The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

My knowledge of Oscar Wilde was limited to his epigrams, and his fairy tales (The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince, etc.) I had a vague idea that he'd lived a profligate life, but that didn't keep me from wanting to read The Picture of Dorian Gray. Maybe it should have.

The novel opens with Gray being painted by artist Basil Hallward. He is in the bud of youth and serves as a muse for Hallward, causing him to paint his best portrait yet. Hallward's friend, Lord Henry Wotton, wanders into the studio one day and meets Gray, enchanted by this perfect specimen of unspoiled manhood. He wonders how easy it would be to mold his character and begins to plant all sorts of half truths and sordid thoughts into the young man's mind.

It was at this point that I had to switch from the audiobook to the print version. Wotton's silver tongue and the honeyed voice of the book's narrator were too overwhelmingly convincing. I was hearing so many outright (yet wonderfully agreeable) lies that I was having difficulty dividing truth from fiction.

You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully.  When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will discover that there are no triumphs left for you. . . . Don't squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are sickly aims, the false ideals of our age. (p. 17)

It was easy to see how the impressionable young Gray became intoxicated with Hallward's hedonistic philosophy and plunged into a pursuit of worldly pleasures. His downward spiral was rather horrifying. Near the end of the novel, a few Bible verses were thrown in about reaping what you sow, but it was too little too late. I'm glad I can cross this off my Back to the Classics Reading Challenge once and for all. Not sure if I would recommend it. Wilde's writing is very, very good, but I felt emotionally and spiritually depleted after reading this title.

Next week, I'll be highlighting specific quotes from the book.

Blessings,

The Young Clementina by D.E. Stevenson

Misleading Cover

I've written before that I enjoy D.E. Stevenson's novels for their good writing, friendly conversation and emphasis on comfortable romance (as opposed to goose bumps, sweaty palms and racing hearts). I picked up The Young Clementina because I was in need of a light-hearted diversion. The cover led me to believe it was written in the same vein as the Miss Buncle books, but I was quite mistaken.

The Young Clementina caught me off guard because 1) It is not light-hearted. Most of the characters have been broken by war, sin or loneliness. 2) The title is completely wrong. Young Clementina plays a part in the story, but is not its main focus. 3) It has a lot more drama than I'm used to in Stevenson's books.

Accurate Cover

The book opens with Charlotte Dean, a lonely spinster, who works in a stuffy London library. She is on the verge of making a huge life decision. Should she give up her quiet, orderly life and raise her motherless god child, Clementina? Since she has no one to talk to (all her friends and family are either dead or estranged,) she pours out her heart (in writing) to a stranger she met on a bus. She doesn't even know the stranger's name, but hopes that expressing her thoughts to a "friend" will help clarify her thinking. A pitiful scenario.

I dislike spoilers very much, so I will finish by saying that Miss Dean comes through her trials a stronger, better person. If I had known that this was Stevenson's attempt at a more serious novel, my expectations would have been different, and I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more.

Blessings,

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Many classics can be read with delight, but The Scarlet Letter is not one of them. Yet even though it is not beautifully written, it is a compelling and powerful novel.

Most people are familiar with the story. Hester Prynne is punished for adultery by being forced to wear an embroidered letter "A" on her clothing, "to be a living sermon against sin." She refuses to divulge the name of her lover to the governing body of the Puritan community and alone suffers public humiliation and ostracization for her iniquity. The unrevealed lover suffers his own private agony because of unconfessed sin.

Even though I read it in college, I could not remember why it was considered the great American novel. So I was glad to find a study guide from my library to remind me. The guide helped a little, but emphasized the book's ambiguity more than anything.

What struck me most was that Hester calmly and coldly accepted her punishment, but never really seemed to repent. In fact, the book emphasizes that the more she withdrew from society, the more she "wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness." The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers - stern and wild ones - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss. (111) This leaves the reader to wonder if it was Hester's fault or the community's. If they had embraced her instead of shunned her, could she have been redeemed?

Here comes the ambiguity. In all her shame and loneliness, Hester visits the sick and the poor. The scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on the nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness... (p. 91) She is even compared to the Madonna and child as she stands with her baby outside the prison.

How I wished I could go back in time and listen to my professor at Asbury explain this book to me. Freedom vs. authority, the wages of sin, and the role of community in regulating morality are just a few of the themes which Hawthorne offers as fascinating fodder for thought.

Blessings,

May E-book Deals at Amazon - Cozy Mysteries

Not a whole lot to recommend on Amazon's e-book deals this month. There are quite a few cozy mysteries for $1.99. But beware. Sometimes they are so cozy, that they are silly. I've only read (and liked) one of these authors (Deering). I suggest downloading a free sample of the book before buying it. And be sure to check with your library. I saw that both Deering titles are now available as free digital downloads through Hoopla from my Michigan branch.

Tea with Milk and Murder by H.Y. Hanna
Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanna Fluke
Twisted Threads by Lea Wait
Moving is Murder by Sara Rosett
Murder on the Moor by Julianna Deering
Meet Your Baker by Ellie Alexander
Dressed for Death by Julianna Deering
Annabel Lee by Mike Nappa (much grittier than the others on the list, but I read a good review of it in WORLD magazine)
Shipshewana Amish Mystery Collection by Vanetta Chapman
Murder in an Irish Village by Carlene O'Connor

Ann Cleeves has six mystery titles on sale. She's British which is in her favor, but I don't know how clean she is.

Also, I've read mostly good reviews of The Secret of Humming Cake, which is only $1.99, but I'm put off by a couple of reviewers' comments such as, "it's an easy read" and "it had a few good life lessons." Is it typical Christian drivel?

Blessings,

Joel Belz on Words (from WORLD Radio 4/26/17)

Mark Twain once said the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. Tis the difference, he said, between the lightening bug and the lightening…

When God called on Adam to name all the animals, our Creator was putting on a dual demonstration. On the one hand he was showing off the penultimate aspect of his incredibly imaginative handiwork. But on the other hand, God was also apparently eager to show Adam the critical importance of language and words as tools for the stewardship of the new creation. To this day both are wonderful gifts from God – creation itself, and the words to describe, analyze, understand, develop and enhance it. Words are intended to make distinctions. That’s why you need so many of them. For Adam aardvark meant one thing, antelope another, ant still another, and ant eater meant something radically different.

It is key to the human experience to use words to make distinctions. By contrast think about the distinction between words and other art forms. Great paintings, concertos, ballet performances and even baseball games are typically powerful not because of the specificity of what they portray but precisely because of their ambiguity. “I see this in it,” says one observer. “But I see something totally different,” says another. Words, too, can be ambiguous, but in the end are meant to distinguish, sort out, to help us to say “this,” not “that.” It’s the reason after all that we run for the dictionary. It is also why we crave wordy critics after visiting the art museum, going to a concert, watching a ballet, or going to a baseball game. Words crystallize the blur of our experience.


(Thoughts from Joel Belz excerpted from WORLD's daily news podcast)

Blessings, 

Books I Read in April

This month I'm listing the books in a different order - not sequentially, but experientially. The first is the one I enjoyed the most and the last the least. Almost everything I read last month was disappointing, but there's always a new month and new books to explore. Onward! Titles in blue were free for Kindle at the time of this posting.

1) The Singing Sands by Tey (reviewed here)
2) Lady Rose's Daughter - Mrs. Humphry Ward (vintage fiction with substance, reviewed here)
3) Be Reverent by Wiersbe  (commentary on Ezekiel, reviewed here)
4) The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne (I did not love this, but appreciated its important themes, review forthcoming)
5) The Cross of Christ by Murray (Maybe I was just too distracted to get into this title. I usually love Murray)
6) The Young Clementina by D.E. Stevenson (one of the few Stevenson titles I have not loved, review forthcoming)
7) On the Way to the Cross - Oden (just okay)
8) At the Time Appointed - Anna Maynard (vintage fiction, I put this near the end because I can't even remember what it was about. Not a good sign of a great book. Here's my review at Goodreads)
9) Love by the Letter - Jagears (Ugh, typical Christian fiction, reviewed here)

Blessings,

The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey

I was already an admirer of Josephine Tey because of  The Franchise Affair (reviewed here), but The Singing Sands knocked my fandom up to the next level.

Alan Grant works for Scotland Yard and is on the brink of a nervous breakdown. He catches a train, looking forward to a much needed vacation, only to discover a dead body in compartment B-7.

Who is the dead man? How and why did he die? Typical questions for a mystery novel. But the book diverges from the commonplace with it's atypical detective. The protagonist makes this novel twice as interesting as he struggles with his various demons. Conversations he has with his alter ego are laugh-out-loud funny. Even after the name of the dead man becomes known, in Grant's mind he is often referred to as "B-7." I loved how the mystery helped lead him to healing and wholeness.

All of the characters are wonderfully drawn. The writing is top-notch:

Grant had the island to himself, and for five days in the company of the whooping wind, he quartered his bleak kingdom. It was rather like walking a bad-mannered dog; a dog that rushes past you on narrow paths, leaps on you in ecstasy so that you are nearly knocked over, and drags you from the direction in which you want to go. (p. 86)

Charmingly British, The Singing Sands was Tey's last novel. Alas, no more Alan Grant! In spite of some off-color language, this is a splendid read.

Blessings,