaken identity, and that's usually fertile ground for good comedy. I'll probably choose another Wilkie Collins, either Basil or The Law and The Lady. If I listen to both, that would be nearly 24 hours of crochet time!

I really like good stories for my crochet-reading. I can't follow non-fiction or arguments or essays, but engrossing stories are what I usually choose. I probably "read" books this way that I would otherwise never get to in the ordinary course of reading. Along those lines, I've also bookmarked Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell and Shirley by Charlotte Bronte.

Sometimes I like to listen to vintage mysteries or humor, and I've marked The Confession by Mary Roberts Rinehart and The Coming of Bill by P.G. Wodehouse. Sometimes I really just want something light for this book-listening, so if you have suggestions for this category, toss them my way.

I have a couple of other authors I might try this year, if I'm feeling ambitious. I've got my eye on In the Year of Jubilee by George Gissing and The Grey Mills of Farley by Sarah Orne Jewett.

The photos I've shared here are just a small part of my crocheting from last year. Books and thread...it doesn't get much better than that. Anyone else listen to a great Librivox title? Share it with me...I'll queue it up!

Well, this is embarrassing.

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000+01:00

After organizing (sort of) my Kindle books and lining up things for 2012 (I've added several more things to that "To Be Read in 2012" folder since my last post), I cast my eyes toward my paper-and-ink books. I have a lot of unread books that I've purchased or acquired through Bookmooch, and I want to read them all. That's not embarrassing. The embarrassment stems from discovering that I have a rather large stack of books that I've begun...in some cases, my bookmark is at the half-way point...but not finished. One or two such books is understandable, but I have eight.

I didn't stop reading any of these intentionally. I just stopped. Probably my mood changed, or I was side-tracked with other activities, and when I got back to reading, I wanted to read something else, and...well, I'm sure it's happened to everyone.

The problem is that these books have lain dormant so long I must go back to the beginning and start again. Considering that most of these are formidable in either length or scope (with only one exception), it's daunting. In fact, I refuse to commit to finishing all of these in 2012. That just isn't going to happen (remember, I have to start over). So I'm going to share the titles and ask for suggestions--which ones should I finish?

Winter in Madrid by C.J. Sansom--This one causes me weeping and gnashing of teeth, because I read to page 436 of 538. Why did I stop? Is it worth starting over (and I must--it's been too long to pick up the thread of the story)?

Habits of the Mind by James Sire--Another book of a type that I like to read, but I didn't get through this one. I appreciate a Christian perspective on intellectual pursuits, though, and that's why I started this. (I've read The Universe Next Door and How to Read Slowly by the same author.)

Sophie's Choice by William Styron--I think you really have to be in the right mood for this story, but feel free to recommend it and convince me that I should give it another try. (I read to page 124 of over 600 pages.)

A History of Education in Antiquity by H.I. Marrou--This reads like a textbook, but it contains some extremely valuable information that cannot be found anywhere else. (David Hicks, for example, most likely got his information about Isocrates from this book.) Is this the year I should make myself finish? With this one, I could possibly forgo the "starting over" requirement and continue from where I am (page 122 of 465 pages of extremely fine, dense text).

Life of Pi by Yann Martel--This is the shortest book I started and abandoned, and maybe in this case, that means it wasn't for me? But maybe I should try again? It would be the easiest book on my list to finish, as it is a normal-length novel of some 300 pages or so.

I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb--I've long wanted to read something by Wally Lamb. Everyone who has read him seems to find his work compelling. I made it to page 100 of this 800+ page book. Should I try again?

Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee--I really didn't get that far into this 750+ page biography, but I bought it because I really wanted to read it. Edith Wharton is one my "new" favorite authors, and I've always enjoyed author biographies.

From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun--This is probably the most embarrassing of all the books I didn't finish, as I am a huge fan of Jacques Barzun. Did you know he's still alive at age 104? If you are as impressed as I am, you should listen to this interesting discussion with him. I will finish this book sometime...and perhaps I could forgo starting over with this one, too. Is this a book for 2012?

I'm thinking of committing to finishing just two from this list. I might potentially read more, but I am being realistic. I'm going to pick two to focus on. Help me out--which ones? At the moment, I don't have strong feelings about any of them.

The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White

2012-01-09T06:00:00.002+01:00

The Wheel Spins ended up in my "must read" pile via Danielle at A Work in Progress. I downloaded it to my Kindle, and, true to form, I read the first part rather slowly, then finished with a mad dash. The book is extremely atmospheric. Iris Carr is trapped in a nightmare, and you are there with her. Alfred Hitchcock used this story as the basis of his film The Lady Vanishes, if that gives some insight into the mood of the story.
Iris has been vacationing in a quite remote location with a group of noisy friends. When it's time to go home, she lets them go on without her in order to enjoy a day or two of solitude and quiet. She gets lost during a walk and loses her sense of direction. When she can't find her way back to her hotel, and realizes that no one can help her because she doesn't speak their language, it gives her a fright. Then, already feeling unsettled, she loses consciousness on the train platform (sunstroke?) and nearly misses her train.

A rather annoying spinster-governess in her compartment latches onto her, and fills her ears with bits of gossip about the other passengers, stories of her home and family, and half-dropped hints about her highly-placed, secretive employer. Iris is bored by her, although she recognizes her fundamental kindness and goodwill, and after spending a few hours in company with her, she drops off to sleep for some peace. When she awakes, the lady is gone--not only from the compartment, but also, apparently, from the train, as well as from the memories and knowledge of every other passenger. No one will admit to seeing her with Iris.

Iris's recent unsettling experiences make her doubt herself. Did she imagine or dream the whole thing? But the growing conviction that Miss Froy (the spinster) both existed and is in trouble pushes Iris to put aside her selfishness and discover a way to rescue her, even at the risk of being suspected of madness.

Not a long story, but engrossing. It reminded me of that newer Jodie Foster movie, Flightplan (2005) , in which a mother dozes off on an airplane and awakens to find her child missing--a child no one will admit to seeing.

My Kindle copy of this book is lendable, and I will lend it to the first person who asks me. Just bear in mind that you'll have just two weeks in which to finish, so please ask only if you plan to read it for certain, as I can only lend it once.

Synchronicity

2012-01-07T13:27:00.006+01:00

Don't you just love it when you start reading a book, and you are arrested by something unexpected that confirms that this book is the book that you are meant to be reading right now? Synchronicity. Serendipity. Synthesis. I've run across those words somewhere, and I love it when that happens.

I just finished reading a book which was a dialogue on the nature of man--material only or is there a spiritual nature as well?

Moving right along, and (since it's still January) focusing on my planned reading for 2012, I decided to dip into Anna Karenina to see if that was the right book to read next. Within the first couple of chapters, I was drawn right into Tolstoy's world. His writing is so vivid. But within a few chapters, I stumbled over another discussion on the material vs. spiritual nature of man, accompanied by the identical question addressed by Jostein Gaarder: Is death the end of existence or not?

With him there was a well-known professor of philosophy, who had come from Harkov expressly to clear up a difference that had arisen between them on a very important philosophical question. The professor was carrying on a hot crusade against materialists. Sergey Kosnishev had been following this crusade with interest, and after reading the professor's last article, he had written him a letter stating his objections. He accused the professor of making too great concessions to the materialists. And the professor had promptly appeared to argue the matter out.

The main character at this point, Levin, is listening to the discussion and feels that they are arguing around the main question at hand, so he cuts to the chase.

But here it seemed to Levin that just as they were close upon the real point of the matter, they were again retreating, and he made up his mind to put a question to the professor.
"According to that, if my senses are annihilated, if my body is dead, I can have no existence of any sort?" he queried.

I nearly laughed out loud at the best answer the professor was able to make: We can't answer that because we don't have enough data.

Tolstoy is good stuff. When it comes to weaving together story and philosophy, he is the master.

This is definitely the right book for me, right now.

The Castle in the Pyrenees by Jostein Gaarder

2012-01-05T12:37:00.002+01:00

The Castle in the Pyrenees by Jostein Gaarder is the latest to be translated into English from the author of Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy (FSG Classics). Most people have heard of Sophie's World, and some have even read it. I am fascinated by Jostein Gaarder's work (in spite of the fact that we have some fundamental differences of belief) and I have read everything he's written that has been translated into English. Even Maya.

So, I must begin by saying that I enjoyed this book. The premise is intriguing. Two young lovers experience a life-changing event. For one, the experience is a prelude to a life of faith. For the other, the same event confirms a dis-belief in anything supernatural. Their differences lead to a parting of ways, and they do not meet again for 30 years. Suddenly, in the same location as their long-ago crisis, they meet unexpectedly. Both have married other people and have families, but they embark on an email exchange (the novel should be considered epistolary) in which they explore their common experience (which was confusing and unsettling) and their different beliefs.

When I realized that the book was essentially a discourse on the existence of the supernatural versus a purely material world, I was further engrossed. I consider the question of no small importance, and I am unabashedly on the side of the spiritual, and reject statements such as:

There is no inherent intent, purpose or essence to the universe, and this is generally held to be a self-evident assumption.

How convenient, no? You call it self-evident, and thus side-step the necessity of supporting it, but it's absurd in light of the order and intent we see in our world, from the smallest microorganism to the cosmos itself. If you were walking through a jungle, and you suddenly emerged into a cleared space, in which the trees grew in orderly rows (a row of nuts, a row of fruit trees, another row of a different fruit, and so on) and if, between the evenly-spaced trees, you found clipped grass and beds of flowers also growing in homogenous groups and grows, you would know that someone had planned that space, cleared it and cultivated it, cared for it, and kept it separate from the wild disorder of the nearby jungle. Not for one, tiny, instant would you imagine that the clearing was an accidental, natural occurrence in the midst of the jungle.

So, feel free to tell me that it is "self-evident" that the universe reveals no intent if you want to, but I will only believe you if you can tell me that you would also believe that a child could pour a bucket of Legos onto the floor, and that they could fall into a model of the Eiffel Tower. Order is order, and it reveals intelligent intent, not chance. If you saw the model of the Eiffel Tower, you would know, instinctively, that someone had planned and executed it, and you would not be foolish enough to suggest otherwise.

So Gaarder sets up this dialog between the materialist scientist (and I'll just mention here that there is a lot of gratuitous propaganda about global warming in this book as well) and the vibrant, convinced believer in the supernatural. At the halfway point in the book, I was fascinated to see how it was going to play out--who was going to convince whom?

But this is Gaarder, and if you read him, you know that he isn't about black-and-white, clear-cut answers. I applaud him for facing the questions and hashing it out in story form. I love that sort of thing. But if you are looking for resolution or final answers, you won't find them here. The ending is ambiguous, and both parties walk away from their encounter with their convictions shaken, less certain than they had been before. Yes, the person with faith wavers, and wonders if the materialist might have a rational, scientific explanation after all. But that is not the end. The end of the story is shaped in such a way (and I really can't give that away, in spite of the fact that very few people are likely to read this book) that the materialist cannot continue to disbelieve in the supernatural. He knows--he cannot longer doubt--that death is not the end of existence, and that there are yet many, many questions about the universe which science is in no position to answer.

This is one of those books in which nothing really happens--we have only the letters, which do tell us some of the events which have occurred, but mostly the story is about ideas. Both characters are sympathetic, although they are not developed in great depth. What we know about them, we know through their letters. He drinks too much. She is carrying on the correspondence with her husband's knowledge, but he begrudges her time thus spent, and so she placates him. Neither has forgotten their former love and relationship.

It was an interesting book--an interesting story. I really wish I could share the crux of the ending, the paradox that brings the past and present together, and leaves the future in question, but that would spoil it. I hope Gaarder keeps writing. Mostly, I hope he finds some real answers, and then keeps on asking good questions. There aren't many people who weave philosophy and story together as skillfully as he can.

Some books to read in 2012

2012-01-04T15:51:00.003+01:00

I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to be more disciplined about my reading, because I ended up squandering a lot of reading time on a lot of worthless twaddle last year. I would like to blame Amazon and Kindle for this, but although the Kindle *enables* the reading of twaddle, it's not really to blame for how I spend my time, is it?

Right.

I have a number of goals and plans for 2012 (blogging more isn't one of them, but if that happens, okay, fine). I spent a bit of time yesterday and today working on organization. I had nine pages of unclassified items on my Kindle! It's not quite as bad as it sounds--I have two pages of collections alone....

I created a new folder called "To Read 2012", and shuffled 15 books (so far) into there, cleaning up my loose items and my laughable "In Progress" folder. This is what's there so far:

Think: The Life of the Mind and Love of God by John Piper and Mark A. Noll

...because I want to read a bit of Piper and the topic is of interest to me.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

...because what Eva of A Striped Armchair says about it makes it sound like a book I'd enjoy.

South Riding by Winifred Holtby

...because I want to watch the film, and I can't until I read the book.

done: What most religions don't tell you about the Bible by Cary Schmidt

...because I read the beginning and was completely intrigued.

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

...because...because...I can't remember why but I'm pretty sure this author and this particular book sounded like something I wanted to try.

The Faith of Ashish by Kay Marshall Strom

...because I want to read more books set in India and also by Indian authors.

On Gold Mountain by Lisa See

...because I am very interested in reading about China and Chinese families.

Your Child's Growing Mind by Jane Healy

...because I need to finish this book and see if I can use it to help my youngest daughter.

American Childhood by Annie Dillard

...because I've never read anything by Annie Dillard, and I need to!

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

...because it's totally time for me to read another book by Forster, and then something by Edith Wharton.

The Intellectual Life by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

...because...because...again, I can't remember why. Probably the title interested me. This book bears the distinction of "most likely to be dropped from this list."

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

...because....can you believe I haven't read this yet?

The Napoleon Of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton

...because I assigned this to one of my homeschool students, and now I need to read it, too. And because I haven't enough Chesterton.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

...because Tolstoy is amazing and I haven't read this yet.

The Crown of Wild Olives by John Ruskin

...because Charlotte Mason thought it was a good book to read for young people "coming of age" intellectually, and I want to see why she thought so.

Now, these are just the books on my Kindle that I want to get to in 2012. I have paper-and-ink books crying, pleading, begging for attention--practically falling off the shelves when I walk by, and increasing in pitch if I so much as glance in their direction. More about those another day.

And if you think it's beyond insane to have Anna Karenina and Les Miserables on the same "to read this year" list, you don't have to tell me. I already know.

Highlights from 2011 (Books, of course)

2011-12-30T16:20:00.005+01:00

I am a most unfaithful blogger. Thank goodness nobody gives you little award buttons that say so. Not that it would matter if they did. Bloggers like me aren’t exactly sure how to make cute buttons and linky-things appear in the sidebar. If we did, we wouldn’t be such bad bloggers, and it takes all kinds to make a blogosphere, don’t you think? Bloggers like me allow you to appreciate those good bloggers all the more, I’m sure.

Nevertheless, I can’t resist popping in here to share my “most interesting books of 2011” and linking up to Semicolon’s year-end wrap-up. There is no special number here--I’m not limiting myself to 10 or 12 or 25. I’m not going to tell you how many books I read, or how they fall out into categories. That’s a secret. No, really, it is. Even I don’t know.

These are the books that, as I think back over 2011, have stuck with me. These are the ones that made a difference for me in 2011, or held my attention, or made me laugh. You really don’t want to know how many books I read that didn’t make a difference at all (and neither do I). I don’t remember most of them, because they aren’t worth remembering! This is a list of the good stuff, the books I’d offer a friend.

The Island of the World
by Michael D. O’Brien--This was one of the first books I read in 2011--a wonderful gift--and something I blogged about at the time.

A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
by Brigid Pasulka --This book was of particular interest to me, because it takes place not only here in Poland, but mostly in Krakow. It spans several lifetimes, from World War II to the early 1990s--those first years after Poland shrugged off communism and was struggling to find her feet. I caught the very end of that era in 1997. Things have changed a great deal in the nearly 15 years I’ve lived here. This book is a family saga--full of the love and struggles that make for a good family story--and the background history of Poland is a bonus.

Lawendowy Pyl by Danuta Marcinkowska, Ewa Marcinkowska-Schmidt and Klaudyna Schmidt.
This is another family story, spanning the exact same era. However, this book is written in Polish (and I’m actually not finished with it yet). It is also “essentially true,” but is written as fiction, with altered names, because some of the people in the story are still living and were not consulted. Nevertheless, it is the real story of a real family, told by three generations of women, and they’ve included lots of family photographs. The war...the Stalin years...the shortages...Martial Law...it’s all there. I hesitate to mention it, because I don’t think it will be translated, but it fits the criteria for this list--it’s a wonderful book that has made a difference for me.

Shades of Grey: A Novel
by Jasper Fforde--I must say that I am not a huge fan of Fforde. The weird existentialism overwhelmed me when I read “Thursday Next,” and until this book (recommended by Stephanie) I wasn’t willing to give him a try. But I am a glutton for a good dystopia story, and this one is intriguing and unique--a world in which “progress” is measured by backward steps (old spoons are shockingly precious), and society is highly stratified based upon an individual’s ability to see color. There will be sequels. I will read them.

This Perfect Day
by Ira Levin--This is an older dystopian story, rather well known. It isn’t quite as classic as 1984 or Brave New World, but it does have its own wikipedia page. I read this story through, and immediately started over and read it again. Then I read it two more times. I find it very difficult to articulate why it fascinated me so, but it did. One of the most poignant parts of the story, to me, is the great lengths two characters go through in order to learn a foreign language--for them, an unknown language--in order to be able to read books. Some of the technological elements in the story are dated--we’d never need bracelets to identify us to computers today, in this age of microchips and near-field scanners--but the extreme control of every aspect of life looms too close for comfort.

RENA'S PROMISE: TWO SISTERS IN AUSCHWITZ

by Rena Kornreich Gelissen with Heather Dune Macadam--One of my non-fiction reads, touching two areas of interest for me--biography and holocaust literature. This is a newer memoir (the author has since passed away), telling the story of Rena and her sister. Rena was a rare long-term survivor. She was on the first women’s transport into Auschwitz, and she survived the death march to Ravensbruck at the end of the war. Her story was as compelling as every survivor story I’ve ever read, but this memoir seems remarkable to me as much for what it does not include as what it does. Rena shared her story with Heather Macadam so it would not be lost, but I am convinced she left out a great deal. The truth is, you could only survive that long in Auschwitz by being ruthless. Rena chose not to tell that part of her story, but the parts that she does share are a tribute to her endurance, ingenuity, and determination.

The Old Manor House by Charlotte Turner Smith--Written in 1793, this is a strange Gothic story, by a nearly-forgotten author of the Romantic era. (She was known by authors such as Wordsworth and Southey.) It is most interesting to me for the picture it paints of a long-gone era of English life. This is Jane Austen’s world. Money and family govern the choice of marriage partners, not personal feelings. But what happens when real love does spring up? The main character goes to America to fight on behalf of the British, and Charlotte Turner Smith uses the setting of the American revolution to show her sympathy with the French revolution. I listened to this at Librivox, and thus gained, over some time, 24 hours of crocheting time!

Oh, Money! Money! by Eleanor H. Porter--This is no Pollyanna! A wealthy bachelor needs to decide on an heir, so he gives a little money to his distant relatives to see which one will use it most wisely. But he can’t resist watching what happens from nearby, and as he gets to know them, he realizes what a dilemma he has created for himself. Besides the (rather predictable, but fun) main plot, there is a great deal of commentary here about the proper role of money in life, showing that both overspending and miserliness are poor substitutes for good stewardship.

Vice Versa by F. Anstey--Remember the movie "Freaky Friday?" This is a Victorian-era version of the same tale. An unhappy son is miserably contemplating his return to boarding school, when fate steps in and he and his father change places. He remains comfortably at home, while his father is packed off to school with the meager allowance he made his son all the money he has in his pocket. Naturally, they come to understand each other better, but the naughty son doesn’t really want to change back, and so Dad needs all his ingenuity to effect the switch (courtesy of a charmed stone brought from India by a relative).

No Name, by Wilkie Collins---I really love these Victorian-era tales that sprawl across chapters and months, drawing widely-flung threads together in a satisfying end. For a wonder, I blogged about this one, too, if you want a closer look at the plot and characters.

A Way of Seeing by Edith Schaeffer--This is a non-fiction collection of short essays, most of which were originally published as columns in Christianity Today (in the 1970s). I love the way Edith describes them: “This is what I was thinking about while I was washing dishes...” I liked most of them, but what was astonishing was how very, very apropos they are to today, in spite of some dated references. Some of the essays were written while Francis was filming his “How Shall We Then Live” series, and there are a few interesting references to that. I received permission to translate some of these into Polish, and that will be a project for 2012.

Aurora Floyd, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon--This is my second book by Braddon, after reading the better-known Lady Audley’s Secret some time ago. Aurora is a spoiled, willful girl who does some very, very foolish things before she is out of her teens. Her whole life might have been spoiled, but it seems a fortuitous chance has given her an opportunity for something better, and she marries happily. When the dark shadow of her past re-emerges, she despairs. But would she commit murder to secure her safety? Someone certainly has committed murder, and suspicion falls upon Aurora from the beginning. I almost felt as if I were reading another Wilkie Collins during this story!

Can you handle a couple more?

Olive Kitteridge: Fiction
by Elizabeth Strout--Probably the only "prize winner" I read this year (I think I read a lot of junk--something I plan to rectify in the immediate future), and wrote about at the time. I love a good character-driven story.

Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home
by Susan Hill. This is a book about books and reading--I gleaned many potential titles and authors that I wanted to pursue while I read it. Maybe I'll get to one or two of them in 2012!

And that's it--the best of 2011, gleaned from dozens of titles, most of which were forgotten as soon as I finished them. I admit to being somewhat disgusted with myself, and I hope to do better next year. That is, I intend to plan my reading time more carefully, and read more purposefully. There will be moments of light reading when I just want to escape, but I hope that will be the smaller part of the list next year. I hope.

Sneak Preview: I'm currently reading the newest Jostein Gaarder!!! Castle in the Pyrenees....stay tuned. I might even blog about it.

Further thoughts on Poetic Knowledge, chapter two, part two

2011-04-19T12:08:00.004+02:00

This is my contribution to the on-going book discussion of Poetic Knowledge by James Taylor. Although this week's discussion is supposed to cover only half of chapter two, there is so much in there, that I thought about writing more than one post for this section. Then I had to chastise myself for acting in direct opposition to what I think is the most fundamental point I want to make, which concerns the importance of integration and wholeness of knowledge. Therefore, I will say what I want to say in one post, no matter how difficult.

The title of this chapter is "The Philosophical Foundations," and Taylor delves pretty deeply into the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and others. He is tracing the historical "conversation" on the validity of poetic knowledge from its known roots to the present. It isn't easy to read or to follow, and I'm not going to attempt to summarize. For me, the topic crystallizes in a few key ways. First of all, as I mentioned in my last post, poetic knowledge is closely allied with love. Education is concerned with "ordering the affections"--teaching us to know and love that which is beautiful and good. I liked this quote from Augustine:

Because love is a movement [of the soul] and every movement is always toward something, when we ask what ought to be loved, we are therefore asking what it is that we ought to be moving toward....It is the thing in regard to which possession and knowing are one and the same.

This is not a thing that can be accomplished by systems, lesson plans, or direct command. You can make a child memorize the multiplication table, but you cannot force him to see the relationships that exist within it, and thrill with appreciation for the patterns and wholeness and orderliness of it. For that relationship to occur, you have to give him a chance to know it and "discover" for himself some of the possibilities. Poetic knowledge cannot be forced, and my personal feeling is that it is unlikely that everyone will develop a poetic relationship with every area of knowledge. We can but try, which is why Charlotte Mason urges us that it is not "how much" a scholar knows that is the measure of his progress, but "how much he cares," and about how many things has he learned to care?

Caring about something...loving it...requires that a person be allowed to interact with the wholeness of the subject at hand--to meet the universal in the particulars, and to interact with it personally. A required unit on insects, for example, which points out the peculiar characteristics of all insects, perhaps requires the identification of a few (via pictures), and finishes with a written test on the subject matter before moving on to reptiles is not likely to produce a roomful of enthusiastic amateur entomologists. Consider the child who has leisure to observe a beehive, an anthill, a ladybug. Perhaps he knows its name already, or perhaps he has to ask (asking shows that he cares a little bit already). Perhaps he wonders what they are doing, or why. Perhaps he is amazed by some insect feat of prowess, or overwhelmed by their numbers, or curious about their ability to fly. Perhaps he is merely amused at the idea of walking on six feet. If he is anything at all besides indifferent, he is experiencing the tiny beginning of a relationship with knowledge about insects, a poetic understanding of their little lives that no factual "knowing about" will ever match. How far his interest in insects will go depends on many things (my own extends primarily to keeping them out of the house), but his knowledge of one kind of insect that he has observed closely is the gateway to the greater, more universal knowledge that could be learned.

A few other examples come to mind, and I fear that many of us, educated in the fragmented, analytic system of education, can be confused about what constitutes "wholes" and "parts." A few examples spring to mind, and I have had...warm discussions...on a few of these topics. "Art" is not a whole thing to be introduced. You cannot know "art" or develop a relationship with "art." You can acquire poetic knowledge about an individual picture or sculpture, and through close association and affection (love) for some pieces of art, develop an understanding about the more universal topic of "art." An apple is not a part of tree--it is a whole thing, complete in itself, both coming from a greater whole (the tree), and containing within it another whole (the seed). The universe is made up of whole things within greater whole things, which work together to make up still greater whole things, and not of discrete things that have no connection to anything else.

In our increasingly fragmented post-modern culture, letting our children experience the wholeness and connectedness of knowledge is probably one of the most important things we can do for them. I marked every instance of words like "whole" and "integrated" in this chapter, because it seems to me to the most vital thing--the one thing that we must see and grasp for ourselves, if we want to have a chance to convey it to those we teach.

Poetic knowledge is important because it recognizes the wholeness of the learner in the first place. We are neither entirely material or entirely spiritual beings--we are both. We perceive the world through our senses, but we also bring emotions and rationality to bear on what we perceive. I really could not begin to articulate the various aspects of sense and intellect that are discussed in this chapter, but my heart resonates with this conclusion:

It is also important to restate that this is all an integrated experience, not occurring in mechanical steps or linked together as a chain...

Wholeness. Oneness. Integration. Unity. A synthetic universe in which all things interlock and move and work together in an organic whole that staggers the mind, and makes the most complex mechanical process look shabby by comparison. We can't grasp that all at once, or perhaps not ever completely. But when we deal with knowledge in terms of wholeness rather than as isolated parts, we are functioning in the poetic mode, and behaving as whole-hearted human beings, and we are experiencing in the minute particulars the greater universal truths.

Having written all that, which sounds so serious, I just have to add that, among my other markings in this chapter, I've made marginal notes about Orson Scott Card. It's because this discussion reminded me that in Ender's Game, Ender understands deeply the fact that he must love his enemy in order to know him well enough to defeat him.

Thoughts on Poetic Knowledge, chapter two (part one)

2011-04-16T14:52:00.002+02:00

I'm hopelessly late in this week's discussion of the first part of chapter two, but life is what it is. I want to join in this discussion, but finding the time to devote to it is tricky.

I read over the chapter, including my marginal notes, which made reference both to Charlotte Mason (of course), and also to Alfred North Whitehead. It's been several years since I read The Aims of Education by Whitehead, so I had to pull the book out and look over my notes there to recall the similarities. One thing that I think is important to understand about "poetic knowledge," as it is called by Taylor in this book, is called by other names from other authors. Thus, when you read about "romantic knowledge" in Whitehead or "synthetic knowledge" from David Hicks (Norms & Nobility), it's really important to realize that they are talking about the same thing. Taylor borrowed the word "poetic" from some older authors, and it is valid, but it is not the only term to describe what he means--what Charlotte Mason called "the science of relationships."

Poetic knowledge is very much the difference between knowing things, and knowing about them. Our information age has made "knowing about" extremely easy, and it is easy to confuse a second-hand familiarity with real knowledge. We mustn't. The real knowledge is the poetic knowledge of close association, interaction, and ultimately, love.

This poetic knowledge begins with a sense of wonder, and I really like the quote from Dennis Quinn:

Wonder, always considered a passion, was classified by Aquinas and many before him as a species of fear....There are, of course many kinds of fear..[and] it is helpful to distinguish wonder from some passions in its immediate family. When we do so, we see that wonder is the most rational form of fear.

This kind of wonder, that makes us approach some new and unknown with awe and reverence, is, I think, what the Bible means when it tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

It is, of course, closely connected with the sense of ignorance that makes us aware that there is something we do not know, and that we need to know, or want to know--a state of humility without which true education cannot take place.

The one author that springs to mind when I think about this is Jostein Gaarder. I have read everything he has written (that has been translated into English), and I have never encountered anyone better able to articulate this sense of wonder than he does--from The Christmas Mystery to Sophie's World. I don't agree with all of his conclusions, but there is no doubt that understands the right frame of mind for looking at one thing--a flower, an orange, a sheep--and understanding how truly amazing it is--how worthy of our awe, because it is such an amazing thing, "infinitely more than nothing."

Now that I've wondered all over the map, it's probably pretty clear why I didn't get any kind of post done earlier for this chapter. In the end, it was this or nothing. I've avoided reading everyone else's thoughts until I posted my own, so I'm to do that now. You may want to join me.

2011-04-06T07:00:00.000+02:00

I haven't blogged about Poland or Krakow for a long time, although I remain "Krakovianka"--a resident of Krakow (similar to "New Yorker").

But I have something to share that compels me to call up blogger and type away. My family and I visited a new museum recently, and most of this post was written immediately afterward, in great enthusiasm. I've been to any number of museums here in Krakow (not all of them), but this museum is unique in my experience. The Oskar Schindler factory, made well-known via the film Schindler's List, has been converted into a museum about the war years here in Krakow. The exhibits are laid out in a convoluted path which draws you through the museum in chronological order.

It begins in the pre-war era, with period photographs of entertainers and people living ordinary lives. It was the end of summer--people were just finishing up their vacations--when Nazi Germany invaded. It's really not possible to use words to explain the way the museum makes this an experience, not just an exhibit. There are areas of light and darkness. There are video clips that you view through the window of a home, or a tram. There are prison cell-like cubicles (complete with barred windows on the doors) where you can read about the arrests, and listen to first-hand accounts (in Polish, with English subtitles). Period furniture, clothing, accessories, weapons, and posters are used throughout the exhibits. The section on the ghetto is experienced between authentic walls that resemble those that surrounded that area. When you read about the labor camps, you are are behind barbed wire and walking on very rough gravel. You can duck into a basement where some Jews were hidden in the dark and damp for years to save their lives. You can walk through the main square of Krakow (the way it is evoked is truly amazing), where Nazi flags are flying, and learn with horror that on the first anniversary of the invasion, the main square was renamed "Adolf Hitler Plaza." I was shocked to see a picture of a small indoor market where I've shopped for years with swastika-blazoned banners on the front!! The exhibits lead you through the museum and through the course of the years from 1939 to 1945 in Krakow, until the liberation.

The exhibit ends in a brightly-lit circular room called the Room of Choices. Written all over the walls, in many languages, are brief comments from those who tell how they helped, or were helped by others, during the difficult years. Set within the walls are rotating pillars (each in a different language). On the rotating pillars are the words and testimony of those who did not help when they could have. The thing that struck me about all of them was that the help they were asked to give, or considered giving, was of the smallest kind. One person planned to share some food with another, but by the time they reached the person, they had eaten it all. Another saw that clothing was being collected to give to Polish prisoners, and she packed up her dead brother's clothing to donate...but left the bundle at home, and missed the opportunity. Those folks had little to share, but they could have shared...even meant to share...but they didn't. The small amount of food or the warm sweater wouldn't have fixed the evil situation they were all in, but it would have provided comfort to one person, for a little while. The excuses were tinged with regret...the remembrance that they could have helped, but failed to do so.

As I thought about it later, it seemed so easy to say, "I'd have done this or that" if I'd been living in Krakow in 1941, but...it was those small regrets that really struck me. We don't have the power to fix, for example, the dreadful results of a tsunami in Japan, but is there something that it is in our power to do? Some small service, or sacrifice, or helping hand. Those little things count.

Thoughts on Poetic Knowledge by James Taylor, ch. 1

2011-04-05T16:24:00.004+02:00

I decided to reread this book along with those who are are reading and discussing it in book-club format. I first read it several years, ago, so my copy is already well-marked with my original comments and thoughts.

Being practically a disciple of Charlotte Mason in the realm of education, I was most forcefully struck by the fact that poetic knowledge is precisely what Miss Mason is aiming to achieve with her young learners, and therefore her methods are most efficacious is achieving what is essentially somewhat elusive and spontaneous.

James Taylor takes up the whole first chapter to convey what he means by poetic knowledge, and tells us

So whatever poetic knowledge is, it is not strictly speaking a knowledge of poems, but a spontaneous act of the external and internal senses with the intellect, integrated and whole rather than an act associated with the powers of analytic reasoning. It is, according to a tradition from Homer to Robert Frost, from Socrates to Maritain, a natural human act, synthetic and penetrating, that gets us inside the thing experienced.

For my friends who are familiar with Charlotte Mason, don't you immediately see this as virtually identical to her "science of relations," wherein she urges us to allow children to form their own relationships with every branch of knowledge.

The concept of synthetic and analytic knowledge could have been lifted right from her own writing. In Formation of Character, she explains:

There is also a time for sowing the seed of this knowledge, an intellectual as well as a natural springtime; and it would be interesting to examine the question, how far it is possible to prosecute any branch of knowledge, the sowing and germination of which has not taken place in early youth. It follows that the first three lustres* belong to what we may call the synthetic stage of education, during which his reading should be wide and varied enough to allow the young scholar to get into living touch with earth-knowledge, history, literature, and much besides. These things are necessary for his intellectual life, and are especially necessary to give him material for the second stage of his education, the analytic, which, indeed, continues with us to the end.

I could say much more on the subject, but this is a blog post, and not the book I ought to write. The most important point for me is taking careful note of that world "whole." Studying the wholeness of things, and their place within greater wholes, is the key to opening the door to synthetic/poetic knowledge, and avoiding the analytic knowledge trap. This is most important because those of us who grew up in institutional schools have experienced only an analytical approach to knowledge, and we need to be very, very careful to avoid the tendency to break everything down into small parts. None of us would give our children a vitamin tablet, a bit of sugar, and a dose of fiber and imagine that it was the equivalent of giving him an apple. The whole apple is much better for him, and so is the wholeness of poetic knowledge. It goes without saying that it tastes better, too.

*Let me save you the trouble I went through to figure out what she means. Lustre can apparently be understood, in French, as a span of 5 years. It is thus used in a poem by Victor Hugo, and should be understood in this case to mean up to the age of 15 or so.

No Name by Wilkie Collins

2011-03-19T09:38:00.003+01:00

Ah, the poor neglected blog. It's a little like those books I have on my shelf that I want to read so badly. I need to get around to them soon, but when I do, it's usually only to dust.

I've been meaning for weeks to write about No Name by Wilkie Collins. I've read the obligatory The Moonstone and The Woman in White, as well as two others, Armadale and The Haunted Hotel. Collins was as prolific as Dickens, and is at least as wordy, but there is something different about his books. He is a master of suspense. The tension builds and builds, and you know something terrible is going to happen. And then it does. Because he is a Victorian author, you sort of know how things are going to come out in the end, to a point. Virtuous behavior will be rewarded, and evil behavior will either be repented of or duly recompensed.

In No Name, we meet a quiet country family (genteel and wealthy, of course) consisting of father, mother, two grown daughters, and their faithful governess/companion. The eldest daughter, Nora, is quiet and old enough to be well and truly in danger of being considered an "old maid." The younger daughter, Magdalen, is just reaching maturity. She is impetuous and spoiled, and falls unfortunately in love at the first opportunity. However, her indulgent father plans to do what is necessary to make her marriage possible, which basically involves giving her a large sum of money, as her chosen partner has shown himself unable to succeed at any profession.

However, before this marriage can take place, a shocking series of events leaves the girls orphaned and penniless, without even a legal right to their father's name. This seems like enough to be a whole story in itself, but this is a Victorian novel, so it is just the very first section, laying the scene for the rest of the story.

Nora, assisted by her former governess and friend, quietly makes plans to support herself as a governess. Magdalen, willful and angry, vows revenge against the uncle who has behaved so cruelly to her and prevented her marriage. She runs away from her sister and friend, and embarks on a course of action that would have been shocking to Victorian sensibilities, but tends not to horrify me in the same way. (She begins by going on stage.)

Magdalen must fight all her better instincts and finer principles as she pursues her course of revenge and her attempt to recover her father's fortune. Nora never stops believing in her sister, and hoping and praying for her recovery and redemption. How far does Magdalen go? Does she succeed in the end? Will it be in her own best interests if and when she does? Well, that would be spoiling it, wouldn't it? I can't imagine that anyone is going to line up to read this book, and if you haven't read any Wilkie Collins, you certainly want to start with The Moonstone or The Woman in White. I'd probably suggest Armadale before this one, too. But if you already have a taste for Wilkie Collins, and you enjoy having suspense built to a fever pitch in long, long chapters before the conclusion is reached in a credibility-stretching series of coincidences (it was all I could do not to roll my eyes), this story will repay the effort to read it. Magdalen is a well-drawn, complex character, and I enjoyed the story very much. Most of Wilkie Collins characters are caricatures (Dickens-like), but they are fun to watch. There is a whole company of them in this book, aiding or thwarting Magdalen in her ventures.

If you have a large crochet project (or other handiwork) to work on, this will occupy 29 hours of time if you listen to at Librivox, as I did. It took about two months to complete, and I suppose it's only fair to say that I have several other Wilkie Collins titles on my to-be-read list (I do enjoy them), but I'm not in a hurry to start another one.

By way of a teaser, though, I'm listening to another book at Librivox right now--Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

On books and hats...

2011-02-28T14:49:00.004+01:00

I quoted in my last post from The Joys of Reading: Life's Greatest Pleasure by Burton Rascoe. That is because I am reading this slim little book (185 pages, cloth-bound, falling apart) right now, and enjoying it very much. I think I'm going to blog my way through the book so you can enjoy it, too. It's the sort of book that readers enjoy reading--a book about books and reading, and why reading is worthwhile, and different kinds of reading, and so forth. At the same time, I am most emphatically NOT recommending that anyone search out a copy to buy and read. Some of it is too specific to its time and era to be universally interesting (it's never been reprinted, so far as I can tell).

The book is recent enough that the expressions and sentiments ring very true and sound modern, while it also old enough that the author writes enthusiastically of then-living authors such as Willa Cather and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It makes for fun reading, and gives rise to all sorts of interesting reflections.

Books may fall into neglect. Fashions may shift in that demand for the "continuous slight novelty" we all require to escape monotony or satiety. And good books, even the best books, may be obscured for a while, unread for months, for years, even for centuries.

Literature does not die. It is the self-perpetuating product of an ever-flowering process like life itself; and it is the articulate spirit of life, voicing the hopes, aspirations, the conflicts, the experience, of people, of time and of place--and the best of literature, the literature that endures, is the literature which arouses in the breasts of all literate peoples at all times the emotion of recognition that this book, this poem or this play is something they know, they feel, they have observed, they acknowledge to be true, they have felt or observed, expressed in a language that is clearer, more exact, more comprehensive, or more subtle than is within the average man's power of articulation.

I appreciate the fact that he encourages readers not only to read those books which are classic and worthy, but not to be ashamed to read current literature that is worthy. He also encourages readers to actually read those worthy books, and not just skim them to be able to say "I've read that," as we might buy the latest fashion (or not) in order to make "groupthink" a veritable reality.

It is quite true that a great many people make no further use of books than as a means of keeping up with the fashion. That is to say that, when a book becomes a best seller, they want to get hold of it and perhaps only to skip through it, not out of a love of literature, not out of curiosity even, but merely to be in the swim.

When nearly everybody else seems to have read the book, and to be talking about it, they feel as uncomfortable as if they had on clothes that are last year's and, there out of date. When the Empress Eugenie hats were so much the rage in 1931 that Queen Mary was probably the only living woman who didn't wear one, it was also so much the fashion to read The Good Earth by Pearl Buck that it took more courage than most can muster to resist a desire to buy or borrow it.

Now, with the plethora of book bloggers out there, there is this tendency to want to read what everyone else is reading and talking about. There are challenges that tempt us to read the same kinds of books everyone else is reading. When half-a-dozen of my favorite book bloggers have waxed enthusiastic about a new book, I want to read it too. Sometimes I don't like the books that are enjoying the wave of popularity. I have read a few books that I could have easily dispensed with. But. I have read some wonderful, wonderful books that I would not have known about if I hadn't picked up the chatter about them and hopped on the bandwagon, to mix a few metaphors. I would not willingly have missed The Book Thief, The Thirteenth Tale, or Jayber Crow. If I have to read something like The DaVinci Code once in a while, that's not too high a price to pay for the sake of reading truly great books written by the better authors still living among us.

Burton Rascoe agrees.

The sneer [at those who read currently popular books] is both stupid and vulgar. For the undeniable fact is that the Empress Eugenie hat was so beautifully designed that no woman could but add to her appearance by wearing one, and The Good Earth was so good a novel that no one could help deriving some pleasure, some good, out of even a very superficial skimming of it.

Some things never change...

2011-02-20T14:00:00.000+01:00

People who say they cannot find time to read anything, except a detective story or some other work of current light fiction now and then, are deceiving themselves; and self-deception is an evil to be modified or corrected at all hazards, for it is infinitely worse than the habit of deceiving others.

***

It were far better for a man or a woman to give the real reason why he or she rarely reads than to give the false one that he or she cannot find the time. It would be better to say, "I am such a confirmed movie addict that I have to go to a movie two or three times a week, and, then, of course, I play bridge," or "My mind is so jaded by the fast life I lead that I cannot concentrate on a book long enough to make any sense out of the words, unless the book is spicy with sex or full of murder and sudden death," or "I am so indolent and my mind is so slothful I can't make the effort to find out anything about the world of the mind, the spirit and the imagination; I am content with the little effortless, half-awake world of platitudes which circumscribe my life."

Any such confession of the real facts of the matter would be better for the soul than the self-deceiving untruth of saying, "I can't find any time to read."

I didn't write that--It's a quote from a book called The Joys of Reading: Life's Greatest Pleasure, by Burton Rascoe and it was written in 1937. Perhaps the references to movies instead of television and bridge instead of video games gave it away?

But the sentiment rings so true and sounds so very contemporary, doesn't it? It's sort of hard to believe that 80 years ago, people were more interested in seeing a (black-and-white!) movie or playing an insipid card game than reading the really exciting new books by authors like Pearl Buck and Ernest Hemingway, or the worthwhile books that were classics even then, by Mark Twain or Charles Dickens.

Why do we always seem to imagine that things are worse today, concerning books and reading, than they were a couple of generations ago? We imagine our grandparents and great-grandparents were much wiser, and devoted their spare time to worthwhile literature instead of fleeting entertainment. Why? If Burton Rascoe's opinion is valid, it appears they were much the same as we are.

The irony of all this is that the only way to apprehend that thoughtful reading, both widely and deeply, has always been the province of the few and not the many is to read, and read a lot. And that reading has to extend into the past. Reading only current literature will not give you the insight that people in Victorian England, Renaissance Italy, ancient Greece and Rome, and the Garden of Eden were exactly the same sort of people as you and your neighbors.

When a moment of free time opens up, be it 15 minutes, an hour, or a day, a person is faced with a choice of how to occupy it. Idle entertainment or serious reading? Nine times out of ten, desultory entertainment wins out over any serious pursuit, which is why you are reading this blog post instead of, for example Paradise Lost or The Good Earth, or even a more recent worthwhile book, such as Island of the World or Jayber Crow.

But I have faith in us readers--we will never read all the excellent books we'd like to get to, but we will read some. We will blog about them, talk about them, keep them on our shelves, and remember them. And in 2090 or so, our great-grandchildren will imagine, perhaps, that this generation was a generation of readers and did not waste countless hours watching DVD's and playing video games. Because why should we expect them to be any different than we are?

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

2011-02-19T08:28:00.004+01:00

I will start off by saying that I enjoyed this book very much, and I made myself read it a little more slowly than is my wont. I'm beginning to see a pattern in my efforts to read more slowly (and I am most thoroughly convinced that slow reading is better than fast reading, but old habits and all that, etc, etc.)

1. I determine that a book is worth reading slowly and I resolve to read it that way.

2. I read the first 1/3 or 1/2 of the book at a leisurely pace, taking my time to enjoy the language and think about the development of the story.

3. I finish the book at the break-neck reading pace to which I am accustomed, and come up for air.

That's how I read Olive Kitteridge.

This book has been on my "to be read" list for long enough that I had forgotten the reasons and reviews that led me to put it there in the first place. I would almost hesitate to call it a novel in the usual sense, because if there is a plot, it is fractured beyond recognition.

How can I explain this book?

Olive Kitteridge is a wife, a mother, a teacher, and a lifetime-resident of a small community in New England. Because she lives her whole life in this one place, she interacts over many years with her students (who grow up, and remember her in different ways), her neighbors, and her family (husband and son).

Each chapter is a stand-alone event. If they were photographs (but they are not static, and I don't really want to compare them to photographs), some of them would be close-ups of Olive alone, and others would be photos of, for example, a couple sitting on a bench, in which Olive happened to be walking past at the moment, and so she appears in the far edge of the frame. Other photographs might be close-ups of people busy with their own lives, who happen to be thinking about Olive, so you can't really see her in the picture at all, and only the subject of the photograph knows she is there. Other chapters unfold more like home-movies, and we get a brief close-up glimpse of Olive's life.

You see, it's complicated. This book is about a woman, Olive Kitteridge, and she is not really a pleasant person. She physically unattractive, and she appears brusque and unfeeling. There is a another side of her, but for most people the lovable parts of Olive are buried way too deep to find--they aren't going to get past the genuinely unpleasant aspects of her nature.

As I read through the book, chapter by chapter, I grew gradually to understand her a little better. She wasn't really a happy woman, and much of her unhappiness was the result of her own behavior. You meet people like that in real life. At the same time, I grew gradually to understand that Olive didn't waste her time feeling sorry for herself--at least, not for long. She found ways to deal with her unhappiness (you can't always make it go away), some of them productive and healthy, others not so much.

Nevertheless, the impression I was left with at the end of the book is that even a person who seems on the surface to be utterly unpleasant is still very human--with needs and feelings that are worthy of consideration. Olive is a very, very complex person, but in that way, she is representative of people everywhere--especially the ones who make a bad impression from the start.

I enjoyed Olive Kitteridge very much, because I enjoy character-driven books and don't care much about plot. Olive isn't the only person whose character is drawn in sharp relief in this book--there are many others--but hers is the one that is sounded in depth. This is the first book that I've read by Elizabeth Strout, but the rest of her books are now on my "to be read" list.

I don't feel as if I've said much about the book, so I'll add one more thing. Olive lives in a small community, as I mentioned, and the story draws that community into focus in several ways. We see the continuity of Olive's students growing to adulthood and either living in town or moving away or coming back. The changes of time and modernization are felt, as the corner drugstore is bought out by a big chain. The shocking effect on a community of violence or tragedy plays a role. Olive is part of a bigger picture, and the book includes that bigger picture as well as its focus on Olive, and is part of what makes this a good book.

Afterthoughts: I read this book on my Kindle. Only when I needed an image for this post was I reminded that this book won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 2009. It is considered a series of 13 individual stories (which explains my sense of fractured plot), not a novel. I probably added this to my "want to read" list in the first place because it won the Pulitzer, but I did not realize or remember that while I was reading the book, so my review as it stands above was written in ignorance of the fact that the book was so acclaimed. I'm not sure why that makes a difference, but I feel that it does--I liked the book for its own merits, and much better than the last prize-winner I read.

Howards End is on the Landing, by Susan Hill

2011-01-22T10:38:00.003+01:00

The full title of this book is actually Howards End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading From Home. I actually love the title of this book, but I'm not sure I can articulate the reasons. Howards End is a book I have read only recently (within the past 3-4 years), and it made a powerful impression on me. Then the title is both evocative and enigmatic, and it is long--so blatantly different from the short, punchy titles popular with modern novelists (The Road, Twilight, The Notebook, Freedom, and so forth).

It's not a thing I do very often anymore, but if I were browsing in the stacks of the library, this title would make me pull the book off the shelf and investigate further. And it would repay my effort for doing so.

One autumn day, the author was looking for a book in her home. There were a lot of bookshelves, in a lot of different rooms, and tucked into nooks and crannies such as landings. (I have books on my landings, too.)

Surrounded by all those books, which were her own possessions, but also "old friends," she decided somewhat impulsively to spend an entire year reading only from her home library, which meant, for the most part, only rereading, and not reading anything she had not read before. (She made a few exceptions, connected with her professional obligations.)

This book is partly the story of that year, but mostly it is sort of bookish memoir, looking back at people, places, and books that made up her reading life across many decades. Looking back, and thinking over all the books she has read, it occurs to her how unlikely it is that there are two people living who have read exactly the same books, and only those books.

So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read. I am my literary DNA.

I have not hurried through this book, and it has been a pleasure to glimpse the literary soul of someone as well-read as Susan Hill. I could not read this book without frantically making lists of authors I never heard of (how did that happen?) and particular books by authors I have heard of that I must read, immediately, right now, so I can enjoy them as much as Susan did. I know that we are kindred reading spirits, because of all Dicken's novels, she did not care for A Tale of Two Cities. I think I'll stop feeling guilty about finding it my least favorite of all I've read so far.

Ms. Hill doesn't have much use for electronic readers, and has some rather bitter things to say about them. I only found this amusing, because I was reading the Kindle version of the book. I love physical books for many reasons, but I love my Kindle, too. Just think--I can download every single Thomas Hardy title she recommends most highly, and I won't have to find space on those already-full bookshelves to house them. She also warns:

The internet can also have a pernicious influence of reading because it is full of book-related gossip and chatter on which it is fatally easy to waste time that should be spent actually paying close, careful attention to the books themselves, whether writing them or reading them.

So here I am, contributing to the noise by telling you about this book. But there it is. We live in a world of contradictions. The internet takes up too much time away from books, but without it, I probably wouldn't have heard about this book at all (I've never seen a real-life copy), nor read it, nor told you about it. I'll stop now, and let you get back to your library, literal and virtual.

Island of the World by Michael O'Brien

2011-01-15T08:00:00.003+01:00

There could hardly be a larger gap between the worldview expressed in this book and the one shown in the last book I reviewed. From hopeless relativism, we turn 180 degrees to face redemption and responsibility.

I've put off writing about this book, because it's hard to know what to say--how much to try to convey. It's a very long book. I read the Kindle version (a surprise gift), but I understand the print version is over 800 pages long.

The story begins in a mountain village in Croatia, during World War II, and ends more or less in the present, thus encompassing the reign of communism in post-war "Yugoslavia" from beginning to end. However, the story is not especially political--quite the opposite. It follows the story of one man's life--Josip Lasta--from his boyhood in the village to the end of his long life. Josip's happy childhood is interrupted by the violence taking place throughout his country, not just during the war, but immediately after.

He adapts himself to a certain extent to his new reality, and shapes a life for himself in Yugoslavia--one of the most peculiar countries ever to be found on a map (only old maps, now). Most of the story is the struggle of Josip to survive, not in body (although he has to fight that battle as well), but in his soul. I love my fiction laced with philosophy, and this book is full of profound questions, deep thoughts, and soul-searching complexities.

In my last post, on Blindness, I said that one of the things I most intensely disliked about that book (and other post-modern fiction) was the lack of names for people. It depersonalizes the characters, making them less than human. With that on my mind, I was struck forcefully by the importance of names in Island of the World. Part of the story takes place in a soviet-era, hard-labor prison camp. The prisoners use monikers instead of names for themselves--"the owl" or "the wedding guest." For a few men who allow themselves to trust each other, sharing their real names is an act of fellowship, trust, bonding, and an assertion of the importance of individuals. Each one matters. No one is expendable.

This quote from the book summarizes the ideas contained here:

It all fits together, and it moves in a marvelous order. This is the first time he has seen it with his eyes. Though of course, his textbooks and Tata's lessons have already inscribed it in his mind. Now it lives. It is immense, complex, and so moving that tears spring unbidden to his eyes. "Oh cosmos!" he gasps.

That sense of order--of all things, including suffering, grief, and loss,fitting together into an order too great for us to comprehend entirely is integral to the story, and to life.

"My father was a literate man," says Josip to Ariadne. "Not in the sense of one who merely filled his mind with the contents of what he read. He understood that words of beauty and truth raise man higher than himself."

How many ideas are packed into that little morsel? 1. Literature contributes to moral growth. 2. There is more than one kind of knowledge, and "mere contents" is the lesser kind. 3. Man is not the pinnacle of worthiness, and not only can he be raised higher, but he needs to be. 4. Beauty and truth are means to that elevation. ...and I've probably missed something.

You can see from that little example how much meat there must be in this book--food for thought for a long time to come.

I loved the writing, and I loved the setting. My only perception of Croatia to this point was through television travel-ads (come visit warm, sunny beaches!). Croatia is a popular tourist destination for Poles, not least because the languages are very similar (I understood all the Croatian words in the book, even the ones that weren't translated). This book fleshed out the geography and the country, and I now have a positive desire, which I hope will be fulfilled, to visit Split, one of the cities in which Josip lived.

While I whole-heartedly embrace the central premise of Island of the World--that man is in need of faith, and that he is part of a whole greater than himself--I have to include one caveat. There was one thing that was a bit of stumbling block for me, and that was this: Josip's faith is based largely on mystical experiences, rather than having its foundation in the Word of truth. Part of my disappointment is that readers who sympathize with Josip (and surely that will be most of the people who read this book) will not be having mystical visions in which swallows speak and white horses take them on journeys. They could, however, read the Words of truth which are very life.

Having expressed my one reservation about the book, I still recommend it whole-heartedly to anyone. And everyone. It will help you see, if you want to see.

"We live and move and have our being with a vast masterpiece. Nature itself is speaking or, rather, God is speaking through nature--"
"Yes, everything speaks because it is given by the Creator of all things."
"His hand is upon it all, the damaged and the undamaged. We must learn to see the original intention even in the damaged."

As they continue to follow the path deeper into the woods, the mother keeps an eye on her daughter, but Josip is staring simultaneously inward and upward, and also connecting to the colors blazing all around him. "We are so blind, so blind!" he groans, flailing his arms for emphasis, his face flushing, his voice intense with the excitement of this new discovery. "It's as if heaven is raining miracles upon us, but we cannot see because we do not look. It's as if fabulous birds fall unceasingly from the skies!"

Blindness, by Jose Saramago

2011-01-07T09:59:00.003+01:00

In the interest of attempting to blog more regularly in 2011, I decided to post something about my reading. Seven days into the new year, I must confess that I have not finished any books. I am reading at least four books at the moment, but it may be a while before any of them are finished.

So, I cast my eyes back to December, and while none of my December reading made it to my "best of 2010" list, at least it is relatively fresh in my mind. I read quite a bit in December, at least partly because I spent several sick days lying on the couch needing something easy and simple to do.

Not everything was easy and simple, though. I was offered a book from my Bookmooch wishlist, and happily accepted it. (I have plenty of points, and in general, the books I want are not available.) So, one cold day in December, I received Blindness by Jose Saramago. I put it on my list so long ago, I have only the vaguest recollections of the book, but I wanted to read it at some point, so I plunged in and was taken unaware.

I am not post-modernist in my thinking. My world-view is shaped by a solidly Biblical foundation, and I am far more sympathetic to the medieval mind than to the post-modern one. But I live in this age. Whether because the post-modern mindset is crystallizing, or simply because I am older, I see it coming sharply into focus everywhere around me. When I find myself immersed in a post-modern world such as the one in Blindness (or The Road by Cormac McCarthy), I never fail to be moved. I don't agree that the world is as it is pictured--so utterly without hope, without redemption--but my spirit bleeds for those who live in that world, and do think that there is nothing more.

In the story, a viral blindness strikes humanity. Those afflicted are isolated at first, and the story focuses on the first few individuals incarcerated in an abandoned hospital. There is no one to take care of those affected by blindness, because they would simply be blind themselves almost immediately, so they are left to fend for themselves, and naturally fall into anarchy, with the strong preying on the weak. As the situation deteriorates within the hospital, the blind are not aware that the blindness has not been contained, and the entire population is affected. Amongst the blind, there is one person who is not affected--just one person who retains sight. What can one sighted person do for a building full of blind people, or for a city?

The story is meant to be allegorical--it is stated plainly. Unfortunately, accurately portraying a post-modern world is not the same thing as offering a remedy for that hopeless thinking. In fact, it would be altogether un-post-modern to do that. So the book is built up of layers and layers of hopelessness, grief, anguish, loss, confusion, anger (all perfectly legitimate human reality) without a single moment of relief, hope, optimism or redemption. It's a perfect post-modern book, and if you want to read something to illustrate post-modernism, this will fit the bill. I can't think of any other reason for reading it, and I'm not recommending that anyone do so. I read a review of the book which describes the author's writing as "compassionate," and I agree--he tells us very gently about these horrors. But I find that chilling.

One of the things I dislike most intensely is how impersonal the story is. The story focuses on a handful of individuals, but we never know their names. They are always referred to as "the doctor" or the "the girl with dark glasses" or "the first blind man's wife." For the entire book, no names are ever shared. It was the same in The Road--there is a father, and there is a son, and they have no names.

There is no pleasure for me in this kind of reading, but for some reason, every few years, I end up reading a book like this. It makes me draw back in horror...I'd rather read a brutal crime novel or a harrowing holocaust memoir than look too closely at the bleakness of the modern psyche.

But the book does put forth that proposition--when you live in a world of blindness, where the blind are led only by the blind, what is the role for the sighted person?

Best reads of 2010

2010-12-31T15:57:00.002+01:00

I stopped keeping track of my reading sometime in 2009, and never even tried in 2010. I miss having those complete records and seeing an overview of my reading at the end of the year, so 2011 will be...better. Probably not perfect, but I do want to keep track of what I read, and maybe if I blog about that, I'll blog about a few other things, too. You never know. I hope no one is holding their breath?

The only thing I've posted about in the last six months is my Kindle. Now, I love my Kindle, and thanks to my Kindle, I can do a lot more reading. I have access to so many books. I never go anywhere without 200 books tucked into my purse, and that's really cool. Thanks to my Kindle, I read some really great books, and thanks to my Kindle, I read a LOT of trash.

Let me explain...

There are hundreds of free, public domain texts available to read on the Kindle--you know, the Classics, which are Literature and Worthy of your reading time. What I didn't really understand, until I had the Kindle, is that there are also absolutely piles of newer titles that are offered for free. Publishers have their reasons, and I won't go there just now, but the fact is, you can download more free Kindle books in a week than you could read in a month. Please believe me when I tell you that most of these really are not worth your time. I know this, because I wasted a lot of *my* time reading them. I have read at least 40 books on my Kindle since May, and 30 of them were probably a waste of time.

It's so much easier now that I'm back in Europe. Europeans don't believe in free. A book that's free for the Kindle in the US will cost $2-5 here. Now I can stop reading free twaddle and start reading free classics--or at least, really good books that were worth paying for.

2010 wasn't a complete loss as far as reading goes. I read some wonderful books, and these are the best of them, in no particular order. I wish there were 10. There should have been 10 great books out of the (probably) 100 or so that I read. These are the ones that stuck with me.

Q&A by Vikus Swarup -- This is the book that the movie Slumdog Millionaire is based upon. The movie was good. The book is different...and even better. I'd really like to explore more Indian authors.

The Long Song by Andrea Levy -- Once you know this book is written by Andrea Levy, author of Small Island, do you really need to know anything else? I prefer the books she has written that take place mostly in England, but this was still an excellent novel, and it was nominated for the Man Booker Prize.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton -- I have developed a real taste for Edith Wharton's writing, and my biggest project for this year was this, the book which won her the Pulitzer Prize.

A Room With a View by E.M. Forster -- I loved this story. It had a happier ending (I thought) than Howard's End, but didn't make quite as strong an impression on me.

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins -- This is outside my reading comfort zone in several ways. I don't read much YA fiction, and I don't care for science fiction as a rule. But a good dystopian story will usually hold my attention, and I did like the young heroine in the story.

The Upas Tree by Florence Barclay -- I listened to this as an audiobook at Librivox. It was different, with a taste of the supernatural, marital complexities, and a happy ending. I was surprised by it, but I definitely liked it.

So, those are the best books I've read this year. I'm going to be very severe with myself in 2011, at least for a while. I need to buckle down to some serious reading and studying. No free Kindle fluff...at least for a while.

I remain enamored of the Kindle...

2010-10-20T12:58:00.006+02:00

I haven't actually counted or kept close records, but I have read between 30 and 40 books on my Kindle since I purchased it in May. I love it even more than I thought I would before I bought it. I love it so much, I do not even regret (much) that Amazon dropped the price of the Kindle by $70 about five weeks after I bought mine. I thought it worthwhile to pay the price I paid, and I was not wrong.

Today, I had another Kindle-love moment.

I'm 99% percent finished scheduling out one daughter's schoolwork for the year (we're getting a very late start, because we just returned to Poland from the US one week ago). She'll be doing Year 11 from Ambleside Online, which focuses on the 20th century. One of the books she needs, and which we certainly have, since my son did this work a few years ago, is Seven Men Who Rule the World From the Grave, by David Breese.

I have scoured our dusty (neglected for six months) bookshelves twice, and I have the allergies to prove it. However, I have not located this book, and there is the niggling suspicion in my mind that I loaned the book to someone. As soon as I remember who that might have been, you can be sure I will not lend that person any more of my books. In the meantime, I really do think this book is important enough to replace. Right now.
Bookmooch failed to yield any available copies (a frequent occurrence for me), so I turned to Amazon. I thought there might be some inexpensive used copies available, and indeed there were. I could have paid less than $2 for a copy, plus shipping to Poland, which would have been quite a bit more--probably $5 or $6.

But! What do I see, but that this book is available for the Kindle? Considering that it was published originally in 1979, I find this nothing less than astonishing. It took me about ten seconds to decide that I will purchase the Kindle version, which will be available in the promised 60 seconds, even here in Poland.

And so I bought it, and I was reminded all over again that this is exactly the sort of reason I wanted a Kindle in the first place. The truth is, even without the Kindle device, you can take advantage of Kindle books using the Kindle apps for PC, Mac, and even smart phones. But I love the physical e-reader, too, which seems like a magic book (I keep mine in a book-like cover), becoming almost whatever I want to read, almost whenever I want it. I do exercise a great deal of restraint, however, and do not click "buy" very frequently. But when I do, I'm so very that I am able to do so.

We interrupt this discussion of Norms & Nobility....

2010-05-12T20:50:00.002+02:00

...to chortle with glee over my newest acquisition, guaranteed to spend many hours entertaining and educating me.

That would be an Amazon Kindle, an e-reader featuring e-ink, so that reading from it feels mostly like reading from a printed page instead of a back-lit screen. I spent quite a lot of time thinking about this purchase before I spent the money, but so far, I have not the slightest regret. I've already read through one and a half books (more or less), and I have visions of reading many, many more.

I indulged in just one "for purchase" book--the newest title by Andrea Levy, The Long Song--and downloaded all six volumes by Charlotte Mason, the Bible, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, and Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, as well as numerous free chapters from books I might want to buy in the future....

This lovely gadget also holds PDF versions of my crochet patterns, which makes me want ALL my patterns to be PDF files, so I can have them at my fingertips.

I'm totally enamored of my new device, and look forward to many, many hours of happy reading. It can hold up to 1500 titles, although the thought of such a library in my purse makes me slightly delerious. It's even nicer in this leaf-green cover, which protects it and makes it feel more like a book while holding and reading.

It won't make me a better or more frequent blogger, I am sure, but it did at least merit this one post.

Norms & Nobility, chapter 4, section I

2010-05-04T15:20:00.003+02:00

David Hicks opens this chapter by saying, “An Ideal Type tyrannized classical education.” It's a simple sentence, but it implies so much. The very concept of an Ideal Type is antithetical to our post-modern culture, because it presupposes that there exists some kind of moral absolute value by which we can judge ourselves (and others). Moral absolutes are not popular, and it seems to be the gleeful task of our culture to tell the kinds of stories that undermine absolute values. Killing is usually unacceptable, but what about this scenario....? So ask our movies, books, and talk shows. I recently watched a peculiar movie (on an airplance) called “The Invention of Lying” which basically showed that lying is an important and desirable aspect of our culture--that life with lies is more comfortable and pleasant.

An Ideal Type is prescriptive--normative--because it presents us with a picture of how we ought to be--how we ought to behave, think, respond, and speak. I have absolutely no notes or underlining in the first section of this chapter, which means I glossed over it the last couple of times I've read this. For some reason, this time around I was arrested by what Hicks is saying about how the Ideal Type has to be defined, and contrasting it with the definition of liberalism.

The definition of liberalism is a moving target—it shifts and changes according to current trends and mores, and the definition of a century ago could sound like a definition of conservatism today. The definition is not prescriptive, but descriptive, changing as needed to suit the mood du jour.

The Ideal Type, on the other hand, is not dependent on history or current thought. It seeks to provide a prescriptive, higher standard by which we will judge ourselves as more or less successful according to how well we measure up against it.

Oddly enough, no matter how degraded our culture, we still seek for mythic versions of the Ideal Type. The majority of us approve of a “good man” and abhor a “bad man.” No matter how much psychologists might leap to the defense of the ill-used, misunderstood “bad man” and attempt to elicit our pity and sympathy for him, they cannot convince us that he is a model that we should try to emulate. Most of our educational systems are not actively teaching any kind of Ideal Type, but in some ways, it still “tyrannizes” our thinking. Unfortunately, in our culture, we have no frame of reference for what it looks like.

Norms & Nobility, chapter 3

2010-04-28T21:45:00.002+02:00

As my internet time grows more limited, I think I'll post all my thoughts on chapter 3 at the same time.

Chapter 3 draws our attention to the role of the teacher in classical education. David Hicks paints us two pictures of "ideal" classical teachers--Socrates and Isokrates. Most of us are familiar with Socrates, and his method of question and inquiry, which is a good example of the kind of inquiry that David Hicks wants us to see. Isokrates, on the other hand, is...well, what? I never heard of him before reading this book, and I have been unsuccessful in learning much from the internet. Whatever he might have written, I haven't found that any of it has been translated and published for a long, long time.

Only recently did I realized that David Hicks primary source of information about Isokrates is probably Marrou's History of Education in Antiquity, in which he features prominently. And Marrou probably read Isokrates in the original Greek. I own a copy of Marrou's book, and it is on my "to be read" list, but it is so long and detailed, I fear it may be some time before I get through all of it (I have dipped in here and there).

In the meantime, I take Hicks word for it that Isokrates focused on training children to be adults, and that he understand that children value that knowledge which they perceive as bringing them closer to the world of adult-hood. From the teacher's vantage point, this is accomplished by taking his place as a fellow-learner who is a good bit further down the road than his pupils--he is there example, and the one who is able to ask the questions that will set them to thinking and discovering for themselves. The knowledge to be acquired--not the teacher, and not the child--is the most important thing.

I am reminded of something Charlotte Mason writes in Philosophy of Education:

The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.
In this case, "books" should be understood to be the source of knowledge, and anyone familiar with her will know that real books, not textbooks, are needed.

I think that those of us who are homeschoolers, and who have not been classically educated ourselves, need to (humbly!) take our places beside our students and acknowledge that we, too, have a lot to learn. I am not Socrates or Isokrates, or Charlotte Mason, either. I fall way short of David Hicks ideal classical teacher, and for that reason, a knowledge-based education, in which both my students and I turn to excellent books as our teachers is very appealing to me. David Hicks recognizes this need for teachers, too, and his indictment of the trappings of modern education is that they are set up to conceal the teacher's lack of real knowledge.

Most of the time, I consider myself as much as student as my children, and I would love a classical teacher to lead us both.

Norms & Nobility, chapter 2, II and III

2010-04-24T20:38:00.002+02:00

I said that I would write more about the logos, and so I must. The rest of chapter 2 is devoted to explaining how logo and mythos (which, according to Hicks, resolve themselves in a “dialectical unity of opposites”) are essential to normative education. Words have definitions, but they they also connotations, and emotional content which add layers of depth and understanding which definition alone does not provide.

Unfortunately, the modern scientific rationalism insists that denotation alone is all that is valid, and so words with connotations and normative qualities (such as “valor,” “shame,” “sacrifice”) are ejected from education in favor of concrete, utilitarian objects. David Hicks mentions distributor caps, but I am going to say things like “nouns” or “prepositions,” because we so often want to treat our words as if they are no more than objects.

David Hicks says, “At the heart of classical education is the word: the complete mastery of its shades of meaning, of its action-implicit imperatives, of its emotions and values.” That is the heart—-the living, beating, vital part-- of classical education, and not any sort of dry, life-killing reduction of words to mere grammatical constructions. There is a place for both—-the emotional, atmospheric words that fire the imagination, and the disinterested analysis of their meanings-- but the imaginative side has the preeminence.

Charlotte Mason understood this so well. She knew that ideas were necessary for the mind to grow on, and that those ideas were best conveyed in literary language. You cannot simply say, “lying is shameful behavior” as a bald fact. Instead, truth and deceit are conveyed through stories and examples (mythos) that make the virtue of truthfulness a desirable goal, and educate the conscience to be ashamed of speaking a lie.

Norms & Nobility, chapter 1, IV

2010-04-20T07:51:00.000+02:00

The conclusion to chapter 1 is so rich, I could happily write more pages about my thoughts on it than David Hicks wrote in the first place. But that would be a bad idea. Instead, I'll focus again on one key thought because it meshes almost exactly with something that Charlotte Mason tells us.

David Hicks defines "dialectic" thinking in this way: "Dialectic is simply the form of the activity of thinking: the mind's habit of challenging the thoughts and observations originating inside and outside itself and of engaging in a desultory dialogue with itself until the issues are resolved."

He's going to say a lot more about it later, but you get the picture--an internal dialogue in which the mind proposes questions, or discovers them elsewhere, and asks itself to work out an answer, going back and forth internally, seeking a resolution of ideas.

And in more than one place, Charlotte Mason tells us, "the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind to itself. ..." She said that she received the quote from a "philosophical old friend," but was unable to trace it to its source. I've never found a source, either, but she says that she became more and more convinced of the truth of that statement. And what is it, but a slight variation of Hicks' definition of dialectic? Classical inquiry requires this kind of thinking to become deliberate, and it is through this kind of thinking that the question will arise, "what ought I to do?" about the knowledge thus acquired, and only from there can the possibility of right action resulting from right thinking begin.

There's a lot more in this little section, of course, but I can't resist the opportunity of calling attention to CM's grasp of this oh-so-classical way of thinking.

********

Okay, one more thought, because I am a little concerned that my latin-is-not-a-prerequisite-for-education-in-the-classical-tradition stance is causing distress where I don't want it to. David Hicks points out at the end of this section that although the classical educators agreed on the purpose of education, they were divided as to how it should be carried out. There were two basic positions, and Hicks points out that each made use of the strengths of the opposition in their own case. But he says this: "Philosophical and rhetorical learning--as two rival approaches to education--enriched classical culture without disturbing its profound unity." There are essentials, and there are non-essentials. Classical education has room for various approaches.

For instance, here is one of my favorite quotes from Augustine's "On Christian Doctrine," from the section in which he is discussing the value of classical training (oratorical training, as the Romans viewed it) to Christians.

And, therefore, as infants cannot learn to speak except by learning words and phrases from those who do speak, why should not men become eloquent without being taught any art of speech, simply by reading and learning the speeches of eloquent men, and by imitating them as far as they can? And what do we find from the examples themselves to be the case in this respect? We know numbers who, without acquaintance with rhetorical rules, are more eloquent than many who have learnt these; but we know no one who is eloquent without having read and listened to the speeches and debates of eloquent men. For even the art of grammar, which teaches correctness of speech, need not be learnt by boys, if they have the advantage of growing up and living among men who speak correctly. For without knowing the names of any of the faults, they will, from being accustomed to correct speech, lay hold upon whatever is faulty in the speech of any one they listen to, and avoid it; just as city-bred men, even when illiterate, seize upon the faults of rustics.

Isn't that great? He is saying that continual exposure to the best use of language allows us to acquire the talent of using language both correctly and eloquently, without even studying the minutia of grammar. Augustine was both classically educated, and an educator himself--his observations led him to believe that exposure to excellent speech would result in eloquence, without formal training. The same principle may be applied to writing--excellent writers may be developed from continual exposure to the best writing, coupled with deliberate attempts at imitation. This isn't "traditional" classical education, but it is a legitimate approach to classical education, which can be supported by authors like Augustine and Erasmus. Oh...and Charlotte Mason. ;-)

Norms & Nobility, chapter 2, I

2010-04-20T00:46:00.000+02:00

The first time I read N&N, this chapter was where the going got tough for me (as best I can recall). This is not a long book, but it is dense with ideas. I had a bit of trouble the first time I read this, and didn't immediately grasp the meaning of "mythos" and "logos" as David Hicks uses the words here. Over time, I have added some other words in the margins that helped me to understand. David Hicks speaks of Mythos and Logos, as Ruth Beechick speaks of Heart and Mind. We could use the words Rhetoric and Philosophy, or Spirit and Logic, or Conscience and Rationality. These two are set at odds with each other, but at the same time, both are a part of the human attempt to understand and interpret the world.

The spirit/heart/mythos side of our nature is educated and informed by story. I loved the line, "A good myth, like a good map, enables the wanderer to survive, perhaps even flourish, in the wilderness." But a second, and equally important aspect of the mythos side of learning is the sense of community and oneness that is created by a group who accept a common mythos.

I'm seeing new (to me) things in N&N in this read-through. Hicks mentions that modern artists and writers, lacking access to a common mythos, make up their own individual symbols and stories, and observers are left to try to understand without a context or common understanding. Without a context, messages become meaningless.

After reading this section, I could not resist returning to another favorite book on education, "The Bible and the Task of Teaching" by David I. Smith and John Shortt. I just skipped to chapter 6, entitled "Once upon a time...," in which the authors say almost exactly the same things as David Hicks. They say

Stories are all around us in our daily lives and are of many kinds, many genres. From very early in life, we meet with fairy tales, fables, folk tales, myths, legends, epics, parables, allegories and many more besides. They have different settings, plot-lines and themes. We listen to them, read them, view them in plays and films, hear them in song, make them up, change them. They make us laugh, cry , reflect, imagine, lose ourselves.

The stories that surround us help to make us what we become. They shape our attitudes to life, form our ideals and supply our visions. They provide us with identity and ways of living. They furnish us with heroes and antiheroes.

And yet, as important as the stories and the mythos are, they are not the all. There is the logos side of man, the rational sense, the desire for order and logic. Which I guess I'll mention next time.

Norms & Nobility, chapter 1, III

2010-04-14T13:49:00.000+02:00

I love to dive into these sections and discuss them at length--I have thoroughly enjoyed the discussion so far, and am grateful to Cindy for starting it. Because I am now in the US, and my internet access may be sporadic or limited, I'm going to post when I can instead of trying to match her pace.

In an attempt to be brief, I'm going to call attention to the one thing that seems most important to me in this section--these quotes:

"Not everyone is obliged to excel in philosophy, medicine, or the law, nor are all equally favored by nature; but all are destined to live in society and to practice virtue." (Vittorino da Feltre, 15th-century Italian educator)

"The truth is that knowledge of external nature, and the sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong, the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and Justice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance." (Samuel Johnson)

When we acknowledge that classical education is about educating the spirit of man for virtue, and we desire to teach dialectical thinking toward that end, we have to consider that this kind of education is for everyone, not an elite, and it does appear, from these quotes, that that was the way the older educators viewed their task.

Comenius, in his Great Didactic, urged "A Liberal Education for All," and Charlotte Mason uses his title when she shares her vision for exactly that. The best part of classical education--the part that gives us an ideal to reach for, encourages general curiosity, and teaches us to think dialectically (synthetically), so that we understand the relationship between knowing what is right and our responsibility to do it, is something that should belong to everyone.

Norms & Nobility, chapter 1, II

2010-04-07T20:33:00.000+02:00

This section begins, "Aristotle is our best introduction to the idea of a classical education." Now, I have read Aristotle, but I have never finished any of his works. One of the virtues of many classical works is that they are short, by modern standards (I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that they were written and copied entirely by hand). However, Aristotle seems to be a bit longer-winded, and harder to follow than Plato, for example. So, although I want to see for myself what he means when he tells me "Aristotle is our best introduction...," I am going to take David Hicks' word for it for the moment.

Knowledge, for Aristotle, was an activity, not the result of learning and certainly not "a measurable state of mind." And the following quote deserves to placed in bold, highlighted in neon, and rigged up with a flashing border and trumpet sounds. But, how lucky for my readers, I am html-illiterate, so I'll just ask you to picture it that way.

"The purpose of education is not the assimilation of facts or the retention of information, but the habituation of the mind and body to will and act in accordance with what one knows."

The college I attended was well-known for producing excellent teachers, and I had to take an education course as part of my program. Their pet phrase (which I do still remember after 20+ years, so maybe they had a point) was "Repetition is the key to learning." Naturally, their methods involve a great deal of drill, drill, drill, and they publish a popular line of curriculum. I wasn't deeply interested in education as such at the time, but years later, when I was, I recalled that little mantra, and realized how faulty it was. Repetition is not the key to learning, it is the key to rote memorization. Some may define rote memorization as learning, but...I don't.

Giving primary attention to facts gets in the way of what James Taylor calls "poetic knowledge"--that true knowledge that I think of as equivalent to Charlotte Mason's "education is the science of relations." Charles Dickens gave us an absolutely stark, brutal picture of where that kind of education leads in Hard Times, and "Gradgrind" is synonymous with fact-based education which has no room for that intimate, personal knowledge that is necessary for classical education. Classical inquiry simply cannot take place if you do not care about your subject, and no once can care about history, for example, if they think that history is a list of dates to memorize, supplemented by lists of kings, presidents, empires, and wars.

I think David Hicks is brave for saying that the Victorians perverted classical education, so I am going to be brave, too, and say that Dorothy Sayers--educated in schools that followed that Victorian model--was completely off base when she linked "facts" and "poll parrot knowledge" to classical education. Her essay, "The Lost Tools of Learning," does contain some interesting ideas, but it is no traditional approach to classical education.

Anyone who objects to teaching a fact-based education is going to open themselves up to criticism on the grounds that ideas cannot be discussed without some knowledge of facts. And this is true. And that is just the point. An idea-based education using classical inquiry is going to have to include some facts by the way. It's not possible to neglect them entirely (and I am not suggesting that we should). But it is certainly possible to pursue a fact-based education without a whiff of an enlightening idea to lend savour to a dry-as-dust mental meal. I've yet to meet/read a single classical educator among the ancient, medieval, or renaissance teachers, who agrees with Dorothy Sayers that classical education should begin with facts. I could say a lot more, but I guess I'll save that for another time.

I'll put it in these terms. You may know some facts about Krakow, the city where I live. You may know that it is Poland. You may know something about its history. You may know a bit about what it looks like, having seen pictures or films of it. But I live here. I can find my way to any given street, nod familiarly at the landmarks along the way, and share interesting tidbits about many locations here. I can tell which trams or buses will take you where you want to go, where to get a pizza, and how much you'll have to pay to visit Wawel castle. I know what the hejnal sounds like when the trumpeter blows from the tower, and what the river looks like at night, and where the swans like to congregate. You know similar things about your hometown (whose name I may never even have heard). But that is difference between factual knowledge and poetic knowledge--and you'll see that the poetic knowledge hasn't neglected facts, just placed them in context. This is the difference between knowing things, and knowing about them. Classical education, if it is going to achieve its goals, requires the former.

Norms & Nobility, chapter 1, I

2010-04-05T11:17:00.004+02:00

I come from the Town of Stupidity; it lieth about four degrees beyond the City of Destruction.

David Hicks opens his chapter with that quote from John Bunyan. I love it. I come from there, too. But, like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, I hope I have turned my back on it and am heading for a much better place.

In the first sentence, Hicks says, "The popular mind associates the idea of a classical education with the narrow and elitist schools of Victorian England. In fact, these schools perverted classical education..." and he goes on to explain how. I am going to say that it takes a brave man to write that--to say the the educational system that produced Matthew Arnold, Winston Churchill, JRR Tolkien and C.S. Lewis perverted classical education. The so-called classical schools of England did not produce whole generations of Tolkiens and Lewises--those men were exceptional. (As Cindy points out, Lewis is the one who wrote about "men without chests"--people who do not care.) What they did produce were generations of aristocrats who had little interest in books and knowledge--they absolutely killed dead any interest in intellectual pursuits, let alone the pursuit of wisdom and virtue.

David Hicks declares that "classical education is not, preeminently, of a specific time or place. It stands instead for a spirit of inquiry and a form of instruction concerned with the development of style through language and of conscience through myth." I said in my last post that language skills as an end in themselves were no better than upholstery, but in fact, language must be the means by which classical education takes place, because only through language can we explore the ideas, ideals, stories, and philosophies that must be considered.

I think it is very important to explore the idea that classical education does not belong to a specific time or place. There is a reason it is called "classical," but it is worth considering whether or not that is really the best way of referring to it. For convenience sake, we must, but the fact remains that the spirit and methods of classical education, as well as its most desirable outcomes, can take place without ever conjugating a single Latin verb or declining a Greek noun. That sounds like heresy in some classical circles, but I don't think I'll be burned at the stake for saying so. Greek and Latin were so important to the Renaissance thinkers because all the books were written in those languages. If you couldn't read Latin, then you couldn't read, period. The primary reason they invested the effort into learning the ancient tongues was so that they could read the ancient books (the only books around). Then, they wrote in Latin as well, so that their contemporaries from every country could read and respond to their ideas. By the time you get to the Victorians, they were laboring over tedious Latin and Greek language exercises, but not reading extensively the literature of the ancient world, missing out on the feast because they spent all their time polishing their forks.

I think learning Latin and Greek as languages might play a role in a classical education, but learning Latin and Greek will not give you a classical education. Instead, David Hicks gives us three essential attributes of classical inquiry, and all them may be (I might even venture to say must be) accomplished in your native language.

The first of the three, and the most important one that needs attention if you have young children (elementary age) is that of general curiosity. Specialization is the enemy of classical thinking. The whole spectrum of knowledge, including history, religion, the nature of man, the natural world, and the spiritual realm, are of interest to the classical thinker. David Hicks is beginning to describe what he means by classical inquiry or dialectic, and he is going to spend more time on it later, so I'm not going to say more about it right now.

Instead, I'm going to point out two specific ways in which Charlotte Mason's philosophy fits into this framework that David Hicks describes. First, "education of the conscience" is a topic she addresses directly in several places, and she gives explicit examples of how certain stories and even novels can be called into service in this cause. I can't find a short, coherent quote on the conscience, but those who have read CM's work will recall that she mentions it frequently. (Vol. 6, pg. 131, but the whole chapter for a better overview if you want to pursue it.) CM links the conscience (the normative "ought") to the will, as well, because knowing what is right to do is not the same thing as doing it, and it is still the will to act out right knowledge that is the goal of the classical tradition.

The other point where CM's ideas suit the classical ideal is in her choice of curriculum--basically, there is no area of knowledge which can be neglected.

...all I have said is meant to enforce the fact that much and varied humane reading as well as human thought expressed in the forms of art, is, not a luxury, a tit-bit, to be given to children now and then, but their very bread of life, which they must have in abundant portions and at regular periods. This and more is implied in the phrase, 'The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.'

It was also one of Charlotte Mason's pet ideas that adults rarely develop interest in any areas to which they had not been introduced as children, and for that reason, it was the responsibility of the educator to put the child in touch with as many areas of thought and knowledge as possible, to allow him to develop relationships with every area of knowledge, to "set his feet in a large room."

This is another way in which the celebrated "public schools" of England perverted classical education--they narrowed the topics of study exclusively to ancient Greek and Rome, their languages, their cultures. (I once read the autobiography of a Victorian-era girl. She mentions that her brother could draw accurate maps of the ancient world, but was unable to locate Scotland.) One of the reasons that analytical, utilitarian science was able to trump humane letters in the educational realm shortly afterward was precisely because those schools offered such a narrow curriculum.

General curiosity--not narrow specialization--is the first attribute of classical inquiry. That is so opposite to what our modern culture expects and even demands that it is a formidable hurdle. But the description of what education looks like without classical inquiry is so grim, I think we are better off heading straight for the hurdle and falling over it head first than settling for...what we have. David Hicks says,

....human experience tends to be dealt with narrowly and reductively, broken down into isolated, unconnected units; students ignorant of what questions to ask are presented with uninvited and consequently meaningless information; and there is no basis for making moral and aesthetic judgments or for attaching learning to behavior.

I'd much rather be from the Town of Stupidity than residing there still.

Norms & Nobility, prologue IV

2010-03-31T16:46:00.003+02:00

Cindy isn't letting the grass grow under her feet with this discussion, so I'm moving along at her pace.

For me, the most important question in this section is this:

"What is the connection between how a man thinks and how he acts?"

Much of the modern classical movement (as I have encountered it) is taken up with "how a man thinks." Developing the skills (mostly involving the use of language) that classical education made use of may have a value in and of itself, but so does learning how to reupholster furniture. However, the skilled use of words is no end in itself, and does not ensure classical education any more than the skilled use of a gun ensures a fine policeman. Both the sword and pen can serve evil as well as good, and it is only as education lifts the character of the pupil, so that he desires to do what is right, and has some clear sense of what is right (or at least how to discover right) that it deserves to be called "classical."

Classical education is an education of the spirit of man, not just his mind. Those who are distracted with techniques "resemble the farmer who tries to plow a field with his eyes on the plow rather than on that imaginary point on the horizon on which he must fix his gaze if he expects to leave a straight furrow." That imaginary point is the ideal, and if we deny that there is any ideal to strive for, David Hicks says we deny the human spirit.

He also says the supreme task of education is "to teach the young to know what is good, to serve it above self, to reproduce it, and to recognize that in knowledge lies this responsibility."

My own conviction is that anyone deeply committed to a Biblical education will find much about the classical tradition (as it really was) that resonates with scriptural truths. The need for humility as we seek to know, the ideal to strive for, the sense of duty and obligation that accompanies knowledge--all these matter to anyone who wants to raise Christian children, whether they have a professed interest in classical education or not.

And to give CM her chance, here is a quote from vol. 5, Formation of Character, which touches on the question of knowledge and action:

To know is not synonymous with to do; but we should not leave our young people to stumble on right action without any guiding philosophy of life; the risks are too great. We who bear the name of Christ do not always give ourselves the trouble to realise how His daily labour was to make the Jews know; how 'ye will not understand' was the reproach He cast upon them. Even with the example of our Master before us, we take small pains to make our young people realise the possibilities of noble action that lie in them and in everyone.

I'll definitely be quoting more from the oft-neglected Volume 5 later. I don't blame anyone for not working through it--there are a lot of extraneous, non-relevant things in there--but this volume of Charlotte Mason's is probably the one that best articulates the classical nature of her philosophy. She even quotes Plutarch on education.

What is the connection between how a man thinks and how he acts? As we say in Poland, zobaczymy (we'll see).

Norms & Nobility, prologue III

2010-03-29T19:09:00.003+02:00

Without any explanation, or apology for the long silence (nearly a year!), I'm blowing the cobwebs out of the blog so I can use it to participate in the discussion of Norms & Nobility by David Hicks, that Cindy is leading from her blog.

I suspect my thoughts might get too unwieldy for the comments section, so I'm posting here and will link from there.

I've read this book before, more than once, and my copy is heavily underscored, with penciled comments in the margins. I talk to my books, and I had plenty to say to this one.

One of the particular points of this discussion (from my perspective, anyway), is to point out where David Hicks' vision of classical education intersects with Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education. In my opinion there is no better book for this job, because it was this book that gave me the first glimmering of how CM's ideas fit into the larger picture.

David Hicks begins to make his case for the importance of normative education, and notes that we have abandoned the normative question (what ought I to do?) for the operational (what can I do?). Anyone familiar with the motto of CM's schools ("I am, I can, I ought, I will") should notice the similarity of the words, and the order in which they occur. I am affirms existence, and I can indicates power to act, but I ought suggests that there are norms/standards by which actions should be governed, and I will is the most important of all--the determination to act, without which, all the previous steps are virtually nullified. All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to...do nothing. Classical education reaches to the level of "ought" in CM's motto, and attempts to touch "will," but (I'm leaping ahead) David Hicks is going to suggest that this was classical education's failure.

One of the points that Hicks makes in this section is that classical thinking cast man in the station of a servant--serving God, the state, self, something. The nature of his his position was one of service, and it was part of classical education to teach young people to cast in their lot to serve what was best and finest (and they did not always agree on what that was).

David Hicks also hints at something he is going to explore at length later--the analytical method as the exclusive way of thinking taught in modern schools. I would suggest to anyone joining this discussion that if you were educated in a 20th century school, secular or religious, this is the way you were taught to think, if you were taught at all. Since classical education as David Hicks presents it hasn't been implemented except in a few very isolated places, we are all hampered by our tendency to approach new things analytically (and I hear anybody reading this saying to themselves, "what is wrong with that?").

But this is just the preface, so I guess the real meat of any discussion on this point has to come later. I'm looking forward to it.

Reading Log, March 2009

2009-06-10T08:12:00.000+02:00

In March, I had not yet left for the US. All of this reading took place in Poland, including the audiobooks. In fact, I didn't have time to listen to audiobooks while I was in the States.

The House of the Prophet by Louis Auchincloss

This is the 3rd book I've read by this author. I'm definitely an Auchincloss fan (especially since I found out he's related to Edith Wharton), but his books are not light reading--lots to think about and completely character-driven.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

Everything I've ever read by Anne Tyler has been top-notch, and this was as well. It the bitter-sweet story of a family muddling along, not always being very nice to each other (to say the least), but never entirely abandoning the family bond, either.

The Appeal by John Grisham

I finally got to read his latest (found it my library of all things--they don't have new books very often). I'd rate this one as just okay--not his best.

The Perfect Spy by John LeCarre

I like spy novels from time to time, but this was less a spy novel than the story of a son suffering from a dysfunctional relationship with his father. I won't be picking up more by LeCarre.

Something New by P.G. Wodehouse--(audio book from Librivox)

This was funny, as most of Wodehouse's books are. I love his understated humor (make that "humour") that just keeps going and going.

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

This falls into the category of psychological thriller, and I like to read this sort of thing from time to time. This one reminded me a bit of Ira Levin. You see things from the criminal's point of view, but you still don't like him or approve of his actions. There are more books about Ripley, and I'll read them if they fall in my way, but probably won't search them out.

But Inside I'm Screaming by Elizabeth Flock

A woman in mental institution--it's not a pretty scenario, but it was an okay book. It was semi-autobiographical. This is the second book I've read by this author. I'd definitely read another, although I wouldn't call her a favorite. But she does characters well, and if the characters are really well-drawn, I'm hooked.

Those were the books I read in March--seven in all. It's such a tidy, modest number, don't you think? The book gluttony didn't start until April, you see, when I left for the States...

Dusting out the cobwebs

2009-06-09T16:27:00.002+02:00

I'm a half-hearted blogger at best. I like the idea of blogging more than the actual work of sitting down and writing thoughtful posts every day. Or every week. Or every month, apparently, since my last post was in February. In my last post I was lamenting the cold, the snow, and the dark, short days. Now I'm sitting here with the outside breeze wafting through the open door, the ceiling fan whirring, and sunshine spilling through the window. It will be light past 9:00 pm, and I'll forget to send the kids to bed at anything like a reasonable hour.

Part of my absence from blogdom this time is connected with my absence from home. I spent nearly two months in the United States, and just returned home a couple of days ago, with a "books I've read" list as long as my arm.

I nearly dumped the total list into a reading log for March, April, and May combined, but decided that was ridiculous. Even if anyone cares what I've been reading, they aren't going to slog though a list like that.

The thing about the United States? It's full of books. Book in English. Books at thrift stores. Books at rummage sales, garage sales, and libraries. Books in homes and books in stores. They were unavoidable, and I seemed to have a lot of reading time on my hands.

To say that I indulged in a form of book gluttony rarely encountered would be only to state the inevitable, I think.

Without taking the time to blog, or journal, or contemplate, or even think, much, I simply basked in the opportunity to read pretty much as much as I wanted to. (Did you know that there are places in the US where you can find books for 29 cents? I hope those of you who live there appreciate that fact.) My indulgence took many forms, and if some of the titles on my lists cause anyone to shake a head or laugh out loud, so be it.

Coming soon: Reading Logs for March, April, and May...

Reading Log, February 2009

2009-02-28T21:30:00.000+01:00

Ah, February, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

...

Well, that didn't take long. Edwin Teale wrote something along the lines of..."February is at once both the shortest and the longest month." I understand exactly what he means, don't you? Surrounded by February, cold, ice, snow, more cold, more snow, and strings of long, gray days punctuated by still more snow and sub-freezing temperatures, what else is there to do anyway, except huddle indoors and read?

Since I've been blogging and keeping track of what I read, I've noticed that I always seem to get a lot of reading done in February, although most of what I read this month is pretty mundane and forgettable. Kind of like the rest of the month.

So, these are the titles with which I occupied myself during this month (which is, blessedly, over).

The Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan

I don't have much to say about this. It wasn't the book I thought it was going to be (what are the odds of two authors publishing books called "Cloud Atlas" and "THE Cloud Atlas" in the same year??????) So, I still have to go read the book I originally meant to read, and this one wasn't terrible, but it's hard to judge it fairly when it wasn't what I was expecting.

The Calico Cat by Charles Miner Thompson (Librivox audiobook)

This was strange. The story is well told, but it made me so angry. I was disgusted with one of the characters, and even though all comes right in the end, I would never respect anyone who did what he did. The story is meant to take place in New England, near the Canadian border, so the reader from Athens, Georgia made the whole thing a little weird for me. (No offense to anyone with a Georgia accent, but it doesn't sound like New Englanders.)

The Big Four by Agatha Christie

This was a Hercule Poirot mystery. My girls have suddenly developed a penchant for Christie, so I checked this book out of the library for them. Naturally, I had to read it, too.

Death of a Sinner by Rodney Quest

This British mystery was published in 1971 and in many ways is very dated to that era. It was one of the strangest books I've read in a long time--just weird on so many levels, it's hard to explain. But I'll try...

Why I didn't like this book:

A. Told in first-person narrative by the amateur detective (a rich lawyer), and I really did not like him at all.
B.Unbelievably one-dimensional portrayal of the women in the book.
C. Full transcripts of political interviews, with the exact words of the speaker transcribed like this:

Speaker #1: :::Question asked by speaker:::
Speaker #2: :::Lengthy answer, full of politically and emotionally charged rhetoric:::
(This goes on for pages, and it is completely aside from the story line.)

D. The book is written from an aggressive right-wing perspective. I would consider myself very conservative, but this was offensive and very anti-religious.
E. Incredibly implausible plot/motive for murder that involves Latin. Does it get any weirder?

I won't be reading anything else by this author, and it was about this time that I began to get rather desperate for something excellent.

Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith (Audiobook)

This was a very enjoyable serialized novel and I was sorry to see it come to an end.

Angel of Terror by Edgar Wallace (audio book at Librivox)

This is the sort of story that makes a good audio book--fast-paced, lots of suspense, and a good reader (although some of the accents were off). Rather implausible plot, I think, but fun to listen to just the same.

Mansfield Revisited by Joan Aiken

I love all of Jane Austen's books so much that I frequently read the made-up modern sequels. This was was fairly true to the characters and style of Jane Austen. Lots of Austen-esque moments reminiscent of different Austen books, too. Not Austen, of course. Who is? It was the kind of book that can be started and finished in an evening, which is funny when you consider that Mansfield Park is Austen's longest book.

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

This was the best book I read all month. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be one of the best for the year. I'd have to read a great many wonderful books to supplant it.

First Meetings (in the Enderverse) by Orson Scott Card
This was a reread when I needed something light.

Police Operation by H. Beam Piper (another Librivox audio book)

I wasn't very kind about Death of a Sinner, but I'll try to be nicer about this. I want to damn it with faint praise. How about this? If you don't have anything else at all to do, and you need to kill a couple of hours, listening to this story might be better than listening to nothing at all. Unless, of course, Venusian night-hounds on the loose from an alternate para-time universe have always been your passion.

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

This book deserves a post of its own, but since I'm doing this one, I haven't yet found the time. It was a very engrossing story, well-paced, and it was a pretty decent finish to the month of February.

I am currently reading six books--one non-fiction historical, one travel memoir, one biography, two novels, and a young adult book in Polish. It feels like a bit too much, but I hope that five of those books will appear on March's list as finished books. (I won't get the Polish one finished.) I finished 11 books in February. I don't really expect to keep up that pace, but in addition to the six I'm currently reading, I have another long-awaited title from Bookmooch that I want to read, and three more on their way to me now...

***

Oh yes, I must report on the progress I've made for my Worthwhile Reading Challenge. I could just say "not much," and that would cover it. I was going to finish The Ascent of Man by Bronowski, but I suspect my bookmark is pretty close to where it was at the end of January. I did read a little further in Szatan z siodmej klasy, my Polish book, but I'm still on chapter one, so it's not what you'd call phenomenal progress, either. I did notice, however, that I was reading a bit more smoothly or fluently, so I seem to be getting the hang of the author's manner of writing. Although written for young people, this is real literature, and it's more challenging to read than a magazine article

City nature study...

2009-02-21T12:36:00.006+01:00

I missed the bus this morning.

I was on my way to the grocery store, and delayed my departure too much, and arrived just too late, so that I had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. The temperatures are below freezing, there is snow and ice on the ground (and the bench at the bus stop), so decided to walk a bit to stay warm.

As I walked along the snow-packed sidewalk, something black floated in front of my face, falling from above. I glanced up and saw a crow sitting on a branch about 20 feet above me. Looking down, I saw that what had fallen was a bit of bark, and the sidewalk was littered with more of it.

While I watched, the crow peeled more bark from a dead branch, pecking at what he found. I suppose there were insects or worms of some kind. I watched him for at least ten minutes, a black bird in a blackened tree, against the stark white sky and whiter snow. A few fellow crows were in trees nearby, engaged in similar winter meal-foraging.

If I hadn't missed the bus, I'd have missed this, and never been the wiser.

I wonder if anyone else, walking in the hard-packed snow, will notice the little pile of bark on the sidewalk? And I wonder if they will wonder how it came to be there?

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

2009-02-20T22:00:00.000+01:00

Now, this was something like!

I've had a run of bad luck with books lately. I've read a lot of second-rate or even revolting books, and there has been such a run of them that I was beginning to get desperate for something really excellent.

And this was it!

This book has all the elements that particularly draw me into a story--excellent characters, a non-linear timeline (the narrator in the present is telling a story that happened in the past, but there is current action as well). As with many of the books that I like, the basic plot could be summarized in two or three sentences. There is a plot, of course, but this is a character-driven story.

The prologue begins

My great-grandmother Morrison fixed a book rest to her spinning wheel so that she could read while she was spinning, or the story goes. And one Saturday evening she became so absorbed in her book that when she looked up, she found that it was half past midnight and she had spun for half an hour on the Sabbath day. Back then, that counted as a major sin.

Great-grandmother Morrison has long since passed away, but her intense passion for knowledge and education is still affecting her descendants. Katie and her brother Matt lay on their stomachs for hours, gazing into the pond, watching the tadpoles, water-bugs, turtles, and other pond life. They dream of studying and learning. Matt has the deep sense of wonder that gives life to such studies, and Katie absorbs his interests and passions, never guessing that they will eventually cause a gulf between her and her brother.

I just loved this story, full of imperfect people making mistakes, taking on life as it comes, making the best of bad situations, keeping promises, and taking care of each other the best that they can.

This was Mary Lawson's first book, published in 2002. I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for other books she's written.

Corduroy Mansions

2009-02-11T20:12:00.003+01:00

Alexander McCall Smith, author of a number of popular series (such as the Number 1 Ladies' Detective series), has been writing his "first online novel."

A few months ago, the Telegraph (a UK newspaper) began releasing, online, one new chapter per day. I found the concept intriguing. It reminded me of the way Charles Dickens wrote several of his novels: they were published chapter by chapter in the newspaper. This struck me as being very much the same thing, only for the 21st century. So, I decided to read along (actually, I chose to listen to the audio version, also released day by day), and the book will be finished this week, on Friday, the 13th of February.

As it happens, I have never read anything else by Alexander McCall Smith, but I enjoyed the early chapters enough to keep going. I actually felt that the book mirrored Dickens in a few other ways, as it highlighted current social issues, and presented a range of characters from very different walks of life.

For the past few weeks, I've been a little disturbed because there were loose ends and abandoned plot lines scattered in every direction. A couple of weeks ago, I thought, "How is he going to pull this all together and finish off in just two more weeks." The chapters are short! Now, today I listened to chapter 98 of the 100 planned chapters, and I am in a state of disbelief. However this finishes off, it isn't going to "end" in any way that I recognize as a normal ending. There is simply no possible way to close the gaps, or bring every thread to some kind of reasonable conclusion.

What is this all about? Is this the way Alexander McCall Smith usually ends his books? Or was the chapter-every-day demand too difficult to maintain at the same time as a coherent plot?

Otherwise, I have enjoyed the story. There is a great deal of understated humor, random musings on every subject under the sun, and interesting characters who end up doing outrageous things. Not all of the characters were well-developed, of course. I think some were introduced, but just didn't fit the flow of the story.

The book will be issued in normal book format sometime in 2009, and I don't know how much longer it will be available online. If you're interested, take a look soon.

****************

Well, I have now finished the book, and no, it certainly did not end in a neat and tidy way. Alexander McCall Smith agrees,and has basically indicated his intentions of calling these first 100 chapters "Volume 1," and continuing the story.

I'm not entirely sure Corduroy Mansions, as it is, is really a novel at all. But it is fun, and if you don't mind never finding out exactly what happened when Hugh was kidnapped in Columbia or how the book Autobiography of a Yeti is received when (if?) it is published, jump right in and enjoy the ride.

Smoke and Mirrors

2009-02-08T15:21:00.002+01:00

I really like to read lit blogs. (This surprises no one, I am sure.)

When I read a review...or two...or three...about a book that sounds like something I'd like to read, too, I do one of several things. Sometimes I write the author and title on a piece of paper and try to remember to take the piece of paper to the library, if I think the foreign-language library might have it. I don't always remember the bits of paper, but the act of writing makes it more likely that I'll remember to check.

That's not really the most likely source for me to find a specific title, however--especially if the book is more recently published. The bulk of their collection was acquired from the 1960's to the 1980's, and the rest of the collection comes from random donations, not purchased titles.

Therefore, if I really want get hold of a book, I am more likely to put it on my wish list at Amazon or www.bookmooch.com . If I want it so immediately that I'm willing to pay a premium price, I may look for it at www.empik.com and purchase it here in Poland. That doesn't happen often. I'm usually willing to wait.

*************

Some time ago, in accordance with the habits described above, I read a review for a book entitled Cloud Atlas that sounded like something I might enjoy. I no longer remember who wrote the reviews that piqued my interest, or even how many reviews I might have read, but I added the book to my Bookmooch wishlist.

Not so very long ago, I received an email from Bookmooch letting me know that someone had the book available, and I requested and received it. I've added quite a few books to my "to be read" stack recently, so it was probably here for a few weeks before I picked it up and started reading it.

What I remember about Cloud Atlas was that is was a series of short stories that were connected; that the stories took place across a long span of time, and that it was somewhat post-Apocalyptic in nature.

I read the first few chapters...and the next few...and kept wondering when the story would move onto the future.

*************

What are the odds, do you suppose, of two authors writing a book entitled Cloud Atlas? And publishing them in the same year?

Because the book I meant to read was Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, and the book I did read was The Cloud Atlas
by Liam Callanan.

They are not the same books. Isn't that strange? Is "cloud atlas" some kind of catch-phrase that means something and I've simply never heard of it? Or did these two authors come up with the same unusual title for their books, which coincidentally were both published in 2004?

*************

I've updated my Bookmooch wishlist with the Cloud Atlas I originally wanted to read, and will continue to wait for it.

Maybe after I've had a little time to think about it, I'll write a proper post about The Cloud Atlas (you see there is a subtle difference?) and let you know what I thought of it. I did finish reading the book, so you know that's one point in its favor.

Has anyone read either of these two titles? What did you think?

Beloved by Toni Morrison

2009-02-07T07:50:00.002+01:00

Toni Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for this book, in 1988.

I got married in 1988 and had other things to think about.

I've bumped into Toni Morrison's name and books before, but have to confess that I really didn't know anything about her work, and this is the first of her books that I have read.

Beloved takes place in post-Civil War Ohio, close to the Kentucky border. There was a population of freed/former slaves in the area even before the war. In fact, some of the white neighbors were involved in rescue and escape efforts, as well as giving assistance in the form of housing and jobs to former slaves who were beginning their lives anew.

I honestly didn't know what I was getting into when I started this book. It includes the details of some of the physical atrocities committed by slave owners, but its larger scope is the psychological effect on men and women in slavery. In the main thread of the story, the Civil War is over and slavery has been abolished. None of the characters are currently slaves, and some of them (the children of former slaves) never have been. Nevertheless, the children of former slaves are still deeply affected by the psychological impact of slavery on their parents. It reminded me of the stories I've read of the children of Holocaust survivors. Their parents' experiences also left a mark on them.

The history and experience of slavery itself is conjured up only in memory, and many of its victims are long since dead, but their stories play a part in Beloved as well. How do young men and women, who have never known any life but slavery, who were not raised by their parents, who are kept ignorant of even rudimentary knowledge--how do they cope, mentally and psychologically, with life as they know it? And if they achieve freedom, how do they put their experience--the only experience they have--behind them and move forward?

The three main characters are Sethe (a former slave) and her daughter Denver (born during her escape), as well as Paul D., another former slave from the same household as Sethe. Although many years have gone by since slavery was a part of their daily existence, it still has a hold on their minds and hearts. I never felt that sanity was a close acquaintence of any of them.

They are all haunted by the "ghosts" of the past--memories too powerful and too terrible to leave them in peace.

"Sethe," he says, "me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow."

I won't forget this book in a hurry. It is less the story of human courage in the face of adversity than it is the story of human frailty in the midst of adversity. Just being willing to face tomorrow is sometimes all there is, and it has to be enough.

Reading Log, January 2009

2009-01-31T20:30:00.002+01:00

As the month draws to a close, I realize that I have been confined to the house for nearly three solid weeks. I've either been sick, as has my entire family, plus there was that little episode with the hospital. All things have conspired together to give me many "leisure" hours for reading, while at the same time leaving me mentally unfit for anything more intellectually challenging than L.M. Montgomery.

House of Mirth by Edith Wharton--I listened to the audio version at Librivox.org, except for the last five chapters, which I read. I've already written about this book, but this was my third Wharton novel and it prompted me to accquire her biography, which I plan to read sometime this year.

Patricia Brent, Spinster by Herbert Jenkins--Another audio book! This was written in 1918, but you'd never know it. Patricia, a "spinster" of 24 (this was 1918!) works in London and lives in a boarding house. When she overhears a few other boarders pitying her because she doesn't have anyone to "take her out," she invents a fiance, and announces her plans to go out with him for dinner. Berating herself all the while, she dresses up and calculates how much her "date" is going to cost her. Then she arrives at the restaurant and discovers that a few of her fellow-boarders just "happen" to be dining there as well.

To avoid having her deception revealed, she approaches a man sitting alone at a table, and begs him to "play along," which he does, very gamely. But one thing leads to another, and before long, Patricia's engagement has been announced in the paper, her employer's family are ingratiating themselves with her, and her fellow-boarders are making a greater nuisance of themselves than ever.

This was very funny, and felt like a much more modern novel than its age would indicate. It really would make a very funny romantic comedy film.

I Am The Clay by Chaim Potok--Not my favorite Potok so far.

Santa Claus’s Partner by Thomas Nelson Page--Audio book,at Librivox, of course. I meant to listen to this during the holidays, and didn't get around to it, so I picked it when I finished the Patricia Brent book because it was short. It was a fairly predictable Christmas Carol knock-off (minus the ghosts), but it was okay.

When in Rome by Ngaio Marsh--This is a mystery from the golden era of mystery writers. I've only started reading Ngaio Marsh in the last year or two. I think this is the first one I've read that *didn't* have a theater setting. Instead, it takes place in Rome (as the title implies), with a lot of architecture and historical "atmosphere." To be honest, it was only so-so. A lot of what I read and listened to this month was fairly mediocre, and I am ready for something great.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell--Probably the newest title I read this month. There were quite a few interesting themes in this story, but I found both Esme's circumstances and the ending of the book very disturbing.

The Blue Bedroom by Rosamunde Pilcher --This was a collection of Pilcher's short stories. I've read some of her longer books before, and I adore her character-driven novels that show love and grace in action. These shorter stories, mostly about families, were not too bad, although I like her longer fiction better.

The Witness for the Prosecution (and other stories) by Agatha Christie--another short story collection, and some of Christie's most chilling and gruesome stories, I might add.

Maus by Art Spiegelman--a graphic novel, about the author's father's experiences in Nazi-occupied Poland. His family was Jewish, and he and his wife survived Auschwitz, although most of the rest of their family, including a pre-school aged son, did not. This was the first graphic novel I've read, and I don't think I'll be a regular reader of this kind of book, but I will try to find and read the sequel to this.

The Grey Woman by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell--This was another audio book. I've only been reading Gaskell for a couple of years--North and South, Wives and Daughters, and Cranford so far. This short novella (which I listened to at Librivox) was a bit of a shock. I even thought for a while they might have listed the author incorrectly and it was really Ann Radcliffe, author of The Mysteries of Udolpho. This is a "Bluebeard" story in which in a young girl marries a mysterious foreigner, and is taken to live in his remote castle, where she discovers to her horror that he has secrets she never dreamed of.

A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card--I am an unabashed fan of Card's Enderverse books, but I'm sorry to say, this one was a disappointment. It's a Christmas story of sorts, that takes place at the Battle School during Ender's training there. It would have been better if Card had told his story and left Ender out of it, because I couldn't reconcile Ender as he appeared here with the Ender we know from Ender's Game. My recommendation: read Ender's Game and all its marvelous sequels...except this one.

The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker--I listened to this as an audio book, and only finished it for the same reason you watch a bad movie to the end--just because you have to see if the whole thing is really as bad as it seems, and because some things are just so bad they are almost funny. If I make a "worst books of 2009" list at the end of the year, this book will be on it.

Beloved by Toni Morrison--I just finished this and am still mulling it over. I hope to do a better review this week, and I'll link it here if I do.

That makes a total of thirteen books in January, and nary a one of them nonfiction. I am ashamed of myself, but plead mental fog brought on by a child's accident, my own fever and relentless cough, quite a few sleepless nights, and just plain weariness of soul. I hope to do better in Feburary.

As part of my monthly reading log, I plan to include what progress I'm making in my Worthwhile Reading Challenge. I've already confessed the titles I completed this month, but before the month fell apart, I did get about 1/4 of the way through Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, and in spite of a change of heart on my part about whether or not this is worthwhile reading, I hope to finish it in February.

I also started reading Szatan z siodmej klasy and have decided that, intended for young people or not, this is a hard book for me. I'm up to page 9. Don't laugh. Here's my rough translation of one sentence: "A flock of mustangs on the prairie never neighed with joy at the site of water like the seventh grade neighed aloud with humor." Of course, they're not neighing--just laughing. But I don't know the verb "neigh" anyway. I don't like reading with a dictionary at my elbow, so I just soldier on and hope for the best. If I'm going to finish this book, it is going to have to be by reading just one or two pages per day on a consistent basis.

So, now I'm ready for February.

Maus

2009-01-30T22:18:00.002+01:00

I read my first graphic novel!

Ever since I heard of Art Spielgelman's Maus, I have been intrigued by the concept of telling the story of the holocaust in the form of a graphic novel, casting the Jews as mice, the Germans as cats, and the Poles as...pigs. (I don't think that was intended to be entirely insulting. It could just be because Poles eat a lot of pork, and didn't eat kosher.)

All of the events in the story took place fairly close to where I live, and I wonder how readers fare who aren't sure how Sosnowiec and Czestochowa should be pronounced?

The story itself is such a common one (if you have read much holocaust literature), that it would almost seem stale if it were not so horribly true. Six million Jews...possibly two million Poles...and every one of them with an individual story that could break your heart. But the details are so familiar...I think Art Spiegelman drew his story in a fresh way in part to give it a new impact.

I'm going to be perfectly honest and admit that the pictures didn't "make" the story for me. Maybe I don't know how to read comics, or graphic novels. I found myself reading the words, and glossing over the pictures.

Maus tells more than the story of how Mr. Spiegelman's parent's managed to survive in Poland from 1941 to 1944, when they were betrayed and sent to Auschwitz. It also portrays the way in which the experience continued to affect them to the end of their lives, and how it affected their relationship with their son born after the war. This aspect of the story lends depth and perspective to the tale, and it was that part of the story that made the strongest impression on me. I also enjoyed the fact that Vladek Spiegelman tells his story in somewhat broken English. It sounded very authentic.

If I have the chance, I will read the sequel (Maus II) to this story, but otherwise, I think my first graphic novel will probably be my last. I prefer words...

Reeled in by another list!

2009-01-24T20:57:00.003+01:00

Has anyone else been watching the "1,000 novels you must read" lists that The Guardian (a UK newspaper) has been publishing? They have divided their books into seven rather odd categories:

Comedy, Crime, Family and Self, Love, Science Fiction and Fantasy, State of the Nation, and finally, War and Travel.

Their placing of various books into the different categories seems a bit strange at times, and I am not the only one who thinks so. However, the irresistible lure of the list compelled me to read through all the lists, and tally up where I stand.

Before I reveal those numbers, however, I wanted to weigh in with my feelings about lists like this. I consider them a sort of measuring stick against which I don't mind measuring my reading, simply because it says something about my reading list in comparison with what others think are worthwhile books. However, I am rather amazed at the audacity of a list 1,000 books long. Let's say you average reading one book per week (and some of the choices on this list could scarcely be finished in a week), so about 50 books per year. That's a low number for some, but far above the average. At that rate, it would take 20 years to read through all the books on that list as it stands.

Twenty years of compulsory reading, without any room for newly-published works of fiction unless you read MORE than one book per week. Twenty years without time to delve into the complete oeuvre of authors like Jostein Gaarder (an author who didn't make the list) or John Grisham (who did), just because you especially enjoy them. Twenty years with no room in the schedule for those delicious rereads of old favorites. Twenty years, by the way, of novels alone, with no time for non-fiction, biographies, poetry, short-stories, or how-to books. Twenty years of assigned reading, even if you hate the book?

I don't think so. In fact, I would boldly make the claim that none of the Guardian staff, nor any of the contributors to this list, have read all the books on it. I'd almost bet money that none of them have read half.

So where did I stand? I'm giving myself credit for 110, since one of the books is a current read and I'm over halfway through. I have read 11% of the list. Rather than the total number, I was more interested to see how my reading broke down by category. I was pleased to learn that I have read books from all seven categories, with the highest number falling (to my very great surprise) in the Science Fiction and Fantasy category (26 books) and the lowest in Comedy (only 6). Please don't tell my family these statistics--they already think I have no sense of humor. (And the Guardian's idea of Comedy is a little strange, anyway.) I've read 20 of the books on the Crime list, and the rest of the categories fell somewhere in the middle, between 12-18 books each.

Also interesting for me was keeping track of the books on the list that are already on my radar and on my (not at all offical) "to be read" list. I had at least one or two books from each category (even Comedy!) that I hope to read in the not-to-distant future. I feel so well balanced.

But this is the best part--and the reason I enjoy lists like this, and don't really care how long they make them (since I feel no guilt over the 89% I haven't read, and probably never will)--I discovered several intriguing new books that I want to read, and either added them to my online wishlist or downloaded the free etext or bookmarked the online audiobook. THAT'S what lists like this are good for.

If you've looked over the list and gleaned some good titles, or criticized their choices, or questioned the categories, or counted how many you've read, please leave a comment or link. I'd like to hear!

A peek at what socialized medicine (sometimes) looks like

2009-01-23T22:50:00.003+01:00

Almost two weeks ago, 4yo C. had a nasty fall and cut her ear quite badly. As soon I started cleaning up the blood, I knew it needed stitches. We ended up waiting nearly five hours in the emergency room of the only hospital in this city of one million people that will give a child stitches. That is pretty much par for the course everywhere, I know.

A week later, we went back to the same hospital to have the stitches removed. Remembering our emergency-room wait, for which I was ill-prepared, I loaded up with toys and amusements before we headed out. The surgical clinic area, where we had to go, was swamped. There were at least 20 children there, with one or more adults in tow. Toddlers wailed, babies fussed, and parents sat with the resigned expressions on their faces that we recognized so well. Might as well make ourselves comfortable, right?

Krakovian took C.'s papers to the registration desk, and after waiting a while there, the clerk took the papers and handed them right back. You see, we didn't have insurance (translation: we were not enrolled in the Polish National Healthcare System). Therefore, we had to pay for the service first. Krakovian went off to the cashier to pay, while C. and I settled in. (She had a nasty stomach flu three days after our last hospital visit, and I wasn't keen for her to get too close to anyone.)

And then, lo and behold, a surprise. Krakovian returned with his "paid in full" receipt, and the same clerk who had dismissed him 15 minutes before, sent him straight back to the nurse, who led us straight to the doctor (past a dozen waiting parents or more), who had the six stitches removed and sent us on our way in less than the same 15 minutes. I didn't attempt to catch the glances of any of the waiting parents, still seated on benches and in the hallway. I didn't want to see their resigned expressions transform themselves into disgruntled resentment at the fact that, arriving later, we were taken care of before them.

We don't actually KNOW that paying for service sent us to the front of the line, but it is difficult to account for it otherwise. Does anyone think nationalized health care would look much different in the United States? Hoards of people would sign up. Hoards of people would line up for the (far too few) doctors the program pays for. And then hoards of people would wait, and wait, and wait for their turn. Unless they could pay up front and be seen sooner. I've no doubt the system would still work better for those who have the money to pay.

And for the record, it cost about $20 to have the stitches removed. I suspect that getting the front-of-the-line attention in the US would cost a lot, lot more.

And C.'s ear is healing nicely, praise the Lord!

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

2009-01-22T12:59:00.005+01:00

This is a very visual book. The author evokes a series of fragmented images or pictures that remind me of an image as it would appear in a broken mirror. There are sharp, clear portions, but the complete image is difficult to see or bring into focus. You have to put some distance between the images and yourself before the fragments merge into a coherent image.

Consider the opening few sentences:

Let us begin with two girls at a dance.

They are at the edge of the room. One sits on a chair, opening and shutting a dance-card with gloved fingers. The other stand beside her, watching the dance unfold: the circling couples, the clasped hands, the drumming shoes, the whirling skirts, the bounce of the floor.

A similar picture is evoked in the last few pages of the story: "Two women in a room. One seated, one standing."

And in the meantime, more than sixty years have elapsed.

The two girls/women are Kitty and Esme, sisters. They were young women in Scotland in the 1930's,and sixty years later, Kitty is a grandmother with an Alzheimer-clouded memory. Her granddaughter Iris is stunned to receive a letter from a mental institution, explaining that her relative (one Euphemia Esme Lennox) is going to be released. Iris's father is dead and her grandmother is in no condition to explain to her who this person is, and why she has never heard of her before. In fact, she was certain that her grandmother, like her father and herself, was an only child...

But there is Esme, child-like and solid, and Iris cannot abandon her to the fate of a dilapidating system of care.

The action of the story takes place across just two or three days, as Iris discovers Esme's existence and brings her home for the weekend. However, the story spans more than sixty years, and is told in images and fragments from Esme's point of view, from Iris's, and from Kitty's broken and unsettled point of view.

Here is one bit from Esme's childhood memories. As I read through this, I was forcefully aware that a great deal of time was passing and that the child was clearly unsupervised. It definitely created the sense, by the end, that something was wrong, and indeed something was.

In the parlour, Esme wound the gramophone, stroked the velvet curtains, rearranged the chain of ivory elephants on the windowsill. She opened her mother's workbox and examined the threads of coloured silk. She rolled back the carpet and spent a long time sliding in her stockinged feet. She discovered that she could slide all the way from the claw-footed chest to the drinks cabinet. She unlocked the glass bookcase and took down the leather-bound volumes, sniffed them, felt their gold-edged pages. She opened the piano and performed glorious glissandos up and down the keys. In her parents' bedroom, she sifted through her mothers' jewellery, eased the lid off a box of powder and dabbed some on her cheeks. Her features, when she looked up into the oval mirror, were still freckled, her hair still wild. Esme turned away.

Esme was an intelligent, introspective girl--too independent to be satisfied with learning how to behave properly,and unwilling to accept that marriage was her only future. She was different, and in the end, her difference set her up for her fate: life in a mental institution.

It's hard to imagine any parents being able to lock a child away like that. Regardless of the culture and the times, I just cannot understand that. It was Esme's mother, I think, who was mentally disturbed, possibly because she had lost several babies. Her character isn't clearly seen, but I think there must have been something wrong with her if she could say of Esme, "we won't speak of her anymore..." and erase a daughter from her life entirely.

This is also Iris's story, although I don't think her part of the story was quite fleshed out as well as Esme's. I was left wishing there were one or two more chapters...

Mooch-a-Ventures

2009-01-18T12:23:00.004+01:00

A few months ago, before Christmas, I decided to use some of my points at Bookmooch to find a few titles that would make good Christmas presents for the kids. I have a wishlist, but nothing I want ever seems to be available, so I thought it would be a way to use up the points. At the time, I had about 24 points, which meant I could request twelve whole books!

I did find a few books that the kids wanted, and requested them. And then a strange thing started to happen. Either I found more books that I wanted to request, or books that I already wanted became available, and the next thing I knew, I was mooching book after book. "Wonderful!" I thought, "Now I'll have a chance to use up those points, and I'll have some great books to read,too."

Meanwhile, other people must have had the same idea, because I sent books from my inventory to Finland and New Zealand, and probably some other places, and now, in addition to the stack above, which does not include the books I mooched for my kids or Ian McEwan's Atonement which is still en route to me, I have 33 points, and can ask for sixteen more books.

What a great system.

In case you can't see them well, this is what I'll be reading:

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

The Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

and, last but not least,

When in Rome by Ngaio Marsh

That last has a sad story attached to it. I checked that title out of the library here in Krakow before Christmas, and I--(this is so terrible)--lost the book. I was reading in a restaurant, and then later, I couldn't find my book. I returned to the restaurant, and they didn't have it, so it was just...gone. I was busy with the holidays and let my other book run overdue because I dreaded going back to the library to tell them about it, but in the meantime, I also located and mooched a copy from Bookmooch.

When I finally went to the library to pay my fines and explain the situation, they were very gracious, and will accept this book in place of the one I lost, in spite of the fact that (gulp) I lost a hardcover and this is an ex-library softcover.

I'm going to read it first, though, and that's why it is on top of the stack!

But only after I pack up the books I have to mail to Australia.

The work of her fingers...

2009-01-14T22:45:00.004+01:00

Just in case anyone is wondering what I do while listening to audio books...

I guess it more or less speaks for itself. Only two of these are still in my possession. One is mine because I made it for me, and...well, there probably aren't many people who want an olive green doily. The other one will find a good home sooner or later.

This is my way of making the world a little bit prettier...

I Am The Clay by Chaim Potok

2009-01-14T18:49:00.004+01:00

I have read several books by Chaim Potok--The Chosen, In The Beginning and My Name is Asher Lev. They were all excellent books and have firmly established Potok on my list of Authors I Think Are Worth Reading.

I have to establish that first, before I say that this book didn't live up to the others I've read. Chaim Potok is Jewish, and the other books I've read are set in the American Jewish community. When he writes, his characters are excellent, but they are also set in relief against the Jewish background, and the effect is very authentic.

The story in I Am The Clay is set in Korea (where Potok served as a chaplain during the Koren War), and the characters are Korean. An older man and wife are fleeing, with thousands of others, from the on-coming Chinese army. Along the way, the woman rescues an injured, orphaned boy. Her husband begrudges the effort and food required for his care, but as they live and work and travel and suffer and grieve together, the bonds of family are forged.

However, Potok really doesn't know the Korean culture from the inside in the same way that he knows Jewish culture, and so the effect is rather flat. This book didn't have the same depth, the same rich, authentic flavor that his Jewish-related books did. I noticed from the first chapters that the writing seemed different--sparser and plainer than I remember Potok being, with far less attention to the details. He also used a technique that I found a little odd. That is, he told the thought processes of various characters in one flowing paragraph, with nothing to mark the switch from one to another.

Mountain air affects the eyes, Uncle said, and the heart and lungs, you see the whole world in a different way. And now so we found the boy and came all this way only to die here in these mountains what kind of spirits are you to do such a thing to an old woman there is no strength left in me even for anger but if there were how I would hate you. And if I had not run away if I had stayed maybe someone would have been alive and and I could have lived with them but no one was alive and Badooki had also run away and and I would have died in those flames everything was burning the house the air the bodies and and and look all the stars everywhere stars the ice on the mountains reflecting the stars in the sky and in the snow stars and stars.

Stream-of-consciousness is always a little difficult to read, but in that paragraph, you are dipping into three different streams.

I'm a little disappointed that what may be the only Potok novel I'll read this year wasn't one of his best, but that won't stop me from reading more of his work in the future. Toward the end of the book, the boy meets a Jewish chaplain, and I suspect that is Potok's cameo appearance in his own novel. I actually think that if he had written this book differently--if he had written about the Korean refugees as an outsider looking on, instead of trying to write as if from the inside, it would have been a better story.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

2009-01-08T14:40:00.003+01:00

Shattered.

That's how I felt when I reached the end of this book.

I read more than one Wharton title in 2008, and had this book in progress as the new year began. Most of it I listened to at Librivox, but I read the last five chapters myself. Edith Wharton is one of those 20th century authors I've neglected for years, but lately I've reached a point from which I suddenly "get" this literature, which is very much a precursor of the post-modern literature of our own time. (I've read more of that than the earlier 20th century literature, and perhaps that is why I can understand it better now.)

The reader for the book is top-notch, but I found myself dreading each chapter. I felt as if I were watching an accident that I could foresee, but not prevent. Lily Bart is the butterfly-creature of American Victorian Society, in New York. She was raised in luxury and comfort, and despite the loss of both her parents and their fortune, she cannot reconcile herself to any other kind of life. After all, she merely has to marry a wealthy a man, and with her beauty and charm, she has no trouble attracting the attention of eligible suitors.

But somewhere underneath it all, Lily Bart has finer feelings and better principles--undefined, undeveloped, and too fragile to set her feet on another path--strong enough only to always keep her back from finalizing the action she has determined to take. So, suitor after suitor slips away, until Lily approaches her 30th year--a single "girl" still, finding it harder and harder to play her self-chosen role.

It was actually painful to watch Lily lose the things she thought she cared for, while gaining nothing of value in their place, until it was too late for either. The ending of the story was not what I anticipated, but although it was not what I feared for her, it was tragic.

I would be interested to read and learn more about Edith Wharton, as I really know nothing at all about her personal life. What perversity of soul would make an author name a book like this "The House of Mirth?"

But, lest I finish with a wrong impression, I must say that the writing is beautiful--achingly compelling and wistful. I was never able to despise Lily, even when she despised herself. I do intend to read more by this author, although not, perhaps, right away.

*****

If, and only if, you have read the book, you might find this article interesting. It explains a recent letter that came to light, which may have had a bearing on explaining the ambiguous ending of the book. I also discovered that there is a connection between Edith Wharton and Louis Auchincloss, another author I admire and have read recently.

My Worthwhile Reading Challenge

2009-01-01T22:11:00.003+01:00

What's this? A third post within a week? I hope no one experiences undue shock.

However, this is 2009. A new year, a clean slate, fresh beginnings...time to recover from the undeniable fact that I read 92 books (actually 93--I found one I'd forgotten to put on the list...) and reflect on a few things.

I steadfastly refused to make reading plans for myself in 2008 (except that I said, in a general sort of way, that I wanted to read 2 non-fiction books each month, and I read 9 total for the year). I would not be tempted into joining challenges. I would simply read "as the spirit moves" me, so to speak. Well, that will not do. I need some relaxing, fun reading material, and I don't intend to plan that, but if I don't plan my serious reading better, it apparently isn't going to happen.

So, I found this challenge at The Common Room, and decided that was about right for me. Almost. I was only able to choose 10 worthwhile books. If I manage to finish these, I'll find another two.

I'm not going to list my plan month by month. I will have to tackle these somewhat simultaneously. Any encouragement, cheering, gentle nudges, polite inquiries, or tart reminders will be welcome to help me stay the course.

Ten Worthwhile Books I Plan to Read in 2009

(If December arrives, and I have finished none of these, I shall surreptitiously delete this post.)

1. Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun

2. Education in Antiquity by H.I. Marrou

3 The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

4. The Pleasures of Philosophy by Charles Frankel

5. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

6. Paradise Lost by John Milton

7. The Ascent of Man by J. Bronowski

8. Thinking Youth's Greatest Need by Dan Gilbert

9. Clive Staples Lewis by William Griffin

10. Szatan z Siodmej Klasy by Kornel Makuszynski

I've had all of these books on my shelves for one year or longer. It's high time I read them all the way through, I think. The last book on the list is young adult fiction, and the title means something like "The Satan in Seventh Grade." However, it did come highly recommended to me as a "living book" and I do plan to read it in Polish (that's what makes it worthwhile).

Wish me luck--join the fun.

The Best Books of 2008

2008-12-31T09:52:00.003+01:00

I just can't post a list of 92 books, lumped into the category of "I read them," without pausing to linger over the ones that made an impression, and stayed with me long after I'd closed the cover and moved on. In no particular order, the best books I read in 2008...

1. The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye

The pleasure I get from reading this kind of book is so great, I wonder myself why I don't read more of them. In this book, Frye is making a case for stories, and shedding light on why we need them and how they make a difference in our lives. This is the only non-fiction book on my "best of" list, and it deserves higher praise than I can give.

2. Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Bradley

Part of the pleasure I took in this story was the excellent reading by Elizabeth Klett at Librivox. I don't know what I was expecting from this book, but it was definitely more than I expected. I even blogged about it at the time.

3. Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe

Everyone else is/has been reading Things Fall Apart by this author, and I am impressed with the urgency that I must read it, too. However, this is the book that was available in my library here in Krakow, and it was amazing. I've taken an interest in the past few years in African literature, especially books that touch on the tensions of colonial Africa. Arrow of God was intense and insightful--I don't think I've ever read a better description of tribal life/community in story form. In the end, human nature is the same, no matter what culture or roots shape it from without.

4. Small Island by Andrea Levy

I picked up this book on a whim while browsing in the library, and it turned out to be one of the best books of the year. I'd never heard of it before. The post-WWII lives of young men and women, some from Britian, some from Jamaica, are so real it doesn't seem like fiction. Fortunately, I wrote a better review at the time I read the book.

5. Howard's End by E.M. Forster

At the time I read (okay, listened to) this book, I wrote that it blew me away. For some reason, this turned out to be my year for reading a lot of 20th-century classics I had never read before, and this was the cream of the crop. There will definitely be an E.M. Forster book in my reading plans for 2009.

6. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

I hardly know what to say about this one, because so much has already been written on it. I said it would be on my list of best reads in 2008, and I meant it. It may be one of the best books I've read, ever. Review here, inadequate as it is.

7. Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon

I have been an unabashed fan of Jan Karon's Mitford books for many years. I don't see how anyone who loves character-based books could not like those books. I received Home to Holly Springs as a Christmas present last year, and put off reading it for half the year because I didn't think I'd like it as much as the Mitford books. Silly, silly me. All I did was delay the pleasure I had reading it. Jan Karon has the ability to show what grace looks like in real life, or what it could look like, if we'd let it. She celebrates small miracles, too, that are so easy to overlook. If you haven't read all the Mitford books, don't read this yet...but do read Jan Karon.

8. Middlemarch by George Eliot

I'm so glad I read this. It was wonderful. I can't imagine why I never read it before. (Books of nearly 700 pages don't put me off, no sir, not at all...). I keep trying to figure out which character was my favorite, and I think in the end, I could not choose. This kind of book is a tapestry that fills a wall, with figures running to and fro and intermingled with small pictures that tell their own stories when examined closely, and yet together make a grand whole which the largest room is almost too small to hold.

9. The Swoop by P.G. Wodehouse

I hesitated to add this to my list. It is not a great book, or a fine book, or a book that I'll remember in great detail forever. But it was funny, and it made me laugh, and sometimes that is no small blessing.

10. I almost left this one blank and let it go with 9 best books, but I finally decided that The Road by Cormac McCarthy deserves this place. I did not love the story and the post-modern bleakness of the book is almost heart-wrenching for someone who prefers stories that include hope. But this book made me think harder than almost anything else I read this year, and for that, it deserves a place amongst the best books I read.

Now I'm ready for 2009...bring on the books.

Reading Summary, 2008

2008-12-27T15:02:00.004+01:00

This is my wrap-up of all the reading I did in 2008. Being able to do this is pretty much the sole reason I used my blog at all in 2008. I did not, unfortunately, write serious reviews of more than a handful of these books, although if you look at my reading logs for each month, there are some comments there.

If anyone has questions about any particular book, please feel free to ask in the comments--I'll be glad to share my thoughts on any of it. Tomorrow, I plan to post which, among this lengthy list, were my favorite books from 2008--and perhaps I'll take a swipe or two at my least favorites. Without further ado--

Grand Total of Books Read in 2008: 92 books read in entirety.

Ninety-two! (Of which, 17 were re-reads.)

Now here is the woeful part:

Non-fiction: 9 (I had purposed to read 2 non-fiction books per month, which would have been 24. This is a serious short-coming.)

Books on philosophy/culture: 3
Books that were essentially either biographies or memoirs: 6

Fiction: 81

Audio books: 23, every one courtesy of Librivox.
Classics: 14
Mysteries: 17
Literary Fiction: 26 (i.e. Louis Auchincloss)
Popular Fiction: 15 (i.e. Jodi Picoult)
Crime/Spy Fiction: 4
Youth/Young Adult Literature: 4
Science Fiction: 3
Short Story Collection: 1

(Obviously, there is some overlap in these categories.)

Books by Male Authors: 36
Books by Female Authors: 56
Books in translation: 1, and some short stories
Multiple books by the same author: 13 authors (Orson Scott Card, Kazuo Ishiguro, P.G. Wodehouse, P.D. James, Jane Austen, Jodi Picoult, Lilian Jackson Braun, John Grisham, Edith Wharton, C.S. Lewis, Mindy Starns Clark, Baroness Orczy, and Carson McCullers)

In addition to the list below, I read part of, but abandoned, three books:

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
Daughter of Jerusalem by Sarah Maitland
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

I read some additional short stories:

"A Provincial Guy," "Holobutow," "Very controversial discussion with God," and "A Nihilist" by Adam Zielinski, translated from German

"Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
"The Mark of the Beast" by Rudyard Kipling
"The Man That Was Used Up" by Edgar Allen Poe
"Laura" by Saki

I also read about one-third of Nowe Przygody Mikolajka in Polish, translated from the French.

And finally, the complete list, in more or less chronological order.

The List

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Dear Enemy by Jean Webster
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
Psmith in the City by P.G. Wodehouse
Original Sin by P.D. James
Persuasion by Jane Austen (twice--read once, listened to audiobook once)
Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander
The Undomestic Goddess by Sophia Kinsella
The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult
Last Days by Joel C. Rosenberg
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Tale of Beatrix Potter by Margaret Hale
Old Hall, New Hall by Michael Innes
Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber
The Cat Who Played Brahms by Lilian Jackson Braun
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The Cat Who Played Post Office by Lilian Jackson Braun
The Fortieth Door by Mary Hastings Bradley
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
False Scent by Ngaio Marsh
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Catheart and Daniel Klein
Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Case of Jennie Brice by Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Cat Who Saw Stars by Lilian Jackson Braun
Emma by Jane Austen
The Lost Boy by David Pelzer
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Small Island by Andrea Levy
They Met in Moscow by Rosemary Timperley
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Remains of the Day by kazuo Ishiguro
Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borokowski
A Strange Disappearance by Anna Katharine Green
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin
Howard's End by E.M. Forster
Summer by Edith Wharton
The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon
Eve Green by Susan Fletcher
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
The Dark House by George Manville Fenn
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
The Cinema Murder by E. Phillips Oppenheim
A Penny for Your Thoughts by Mindy Starns Clark
Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels by Mindy Starns Clark
Dime a Dozen by Mindy Starns Clark
A Quarter for a Kiss by Mindy Starns Clark
The Buck Stops Here by Mindy Starns Clark
A Promise to Remember by Katherine Cushman
Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
The Daffodil Mystery by Richard Horatio and Edgar Wallace
Through a Glass Darkly by Helen McCloy
Jean and Johnny by Bevery Cleary
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Carmilla by Joseph Faridan LeFanu
El Dorado by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
The Swoop by P.G. Wodehouse
The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern Lilian Jackson Braun
Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult
The Partners by Louis Auchincloss
The Latecomers by Anita Brookner
The Van Dreison Affair by Holly Roth
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Colors of Space Marian Zimmer Bradley
Mary Emma and Company by Ralph Moody
Sanditon by Jane Austen and Another Lady
Over the Gate by Miss Read
The Hampstead Mystery by John R. Watson and Arthur Rees
The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole by Stephanie Doyon
Anthem by Ayn Rand
The Broker by John Grisham
The Rector's Wife by Joanna Trollope
Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
Innocent Blood by P.D. James
Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
Tiger's Child by Torey Hayden

If you read or even scanned that formidable list--congratulations! I hope it won't sound like heresy if I say that I hope next year's list is somewhat shorter and meatier!

A book review

2008-12-27T13:15:00.003+01:00

Of all the things I would do with my blog if I were a faithful blogger, this is one of the most fun. I love writing and sharing about I'm reading. I've been planning for several weeks to write this one...better late than never?

The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole by Stephenie Doyon is one of those books that serendipity dropped into my lap. I never heard of it; I never read a review about it; I never went looking for it. It just came to me, by way of a back-street thrift store in Krakow. Some of these shops get their merchandise from Great Britian, so there are occasionally a few English-language books and movies in their inventory. Their regular customers have little interest in these things, so they sell them for extremely low prices, about 50 cents or a dollar. Since the average English-language title available new here costs a minimum of $10, and usually more, I never skip the opportunity to look for something that I might like to read. Most of what is available is junk I wouldn't even pay 50 cents to read, but sometimes, I find something better, and that is how The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole crossed my path.

Cedar Hole is the quintessential back-water town, filled with small-minded people. There are no real opportunities, nothing to be proud of, nothing to do, and at the same time, no one seems to muster enough ambition to leave. This book is the story of two boys who grow to manhood in Cedar Hole. One of them has vision and purpose, but no desire to leave. His focus is on improving Cedar Hole, beginning with himself. The second boy has the desire to leave, but lacks the impetus to do it, and ends up staying put and living the kind of life that most folks in Cedar Hole live. Which of them is the greatest man in Cedar Hole?

The story is complex, with a cast of characters that bring Cedar Hole to life. Every-day temptations, family dynamics, tragedy, comedy--this book feels very much like real life. In the end, the greatest man in Cedar Hole chooses honesty, family, and integrity over wealth and the chance to move away. I was so impressed with this story, and its modest, simple "hero" who simply lived and worked and was there for the people who needed him.

Affirmation of existence

2008-12-27T13:09:00.003+01:00

This poor little blog has been neglected and neglected. I've toyed with the idea of abandoning it altogether, but it does serve a purpose for me, so I can't do that. It doesn't seem to line up with what other people think the purpose of blogging is, so as blogs go, I think it's a wash, but I can't get rid of it, anyway. No cute little blogger awards, side-bar widgets, interesting link categories, or ad-revenue for me. So be it.

But, the verdict is in, and the blog will live.

Reading Log, October and November 2008

2008-11-29T22:05:00.003+01:00

Oh. Dear.

How many times this year have I doubled up these lists and posted two months together? It seems rather sad that I can't manage even one little blog post per month, but perhaps I'll be changing that...

In any case, here is the latest peek into my eclectic, not to say voracious, reading world.

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers--I don't know what possessed me to read another McCullers novel so soon after reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. This is another dark, coming-of-age-in-a-depressing-way kind of book. I don't really "enjoy" McCullers, but her voice is very powerful.

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu (audiobook)--This is a vintage vampire story that predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by 20 years. I listened to it at Librivox.org--read by Elizabeth Klett, who is an excellent reader (one of my favorites). Imagine living in a lonely castle deep in the forest when a chance accident brings a guest to your doorstop...how very welcome! It is my understanding that "vampire" fiction is a popular emerging genre. Maybe the craze will lead to some folks digging up and reading these old books and realizing there is nothing new under the sun...(but I have no plans to read more vampire-themed books anytime in the foreseeable future).

El Dorado by Baroness Emmuska Orczy (audiobook)--This is one of the sequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I listened to earlier this year. The author is fantastic at "putting you in the moment"--giving you just the right details to give you a sense of place, suspense, timing. The characters are pretty two-dimensional, but they're good 2D characters, so it's forgivable. The plots are a little transparent to me, but the writing is good enough to keep the sense of suspense and danger going. Also, the reader for all the Pimpernel books at Librivox is top-notch.

The Swoop by P.G. Wodehouse (audiobook)--A hilarious book, which is kind of what you expect from Wodehouse. England is invaded, simultaneously, by nine separate armies. I could envision a modern spoof of this spoof, featuring video games and appearances on Oprah. That won't make sense if you haven't read the book, but you can tell it isn't all that frightening or serious. My favorite bit was the diplomatic-speak. Very funny and only two hours of listening time.

The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lilian Jackson Braun (reread)--not much to say about this one. I can't stand the newest books coming out in this series. They are not written by the original author and the last two or three I read (and I haven't even read the most recent ones) were awful. Nothing for it but to read the old ones from time to time...

Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult-- I know, I know. I wasn't sure whether I was going to read any more books by Picoult. But I found this one at a second-hand store for about a dollar, and mass-market paperbacks here sometimes cost as much as $15, so how could I resist? In this story, a woman discovers that her father, who has always told her that her mother died in a car accident, actually ran away with her when she was a tiny girl. He is arrested and she has to face both her unknown past and the re-arranging of the present.

In some ways this was a good story, but there were aspects of it I didn't like. The whole situation and the way the characters behaved was just a little bit beyond belief. Could I imagine people behaving in this way? Not entirely, so the story didn't ring true, but it was an enjoyable read anyway. Part of the problem, I think, is that this story had A Message. I have no problem with deeper meanings in fiction, but the story shouldn't suffer because of it, and in this case, I think it did. I really don't think I'll be searching out further books by this author. However, if one sort of falls in my way, as this one did, I wouldn't mind reading it.

The Partners by Louis Auchincloss--While reading Norms and Nobility by David Hicks, I learned about The Rector of Justin by Auchincloss, and was pleased to be able to read it some years ago. When I ran across this title at the library, I had to give it a try. Since most of the "lawyer" novels I've read have been written by John Grisham, this was definitely different.

It was a character-driven novel centered around a law firm. No Grisham action or convoluted plot, but a good hard look at what principles or the lack thereof can mean in the lives and jobs of the characters.

The Latecomers by Anita Brookner--I read this one back-to-back with The Partners, and it was another character-driven novel in which virtually nothing happens--nothing that seems like a story or a plot, I mean. It's all about people--who they are, why they behave as they do, and how it affects those close to them. I especially liked that premise of the book's title--that maturity, or the later years in life, may be better than youth.

The Van Dreisen Affair by Holly Roth--After two heavy-duty character-driven novels with no action, I was ready for some...action, that is. This is a spy novel written during the height of the Cold War. I enjoyed the story, and its vintage character (which means no four-letter words or graphic intervals).

Middlemarch by George Eliot (audiobook, partially)--I started listened to this massive classic at Librivox (over 30 hours long!!), and I did get about 3/4 of the way through it that way. However, some of the readers were atrocious, and I finally got too involved in the story to be patient, and I read the last 20 chapters for myself. Good book! I read somewhere (Wikipedia?) that some readers are dissatisfied with Dorothea's fate, but for the life of me I can't think why. I thought Rosamund got off way too easy!

The Colors of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley (audiobook) -- Look, a sci-fi story at Librivox! Vintage sci-fi--How could I pass that up? It was a little funny, but fun.

Mary Emma & Company by Ralph Moody--This is part of the "Little Britches" series--kind of like "Little House" for boys. You really have to admire a woman like Ralph's mother--widowed and left alone in the far west with 6 kids to care fore (age 14 down to infant). In this book, they move back east to be closer to family, but they energetically stand on their own feet, take of themselves and each other, and have some fun at the same time. But oh MY--it wasn't easy!

I think that's all--twelve books across two months, and five (well, four and 3/4) were audiobooks. I seemed to have slacked off a bit in my reading, but there's been a lot going on about the house.

I'm in the middle of a long book I hope will be finished in December (I've already renewed it from the library once); I was halfway through another library book which I appear to have permanently lost (oh woe!), and so probably won't finish; I'm listening to a brand-new audio book being written week by week, and a chapter a day being posted serially, much as Dickens wrote some of his novels (but that book won't be complete until February); and I'm not in the mood to start any serious reading in December.

However, I do plan to gather my reading and book statistics for 2008, post them, categorize them, and analyze them, and then...

Well, I said I wasn't going to plan any reading for 2008 and I didn't. I read an inordinate number of books (more than last year, already), but I am not satisfied. So, 2009 will be different. I will plan (not everything, of course), and I will see if I can get some of the heavier reading done that I really want to do.

Reading Log, August and September 2008

2008-10-04T17:02:00.002+02:00

I know that most readers of blogs have given up stopping by here, looking for updates, and I don't blame them a bit! For my own sake, I want to keep my records here of the books I'm reading at the very least, although I'm a bit behind. This is the list for August and September--a weird, motley collection of titles as usual. I spent a lot of August watching the Olympics, and didn't do much reading in that last month of summer, until I went on a kind of strange Christian-fiction binge and read a whole series in a matter of a week or so. I've plunged into my heavier reading habits of fall, so September looks a little more serious, but here it is, all mixed together.

First, a collection of slightly macabre short stories:

"The Mark of the Beast" by Rudyard Kipling--In which few Englishmen learn that at the very least they shouldn't make fun of the local religions.

"The Man That Was Used Up" by Edgar Allan Poe--In which appearances are very deceiving.

"Laura" by Saki--In which a strong woman dies and a weak woman lives, and the power of suggestion wreaks havoc.

Next, a spate of Christian fiction, which I rarely read. I went on some kind of binge and read an entire series in the space of a week. The other book was a birthday present (my birthday was in August), and it was actually rather well done.

A Penny for Your Thoughts
Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels
Dime a Dozen
A Quarter for a Kiss
The Buck Stops Here

All by Mindy Starns Clark.

It's a Christian fiction series called "The Million Dollar Mystery Series" about a widowed investigator and her rich boss who hires her to check out the charities he wants to support. No depth to them at all, thin plots, and the usual romantic angle. Someone loaned them to me a year ago, and I have to give them back soon.

A Promise to Remember by Kathryn Cushman--Christian fiction about two mothers whose sons were killed in a car accident. It wasn't "great literature," but it wasn't trite or silly, either. It was a sensitive, honest look at the way tragedy touches lives.

And then...the rest of the books...

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim--a sort of diary in the year of a young wife and mother, who convinces her city-dwelling husband to come live in a country house, where she spends most of her time in the garden. It was written in 1898, about an Englishwoman married to a German man (she calls him "The Man of Wrath"), so there are some interesting peeks into a different time period and lifestyle as well. It's quite well done and "modern" in tone, in spite of having been written in the Victorian era! I honestly don't know whether this should be classified as fiction or non-fiction.

The Daffodil Mystery by Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace--An audiobook mystery, via Librivox. I enjoy listening to these while I crochet, but these older mysteries are very transparent and obvious to those of us who've been weaned on Agatha Christie and much more devious mystery plots. I can usually tell several chapters ahead of time what the next "surprise" is going to be.

Through a Glass, Darkly by Helen McCloy--A vintage mystery published in 1949, so it has that postwar flavor. (If you've not read much from that era, I mean all the characters are still a bit shell-shocked and trying to get on with life as normal. They are usually disillusioned, without faith, and take life pretty seriously, trying to make up for the war years.)

A school teacher is dismissed from two positions because of a mysterious "double" (doppleganger, fetch, etc...) that keeps appearing. She is distressed and dismayed, and a prominent psychologist undertakes to investigate the phenomenon. Or is it something far more physical, after all?

Interesting to see how a mystery writer can incorporate philosophical themes into a story.The blurb on the back of the book suggested that the story was "a supernatural puzzle" that would "scare you stiff before going to bed." I think they must have been easier to scare in 1949. It was a well-done story, but Stephen King or Dean Koontz scare me WAY more than this would. (I rarely read horror fiction.)

Jean and Johnny by Beverly Clearly--(reread) YA fiction from a bygone era--but I love Beverly Cleary. I picked it up when I was feeling ill just to distract myself and read it straight through!

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers--This is considered a 20th century classic so how did I manage never to know about it? Nevermind--now I know. This story is in the "Southern Gothic" tradition--pretty dark and hopeless, and I do like a little bit of silver lining. Nevertheless, the book is well written, and if stark tragedy and unfulfilled longing and abject loneliness are portrayed with compassion, I will just have to grit my teeth, and maybe read something more cheerful the next time around.

Seriously, this is a well-written book, but there is just no relenting in the tragedy, sorrow, despair, grief....need I go on? No one in the book is happy, and during the course of the year, things happen to make them unhappier still...the end. This is the sort of book you read just to have it on your list, I think--the cover is crowded with reviews such as "the brilliant first novel of the great American author Carson McCullers, written when she was only 22, etc, etc,..."

It is beautifully written, and there were one or two episodes that were absolutely lovely, but I think the youth of the author is partly responsible for the unrelenting darkness. People just aren't universally in a blue funk all the time.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid--I'm still mulling this one over. The story is narrated in first person in a sort of "real time" narrative, as a Pakistani man meets an American and, because he speaks English and has studied and and worked in the US, invites the American (who never says a word) to sit down for tea. They remain at the table through a couple of meals, until it is quite dark and deserted in the marketplace, while the Pakistani man relates his story to the American. The American's reactions to the story are sometimes conveyed to us through the narrator ("You seem disturbed..." "You do not believe me?" "You keep looking nervously at our waiter..."), but otherwise, he is a sort of shadowy, uncertain presence (you couldn't call him a "character" ) in the story.

The meeting is more than it appears at first, but I find the ending ambiguous--as I believe it is meant to be. I found the motivation of the narrator uncompeling.

The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley--(audiobook) The bookshop is "haunted" by the spirit of the authors. I wish I'd read this with my eyes, so I could have made notes about the books mentioned (they were legion). This was written right at the end of WWI, so there is a bit of anti-German sentiment (maybe even more than a bit in some characters), but it is balanced, and you don't get the feeling that the author is strongly anti-German. It wasn't a bad story, and of course the bookish setting was delicious, but I can't say it has my unqualified approval. The author is a bit preachy about his philosophy, and it is not the same as mine.

And there we have it--two months of eclectic reading all over the spectrum--Christian, secular, biographical, mystery, horror, young adult fiction, modern classics, newer releases, and little in common besides the fact that I read them.

I have NO serious reading plan for the immediate future, and my list of current reads (I'm in the midst of three or four books, with my eye on a couple more) looks more less the same. I'll save those titles for my "October" posts...

Reading Log, July 2008

2008-08-02T13:13:00.000+02:00

Deliquent blogger I may be, but I am determined to continue to track my reading here, because it is so fun and enlightening.

Take, for example, this month. If I weren't actually keeping track of all the books I read--and listen to--I might not be aware that something has happened that has never happened before. In the month of July 2008, I "read" more books by listening to them (at Librivox!) than I did by casting my eyes on black and white pages. I'm not sure what to make of this event. It remains to be seen if it becomes a trend. The good folks at Librivox probably can't keep up with my appetite for books, and of course, all the books I want to read are not available there. Yet.

So, here's how it all fell out.

Ink, paper, and glue books I read with my eyes:

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry -- This is the only book that got the proper review it deserved this month, and it ranks high as one of the most amazing books I've every read. As I said in my post on the book--this on will be among the best reads of 2008, no question.

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon -- I got this as a Christmas present, and if I had known that it took place in the present, as well as the past, I'd have read it sooner. I'm sure all fans of the Mitford series have finished this far ahead of me, and already know how good it is.

Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie---short story, which I read after hearing about it from a book-blogger. I thought I knew where I got the information, but I can't find it to link to now. It was interesting to me, because of recent interest I've developed in literature about Africa and by Africans, but this didn't read like a normal short story, probably because it covered so much time (a few years). It felt more like a very, very short novella. You can read it online (did I mention that the paper and ink for this one was virtual?), but I reveal my bad-blogger habits further by failing to find the link, let alone provide it for you. It seems that this is the title of a published novel as well, and I don't know if the short-story version I read is the whole thing, or if the novel develops things further. I may have to pursue this story further to find out.

Eve Green by Susan Fletcher -- This book won the 2004 Whitbread first novel award (in Great Britain). It was pretty well done--good characters, good setting, and the story is told in two time frames (present and past), and I always enjoy books that work that way. So, it was good in a lot of ways, but I didn't love it. I never could enter fully into sympathy with the main character (who was also the narrator of the novel). It was an interesting book, but not a great one. I'll be offering it on Bookmooch to any takers.

Story line--an 8yo girl living in the city with her single mother is sent to a remote farm in Wales when her mother unexpectedly dies. Her life in her grandparents' home is complicated by memories of the past and the tragic disappearance of one of the village children.

**************************

And these are the books I read with my ears, while my hands were busy doing that other thing I love to do--crocheting. I've been busy making gifts for various and sundry.

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne -- It was really fun to see a different aspect of Milne than the "Pooh" side. His sense of humor is awesome, and this was a good mystery. One or two, "oh come on, now, really..." moments, but for the most part quite believable, and funny to see him poking a bit of fun at Sherlock Holmes. There was a single reader for this book, and a good one, which makes the whole thing a pleasure.

Persuasion by Jane Austen -- A reread, of course, and I think I read it for myself during the winter already this year, but I couldn't resist listening to Elizabeth Klett (one of my favorite Librivox readers) do it justice. Now I'll have a new category to add to my end of year wrap up: "Books read more than once."

The Dark House by George Manville Fenn -- A mystery of sorts, although I had it all figured out from the get-go. This was early days for mystery stories, so I guess folks were easily deceived. Hardcore mystery fans in the 21st century will be underwhelmed by the plot, but the story is fairly well told. Kudos to Librivox for digging up these older mysteries in the public domain and making audio versions of them.

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy -- There was a single, very excellent, reader for the Librivox version of this book. I recommend it highly. I've never read this classic adventure tale before, and again, it was too easy for me to guess who the Scarlet Pimpernel was, and I guessed the "surprise" ending long, long before the end. I should have read this a long time ago.

The Cinema Murder by E. Phillips Oppenheim -- Another mystery, and this one was really perplexing. For one thing, the title makes no sense. The murder, which takes place very early in the book (and we know who did it!) is as far removed from the the cinema as possible. Then, the story follows the life of the culprit, his friends, and his success on the other side of the ocean. The tension in the story is created by the suspense of wondering when and if his cover will be blown. I've said before that I do NOT like crime fiction which tries to make you root for the criminal to "get away with it," but this story had a satisfactory ending. There were 31 chapters, and about 5 chapters from the end, I was totally confused and had no idea where the story was going. So, as criminal and suspense fiction, I do recommend it. It keeps you guessing until the end--and very last bit is stunning and unexpected.

And that was July: Three "real" books and a long short story, and five audio books. I actually have a running total of the number of books I've read so far this year, and it is very possible that the number will reach 100. And that will be because of Librivox. Have I mentioned how much I like those folks over there? I wanted to send them a donation because I was using them so much, and they don't accept money. I may have to figure out a way to do some reading for them, because that's the only kind of donation they accept, and it might be fun.

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

2008-07-12T11:12:00.002+02:00

Let me start by saying that I could not do justice to this book if I labored for a week over a blog post, so I simply won't try. Just remember two things--(1) this book is much, much better than anything I am going to say about it, and (2) when I tally up the best reads of 2008, this book will be on that list.

My taste in books runs to character-driven books laced with philosophy, faith, and depth, and I already knew this book fit those criteria. Nevertheless, my first experience reading Wendell Berry was unexpected, and so I tried to set any pre-conceived ideas aside and just read, letting the book say what it had to say. Which turned out to be a lot.

Jayber Crow, the narrator and main character of the book, lived a life that could be summed up in a brief sentence or two. He didn't DO much of anything, so this book isn't about what he did. It is about who he was. And because no man is an island, it is about the people who lived and moved around him, making up the community he chose to live in, and for that, 350+ pages are barely enough.

There is a sometimes-told tale of a boy walking along a beach littered with thousands of stranded and dying starfish, washed ashore. He picks them up, one by one, and tosses them into the sea. A bystander asks him why is bothering, since his efforts will not really make a difference in the numbers of dying starfish. The boy reputedly looks at the one in his hand and remarks, "It makes a difference to this one," and tosses him into the life-giving water.

Jayber Crow is a book which earnestly speaks the message that a small life, lived in a confined place, makes a difference. Not to multitudes. Not to the world at large. Not even, perhaps to posterity or generations to come. But a difference. To someone. Perhaps to someone in very great need of the solace or friendship or listening ear that only one person is in place to provide. It is a book that illustrates, in some way, that when Jesus said giving a cup of cold water to a thirsty man, for his sake, was serving Christ himself, he really meant it. Not too many people believe that.

What did love have to say to its own repeat failure to transform the world that it might yet redeem? What did it say to our failures to love one another and our enemies? What did it say to hate? What did it say to time? Why doesn't love succeed?

Hate succeeds. This world gives plentiful scope and means to hatred, which always finds its justifications and fulfills itself perfectly in time by destruction of the things of time. This is why war is complete and spares nothing, balks at nothing, justifies itself by all that is sacred, and seeks victory by everything that is profane. Hell itself, the war that is always among us, is the creature of time, unending time, unrelieved by any light or hope.

But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time. It does not accept that limit. Of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love is always more than a little strange here. We do not make it. If it did not happen to us, we could not imagine it....It is in the world but is not altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us here.

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Love never faileth.

Small wonder, I think, that Christ told his followers, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples..."

In Jayber Crow, every one of those acts of love is shown--both the positive and the negative.

I'm not going to minimize the book by trying to summarize the plot or story or Jayber's life in a few sentences. I said I couldn't do it justice, and I haven't, but you won't be sorry if you put yourself into Wendell Berry's hands--and Jayber Crow's life--for a while.

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis

2008-07-05T15:42:00.002+02:00

I took a long, long time to read this little book. It contains a lot of big ideas in a very small package, and I just read a bit here and a bit there and didn't hurry through it, although that would have been easy to do with such a small book (81 pages).

I am definitely on board with Lewis' basic premise here, which dovetails rather nicely with other reading I've done. His main theme is that there are absolutes--principles of right and wrong that exist in the world at large--which are not the product of human imagination or belief.

His contention is that by refusing to acknowledge that foundation of the universe, and attempting to use some other method of determining a correct course of action (most often guided by the latest "scientific advances" combined with the most current ideology), we destroy the very thing--mankind--we are attempting to "save."

Naturally, Lewis said it much more eloquently and persuasively than I do. Another interesting feature is the appendix which is a collection of "wisdom quotes" from various ages and cultures, which, although very different in origin, reflect the general absolutes which Lewis is defending.

This book was written during World War II, and although only the most oblique references are made to Nazi Germany, it is evident to me that at least part of the the message is directed at what was happening there. However, the message was intended to be timeless, not timely, and the need of the world to hear what Lewis has to say is perhaps even more desperate than it was then.

Reading Log, June 2008

2008-07-01T20:16:00.002+02:00

I almost feel like one of those faithful bloggers when I get my reading list posted on the first of the month. But we know better, don't we?

Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott -- (audiobook) (reread) It has been many years since I last read this book and I wasn't as impressed as I was the first time. If this were a modern book, it would be classified as "YA," although the teens in the book are referred to as "boys" and "girls," because "teenagers" hadn't been invented yet. The best part is the next-to-last chapter, in which the mother embarks on a new style of education for her children, which greatly resembles the style in which I homeschool my own children.

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
by Tadeusz Borowski -- I did already write about this one. If I ever run across a Polish version, I will be very tempted to reread it in the original language.

A Strange Disappearance by Anna Katharine Green--(audiobook) This was a mystery of sorts--not too great, not too bad. It's written in an older style which I find rather stilted and unnatural, but it was okay to listen to while I was crocheting. I'll have to share later why I needed so much crocheting time this month!

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (a reread)-- Someone (not to mention names, but my 14yo daughter knows who it was) left this book lying around, so of course I picked it up and (re)read the whole thing. Every time I read it, I get more and more perturbed with Jane Austen for not arranging things better. Suppose all Henry ever did was flirt a bit with Maria, and did not run off with her (a situation I find very out of character)? Edward would have asked Mary to marry him...and then what? I think Jane was tired of them all after this long book and punished them instead of making everything work out better.

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin--a sort of vintage mystery/crime novel, first published in 1954. It won the Edgar Allen Poe award as best suspense novel of the year in the US way back when. Much of it is told from the perspective of the criminal, which is creepy, and you don't really know who he IS at first--great suspense, unexpected surprises, and horrific conclusion. If you like crime novels, you'd like this. I really object to crime novels from the criminal's perspective if the author tries to place you in sympathy with the criminal. I don't like having my emotions jerked around so that I hope they "get away with it." That's not the case here--you get inside the criminal's mind, but you don't LIKE him.

Howard's End, by E.M. Forster

--(audiobook) This was an amazing book and I'm glad I managed to blog about it earlier.

Summer by Edith Wharton -- I actually read this in May, but it doesn't seem to have made it to that list. Ooops. That means I read 11 books in May. This was a companion book to Ethan Frome, which was a winter story in a remote New England town, while this is a summer story (obviously) in a remote New England time, with a female protagonist this time.

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis -- I've been reading this one for a long, long time. Taking it so slowly, I had plenty of time to think about it, but I may have taken it *too* slowly, as I do feel the need now to reread it. Perhaps more quickly this time. If I get a chance this week, I hope to write a longer post on this one.

How did it happen, in a month in which I truly felt that I wasn't doing much reading, that I finished seven books? Now, true, some of them are audiobooks, but it still seems like quite a lot for a "low" month.

This Way For The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, by Tadeusz Borowski

2008-06-28T10:11:00.002+02:00

I picked this book up at the library because A) I am always interested in holocaust literature and B) it was written originally in Polish, by a Polish (not Jewish) survivor of Auschwitz.

This is a series of short stories about life in a concentration camp, but they capture a side of camp life that is very rarely portrayed.

Borowski was a Polish "political" prisoner in Auschwitz first, then later in other camps. His short stories focus on impossible situations that forced people who wanted to survive to behave in unnatural, and ultimately soul-destroying ways. I was reminded of Night by Elie Wiesel, because one of the things that struck me from that book was the unnatural relief Wiesel felt when his father died, because he would no longer have to exert energy toward helping him. At 17, the guilt and grief over his own feelings, mixed with his natural grief at losing his father, were overwhelming.

Similarly, Borowski dramatically shows how "survivors" had to shut their eyes to the suffering of others and even contribute to it in some ways, in order to stay alive. One story tells of a game being played by some of the prisoners on a field. During the course of the game, hundreds of people walk past them on a nearby lane, headed for the gas chambers. Apart from an occasional glance at them, they generate no interest or pity, only mild curiosity about how many people will die during the game. That kind of detachment was necessary to continue to exist from day to day under such dreadful circumstances.

Borowski's stories show some of the usual holocaust horrors--the gas chambers, the trains, the selections, the cruelty of the Nazis--but they also shed light on the less-often-seen brutality of the prisoners themselves, as they bargain, cajole, cheat, lie, and betray in order to survive. After reading these stories, I felt that Borowski despised the camp survivors, including himself. Ultimately, he did not truly survive the camps, but committed suicide about five years after the end of the war.

You can read a bit more about him if you'd like. These stories, though fiction, are based on Borowski's real camp experience, and they are not for the faint of heart.

Here's a link to wikipedia if you're interested in learning more about Borowski, who was fairly well known in Europe at one time, although I think less so in America (I never heard of him).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Borowski

Things I Could Have Blogged About, But Didn't

2008-06-24T16:25:00.002+02:00

Euro 2008

For the unitiated (99% of the population of the US, I am sure), this was (and is--still ongoing) the European "football" (soccer) championship. You might wonder why such a topic would appear on this blog, and so might I. It would be accurate to say that this athletic tournament, which I am quite capable of overlooking entirely until it is a distant memory even in the minds of ardent fans, was violently called to my attention in a manner impossible to overlook, similar to the way in which it would be difficult to overlook a sharp left to the chin.

It all started so innocently. We were celebrating our 20th anniversary this month, and I managed to convince my husband that it was an event noteworthy enough to warrant a wee bit more attention than our anniversary usually merits. I managed to convince him that we should actually go away by ourselves for a few days, and while my original destination of choice was London, the gasping-for-breath dollar dictated that we look for something closer to home. Okay, fine, we live in central Europe, and there are many worthy destinations within our reach--how many, I don't even want to think about now, but Prague, Budapest, and Salzbug merited at least a brief look. However, in the end, we chose Vienna. I've never been, and I've always wanted to go, and who needs a better reason than that? The dates of our trip were determined 20 years ago, since we got married June 11, 1988, and that's what we were celebrating.

We arranged for childcare, purchased train tickets, reserved a hotel, researched museums and points of interest on the internet, printed maps of the city and public transportion, packed our bags, and headed off to Vienna, blissfully unaware that Euro 2008 even existed, let alone that it was going to be the first thing to welcome us when we got there.

Really. As soon as we got off the train, helpful personnel thrust little booklets into our hands with "Euro 2008" written on the cover. Euro 2008? Soccer championships? Vienna is hosting the European soccer championships RIGHT NOW, and soccer fans (notorious for being loud, boisterous, and violent) are flocking to Vienna this minute? It really was a bit of a shock, although getting tickets for the city transportation, finding the right trams, and reaching our hotel were our immediate concerns.

Within a very short time we discovered the following:

1. Some streets were closed and some trams and buses rerouted, making following the transportation map we had tricky at best.

2. All the museums and buildings we planned to visit were precisely in the district marked "fan zone" in the helpful little booklet we received at the station.

3. The clincher--the last day of our visit coincided with the soccer match scheduled between Austria (home country, where we were) and POLAND (the country we left behind so we could visit Someplace Else).

For the most part, we did what we wanted to do and saw what we wanted to see. It was a little strange, that last day, to hear more people speaking Polish around us than we would have heard in Krakow, but one can over look these things. Our train home was delayed an hour and a half, as it was arriving full of soccer fans ready for the evening game, but we were fervently grateful that our plans took us home that day instead of the next, when said (by then disgruntled) fans would have been riding too.

Did you know (ha ha) that Poland is hosting this tournament in 2012? Can I come visit you?

Reading Log, May 2008

2008-06-14T20:14:00.001+02:00

This is a somewhat belated list of the books I completed in May. As will be seen, May was a month of book-gluttony at a level that I am not capable, or desirous, of sustaining. June's list will likely be shorter.

The Case of Jennie Brice by Mary Roberts Rinehart -- An audiobook mystery (Librivox!), most interesting to me because it was set in Pittsburgh, and I grew up near there. Very twisty ending!

The Cat Who Saw Stars by Lilian Jackson Braun -- A reread, very light reading, which includes talk of knitting, wool, and homeschooling. And UFO's.

Emma by Jane Austen -- Yet another reread, but just as good as ever. I never grow tired of Jane Austen, and whichever one I happen to be reading is my favorite. I love them all.

The Lost Boy by Dave Pelzer -- Nonfiction, the sequel to A Child Called It, about an abused child. This book is about his time in foster care, which, although he had a lot of issues and fears to work through (a lot of messed-up thinking from his earlier abuse), was mostly a positive experience that eventually helped him to "make good."

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton--Audio book at Librivox, read by Elizabeth Klett (the best). This was a very well-told story, but hard to explain. It's the story of a young man in a fairly out-of-the-way New England town. He has dreams and desires, but...it is a pretty sad story. However, the writing (and Elizabeth Klett's reading) are fantastic.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen -- Another reread, which I picked up as soon as I finished Emma. I didn't read any Jane Austen at all in 2007 (something that hasn't happened for ten years), and I guess I am making up for it this year. Once I got started, I just couldn't stop. No one can stand up to multiple readings like Jane Austen. It was probably the 8 or 10th time I've the book.

Small Island by Andrea Levy -- This book won the Orange Prize in 2004. It was also fantastic, and one of the few books I blogged about properly when I read it.

They Met in Moscow by Rosemary Timperley--Published in 1966 (the year I was born!), this is the story of a tour group in Moscow. It is not a mystery, not an adventure story, not a thriller or romance. It is just a story about a random group of people, thrown together, against the background of a very interesting city at a very interesting time. I always prefer character-driven stories to plot-driven ones, so the book held my interest although it was not "great." I live in a former Iron-Curtain country, so any books that deal with life behind the Iron Curtain or communist-era interests grab my attention anyway.

The narrator is the most interesting character in the book, although she is never named. She was a well-known, highly acclaimed English actress until an automobile accident disfigured her. A great deal of plastic surgery was required, but her appearance is clearly not altogether normal. She is very lonely and misses her life on stage dreadfully. She sees the world as a stage, and views everyone's actions in light of a theatrical performance, making her narration rather dramatic. I couldn't resist writing this much, but I hope I haven't made anyone really interested in reading it, because I'm afraid it was probably never published in the US.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh--I've never read this before, and like some other 20th century literature I've been reading, I don't think I would have cared for it much if I had. This was definitely a book worth reading, and worth writing about at greater length, and maybe I'll do that.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro--This is the third book I've read by Ishiguro (and I will read more). All of his books have some things in common--a single narrator, a sort of passionless, detached tone of narrating even the most emotional situations, and that "unreliable narrator" quality which lets you in for a surprise at some point. I don't think I'd classify Ishiguro as a "great" author, but he's really, really, really good.

I also had another book that I started an abandoned in May: Daughter of Jerusalem by Sara Maitland. This is not my kind of book. At all.

And that makes ten books read in May. If I maintained such a pace, I'd read 120 for the year, which would be sort of extreme, even if some of them are audiobooks.

Howard's End by E.M. Forster

2008-06-14T18:45:00.003+02:00

I could just say this book blew me away, and it would be true, but it wouldn't be much of a blog post.

I listened to the book at Librivox, which I highly recommend, as always--especially anything read by Elizabeth Klett, and this book was.

Howard's End is a house, and the action of the story flows around it, although very little of it actually takes place at Howard's End.

The story is a sort of tapestry, weaving together the lives of three families, from three different levels of the emerging British middle class. The Basts are the lower-level working class--getting by, feeling the need of a bit more culture, seeking interaction and taking advice from those they perceive to be their superiors. The Wilcoxes are a well-to-do family with money made in the colonies. They are can-do people with money to spare, more practical than sentimental. And finally, there are the Schlegels, whose inherited income gives them time to devote to art, music, culture, books, and Causes.

Howard's End is pieced together like a puzzle--bits of the story interlock with other bits, and some things never do seem to fit. Sometimes the characters behave the way you expect them to, and other times, they don't--just like real people. The ending is shocking and unsettling, making the story rather unforgettable, I think.

I must confess that this is the first book by E.M. Forster that I have completed. I have attempted some of her stories before, but I don't think I was ready to read them. I know full well that I would not have enjoyed or appreciated this book 15 years ago. However, I am sure it will not be the only E.M. Forster I read--I'm looking forward to more of her writing, although I'm in no hurry.

For the past several months, I've been reading some 20th-century "classics" that I never got around to reading before, and it has been a surprising pleasure.

Small Island by Andrea Levy

2008-05-17T08:19:00.002+02:00

After my meager reading of April, I have been positively indulging in book gluttony in May.

I found Small Island at the library, and I must admit that the fact of its being an Orange Prize winner drew my notice. From the back of the book: "Small Island explores a point in England's past when the country began to change. In this delicately wrought and profoundly moving novel, Andrea Levy handles the weighty themes of empire, prejudice, war and love, with a superb lightness of touch and generosity of spirit."

After reading the story, I could not agree more. I don't know if racial tension in the UK was ever quite as brutal or vicious as in the US, but it was bad enough if you happened to be on the receiving end of it. There are four main characters--a Jamaican man and woman, and a British man and woman, and the story is told in first person, alternately between the characters. That results in each character becoming a sympathetic character for the reader. We cannot despise Bernard as thoroughly as Queenie does, or even see his prejudice in the same light that Gilbert does, because we have walked in his shoes,and felt the impression of his war experiences (mostly in India). We sympathize with four people in an impossible situation. So many books that touch on this subject would play up the the ugliness and stress without a drop of relief, but Andrea Levy does more--much more. She shows the hope, the human spirit, that refuses to be crushed, and rather than allow disillusionment to plunge her characters into despair, it stiffens their spines to meet the world face-to-face.

One of the most touching and telling scenes in the book comes near the end, when Hortense, the dignified young Jamaican who studied to be a teacher, and taught in a Jamaican school, applies to teach in England. Her bubble of dreams is burst, suddenly and completely, and her husband (whom she married only for convenience' sake, to get to the "Mother Country") with far more experience of England, is there to tease, console, cajole, and guide her to keep her chin up and make another way.

Reading Log, April 2008

2008-05-09T08:51:00.002+02:00

In spite of my neglectful blogging habits, I am determined to do this one thing, and keep up a record of the books I'm reading. Before blogging, I never did keep lists, and the patterns and statistics that emerge are too irresistible to lose, so...

In April, I had live-in company (family) for three weeks, so I didn't have as much time to read as usual, and when I did read, it was usually something I could set aside or leave for a week without much regret.

Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee -- I rather think this book may never have been published in the US, only in Britain. It's a childhood memoir of life in a Cotswold village post-WWI. It was an EXCELLENT book of its kind--very colorful, descriptive, and lively. I really enjoyed it.

False Scent by Ngaio Marsh -- This was a mystery. By the end of the first page, I knew who would be murdered. By the end of the first chapter, I knew the method. By the end of the third chapter, I guessed at the murderer, and in the end, I was right on all counts. So, it was kind of predictable, and just okay--not great. I've liked the other books by Marsh better than this one, and how did I manage to pick up another one with a "theater" theme?

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein -- This is pretty much what the title says it is, except I think "understanding" is probably a bit too ambitious for this book. It would probably be better enjoyed by someone who is already familiar with philosophy, although you could just read it for the jokes (which are by no means all clean). I'll probably blog about this one within the next week, but I won't be recommending it. Even if some of the jokes are kind of funny.

"If you are getting on a commercial airliner, for safety's sake, take a bomb with you...because the overwhelming odds are there won't be two guys with bombs on the same plan."

Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer -- I find I have absolutely nothing to say about this book. I don't think Georgette Heyer is the author for me.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (audiobook, via Librivox) -- This is an atmospheric, "ghost" story, told by a governess caring for two children in a remote location. I enjoyed hearing the story, but the reader wasn't the best, and sometimes I had a difficult time grasping the intent of the author through her odd reading. I read a few chapters in a hard copy after I finished listening, to get a better "feel" for the author's own "voice."

And that was my reading for April! I've already finished three more books in May, with three more currently in progress, so May's reading list will likely be much longer!

New toy

2008-04-06T14:53:00.002+02:00

I usually use a Mac computer, albeit an old one. I'm in the process of trying to learn how to use my new internet/email device--an Asus Eeepc. It's a tiny little computer, about the size of a DVD case. Should I admit that one of the selling points for me was the fun of having a computer that would fit in my purse?

This is my first blog post from the new computer, which runs a Linux operating system. I have a long way to go. The learning curve is pretty steep, and I hope I don't crash when I hit the bottom!

Reading Log, March 2008

2008-04-04T20:50:00.000+02:00

[Darth Clarissa strikes again. If you viewed this post on April 4th (dated March 18), and it looked a little...odd...that would be because my almost-4yo discovered the open post I was working on, added a few touches of her own, and *published* it. Sheesh.]

I didn't read very many books in March (compared to the number I read in January and February, not compared to anyone else), but I find it amusing that even among the few titles completed, my eclectic reading habits shout loudly.

I might once have thought I was unusual because my short list ranges from a Victorian novel to a pop best-seller to an obscure foreign author, and from a philosophical novella to genre fiction.

Yep, that's me. But the internet has introduced me to dozens more like myself--readers with wide interests who are as likely to pick up Dickens as Mary Higgins Clark, and so I offer no explanations for my various titles. I know you understand.

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon--audiobook, and probably my favorite for the whole month.

The Cat Who Played Post Office by Lilian Jackson Braun--a reread in an old favorite series--comfort reading of the first order--and a follow-up to the one I read in February.

The Fortieth Door by Mary Hastings Bradley--audiobook. This was just a sort of fun mystery/thriller kind of book. It's interest lay largely in the fact that it was set in Egypt, and explored the clash of cultures between east and west.

The Innocent Man by John Grisham--I really enjoy John Grisham as a storyteller, and I have read all his published books (excepting the newest one, but I'll find it sooner or later). Naturally, I had to read this book too, although I can't say the topic engaged by interest. It didn't "feel" like John Grisham in the telling, either. The story itself is a sad and sordid one, and in spite of the ultimate exoneration of the innocent man, it has no happy ending. I prefer Grisham's fiction to this.

Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe--If ever a book deserved a post and a review, this one does...but I must put it off indefinitely for now. The author seems best known for another book--Things Fall Apart--but I felt lucky to find this one at the library, and took advantage of the chance to read another book on colonial Africa.

Anthem by Ayn Rand--a novella which seems downright scary, as it is easy, easy, easy for me to imagine a society such as ours degenerating into the distopian one in the story. When what "we" need or can do takes precedence above all--political correctness indeed...

I have a couple of other books-in-progress right now, but I just need to clean up the post and get it published cleanly!

A year of experiments

2008-03-17T07:05:00.000+01:00

Last I year, I crocheted several doilies using sewing thread instead of crochet thread. Among various considerations, I remarked that it was expensive to crochet that way. However, the variety of colors available in sewing thread vastly exceeds the variety available in crochet thread, so I conceived the idea of holding one strand of sewing thread together with a strand of regular crochet thread (although I came up with the idea on my own, I was not the first person who has ever done this). Using some of the thread left over from an earlier project, I made this.

This is the only detail I'm going to show, but I was very pleased with the "frosted" effect, as well as with how much color the sewing thread added. It seems like such a thin bit of nothing, but it shows up well.

I devised a series of experiments involving different combinations of crochet thread and colored thread, and only recently did I complete the last of them. (If you can think of anything I missed, feel free to let me know, and I'll try that, too.) My next project was a single-color doily, using ecru thread (also used in the first doily)and light blue sewing thread. In real life, this doily has a denim effect.

This doily is made with white crochet thread, but uses different shades of sewing thread throughout, and there are no plain white sections.

This project involves using sewing thread on only part of the doily, as an accent, leaving part of it made with plain white crochet thread.

Departing from standard white and ecru crochet thread, I tried a "tone on tone" effect, using darker pink sewing thread on part of a doily made with pale pink croceht thread.

I also used a brighter color of crochet thread with several shades of sewing thread to create very subtle color accents.

And finally, I tried something more dramatic, using black crochet thread and adding a strand of scarlet sewing thread to accent certain parts of the design.

And with that project, I think I can say that my experiments are finished. I've used the technique in other projects, and I will continue to do so. I love having the variety of colors available in sewing thread, and I feel like an artist, painting with thread, when I plan and create my colorful doilies.

And while I'm on the subject, I'm still looking for two more people to join my "pay it forward" project. Go ahead, and give me an excuse to make something pretty!

Reading Log, February 2008

2008-03-15T17:00:00.001+01:00

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen -- A reread, for the umpteenth time, and just as good as ever. I'm not sure anyone stands up to rereading as well as Jane!

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult -- Not a bad story--the kind of book that would make me look for other books by the same author.

Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult -- Well-written, but I did not like the story. Detailed witchcraft makes me uncomfortable (I sent the book halfway around the world via Bookmooch almost as soon as I finished it.), as do stories involving the violation of a children. This is the kind of book that makes me NOT want to seek out other books by the same author. Having reading two books by Jodi Picoult in the same month, it's an even gamble whether I will ever read another.

Last Days by Joel C. Rosenberg -- Sometimes you have books piled up and toppling over in the to-be-read pile, but someone gives you a book, and for no other reason than curiosity, it jumps the line ahead of long-anticipated titles, and gets read first. That's how it came about that I read this book, a sort of Tom Clancy meet Tim LaHaye author. This was all action, something I have little patience with, but it also lent unusual insight into the Israel/Palestine situation, which always intrigues me. The friend who lent me this also lent me another by the same author, but I set that aside for now.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy -- One of the few books I wrote a genuine review for, so I'll let that speak for itself.

The Tale of Beatrix Potter by Margaret Hale -- This was one of my non-fiction books for February. I watched the "Miss Potter" movie, and like everyone else, I wanted to know more. Imagine my amazement at finding this old paperback biography at a used bookstore in Krakow. Both my 14yo daughter and I read this very thorough and interesting account of much more of "Miss Potter's" life than the move could show.

Old Hall, New Hall by Michael Innes -- A well-written mystery, whose ending made me laugh.

Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber -- I've seen and heard this author recommended here and there. It was strictly "okay" and not much more. I think I would have liked the book better if it hadn't practically recapped, in a few paragraphs, all the other books the author has written about the characters. I now have no desire to read those other books.

The Cat Who Played Brahms by Lilian Jackson Braun -- (reread) I was just in the mood for some mindless comfort reading, and this is one of my favorites in the series, because it covers part of the transition of the main character from down-and-out reporter to multi-millionaire.

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (audiobook) -- Victorian literture rarely disappoints me. This was a great story, and deserved a proper post and review of it's own. I wish I'd written one!

That leaves me with the insane statistic of having read 10 books in February, which is a short month. However, it should be obvious from this list that most of it falls into the category of light reading, and comfort reading. Some months are like that.

Lady Audley's Secret

2008-03-14T19:55:00.003+01:00

Oh dear! The blog has been neglected again. I still have to post my list of books read in February, which was considerable.

In the meantime, I really want to write about about Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. I listened to this as an audiobook at Librivox. The entire book was read by a single reader who did a marvelous job, and I recommend it highly.

Within the first two chapters, a tension is created that is maintained until the very end. The reader is not told outright, but is given enough hints to know pretty well what Lady Audley's secret is. But we are left to watch the characters with a sort of breathless anticipation. When will A meet B? When will B hear about C? And what, in the end, will the guilty party do when concealment is no longer possible? The writing is very good--very skillful--and the story compels you from chapter to chapter.

At first glance, the story seems as if it might be a tawdry tale--titillating in a Victorian sort of way--but it is not. It is a moral story--a righteous story. A great wrong has been done, and there is a chosen one, compelled by higher forces to act so that the wrong will be revealed, the evil-doer punished, and the innocent comforted to the greatest extent possible. Seemingly chance circumstances bring the secret to light, bit by bit. Be sure your sin will find you out.

Sir Michael Audley marries young, beautiful, orphaned Lucy Grahame. She is charming, generous, sweet, sensitive, and devoted to her husband. Young Robert Audley, Sir Michael's nephew, is half-infatuated with her himself at the first, for she is much younger than her husband, but the inexplicable disappearance of his bereaved friend, George Tallboys is consuming his thoughts. Always an indolent, relaxed sort of person, he is goaded into action and vigilantly pursues every clue that might lead him to the truth, no matter how grievous.

I really do not want to give away some of the surprises in the story, so I will say no more. For those who enjoy Victorian literature, as I do, this is definitely one to put on the "to be read" list. Or, head over to Librivox and listen to it there!

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2008-02-16T11:40:00.002+01:00

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 2007. It has been read and reviewed all over, but that probably won't stop me from adding my thoughts to the mix.

This was the first book I have read by this author, and his style is not pleasing to me, but it did not bother me in this book (though I was put off by some others I looked at in the bookstore). The spare, staccato sentences have a rhythm to them that matches the story, and it fits too well to imagine the story being told in any other way. The occasional repetition of certain phrases adds to the lyric effect.

"You have to talk to me."

"I'm talking."

Although, the way Cormac McCarthy writes it, there are no quotation marks or apostrophes.

This is a post-apocalyptic story, with no explanation of how the world came to be as it is. It reminded me of earth's surface in the movie The Matrix, but without the machines. In the movie, the humans declare, "It was we who scorched the sky," and in The Road, that is precisely what has been done. Some years ago (at least 5, I think; maybe as many as 10), the sun was blotted out, and the greater part of the population was killed. The world is ashy gray, and cold, and comfortless. In this world, there is no way to start over. Without the sun, there is no way to produce new food, and so the survivors are reduced to living as parasites on the decaying civilization, scrabbling for the remnants, of which it is only too clear that there must be a limited supply.

The book is the story of a man and a boy (his son)--nameless, ageless, hopeless. In this world, the weak and alone fall prey to bands of modern savages, who hunt the only thing left to be hunted. They are moving along the road, moving south toward the ocean, hoping it will be warmer. Along the way, they scavenge for food, try to avoid other people, and rarely remain in one place more than a day or two.

Early in the book, we understand that the father is dying, but he insists that they press on, down the road.

I don't want to give away the ending. Others have written that they thought about the book for days after finishing it, and it has been the same for me. The father insists that they press on because they "carry the fire." Not long ago, I read one blogger who thought the "fire" might be hope, but it didn't feel quite like hope to me. Nothing could be more hopeless than the circumstances of this world. Or at least, maybe the fire is just one small aspect of hope--the will to live, no matter what. But not to live as a savage--to live as a man, to preserve what shreds of dignity and fineness man has left, and they are not much.

One of the reasons I think this will to live is the "fire" is that the man actually has a hard time sharing his will to live with his son, who has known no world but this one. He has instilled in the boy a just horror of the worst kind of savagery known to man, but the boy is astute enough to see that they are not really much better--they may not kill outright, but when they steal or eat some food, they are contributing to, if not causing, the death of others. He doesn't want to be what he almost has to be in order to survive, and so his will to live wavers.

This book doesn't feel like realism or a "true" story to me. It has more of an allegorical fairy- tale quality--the dark woods, the wicked witches, the big bad wolves--but there are no heroes to make it come right. It was an interesting book--one to ponder--but not one I'd enthusiastically recommend to be enjoyed. You read this one to peer into the heart of man and see the worst that he can be, and how inadequate he is even at best.

Original Sin by P.D. James

2008-02-12T15:50:00.000+01:00

I like P.D. James.

I like detective stories.

Ergo, I ought to have liked this book, and I did. (I stayed up too late more than once while I was reading it!) I also like my fiction laced with philosophy, and James obliges this taste, too.

Aside from the basic murder story, which must be solved because Adam Dalgliesh (detective and published poet) is on the case, this is a book about atheism. I was rather surprised by all the references to religion and atheism, but that's because I don't always pay attention to things I should: the title of the book is Original Sin, after all.

You've got dyed-in-the-wool atheists, a Jewish atheists (who feels he ought to apologize to God for not believing in him--traditional Jewish guilt), Anglican atheists, and, finally, not-atheists.

I'm still not sure I have entirely grasped P.D. James's message, but this is what I think it is. Man requires a god. Rejecting Diety by refusing to believe in it (as if that makes a difference) means that something else will stand in first place, and most often, that is man himself. In this book, we see various characters "playing God"--making judgments that are not truly theirs to make.

One of the characters--the murderer, and one of the atheists--declares, "I don't believe that our existence here has a meaning or that we have any future after death. Since there is no God there can be no divine justice. We have to make justice for ourselves and make it here on earth." (Oddly enough, I'm not sure the concept of justice has any meaning at all apart from divine authority.)

And he is answered, "If you want to act like God, you should first ensure that you have the wisdom and knowledge of God." Because he has made a terrible mistake, and the "justice" that he thought he was enacting was no justice at all.

One of the characters observes a couple of people praying in church, and "wondered what it was they found in this quiet place and whether, if he had come with more humility, he might have found it also."

Bingo, P.D. James. One passing sentence in a 425-page book, but she nailed it. Humility is out of fashion, but wisdom and faith demand it.

This wasn't the best P.D. James novel I've ever read, but I'm not sorry I read it. My February list of books to show that I've been reading a lot of less worthy books! Nevertheless, it was a worthwhile story and one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

Reading Log, January 2008

2008-02-02T13:30:00.000+01:00

I am a bit shocked by how much I read in January. If I kept up at this rate, I'd end up reading over 100 books in 2008. I have read over 100 books in other years, but it does seem unlikely. I reverted to my old habit, a couple of times, of reading a whole whole book in a single sitting or two. It's not that hard for me to do, but it does require neglecting some things that probably shouldn't be neglected. Ahem.

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie--A comfortable reread, in spite of the fact that it involves neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Jane Marple. Plenty of red herrings and suspects from which to choose. Classic Christie. Love it.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card--Another reread, and in fact it is the second time I have reread the book. I find the story very gripping, partly because it combines educational philosophy (of a sort) with a good story. Although I already know what is going to happen, I still find the process and the story interesting. I've read all 8 or 9 books connected with the "Ender" story, but I don't know if I'm up to rereading all of them.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini--Gratified, I am, to discover I am not alone is rating this book less than spectacular. I do trust my own judgment, but I was afraid I might find myself all alone...or afraid that I had missed something hugely significant. However, I rather think not.

Dear Enemy by Jean Webster--An audio book, and although it was not what I was expecting, it wasn't that bad.

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro--This is such a fascinating author.

Psmith in the City by P.G. Wodehouse--An audiobook, with too much cricket, but kind of fun to listen to anyway. This was my first encounter with Psmith, and he's not anybody I'd want to know in real life.

Original Sin by P.D. James--I wrote a review of this one that I'll post in a day or two. It was a very engrossing mystery and story.

Persuasion by Jane Austen--A reread, of course. I did not read any of Jane Austen's books in 2007, the first year in ten that such has been the case. Clearly, this year is going to be different. How many authors can have their books read and re-read to such an extent and still be captivating? Jane never disappoints. My 14 year old daughter read all my Jane Austen novels in 2007!

Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander--A children's books I preread before giving it to my 10 year old daughter. I have nothing to say about this book, which probably speaks volumes in itself. I think it will be most enjoyed by children who already have some knowledge of history, so that they will recognize the time-periods in the book. I liked the Prydain Chronicles by this author much better.

The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella--I found this English book in a Polish thrift shop, so I picked it up for next to nothing. It was funny and entertaining, and an interesting view of how much women (and men, too) give up when they buy into the fast-paced, "success"-oriented lifestyle so glamourized by the media.

The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye--I've wanted to read this forever, and included it as one of my non-fiction books for January. Reading it on top of John Erskine was interesting, because much of what they say is the same, and THAT is because they both hearken back to Aristotle's Poetry for their ideas.

Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt--I wasn't able to join in all the discussion about this book, because I fell behind in my reading, and in fact, I still have a few chapters left to finish. But I will finish it!

Pickwick Papers by Charles Dicken--I'm sorry to say that I haven't finished this yet, but I did read from it during January.

"A provincial guy," "Holobutow," "A very controversial discussion with God," and "A Nihilist" by Adam Zielinski--short stories translated from German. They were all very short, and not especially remarkable, but that is at least in part because they are rather badly translated. I may skip finishing the rest of the stories in this (library) book because the prospect of reading more of them holds no appeal at all.

I have bumped into interesting-looking reading challenges on several blogs lately, but I am steadfastly resisting them all. I must make my own challenges. So, for February, I plan to read two more non-fiction books--The Tale of Beatrix Potter by Margaret Lane and Exit Into History by Eva Hoffman. I will also be reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Nobel Prize winner in 2007), rereading another Austen novel, and after that, who knows? Oh, I also have to finish Pickwick Papers and the the Hazlitt book, of course.

And find another audiobook to listen to.

A Pale View of Hills, by Kazuo Ishiguro

2008-01-26T13:01:00.000+01:00

I received this book as a gift, and I have looked forward to reading it. I saved it on purpose to read in the new year.

This is only the seocnd book by Ishiguro that I have read, the first being Never Let me Go. There is a quality in both books that is the same--a sort of unreliable narrator who tells the story of both past and present at the same time, switching back and forth and drawing the two threads closer and closer, until...

Well, until you realize that the narrator IS unreliable, and there are enormous pieces of the story that do not fit neatly together. In fact, the threads of the narrative in this story are left dangling. I am not sure exactly whether it is the story of one woman, or three, or if all three of the woman in the story are the same woman. Or if, perhaps, there were two women.

A Pale View of Hills is narrated by the central character, Etsuko, a Japanese woman who lives in England. In the present, she is enjoying a visit from one daughter, while mourning the recent suicide of her other, troubled daughter. At the same time, she is recalling and reliving events from her life in post-war Japan. This is a quiet sort of story, with what I think of as a Japanese quality of keeping the emotions carefully controlled on the surface, no matter what is going on inside.

As the narrative draws to the end, we are left completely baffled about what parts of the story are true. I would have to read the whole book over again to see if there are any clues that I missed, that might give a hint toward the answer. However, I cannot read the book over again and receive the same impact that the sudden realization that I have been led astray gave me the first time. That sudden jolt seems to be the point of the entire book.

So, I plan to leave it for now. I continue to be intrigued by Ishiguro as an author, and I will certainly read more of his work as the opportunity arises.

Economics in One Lesson, part 2

2008-01-15T10:07:00.000+01:00

Well, I have to admit I am rather proud of myself for hanging in there and being on schedule with this book for two weeks in a row. Henry Hazlitt is delving into the sort of territory that makes economics a fairly daunting topic--employment, tariffs, imports and exports.

While he does continue to offer examples that are as simple as possible (maybe if this were a modern book, it would be "Economics for Dummies," I did find myself having to read very slowly to follow some of his logic. He moves so quickly from one "logical" point to the next that I didn't feel I was always able to make the connections myself.

However, I was further impressed by the idea that I wrote about last week--that part of being able to understand the bigger picture of economics is having enough imagination to picture "what might have been." Every economic policy (presumably) benefits some groups for at least some period of time. What happens can be seen, observed, and (more importantly) calculated to produce statistics. The benefits that didn't happen because of any given economic policy are much harder to evaluate, and they defy calculation, so that it is difficult to make a comparison between the good that happened and the good that didn't happen to see which one would actually have been better. Hazlitt uses the term "optical illusion" in reference to a short-sighted or one-sided evaluation of economics. I think it is a good word, because optical illusions do deceive--the "evidence" of our eyes is so convincing, and it is always much harder to see, with the eyes of imagination, what is not there to be seen.

I think I understood the relationship between employment and production fairly well. Hazlitt calls production the end--because production is real wealth--and employment only the means toward that end. If we make employment the end rather than production, it seems we end up hurting both in the long run. However...long-term policies that may be good and sensible from an economic standpoint can still cause short-term, or even permanent hardship to some segments of society. Hazlitt admits that, but doesn't really offer solutions, as that is not the point of his book. He is merely trying to remind us that successful economics cannot occur if we only look at short-term results, or the results on one group of people.

I'm not really sure it's in the best interests of politicians (and they seem to be the economic policy-makers) to follow plans that would give the greatest prosperity in the long run. In the long run, they won't be around, and if they cause some of that short-term economic pain, they won't make it past the next election.

Curiously, I actually live in a place where some of those hard decisions were made. Poland, as a communist country, enjoyed "full employment," and industry was owned by the government, and wages were paid by them. In the early 1990's, Poland emerged from communism at the same time as many of its neighbors. However, while many eastern European countries adopted long-term plans for changing their economic systems, the Polish government divested itself of industry in favor of the private sector just as fast as it possibly could. Private owners took one look at inefficient, unproductive industries, and put thousands of people out of work.

I invite anyone to visit Poland today and compare its economic prosperity to that of its slower-changing neighbors. Poland has an illegal immigration problem not unlike that of the US, as Ukrainian and Russian workers come here to work for much better wages than they can in their own countries. Goods and services available here in Poland so closely resemble those in the west that there is virtually no difference, and that still cannot be said of countries further east. So I have an excellent illustration before me that Hazlitt is probably right. However, there were those many families who suffered and are still suffering because of the change. If you are under 30 in Poland today, you will probably have no trouble finding a job. If you are over 40...it is much, much harder. There is a generation, or maybe a generation and a half that are not going to benefit from the economic prosperity in Poland. They have suffered a permanent injury because of the changes. Those who were already retired have found their pensions woefully inadequate in the face of rising prices. Those older workers without the education and background to take advantage of the new economy can hardly earn a living wage.

And yet...the streets are full of new cars, the stores are full of every electronic gadget, everyone carries a cell phone, and there are no long lines of passive, patient people waiting to buy bread or eggs. Poland is as a whole much better off than before, in spite of the injury to some of its people.

Hazlitt doesn't really have answers about what to do for them, and from an economic standpoint, neither do I. The government who made the hard decisions is long since out of power as well. Hazlitt calls it an error not to look at the long-term effects of a policy on everyone, and I'm sure he is right, but for some people, the short-term effects are the only ones they are going to see, as they will not live long enough to enjoy the long-term benefits of sounder economic policy.

***

Be sure to read what others have to say in the discussion over at Dominion Family.

Dear Enemy by Jean Webster

2008-01-14T12:52:00.001+01:00

Jean Webster is best-known as the author of Daddy Long-Legs, an epistolary novel about a girl from an orphanage who is given the opportunity to attend college. I've always had a vague idea that it was a girls' book--that if it were contemporary, it would have a "YA" label attached to it, and I think that would be relatively appropriate.

I listened to the lesser-known sequel, Dear Enemy at my much -loved Librivox recently, and I would have to say that I would not classify this book as a book for children in any way. I'm sure Jean Webster did not intend it as such. Dear Enemy is also an epistolary novel, being made up of the letters that Sally McBride (Judy's college friend from Daddy Long-Legs) writes to Judy and to others. Sally has taken on the directorship of the orphanage where Jean, now happily married to a well-to-do philanthropist, grew up. Charged with the task of making over the orphanage into a healthy, supportive environment for over 100 children, she tackles head-on any number of societal problems, from basic hygiene for babies to hereditary alcoholism to divorce.

For some reason, I wasn't expecting a book so full of opinions about society, politics, social responsibility, and reform. Most of it was pretty interesting (although I was positively horrified to come across the topic of eugenics), but it wasn't what I was expecting. I didn't really know anything at all about the author, but a little research on Jean Webster revealed that she was very much interested in various social reforms, including women's suffrage. All of her books (and most of them are long out of print) reflect her interest in the reforms that she wanted to see. It was rather sad to discover that someone who had worked to see better hygiene practiced in institutions died as the result of poor hygiene in the hospital where she gave birth to her first child.

I do think that the conclusions about children in Dear Enemy are fairly accurate. Ultimately, Sally comes to believe that "heredity" (a buzz-word of the time) means far less to a child's future than loving, careful rearing in a real home.

It's a shame that the book is so dated, and its purpose not at all relevant, because it relegates to obscurity an author whose prose really is excellent. Jean Webster has a very light touch. She combines humor and horror so well that it leaves the reader energized to tackle some hard thing rather than depressed and grieved about problems too big to solve. When I really think about it, I suspect that is not easy to do, and few authors manage it. The modern tendency is to emphasize just how dreadful something is, without offering the least hopefulness that things might be made better, except perhaps by some huge world-wide governmental solution.

The whole thing reminds me of the analytic way we have been taught to approach the world. We think in terms of "world poverty" instead of the working single mother two doors down who would be grateful for a grocery-store gift card or a homemade stew. Statistics do not awaken in anyone a desire for personal action. None of us can really have an impact on a statistic. We can, however, buy a warm coat for child whose father is in prison or fill up the gas tank for the pastor. Cheers for any book that could stir up your will to do something about the opportunities for service that are on your doorstep.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

2008-01-10T08:57:00.000+01:00

As I perused a lot of the year-end posts about various bloggers' favorites for 2007, I noticed that The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini came up on a lot of lists. Almost universally, it received very high recommendations and reviews. In fact, I still want to read it, although I have not.

Quite by accident, rather, a copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini's second novel, came my way, and I looked forward to reading it with greater expectations than I probably should have had. I started slowly, giving myself plenty of time to read and digest, because I was sure this was going to be an exceptional book, and I wanted to get the most out of it. When I reached the halfway mark, I finally had to confess myself disappointed. There was potential and promise in the story, but I felt the writing was not at all compelling, and the story was positively mediocre.

Last year, I read a wonderful book of essays on literature by John Erskine (The Literary Discipline). In the preface to that book, he says:

I write here of literature as an art. Since I mean to exclude, as not art, many books of undoubted importance and of wide appeal, I must attempt at least to defend a distinction that to certain readers will seem arbitrary. A book may tell us of a life we already know about, or of a life we as yet do not know; the pleasure it gives us will be of recognition or of curiosity satisfied. Of course no books fall absolutely into one or the other of such extremes, but it is fairly accurate to say that every successful book does give us information, a new experience, or brings back an old experience to recognize. Though both kinds of books may be equally well written, we are inclined to ask only instruction from the one kind, but permanent enjoyment from the other. One is a document in history or sociology, in ethics or psychology; the other, as I understand it, is a work of art. (Emphasis mine)

I am going to be arbitrary, too, and contend that this book is "not art," although it is worth reading as a document, so to speak, of culture and history.

If you removed the basic story in A Thousand Splendid Suns from Afghanistan, which has a contemporary relevance and is a subject of curiosity to most of us, it would be unexceptionable.

I must be entirely just, and say that the second half of the book was better than the first. The story grew more compelling because the characters (some of them) finally became more than wooden puppets. There were a few plot revelations that were truly stunning. I enjoyed the second part enough to feel that my judgment of "mediocre" at the halfway point was not entirely justified.

And yet. I have no real interest in rereading this book, ever. The characters did not live and breath for me, except in flashes, here and there. I think Khaled Hosseini's writing is uneven--mostly unremarkable, with a few pages here and there rising out of the morass to stand out as very well done. And yet, I do believe this book would be classified by Erskine as a document that tells us something about life in Afghanistan, rather than about something the common experience of mankind.

And I realize that I have said nothing about the story at all! A Thousand Splendid Suns is the story of two women, married to the same brutish man, in modern Afghanistan. One of the most brutal realities in the book is the dates as they appear--the 1970's, the 1980's, the 1990's--this is very recent history, and yet so remote, so medieval, so primitive. Could there be a country in this modern age that makes laws forbidding women from showing their faces on the streets, or even walking there without a male relative to escort them? Apparently, there could.

I don't want to give the story away, but the only bright spot in the story is the friendship that develops between two women trapped in a hopeless situation.

In spite of what I've written here, I would still read with interest, but perhaps not such high expectations, Hosseini's first book, The Kite Runner if the opportunity arises. While it may not be in the halls of fame for centuries to come, there is a place for books like this, and I'm not sorry I read it.

Economics in One Lesson, part 1

2008-01-08T11:52:00.000+01:00

While this book, Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson has been on my "want to read" list (the vague one that exists only in the foggy corners of my brain) for a long time, I was motivated by Cindy's schedule at DominionFamily to move the book from the foggy list to the concrete schedule, and it does fit nicely into my plan of reading two non-fiction books per month.

It's nice of Cindy to admit that economics is a weak area for her, since it certainly is for me as well. I have a much more difficult time comprehending economics on a large scale than I do comprehending economics on the small scale of home and family, although I have occasionally made observations comparing the two.

Hazlitt has really done a wonderful job of making large economic principles very comprehensible, and I am finding this book very readable. I already wrote one long post about what I've learned, Soviet-era refrigerators, and the economics of destruction, but that post got itself lost forever when my internet browser crashed.

So, I'll spare you the rants contained in that post, and focus on the one idea that impressed me the most so far. Hazlitt is basically saying that you need a really good imagination to see the big picture of economics, because part of evaluating the effectiveness of an economic policy is being able to see what is not there--that is, to see 'what might have been.'

For example, if you spend $50 to replace a broken window, the glazier is benefited by your expenditure, and you have a nice, new window. What no one can see is who would have benefited if your window hadn't been broken, and what you might have had (in addition to an intact window) if you had been able to spend your $50 elsewhere. No economic policy can be adequately evaluated only by looking at who was benefited, because some group will be benefited by any given policy. You have to use your imagination and see who was not-benefited (and perhaps even harmed) by the same policy.

As the scale gets bigger, I suspect it demands even more imagination. If tax-payer money is poured into a depressed region, and make-work jobs are created just for the sake of employing some people, then that region will be prosperous, and anyone may point to it as a success story (most likely for the sake of doing the same thing somewhere else, thus demanding more tax-payer funds). What no one can see is the way other regions were affected by having that money diverted elsewhere. Individuals in those regions, deprived of their spending power because of the taxes, didn't buy cars, build houses, invest in business, and didn't do other things they might have done if they had been able to keep their own money. It reminds me of a bridge project I recall--to build a bridge to an island off Alaska, where only 50 people resided (and they already had an adequate ferry system). Those 50 people would certainly have benefited from the multi-million dollar bridge construction, but those millions of dollars would not have been used somewhere else, and so thousands of people would have non-benefited from its construction

I have a hard time believing that makers of economic policy do not know this, but perhaps they are merely lacking in imagination.

I am a big-picture kind of person, and so I'm liking the way Hazlitt thinks so far. I'm looking forward to what the other participants have to say about these chapters, and I expect them to contribute greatly to my own understanding.

Talking books

2008-01-05T14:01:00.000+01:00

I have just started reading The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye, and I can tell already that I am going to like this book a great deal.

The first chapter, entitled "The Motive for Metaphor" has already led me down familiar paths. I'm a huge fan of metaphor and analogy, and Frye is already very good at using word pictures to make abstract ideas clear. He sets the scenario of an individual shipwrecked on an uninhabited island to articulate the relationships that exists between the individual and the world around him. He divides the reactions toward the situation into intellectual ("There are some some banana trees! I wonder where the source of that stream is?") and emotional ("This is a beautiful place! How terrible that I've been shipwrecked all alone!") Both kinds of thinking, are, of course, valid, and Frye makes the further interesting observation that if your ship was a Western ship, you would have more faith in your intellectual observations, but if your ship (and consequently, you) were from the East, you would be more likely to trust your emotional perceptions of the world.

At the level of mere observation, emotions and intellect may alternate, but they are not combined. At this level, Science begins by accepting the facts, and, without trying to alter them, attempts to measure and describe what is observable. At the same level, Art begins by introducing the factor of "I want" or "I like" and does not entirely accept what is, but begins to imagine something more desirable.

At this point, action enters the scene, and you begin to build a shelter or plant a garden, and intellect and emotion are working together. What is important about life is no longer observer and subject, but what you do and what you want to do--necessity and freedom.

And this is where the conversation begins in my head, between Northrop Frye, David Hicks, Charlotte Mason, James Taylor, James Sire, Jacques Barzun, James Erskine and many others. I haven't even quite finished the first chapter, but I am already delighted that my reading has once again stepped into the circle of what Mortimer Adler called The Great Conversation. I am reminded of why it is a mistake to limit reading and study to current books on any given topic. It's like walking into a room where a conversation has been going on for several hours. No matter how much you think you understand, you are missing so much of what has gone before.

And THAT metaphor came from Jacques Barzun's Dawn to Decadance.

The books are talking...and I'm taking notes.

How can I resist?

2008-01-02T22:25:00.000+01:00

All over the internet, from one corner of the blogsphere to the other, I keep bumping into posts about plans, projects, resolutions, lists, and expectations for 2008. A new year is such a large slate that it seems to have a lot of room on it for big, sprawling projects--the sort of things you wouldn't put into your daily or weekly planner, nor even perhaps on a monthly one.

"Lose weight" A worthy (and for some of us, so necessary) resolution, but hardly the sort of thing one puts on the "to do this week" list.

"Learn to Play the Piano" A very good idea that, and I wish I could, but you can't see writing it down for Thursday, can you?

It's only when you have a whole, big, fresh year in front of you that big goals have room to fit into the plan.

And then, if you want them to happen, you'd better break them down into little pieces and get the little pieces into those weekly and daily plans, or the whole thing will be squeezed out by the things you didn't plan that happened anyway. My goodness, that happens just in one day. I have very definite plans this week. In fact, I am working very diligently on school schedules for my three home-schooled children (a 12th grader, a 9th grader, and a 5th grader, so you can see this is serious business). Nevertheless, some unexpected guests, several phone calls, and an almost-but-not-quite-100%-potty-trained three-year-old happened. Therefore, by the time dinner-time arrived, I had accomplished less than half of what I needed to do (assuming I want to be finished by Friday, and I do).

So, one of the things I want to do this year is read more non-fiction. I am entirely unimpressed with my record of ten non-fiction books for 2007, especially when I have books that have been on my shelves since 2005 that I want to read. And when I make my high-school children's school schedules, my want-to-read list increases dramatically, as I feel guilty assigning books to them that I have not read myself. (But I do it anyway--I'd be so much better off if someone had made me read those books while I was in high school.)

So, with a big, clean new year in front of me, I make the resolution (and it's not the only one) to read more non-fiction. That's the big goal that needs a whole empty calendar to make. Now I'm going to chop it up into smaller pieces so it will fit in my every-day life. I think that I can read two non-fiction books each month. I'm not entirely certain I can finish two non-fiction books each month, but I hope that if I have two going, I will finish the year with no less than 24 non-fiction books read.

I further resolve to post, at the beginning of each month, the two books I plan to work on for the month. Then, when I post my reading logs for each month, I can slap myself on the wrist if I haven't held to my promise; if, in short, I have allowed dilatory reading according to whim to edge the planned reading off the edge of the "to do" list.

So, with that general framework in mind, I am ready to share my two books for January. I'm going to be reading Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt and The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye.

I am also going to pick up Dawn to Decadance again and give Jacques Barzun the time it takes to get through this book. I want to read it so very much, but the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak, and the good that I would do, I do it not.

Except that I am going to do it this year.

Honestly, how can I resist a book like this:

What good is the study of literature? Does it help us to think more clearly, or feel more sensitively, or live a better life than we could without it?...The kind of problem that literature raises is not the kind that you ever "solve."

That's Northrop Frye...I'm really going to enjoy his book. From Henry Hazlitt, I don't expect enjoyment, but I do expect to learn something, and if I do, I shall certainly share it here.

But I think it would be somewhat misleading to post all these lofty intentions without admitting, at the same time, that I have been comfortably rereading genre fiction by Orson Scott Card and Agatha Christie. And enjoying every minute of it.

Happy reading in 2008.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T18:49:00.000+01:00

I have nothing especially profound to say about the new year, but I know people who do. Visit here and here for reflections and encouragement to keep on keeping on.

I'm just making use of this first day of 2008, a brand-new, virtually unblemished year, to do something I've read about 'round the internet, and always wanted to try. It's called "pay it forward," and is simply a way to pass on the blessing of receiving a hand-made gift. I signed up for Pay it Forward here . The rules are thus:

"I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”

Actually, I can pretty much assure you that I will send a doily to those who sign up here (not the one pictured!), and that it will not be white. The rest of it is pretty accurate, although I shall try to be as prompt as possible!

I have many plans and thoughts swirling about in my head, but not everything is ready for prime time and the glare of the blogosphere. The most recent thing I planned on this blog was to post every day in December, and I think we all know that didn't exactly happen, although I did break the non-posting cycle, and I hope to post regularly (not necessarily daily) in 2008.

So, Happy New Year!

Reading Log, Overview 2007

2007-12-29T11:57:00.000+01:00

I may get another book (or even two) finished before the year is complete, but if I do, I will simply edit this post. As it stands now, I completed 58 book in 2007, which I have listed here in roughly chronological order. Of the 58, only 10 were non-fiction, and of those 10, nine of them were at least partially biographical in nature. However, I also have three books on my "still in progress" list that are non-fiction, and two of them are not biographical--one is a series of essays, and the other is Dawn to Decadence, which is hard to classify but might be called cultural history.

In addition to my 58 completed books, I have 4 books in progress, and I partially read, then abandoned (for various reasons), 7 books.

So, here are the lists!

Books completed in 2007:

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
The Cat Who Came to Breakfast by Lilian Jackson Braun
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Children of the New Forest by Captain Marryat
Lily's Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff
The Secret by Eva Hoffman
Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman
Diary of a Nobody by George & Weedon Grossmith
Turnabout Children by Mary McCracken
Death at the Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh
Night by Elie Wiesel
The Time of Green Ginger by Armstrong King
Digging to America by Anne Tyler
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
Lady Susan by Jane Austen
Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham
The Charmers by Stella Gibbons
Thirteen Steps Down by Ruth Rendell
The Approaching Storm by Nora Waln
Christmas at Candleshoe by Michael Innes
For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George
Sala's Gift by Ann Kirschner
Many Thing You No Understand by Adaora Lily Ulasi
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler
Remembering by Wendell Berry
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Elena: Strengthened Through Trials by Harvey Yoder
The Beginning by Chaim Potok
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
What Came Before He Shot Her by Elizabeth George
A Woman in Berlin (Anonymous)
Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Bryson City Tales by Walt Larimore
The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson
The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rineheart
My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
The Parting by Beverly Lewis
Playing for Pizza by John Grisham
The Literary Discipline by John Erskine

Books in progress:

From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun
Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
The Magic Feather by Lori and Bill Granger
Year In, Year Out by A.A. Milne

Books abandoned in 2007:

W Pustyni i w Puszczy by Henryk Sienkiewicz
The History of Henry Esmond by William Makepeace Thackeray
Sklepy Cynamonowe by Bruno Schulz
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
Candide by Voltaire
The Mother by Pearl Buck
Psychological thriller whose title I forgot

I have already shared both my favorite books from 2007 and my not-so-favorite, but here are some additional random statistics. These numbers are only taken from my list of completed books and don't include the in-progress or partially-read titles.

Fiction: 48
Non-fiction: 10 (of which 9 are mostly biographical)
Audiobooks: 8
Rereads: 7
Classics: 6 (unless Dracula counts as a classic, and then it is 7)
Books classified as children's or young adult literature: 3
Mystery/Crime novels: 9
Horror: 1 (Dracula again)
Fantasy: 2 (Tolkien, in both cases)
Books in translation: 3
Male Authors: 24
Female Authors: 34

I shall look forward to seeing the way other people organize and classify their end-of-year reading lists! I have no definite plans for what I'll be reading next year--I prefer to follow my inclinations of the moment, and I have a number of things in mind right now--more than I can realistically manage, probably.

Happy reading in 2008!

Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

2007-12-24T14:08:00.000+01:00

I wish you all a blessed and happy Christmas--filled with peace, contentment, and relief from the hurry of everyday life. May the Savior who interrupted eternity to sojourn among us give us grace to interrupt our dailyness and focus on the miracle of Christmas--God Incarnate, Emmanuel, God with us.

May He be with you and yours this holiday, and everyday.

Blame the communists...

2007-12-23T21:58:00.000+01:00

I just learned something today that I never knew before!!! I wrote a few days ago about the custom of eating carp on Christmas Eve. Other fish is eaten too--sometimes trout, and herring is very popular. But carp is not a long-standing Polish tradition.

During the lean communist years, carp was simply the only fish available. People couldn't get anything else, so they had carp, because fish was the traditional meal.

But here is what is kind of funny--not all Polish people know this! The woman who told me (in her 50's) didn't know it until recently. So here we have a glorious tradition--big stores and outdoor markets offering live carp, and people lining up to buy it...just because their parents and grandparents had to make do with this not-very-tasty fish.

There's a message here somewhere, and if it weren't so late on Sunday night, I'd try to figure it out.

Particular vs. Eternal

2007-12-22T17:24:00.000+01:00

I've been reading, off on and on during the year, The Literary Discipline by John Erskine. I "discovered" John Erskine, who was well enough known during his lifetime, through Jacques Barzun, who probably heard him in person, or at least studied under men who had studied under Erskine.

The Literary Discipline is a collection of five articles or essays that discuss what is required of literature in order that it may be truly art, enduring and appealing for many ages, rather than mere "reporting" or "information." I have agreed with pretty much everything he has written, including the fact that timely, rather than timeless, books may still be well worth reading, even if they do not qualify as "art."

I decided to finish up the final chapter so this book could go on my "books completed in 2007" list instead of my "books in progress but not finished in 2007" list. The final chapter is called "Proper Characters," and since character-based books are my very favorite, I've enjoyed reading what he has to say very much.

His primary premise (in which he agrees with Aristotle) is that the characters in art must be better than we are--show us the ideal character for which we "ought" to strive. That's his word--"ought"--and I can't help feeling that we are even further from the "ideal" in 2007 than we were in 1923, when this book was published. Our whole society shies away from the very idea that one "ought" to do anything, choosing instead to embrace the much lower principle that anything one wants to do--anytime, anywhere, should be accepted. No, celebrated. Unless, of course, what you are doing is suggesting that there are higher ideals for which we ought to strive, and then that's not so okay.

But I digress. John Erskine is wonderful to read.

Here's a long quote to give you a sample:

To ask what characters are proper to literature as an art, and to point out that the character better than life will express our ideals, and that the character worse than life will invite our satire, is only to raise in another way the old problems of the universal as against the particular in art, of the contemporary as against the eternal. To be strictly personal is in the end to be contemporary, and to be strictly contemporary is to give, whether or not we intend it, the effect of satire. If our picture of life is to appeal to the reader, and to many readers, as their own world, not simply as their neighbors' private house into which they are prying, it must have general human truth beyond what is strictly personal; and if it is to be read with that sense of proprietorship by many people over a stretch of time, it must not limit itself to the peculiarities of any one moment.

I enjoy as much as anyone an abstract discussion of universal principles, but I do like a concrete example, and John Erskine is short on them--or he refers to contemporary (for him) authors such as Edith Wharton and F.Scott Fitzgerald whom I cannot view in the same way he views them (assuming I'm familiar with their works at all). So, I tried to think of an example of a book that has stood the test of time--been widely appealing to many generations and not circumscribed by its own time, so as to render it inaccessible to future readers.

The first book that came to my mind was Anne of Green Gables. I have never, ever met someone who read that book and didn't like it. It is a favorite of many, and has withstood reading after rereading (another factor that separates literature that is art from literature that is not). So, I invite my readers (as if I had so many!) to suggest reasons why Anne as a character is universally appealing. Does she stand up to the test of being a character "better than we are"--a more ideal person whom we might strive to emulate? And if so, why?

Because, although Anne and Prince Edward Island are almost universally loved and remembered, read alike by girls and women (maybe not so many men), I am not sure I could bring myself to call the "Anne" books art. What do you think?

From the dark side of the bookshelf

2007-12-21T22:10:00.000+01:00

I already shared my favorite books from 2007, although I still have to narrow it down to a "top ten." For some perverse reason, I felt like making a list of the opposite. So, here I present you with a list of The Worst Books I Read in 2007. Some of them, I did not even finish.

Again, in no particular order,

The History of Henry Esmond, by William Makepeace Thackeray

The Getting of Wisdom, by Henry Handel Richardson (Here you can read what I thought about this story.)

The Charmers, by Stella Gibbons

Bee Season, by Myla Goldberg

Thirteen Steps Down, by Ruth Rendell (You can find what I said about it at the time here.)

Some psychological thriller I started, didn't like and didn't finish, but I can't remember the title.

This isn't going to be a "bottom ten" list--it just is what it is. These are the books that, for whatever reason, I did not have a favorable reaction to. Except for Henry Handel Richardson, I would still read other books by these authors, however, as I have read and enjoyed other books by them (Myla Goldberg excepted--that was her first novel. I might be willing to give a second one a chance, though.)

I was inordinately pleased to have an author's comment when I posted my "favorites from 2007" list a few days ago. I sincerely hope none of these authors reads my blog, although, again, I must reiterate that my distaste for these books is a reflection of my reaction to a given book at a given moment in time. Others may find these same books full of merit.

Fortunately, I guess, at least half of them are no longer living.

Kitchen mishaps

2007-12-20T19:10:00.000+01:00

While preparing the gingerbread cookie dough for one of our family's favorite holiday traditions, one child, who shall go unnamed, made an error. As we rolled out the dough and baked it, I kept trying to figure out what had happened. They were behaving so strangely--not rising much, falling apart after baking, and the texture was all wrong. Finally, we tracked down the error to double sugar in the recipe. It was not done on purpose. Does anyone remember the scene in Anne of Green Gables where both Anne and Marilla (at least) add sugar to the peas, thus rendering them too sweet to stomach?

It was rather like that--the right hand didn't know what the left was doing; the sugar was added twice, and I feared that if we also added frosting to the top (as tradition dictates we must), they would be positively fearsome. I was one of the sugarers, of course, but the party of the second part was feeling bad about the whole thing, so I felt compelled to share a story from the annals of kitchen history with her.

The year I was nineteen, I came home from college for Christmas break after being away for an entire year. My mother had to go to work, but she let my nine-year-old sister stay home from school to do some Christmas baking with me. We planned to make frosted sugar cookies (the same tradition I still carry on at my house, except I morphed it into gingerbread) and divinity candy--my personal specialty.

We got out recipes and ingredients and prepared to go to work. I read over both recipes to be sure we had everything we needed, and began to mix up the cookie dough. Almost immediately, I felt that something was wrong, and after carefully checking the recipe again, I discovered that I had added the amount of sugar required for the divinity to the sugar-cookie batter. That would be four times the amount of sugar the recipe called for. I really did not want to waste all the ingredients, so I decided the only thing to do was...quadruple the whole recipe. We baked and we baked and we baked. There were more sugar-cookies than our little family could eat in a month, and I'm pretty sure my mother gave away platefuls to anyone whose hands were empty for a moment.

After all that baking, we were not deterred. We were still going to make divinity! (I know this to be a fact, but my 40+ year old self thinks my 19-year-old self was insane.)

In spite of my heroic efforts, I believe we were simply destined to waste sugar that day. I burned the divinity syrup--burned it, and still tried to use it, and ended up with sticky fluff that could have competed with super-glue and won. I distinctly remember using the bathtub and lots of hot water to clean that pan.

And I still turned around and made another batch of divinity.

My 9-year-old sister was by my side the entire day, and I must ask her sometime if she remembers that day as well as do.

With this memory tucked away in my past, I really cannot be fazed by a little extra sugar in the gingerbread cookies. True to form, I mixed a up another batch, and we did it again. Maybe that 19-year-old is lurking inside of me yet.