Worthwhile Movie #23 - The Quiet Man (1952)

BBC period dramas and classic black-and-white films are my entertainment of choice, but it has taken me a few years to learn to appreciate John Wayne. I thought he was good in The Searchers and okay in 3 Godfathers. The first hint that I had of his charisma and charm was in Stagecoach, but the other Wayne movies I’ve watched seemed like run-of-the-mill westerns.

When Anthony Esolen featured The Quiet Man as his film-of-the-week (Substack newsletter), I decided to give Wayne another try. I had seen the movie many years ago and thought it a pleasant bit of romantic fluff, but Esolen gave me eyes to look at it in a new way. He said that the movie is actually about quietness. 

He writes, Prizefighter Sean Thornton, an Irish-American living in Pittsburgh, has killed his opponent in the ring. It’s an accident, but Sean can’t accept that. So Sean will never fight again, but instead moves back to the old family homestead in a village in Ireland, to farm and pick up the rest of his life, as a peaceful man. He’s made a vow never to throw a punch again. That’s what he intends, but sometimes a man has to fight, regardless of what he’d like, especially if he is fighting for something — or someone — he loves.

In addition to the excellent acting by both Wayne (playing Sean Thornton), Maureen O’Hara (playing Mary Kate Danaher) and the rest of the cast, the scenery is gorgeous and John Ford’s filming is stunning. Mary Kate and Sean fall in love, but his refusal to fight for something that she believes to be her right, gets their relationship off to a rocky start.

Esolen concludes his essay, In many ways, The Quiet Man is a film for those who believe in marriage and who know that what men and women do is that staggering and monumental thing, so closely related to tending the soil with love and care: they make children. The dialogue is priceless, yet it all seems perfectly natural, not stylized. We like everybody in The Quiet Man, even granite-jawed old Will Danaher, and there are gestures in the film that are unforgettable for a kind of down-to-earth nobility that I can’t find so well expressed in any other film except for John Ford’s own How Green Was My Valley. Ford was a poet of scene and dialogue and music, and of silences that are more filled with meaning than any words can be. But above all, when you watch this film, have fun! And thank God for the two great sexes that animate the world, because if it weren’t for them, where would we be? 

The only free version of the film is a video tape transfer at Internet Archive. If you watch the movie, you will greatly appreciate reading this article about the film AFTER you view it. I loved it, but I'm glad I didn't read it first because of all the spoilers.

Blessings,

Is Kindle Unlimited Worth It?

A few years ago, I gave Kindle Unlimited a try, but wasn't too impressed. Of the thirteen books I read, only four were memorable. In the years that followed, I would occasionally see a book I was interested in offered as a KU title and I began a KU list "just in case" I ever signed up for it again. Two years later I had a bit more success and read several excellent books including Tech-Wise Family, Trojan Mouse and quite a few D.E. Stevenson titles.

When I saw "three months of KU for 99 cents" last December, I took the plunge again. Because of my curated list, I didn't have to waste time on mediocre books. (Be aware that some of their titles come and go, but others are always there.) Yes, there were a few duds, but for the most part, I really enjoyed my recent foray into KU-land. These were my favorites: 

Light fiction: The Wayne Family trilogy by Elizabeth Cadell (reviewed here), Family Grandstand and Family Sabbatical by Caroly Ryrie Brink (of Caddie Woodlawn fame, both reviewed here)

Heavier reading: Ascent to Love - A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy by Leithart. Extremely helpful commentary for people like me who are clueless when it comes to Dante, but would like to learn. I also took advantage of Gerald J. Davis' translation of Paradiso because I was struggling with the more stilted version that I was using. 

                         

Excellent non-fiction: O Come Ye Back to Ireland, and Pages from a WWII Chaplain's Diary (easily one of my favorite books of the year). Speaking of which, they have many WWII P.O.W. memoirs, which are just my cup of tea.

A surprisingly good (but heavy) novel was The Words Between Us by Erin Bartel. It's a love story about books, but also about very broken people.

I also appreciated being able to leaf through some beautiful magazines like "Vintage Cottage," and peruse several clean eating cookbooks, especially 100 Days of Real Food on a Budget.

If you like light reading that isn't pure fluff, KU has many D.E. Stevenson and Miss Read titles. And the wonderful British mysteries compiled by Martin Edwards (21 books on the list are available via KU.)

Their audiobook options were pretty trashy, so I can't recommend anything there. Still, once every few years, I will probably look for the year-end deal and sign up for it again. The only downside to the deal was that I felt pressured to read as much as possible during the three-month offer (as if 99 cents was a lot of money!) and had to force myself to slow down and savor the books. I was not always successful at that.

In all, I read 20 books (half fiction and half non-fiction) and was pleasantly surprised at the gems I discovered. Has anyone else every tried it? Any recommendations?

Blessings,

Recommended Poetry Books

As a follow-up to last week's post on the importance of poetry, I'm linking to some of my favorite poetry books. 

I always say that the best poetry primer for someone who has no clue where to start is Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. The poems are light and lyrical without being too sing-song-y. Even as an adult, I continue to delight in them and have put quite a few to memory. (I've linked to the Kindle Free version, but there are many beautifully illustrated hard copies to choose from when buying one for your personal library.) I extol the glories of one his poems in this post.

I created a list of poetry books especially for children here. A decade after I wrote that post, I discovered the lovely Sing a Song of Seasons, which for a modern book has an amazingly small amount of tripe. (I reviewed it here).

Of course, poetry must be read aloud for you to be able to appreciate its cadences so I highly recommend this audio recording of 81 Famous Poems. (Reviewed here.) Sadly, no corresponding book is available, but there is a similar book of classic poetry, Best-Loved Poems, that I reviewed here.

Finally, if you already love poetry and are ready for something a bit meatier, I highly recommend these two books of devotional poetry: Poems of Faith (Dover publications, not the Helen Steiner Rice title) and The Oxford Book of Christian Verse -1940. (Don't pay any attention to the Amazon price; I found it at a used book store for $5.) Of the two, Poems of Faith is a bit easier, but the OBCV is one of the most treasured books in my entire library. 

Let me know if you've enjoyed any of these or if you have a favorite book of poetry that is not mentioned here.

Blessings,