Reading Year in Review - 2021

Thank heavens that I came out of the pandemic-induced reading slump of 2020! This year got off to a roaring start because of the Literary Life Podcast group since their reading challenge caused me to attack my most daunting books right off the bat: Kristin Lavransdatter and Anna Karenina! Towards the end of the year I was reading much lighter fare, while dipping into Dante's Divine Comedy three times a week (via the 100 Days of Dante reading project.) It was a great year! (All 90 books, good and bad, are listed on my Goodreads challenge.) 

Here's the rundown of favorites: 

Most work, but worth the effort: Kristin Lavransdatter (reviewed here) After this, Anna Karenina was a cinch!

Best light fiction: A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery (reviewed here)

Most fun: All Creatures Great and Small by Herriot (reviewed here), and the first five Lord Peter Wimsey Novels by Sayers (reviewed here)

Favorite audio: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R.A. Dick & Pied Piper by Shute

Favorite re-read: Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury (with the Lit Life group)

Favorite classic: Mansfield Park by Austen (with the Lit Life group)

Unexpectedly knocked my socks off: The Inferno by Dante/Ciardi (To be honest, this was only after listening to the videos explaining each canto.)

Favorite non-fiction: Christian Faith in the Old Testament by Cockerill

My two top picks for the year were  C.S. Lewis' Letters, Vol. 2 (1,000 pages) and Six Centuries of Great Poetry (600 pages). My daily sips into their contents brought me constant delight. I felt bereft when I finally reached the end of Lewis' letters.

What about you? Have you read any of these? Did you have a favorite book of the year? 

Blessings,

Christmas Poem by Christopher Smart

A wonderful poem that is also a hymn:

Where is this stupendous Stranger?

Prophets, shepherds, kings, advise!

Lead me to my Master's manger,

Show me where my Savior lies.

O most Mighty, o most Holy,

Far beyond the seraph's thought,

Are you then so mean and lowly

As unheeded prophets thought?

Oh, the magnitude of meekness!

Worth from worth immortal sprung!

Oh, the strength of infant weakness,

If eternal is so young!

God all bounteous, all creative,

Whom our sins could not dissuade,

You have come to be a native

Of the very world you made.

(Full poem here.)

Blessings,

Thoughts on The Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon is one of those books that caused me great embarrassment as a young Christian for its glorification of physical attraction and its awkward expressions of admiration such as the bride's hair being "like a flock of goats and her teeth like a flock of shorn ewes."

As I matured in my faith I learned to appreciate the book's place in the biblical canon because it debunks the myth that God is a cosmic killjoy and that physical intimacy is sinful. (Of course, it has to be read in the context of the rest of Scripture!)  

In Matthew Henry's commentary, he prefers to treat the entire book as a spiritual analogy, reflecting Christ's love for His bride. While I agreed with all of his conclusions, I did not see how he reached them from certain verses (the ones in my first paragraph, for example.) Some applications seemed incredibly forced. The other resource I used for this study was Kay Arthur's Walking With God in Every Season, which took the Song of Solomon more at face value (a love poem with potential spiritual applications). I found it interesting that one of the assignments in Kay's book was to make lists of the compliments the couple give to each other, noting which ones had to do with their characters and which had to do with their appearance. Only by really stretching my imagination, could I come up with one non-physical accolade for the bride and the groom, which amazed me. 

Although I loved Matthew Henry's eloquence and fervent love for God, I was occasionally miffed at his heavy-handed applications. Kay Arthur's probing questions left more room for prayerful reflection. As I meditated on repeated themes and phrases, I found myself longing to think of Christ as "the one whom my soul loves." I'm happy I took some time to go through this book more carefully.  

Blessings,

Lord Peter Wimsey Novels 1-5

One of my goals for 2021 was to read through Dorothy Sayer's novels about aristocrat-turned-detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. I've loved the books so far, but haven't felt the need to review each one separately. Here are my thoughts on the first five.

Whose Body? - Sayers introduces her fascinating amateur detective with his perfect sidekick: Bunter, the butler. To make things more interesting, Lord Peter suffers from PTSD due to his participation in WWI.

Clouds of Witness (I'm sorry the Kindle version has a horrible cover.) A murder mystery involving Peter's brother and sister. The wonderful detective Parker begins to fall in love with one of the principal characters in the book. 

Unnatural Death - The story takes place in 1927, but my copy came with a "biography" written by Wimsey's uncle that goes through 1935 and included spoilers. Still, I appreciated some of the background info because it helped to explain why Wimsey's brother was such a cad in the previous book. This was my favorite so far because we know early on who did it, but it takes ages to discover HOW. And Miss Climpson is adorable. At right is my favorite quote when Wimsey finds her a little worse for wear.

Lord Peter Views the Body - A delightful collection of short stories, showing Lord Peter from many different angles. I especially enjoyed the mystery he solved with his 10-year old nephew tagging along.

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club - This murder mystery had some really delightful twists. I enjoyed the brief but hilarious discussion about whether sinfulness was actually a glandular problem.

Please note that there is light swearing throughout these books, but it never seems gratuitous. Also, several of these titles are quite pricey, so I hope you are able to get them through your local library like I did.

Blessings,

The Value of Nonsense Poetry

Many people have a hard time finding the point of poetry, much less poetry that boasts of its nonsensical content, but poetry is the literature of compacted significance. Where the novelist uses a whole plot to unfold a few different ideas, the poet can bring whole traditions of thought into a few lines because of his freedom to assume that every poetic choice has great significance, only limited by the history of language and the reader’s imagination. Therefore, a poet takes great pains to find the perfect word and the perfect place for that word in the poem.

But, unlike the standard poet, the nonsense poet's style is much less laborious. His process is free and easy because, as a writer of nonsense, he reserves the right to assume readers don't fully comprehend every aspect of his meaning. Out of the inability to articulate an exact interpretation, we have the freedom to confidently assert truths about its objective meaning. Readers, then - especially young ones seeing it for the first time - get lost in wonderment at the ambiguous, foreign loveliness of the words and their success at communicating a story of good winning over evil through courage, perseverance, and skill.

So is that really the whole point? Just surprise at the nonsense of the words? Well, yes. We use the word “wonder” when we do not know something and would like to know it—a simple quotidian example. To expand it, wonder is the action of the mind, soul, and body when it encounters something it does not and cannot comprehend. It is a suspension of rational thought, a moment—brief or long—when we behold something of great beauty or horror, and through that encounter, grasp at truth. Wonder leads us to the eternal. 

From an article by Amanda Gehrke at The Federalist. Read full post here.

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in October

I usually have three or four books going at the same time, but for the second half of October, I had six, which made it impossible to finish anything. Earlier in the month I read The Day of Small Things and Jane's Parlor by O. Douglas, which I did not enjoy as much as the first book in the series (The Proper Place). I got these quite cheaply for my Kindle and am not sure why there are no longer links to them at Amazon. (The best Douglas novel, Penny Plain, by the way, is always free.) I read Helen Keller's The Story of My Life while listening along on YouTube. Thomas Ramundo's The Prayer Life You've Always Wanted was simple, but encouraging. 

The books I'm presently reading at a snail's pace are: (1) Dante's Inferno, (2) Six Centuries of Great Poetry, (3) Mansfield Park (audiobook), (4) C.S. Lewis' Letters (Vol II), (5) Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, and (6) Christian Faith in the Old Testament by Cockerill. 

We watched Blue Miracle with Dennis Quaid (2021) and Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson (1995). For some odd reason I love stories of unrequited love and enjoyed suffering along with Colonel Brandon! Come to think of it, that may be why I love most of Jane Austen's novels. Anyone else suffer from that malady?

Blessings,

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

My husband and I enjoyed the new BBC version of All Creatures Great and Small so much that we decided to read the book out loud to each other. We loved every page of these delightful stories of a rookie veterinarian and the quirky members of his household. Although you'll read more about cow anatomy than you ever wanted to know, you will also laugh (and sometimes cry) through many a chapter. Herriot's love for the land, the people and the animals is richly described on every page. Halfway through the first book, he writes:

How on earth, did I come to be sitting on a high Yorkshire moor in shirt sleeves and wellingtons, smelling vaguely of cows? The change in my outlook had come quite quickly - in fact almost immediately after my arrival in Darrowby. The job had been a godsend in those days of high unemployment, but only, I had thought, a stepping-stone to my real ambition. But everything had switched round, almost in a flash. 

Maybe it was something to do with the incredible sweetness of the air which still took me by surprise when I stepped out into the old wild garden of Skeldale House every morning. Or perhaps the daily piquancy of life in the graceful old house with my gifted but mercurial boss, Siegfried, and his reluctant student brother, Tristan. Or it could be that it was just the realization that treating cows and pigs and sheep and horses had a fascination I had never even suspected.

Probably it was because I hadn't dreamed there was a place like the dales. I hadn't thought it possible that I could spend all my days in a high, clean-blown land where the scent of grass or trees was never far away; and where even in the driving rain of winter I could snuff the air and find the freshness of growing things hidden somewhere in the cold clasp of the wind. Anyway, it had all changed for me and my work consisted now of driving from farm to farm across the roof of England with a growing conviction that I was a privileged person. (p. 246-247)

My husband read the biography, The Real James Herriot, written by his son, which recounted that James was asked by the editors to "spice up" the first book by adding in a few chapters about Helen. I'm glad he did because those were some of the most amusing and endearing chapters in the book. 

I just ordered book two, All Things Bright and Beautiful, and can't wait for it to arrive!

Have you read the books? Watched the series?

Blessings,

C. S. Lewis Quote on Romantic Love

I'm on page 450 of my book of C.S. Lewis' letters and my Kindle tells me I have 164 highlighted passages! I can't recommend this book highly enough. Here are some excerpts from his letter to Daphne Harwood on March 6, 1942. 

My view of being-in-love is that (like everything except God and the Devil) it is better than some things and worse than others. Thus it comes in my scale of values higher than lust, selfishness, or frigidity, but lower than charity or constancy - in fact about on a level with friendship. Like everything (except God and the Devil) it therefore is sometimes opposed to things lower than itself and - in that situation - good; sometimes to things higher than itself and in that situation, bad. Thus being-in-love is a better motive for marriage than, say, worldly advancement, but the intention to obey God's will by entering into an indissoluble partnership in all virtue and mutual charity for the preservation of chastity and the admission of new souls to the chance of eternal life is better even than being-in-love.

The trouble arises when poets and others set up this "good" thing as an absolute, which many do. An innocent and well-intentioned emphasis on the importance of being-in-love with one's spouse (i.e. its superiority over lust or ambition as a basis for marriage) is in fact widely twisted into the doctrine that only being-in-love sanctifies marriage and that therefore as soon as you are tired of your spouse you get a divorce. Thus the over-praising of a finite good, the pretense that it is absolute, defeats itself and corrupts the very good it set out to exalt; and what begins by wanting to to beyond the prayer-book idea of marriage ends by reducing marriage to mere concubinage. Treat "Love" as a god and you make it a fiend.

 

Blessings,

Live Not by Lies by Rod Dreher

Live Not by Lies, by Rod Dreher, contains some of the same themes spelled out in The Benedict Option (loss of support for Christianity within the culture and the necessity of strong religious communities to sustain it), but LNBL is more hopeful. Yes, the situation in our culture is even worse than when Benedict Option was published five years ago, but in this book Dreher recounts stories of families who survived totalitarian governments (chiefly communist countries in Europe), which show the fruit of faithful perseverance. 

I marked so many passages that it would be impossible to touch on everything. My biggest take-away was understanding how American government has increasingly become totalitarian (what Dreher calls "soft totalitarianism") in the way that it rewards/condones certain behaviors and punishes/cancels "unacceptable" ones. (Cake bakers and florists are just two examples.) 

Today's totalitarianism demands allegiance to a set of progressive beliefs, many of which are incompatible with logic - and certainly with Christianity. Compliance is forced less by the state than by elites who form public opinion, and by private corporations that, thanks to technology, control our lives far more than we would like to admit. (p. 8)

In our therapeutic culture, [no belief in a Higher power and with personal comfort as the primary goal] the great sin is to stand in the way of the freedom of others to find happiness as they wish. (p. 13)

Without Christianity and its belief in the fallibility of human nature, secular progressives tend to rearrange their bigotries and call it righteousness. Christianity teaches that all men and women - not just the wealthy, the powerful, the straight, the white, and all other so-called oppressors - are sinners in need of the Redeemer. All men and women are called to confession and repentance. "Social justice" that projects unrighteousness solely onto particular groups is a perversion of Christian teaching. Reducing the individual to her economic status or her racial, sexual, or gender identity is an anthropological error. It is untrue, and therefore unjust. (p. 64, 65) 

When so much of what is being taught (in schools, on the news, on social media) is untrue, how does one stay grounded in reality? In the chapter called "Families are Resistance Cells", Dreher writes of  a Catholic couple, Václav and Kamila Benda, who were part of the Czech dissident movement in the 1970s. On a personal level they prepared their children to resist the lies of communism by filling their moral imaginations with the good. Kamila read to her children for two to three hours a day. She read them fairy tales, myths, adventure stories.... More than any other novel, though, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was the cornerstone of her family's collective imagination. (138)

Finally, Dreher addresses the problem of suffering. He worries that this generation of Americans (including Christians) has become so attached to their comforts that we would submit to government overreach to keep them. A time of painful testing, even persecution, is coming. Lukewarm or shallow Christians will not come through with their faith intact. Christians today must dig deep into the Bible and church tradition and teach themselves how and why today's post-Christian world with its self-centeredness, its quest for happiness and rejection of sacred order and transcendent values, is a rival religion to authentic Christianity. (162)

Even if you don't agree with everything in the book, there are a lot of important ideas to wrestle with in light of ever-decreasing religious freedoms in our present world.

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in September

I read a nice variety of books this month. I'm enjoying the 100 days of Dante challenge more than I thought I would. It is not easy reading, but the short teaching videos put out by Baylor have been outstanding. Two audiobooks that I enjoyed were Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Pied Piper by Nevil Shute (reviewed here)

The rest of my fiction was pretty light. Least favorite was One Tuesday Morning by Karen Kingsbury (reviewed here). I also read a WWII mystery called Proceed at Will (reviewed here), A Man Called Trent by Louis L'amour (reviewed here), Sarah's Cottage by D. E. Stevenson, and The Proper Place by O. Douglas. (I bought it for $1.99 for Kindle, but can only find the link to the overpriced hard copy.) 

Two non-fiction titles were Matthew Henry's commentary on Song of Solomon (review here) and an abridged Journal of John Wesley (reviewed here) 

My favorite book of the month was All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot, reviewed here.

I found several Hallmark mysteries on YouTube. Sweet Revenge is the latest in the Hannah Swenson "Murder, She Baked" mysteries and is definitely the funniest of them all. Mystery 101: Deadly History and two Aurora Teagarden mysteries rounded up the list. 

Blessings,

Pied Piper by Nevil Shute

John Howard is a 70 year old Englishman in need of a rest. He travels to a village in France, never dreaming that war would soon be arriving at his doorstep. As he seeks to return to England, he is asked by another couple in the inn to take their two children with him. He reluctantly agrees, knowing he is too old for the task, but not willing to leave the children where they will be in any danger. Like the Pied Piper of the original story, Howard accumulates other needy children along the way. 

How he gets them through Nazi-occupied France makes Pied Piper a hair-raising tale, but what struck me most about the story was the small graces that were extended to him and the children along the way. Along with incidents of sickness, hunger, and  stolen luggage, there are also moments when they were given a meal, a hayloft to sleep in, or a broken down pram in which to carry their few belongings. Just as the responsibility of caring for all these children of various ages and nationalities becomes overwhelming, Howard encounters a young woman who insists on coming with him to help. 

The story of his faithful, honorable, self-giving love for the children would have been a good enough story in itself, but the addition of Nicole, adds a beautiful element to the story. Not only does she help with the children, the two of them help each other grieve various losses. 

This is a lovely, lovely story that I look forward to revisiting in the future. My experience was greatly enhanced by the narrator of my audio book, David Rintoul, who not only spoke French beautifully, but also did a bang-up job with voices of the women and children.  

This is my first Nevile Shute novel and I'm a bit afraid to try another since his other books have very mixed reviews (except for A Town Like Alice, which appears to be a classic). Have you read him? Do you have a favorite?

P.S. I found two movie versions on YouTube but neither do the book justice. The 1942 version makes John out to be a buffoon (which he definitely is not), but the other actors were very good; the Peter O'Toole version was better, but not great. Read the book!

Blessings,

How to Get Started Reading Dante

When I heard about the 100 Days of Dante challenge, I knew it would give me the motivation to approach his daunting classic, The Divine Comedy. I read three books beforehand to provide background, but without having read the actual text, they were not as helpful as I had hoped. I still felt lost as I began reading The Inferno (book one of three). Since I pride myself in having developed literary muscle through the years, I was dismayed that it was still a struggle to understand what was happening. 

At first I listened to the short lectures given by Dante scholars from Baylor before reading each canto, but realized that I had no idea what they were talking about. I floundered a bit before deciding to read the assigned (short) canto before AND after listening to the teaching video. That meant that I had to spend 20 to 30 minutes on each canto (just three times a a week if you are following the 100 Days with Dante schedule). Searching and comparing translations, and finding one that worked for me, also made a huge difference. Listening while reading was also helpful. (There are many free audio versions on YouTube.)

I will not say that I am still understanding everything perfectly, but I'm glad for all the resources available that act as training wheels for the uninitiated like me. The passion that the Baylor profs have for Dante is contagious. 

Regarding translations... Because I live in Brazil, I could only do comparisons using Kindle samples. That eliminated some respected translations such as Dorothy Sayers' and Anthony Esolen's because no Kindle samples were available. The most readable classic translation was by poet John Ciardi, but I thought it odd that he did not include the best line from Canto 1 (line 39 about God's Divine Love being the creative force of the universe). He left out that idea all together even though it is clearly there in the Italian. (I only know that because it is similar to Portuguese!)

The digital versions I liked the most (clear without dumbed-down language) were by Clive James, Robert Durling, and Gerald J. Davis. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a version that's free, which isn't too difficult if you are used to King James' English. Ironically, I ended up using Ciardi because I found an inexpensive set of his Comedia in English here in Brazil. His introductory commentary and footnotes have been extremely helpful.

Anyone else read Dante? Are you reading along with the 100 Days challenge? Any more tips?

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in August

As I look back at the month, I can hardly believe how much I read. Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope was my "Obscure Book Mentioned by Thomas Banks" for the Lit Life 2021 Reading Challenge. I didn't love it. I read "The Rocking Horse Winner" (short story by D. H. Lawrence) along with the podcast group. Just for fun I also read three novels by D. E. Stevenson: First was Smouldering Fire (which may be my least favorite of her titles so far); then I read The Blue Sapphire, which I enjoyed very much - even though it was a little high on the fluff meter. Sarah Morris Remembers was delightful in its portrayal of a British family trying to make the best of their world-turned-upside-down during WWII. Unfortunately, one event in the book soured the book for me. Lastly, I re-read a favorite poetry anthology for children called Silver Pennies.

I'm taking daily sips from three other books: Dom Casmurro is a Brazilian classic that I'm reading slowly because of the archaic Portuguese. I'm reading 4 to 5 letters a day from Letters of C.S. Lewis (Vol. 2). The abridged Journal of John Wesley is my bed-time book.

I listened to three delightful audiobooks: Anthony Esolen's lectures on The Roots of Western Civilization, (via Hoopla) WWII middle grade novel A Place to Hang the Moon by Albus, (via Hoopla) and J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan (re-read)

I enjoyed a movie on YouTube, Adventures in Manhattan, starring my favorite old-time actress, Jean Arthur. My husband and I watched Marvel's The Black Panther (2018), which we had heard was quite good, but I thought the storyline wasn't that strong and the violence was stressful (I don't watch enough TV to get used to watching women beating up men.) I received the Signed, Sealed, Delivered series for my birthday and chuckled through the first two episodes.

It was a good month for reading. Do you have an opinion on any of these books or movies? Did you read or watch anything you'd recommend?

Blessings,

A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus

I avoid modern books as a general rule, but kept hearing rave reviews of A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus. Thankfully, I found I could listen to it for free via Hoopla, and have been devouring this wonderful story for the last few evenings. 

William, Edmund and Anna are siblings who were evacuated from London at the beginning of WWII. Their home life had been unhappy and they have learned to look out for each other. They find solace in each other's company and in books. It's heartwarming to read of their favorites such as Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, Wind in the Willows, Anne of Green Gables, etc. There is even a reference to a "new" book called The Hobbit (first printed in 1937). 

The eldest, William, is only twelve, but has had to act as parent to the other two. He is determined to keep them together in their new surroundings. The book recounts the difficult circumstances they face and how each child grows in self-understanding and empathy. One of their only friends is the village librarian who is an outcast for being married to a German (who has mysteriously disappeared).

It's a delight from start to finish with its good writing, its glorious images (book-lined rooms, warm fires and cups of hot chocolate to name a few), and its well-drawn, vivid characters. Most of all it shines as a story of second chances. 

The problem with audiobooks is that you can't write down all the good quotes, but I managed to scribble this comment from Chapter 3: The first words of a new book are so delicious - like the first taste of a cookie fresh from the oven and not properly cooled.

This story gave me a "book hangover" (the first time in ages that I've had one) that kept me pondering how the children were doing days after I finished the book. This is a ripping good tale! (I'm glad I heard it read by Polly Lee in her wonderful British accent.)

Blessings,

"Reading as Fortress Building" - Quotes from Philip Yancey

In a recent Washington Post article, Philip Yancey laments the death of his reading life. Here are a few excerpts:

Here’s the simple truth behind reading a lot of books. It’s not that hard. We have all the time we need. The scary part—the part we all ignore—is that we are too addicted, too weak, and too distracted to do what we all know is important.

We’re engaged in a war, and technology wields the heavy weapons. Willpower alone is not enough, he says. We need to construct what he calls “a fortress of habits."

I’ve concluded that a commitment to reading is an ongoing battle, somewhat like the battle against the seduction of Internet pornography. We have to build a fortress with walls strong enough to withstand the temptations of that powerful dopamine rush while also providing shelter for an environment that allows deep reading to flourish. Christians especially need that sheltering space, for quiet meditation is one of the most important spiritual disciplines.

Amen!

(pic is a photo sketch of my brother reading to his first grandson. We start fortress building VERY early in our family!)

Blessings,

What I Read in July

It was a good month for reading books bit by bit. The first book I read was the Greek play, Antigone, which I reviewed here. I made it through a third of Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl (a fairy tale re-telling) before giving up because of the annoying voices. (Can someone tell me if this an author who merits another try?) I read Rod Dreher's Live Not by Lies for Cindy Rollin's summer class and enjoyed it very much. It has the same emphasis as The Benedict Option (that authentic Christian community is the only viable response to a crumbling society), but LNBL seems less hopeless in tone since it tells survival stories how many believers fought back against communism and totalitarianism by participating in strong religious communities. (A more complete review is forthcoming.)

I finished Dorothy Sayer's book of short stories called Lord Peter Views the Body, which was a treat that I gave myself every afternoon between lunch and my to-do list. I also listened to the ten-hour audiobook of How Dante Can Save Your Life by Rod Dreher each evening while working through some new puzzle books. It's much more about Dreher than about Dante, but was a good intro into The Divine Comedy, which I plan to tackle in September (#100daysofdante). During my morning exercises, I worked my way through Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (audiobook), which isn't one of her best, but was a fun mystery to try and solve.

I also enjoyed a couple of short stories that I read along with the Literary Life podcast: The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster, and Reunion by Fred Uhlman. Since I'm out from under my heavy academic load, I'm not watching movies for stress-relief. I'm thankful to be back to reading, writing and blogging. 

Blessings,

Antigone by Sophocles

When the Literary Life group decided to read the Greek play Antigone, I gave it a pass. With a towering TBR list, I assumed I had better things to read. Silly me. When I saw that the audiobook was just over an hour, I caved in. Surprisingly, I didn't need the Lit Life group to understand the beauty and power of this short play. 

For one thing, the opening paragraph (called "The Argument") gives an overview of the story's principal events so you never have to wonder what is going on. Then comes a brief list of characters (the last two books I read would have been so much easier to understand if I'd had that!) After that, the reader plunges right in. I admit that having some background in Shakespearean English (or at least in the King James Bible) would be helpful in understanding the old-fashioned language. Once I got the hang of it, I loved the plucky heroine, the great dialogue, and the gorgeous wording.

The basic story is of a young woman who goes against the king's arbitrary command (to leave her dead brother unburied) and the heavy price everyone pays for it. Many universal themes are introduced, but the main one is civil disobedience. When does loyalty to family override loyalty to government? Antigone argues that the gods would not have approved of the king's edict. So, she is not only being loyal to her brother, but also to a higher Law. She says to King Creon: 

Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man,

Could'st by a breath annul and override

The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven.

They were not born today nor yesterday;

They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. 

It was startling apropos to our present times as the government continues to encroach on personal religious beliefs.  

My translation (free via Hoopla) by Francis Storr was stunning in its beauty. Here are a few favorite quotes: 

Much thought extends a furlong into a league. (Which I loosely interpret to mean, "Overthinking turns an inch into a mile.")

Hope flits about on never-wearying wings. (Do you suppose this line could have inspired Emily Dickinson's famous poem?)

I would not weigh his wealth and power against a dram of joy.

Ironic statement from a position of power: 

Now if she thus can flout authority unpunished,

I am woman, she the man.

On Pride: To err is common

To all men, but the man who having erred

Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks

The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise.

No fool, the saying goes, like an obstinate fool.

Word lovers will revel in phrases like, "her brother lay unsepulchered." And the word "snaffle" made me laugh with delight (even though it's only an old-fashioned word for bridle.) Oh, if only I could slip this delightful phrase into a future conversation: "You vex me with your babblement."

A quick, but worthwhile read. I listened, and then loved it so much downloaded a copy to read again the next day.

Blessings,

Death at the President's Lodging by Michael Innes

Death at the President’s Lodging  masquerades as a comfortable, vintage mystery (albeit more cerebral than most). The pace is slow as you watch the detective painstakingly interview each suspect; in Chapter 45 the intellectual fireworks start going off and you can hardly believe how the whole thing plays out. 

Inspector Appleby is called in to solve the mysterious murder of the president of St. Abbot’s College. It seems to be an “inside job” '(meaning one of the professors did it). Appleby is intrigued with the opportunity to interact with men of superior intelligence:

[But] He had an uneasy feeling that his own favorite technique, which was that of sitting back and watching and listening, was somehow inadequate – dangerous, indeed – in this case; something more aggressive was required. In discussion, all these people would be endlessly plausible – and they would hardly ever make a mistake.

I can't share any more of the plot without spoilers, so I'll just reiterate that Death at the President’s Lodging is one of the most stunning pieces of detective fiction I’ve ever read. It made me an instant admirer of Michael Innes (pen name for Scottish novelist and literary critic, John Innes Mackintosh Stewart).

Thank you, P.D. James for introducing me to this author through your book on detective fiction. Thanks to Kindle Unlimited, I was able to read the first book for “free”. Now I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in June

I finished up a busy teaching schedule this month, reading only in snatches (early in the day and late in the evening). In general, though, if I had a free half hour, I watched a bit of a Hallmark mystery on YouTube. The acting is better in some films than others, but the mystery is usually interesting, and the romance takes a back seat, which I appreciate. The two movies that took me by surprise were from the Signed, Sealed, Delivered series. (From Paris with Love, Higher Ground) The premise of the show is that a team of four "postal detectives" try to match up letters from the dead letter office with their intended recipients.

I had tried to watch the series before, but thought the characters were too dorky. I discovered, however, that they grow on you. The acting is good and the characters' personal histories are interesting. (They each have experienced brokenness, which adds a richness to their stories) The music is great and the literary quotes dropped by the straight-laced Oliver O' Toole are a delight. The creator of the series, Martha Williamson, was head writer for the Touched by an Angel series and is not afraid to include elements of faith in the conversations. All in all, this has become a new favorite.

Books that I was able to complete this month were (1) Death at the President's Lodging by Michael Innes, a great mystery that I'll be reviewing next week. (2) Ideas Freely Sown by Anne White, a book about Charlotte Mason's teaching methods, which I read for Cindy Rollins' summer class. (3) So Much Generosity by Michael Greaney (overview of many Catholic novels), (4) Prodigal God by Timothy Keller, which was good but didn't dazzle me like his Meaning of Marriage and Counterfeit Gods. Finally, I read Rod Dreher's fascinating Live Not by Lies (also for Cindy Rollins' class), which I'll be reviewing soon. 

Did you read or watch anything in June that you'd recommend?

Blessings,

Quote from Ray Bradbury on Leaving a Legacy

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.

(from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, p. 149)

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in May

Another exceptionally busy (but fulfilling) month meant I could barely fit in time for reading: Fahrenheit 451 was a great re-read along with the Literary Life podcast group. All the rest were new-to-me titles. Spring Magic by D.E. Stevenson was a nice, light novel. Miss Plum and Miss Penny by D.E. Smith was another pleasant vintage novel. It had a few brilliant moments, but I rarely engaged with any of the characters. Unfortunately, I've become quite attached to the folks who live in Thrush Green (12 novels by Miss Read), and no other villagers seem to match up.

I finished up with two non-fiction books: Dorothy Sayers' Mind of the Maker and a book in Portuguese for my theology class (Introdução à Teologia Armínio-Wesleyana by Vinicius Couto), which was excellent. 

I squeezed in a movie each week: Three Hallmark mysteries (Dating is Murder and Murder, With Love, which are Hailey Dean Mysteries, and The Peach Cobbler Mystery - from the Murder, She Baked series). My husband I also watched the newest episodes of The Chosen, season two. 

Blessings,

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The nicest thing about re-reading a favorite book is that you are not in a hurry to find out what happens and can savor the beautiful passages. It was a great pleasure, therefore, to read Fahrenheit 451 after a 15 year break. I loved it the first time because, as a bibliophile, I could identify with the horrors of a world without books where everyone is numbed by mindless entertainment. 

This time around my satisfaction was doubled as I thought more deeply about each of the characters and their (often painful) journeys toward self-awareness. Guy Montag, an official book burner, is the central figure and the novel recounts his awakening from his cultural stupor and his road to redemption. 

Listening to the comments on the Literary Life podcast enhanced my reading even more as the hosts pointed out themes I would never have noticed such as the fairy tale motifs and Bradbury's nods to Dante. I'm glad I had them as "reading buddies" this second time through.

Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid to forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. (p. 79)

Blessings,

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I have avoided Anna Karenina for decades, but felt encouraged by the Literary Life podcast group to finally take the plunge. The main thing that helped me overcome my fears was finding out it was not "all about Anna." It was a relief to find the novel peopled with other interesting characters whose stories were woven around hers to make a rich tapestry showing man's longing for love and for meaning. An essential parallel story is that of Levin and his search for faith.

It's hard not to give spoilers, so I'll give the only one that I think everyone already knows: Anna's unhappy marriage and her search for love elsewhere. I marveled that her lover encouraged her to be flirtatious and never had a moment's agony over other men's attention toward her. Levin, on the other hand, was often unreasonably (it seemed to me) jealous over any attention his wife received.  As I pondered this, I thought of the holy jealousy of God as expressed in the Scriptures, which is not pettiness because His desire is for the good of the loved one. His purpose to have a deep, loving relationship with His people means that any rivals must go. So even though Levin comes off as more plebian and Vronsky as more sophisticated, the reader knows that their difference in attitude is a significant expression of their characters.

The biggest challenge was the sheer length of the book (and learning everybody's names), but it was not hard to understand at all. I found my mind wandering during the bits about politics and farming, but was able to appreciate those sections when I switched over to the audiobook. (free on YouTube or at Librivox) 

Tolstoy was a master at conveying the longings and disappointments of his protagonists, portraying them in all their glory and their brokenness. This is unquestionably a masterpiece. 

Has anyone else tackled it? Any thoughts?

Postscript on the various translations: I am no expert on translations, but sometimes I much preferred the Nathan Haskell Dole version (1899) at Librivox to the version I own (2004). Here's a brief example from the end of Book 8.

[After the storm,] they gathered up the wet napkins; the nanny took the baby out and carried him. Levin walked beside his wife and, guilty on the account of his vexation, squeezed her hand in secret from the nanny. (Peavar/Volokhonsky)

[After the storm,] they hastily picked up the wet diapers, the nurse took the baby, and Levin, ashamed of his vexation, gave his arm to his wife and led her away, pressing her hand gently. (Dole)

By the context we know that the baby had to be changed, which kept the two women from getting home before the rain storm. The use of the word "napkins" is awkward. ("Napkins/nappies" are diapers in British English, but this translation was done by an American and his Russian wife.) This highlights the problem of "literal vs dynamic equivalent" methods of translation. One tries to be true to the Russian-sounding phrases and goes for more of a word-for-word rendition. The other tries to render the translation with flow and beauty. In this case, I preferred the smoother flowing sentences.

The most readable version by far was the one I checked out from my library (Mint Editions - no translator listed): "They gathered up the baby's wet belongings; the nurse picked up the baby and carried it. Levin walked beside his wife and, penitent for having been angry, he squeezed her hand when the nurse was not looking."

 

Blessings,