"Adventures Among Books" by Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a journalist, novelist and literary critic, who is most remembered for the twelve volumes of fairy tales that he did in collaboration with his wife. (Ten of them are free for Kindle as well as dozens of other books he wrote.) Knowing his literary bent, I was intrigued to see this collection of essays on bookish subjects. I will be highlighting only the first essay, which was by far my favorite in the book.

Lang calls this essay his literary biography saying that he has a much easier time remembering books than he does people. He writes, Some are soldiers from the cradle, some merchants, some orators; nothing but the love of books was the gift given to me by the fairies.

From an early age he was surrounded by books and those who loved to read them. He remembers “reading” Midsummer Night’s Dream as a small boy in a candlelit room where someone was playing the piano; he was sitting by the fire looking at an edition with pictures of fairies in it. The fairies seemed to come out of Shakespeare’s dream into the music and the firelight… It seemed an enchanted glimpse of Paradise.

At age four he began to teach himself to read by picking out the words and letters of a poem he had heard so often that he had it memorized: Elegy on the Death andBurial of Cock Robin. At age nine, he read his first novel, which was Jane Eyre. This was a creepy tale for a boy of nine, and Rochester was a mystery, St. John a bore. But the lonely girl in her despair, when something came into her room, and her days of starvation at school, and the terrible first Mrs. Rochester, were never to be forgotten.

He tells how he hated Greek until he discovered Homer. The very sound of the hexameter, that long, inimitable roll of the most various music, was enough to win the heart, even if the words were not understood. But the words proved unexpectedly easy to understand, full as they are of all nobility, all tenderness, all courage, courtesy, and romance…. After once being initiated into the mysteries of Greece by Homer, the work of Greek was no longer tedious.

He summarizes his love of all things Greek by writing, We cannot find any wisdom more wise than that which bids us do what men may and bear what men must. Such are the lessons of the Greeks, of the people who tried all things, in the morning of the world, and who still speak to us of what they tried in words which are the sum of human gaiety and gloom, of grief and triumph, hope and despair. The world, since their day, has but followed in the same round, which only seems new: has only made the same experiments and failed with the same failure, but less gallantly and less gloriously.

“AdventuresAmong Books” was written in 1872 when Lang was still a young man. Near the end of the essay, he writes about how he became interested in folklore and anthropology. Little did he know that his most memorable life’s work would grow out of that interest. The first “Fairy Book” was published in 1889.

Blessings,

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

Lovers of great literature will revel in Surprised by Joy, the biography of a man who was led to salvation by his reading diet. The progression of “great books” in Lewis’ life worked on him like drops of water on a stone. Eventually their Christian themes made a groove in his heart that he could no longer ignore.

The “joy” he writes of is not happiness as the world defines it, but the pang of inconsolable longing (p. 62) This longing for joy led Lewis to finally embrace theism and, soon afterwards, Christianity. Interestingly, once he became a Christian, he no long sought after those stabs of joy as before. He still had moments of intense feelings (“tastes of heaven”), but he no longer idolized those experiences. He took them as moments of grace pointing to an eternal reality yet to be experienced.

The book recounts his miserable days as a school boy, his difficult relationship with his father, his first friendships, and the heart change brought about by books.

In his penultimate chapter called “Checkmate”, he writes: All the books were beginning to turn against me. Indeed, I must have been as blind as a bat not to have seen, long before, the ludicrous contradiction between my theory of life and my actual experiences as a reader. George MacDonald had done more to me than any other writer; of course, it was a pity he had that bee in his bonnet about Christianity. He was good in spite of it. Chesterton had more sense than all the other moderns put together; bating, of course, his Christianity. Johnson was one of the few authors whom I felt I could trust utterly; curiously enough, he had the same kink. Spenser and Milton by a strange coincidence, had it too. Even among ancient authors the same paradox was to be found. The most religious (Plato, Aeschylus, Virgil) were clearly those on whom I could really feed. On the other hand, those writers who did not suffer from religion and with whom in theory my sympathy ought to have been complete – Shaw and Wells and Mill and Gibbon and Voltaire – all seemed a little thin… It wasn’t that I didn’t like them. They were all entertaining; but hardly more. There seemed to be no depth in them. They were too simple. The roughness and density of life did not appear in their books.

One of my favorite books of 2023.

Blessings,

The Narnian by Alan Jacobs

"Without self-forgetfulness there can be no delight."

Alan Jacob's thesis for his biography of  C. S. Lewis, The Narnian.  is, Lewis's mind was above all characterized by a willingness to be enchanted and that it was this openness to enchantment that held together the various strands of his life - his delight in laughter, his willingness to accept a world made by a good and loving God, and his willingness to submit to the charms of a wonderful story... to the point of self-abandonment.

He goes on to show how this theme resonated in all of Lewis's writings, even his non-fiction (such as The Abolition of Man) where Lewis convincingly shows the failure of modern education to reach children's hearts and imaginations.  

Jacobs quotes a 1935 letter from Lewis to Arthur Greeves in which he describes a pampered little boy who nevertheless had been neglected: I often wonder what the present generation of children will grow up like. They have been treated with so much indulgence yet so little affection, with so much science and so little mother-wit. Not a fairy tale nor a nursery rhyme. 

I appreciated Jacobs' thorough overview of Lewis' life and his obvious love for the Lewis canon. I loved little tidbits of information like the fact that Warnie was at Dunkirk and that Jacob's thinks that Lewis's greatest book is English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (a book that hardly anyone has ever heard of.) And I enjoyed his careful explanation of Till We Have Faces, since that is a book that I find intimidating. Lastly, I got a kick out of his connection between the ending of The Last Battle and Dante's Paradiso because I hope to read both of those books this year.  

My biggest quibbles with the book came in chapter 11 where he chides Lewis for not being feminist enough and where he also looked down his nose at several previous biographers. He also assumes a lot about Lewis's relationships that Lewis (and those closest to him) never corroborated.

Still, it was a good book to read on the heels of Volume 2 of Lewis's letters because many of his correspondents came to life in the biography.

If you've read this, what did you think of it? Do you have a favorite C.S. Lewis biography to recommend?

Blessings

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

Sometimes reading non-fiction is like taking a vitamin pill. I do it because I know it's good for me, but my appetite naturally runs toward a well-written story. In The Hiding Place there is no dichotomy between the two. It tells the true story of Corrie ten Boom and her family's work in protecting Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland. It chronicles their quiet life as watchmakers and how they became involved in the Dutch underground. The dangers they face increase with every chapter. 

Early in the book a young Corrie cries out to her father that she doesn't want him to die. He comforts her by reminding her that when they travel on a train together, he gives her the ticket just when she needs it to board. So, also, God gives the grace to face each trial just when it's needed. That conversation set the tone for the rest of Corrie's life. With each new trouble, God provided the necessary strength. 

The first chapter recounts the 100th anniversary of the watch shop and Corrie writes, It was a day for memories. A day for calling up the past. How could we have guessed as we sat there - two middle-aged spinsters and an old man - that in place of memories we were about to be given adventure such as we had never dreamed of? Adventure and anguish, horror and heaven were just around the corner, and we did not know. O Father! Betsie! If I had know would I have gone ahead? Could I have done the things I did? 

The book is chock full of wonderful stories, some humorous, some horrifying, but all pointing to God's faithfulness. As I read, I grew to love Corrie's wise and good father, her beauty-loving and gracious sister, and especially Corrie, herself, who was used powerfully by God in spite of her doubts and shortcomings. She never brags. Much to the contrary. Every line of the book seems to say, "If God could use me, He can use anybody." I can't give more details without spoilers so I'll close with a hearty five-star recommendation. If you want your faith in a powerful, miracle-working God to grow, this is the book for you. 

Blessings,

Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Butterfield

I enjoyed this wonderful, non-syrupy testimony of God’s transforming power. Butterfield writes, In the pages that follow, I share what happened in my private world through what Christians politely call conversion. The word conversion is simply too tame and too refined to capture the train wreck that I experienced in coming face-to-face with the Living God.

At the time of her conversion, Butterfield was a tenured professor of English and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University. Her specialty was Queer Theory. She was living with her female partner, was faculty advisor to all of the gay, lesbian and feminist groups on campus, and was writing a book against the Christian Right.

Sadly, the only contact she had ever had with Christians had been hate mail. So when she received a letter from Pastor Ken Smith, inviting her to talk about some of her opinions, she was intrigued enough to accept. Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert recounts her growing friendship with Ken and his wife, and how reading the Bible turned her world upside down. 

Because of her secular, feminist leanings, she seethed through every sermon by her pastor. How dare he use male pronouns? But oddly enough she kept coming back for more. Was I a masochist? I wondered. Or was I learning to forbear? I came to believe that my job was not to critique a sermon, but to dig into it, to seize its power, to participate with its message, and to steal its fruit. I learned by sitting under Ken Smith’s preaching that the easily offended are missing the point. I was learning to examine my gender politics against the teachings of Scripture. And I was learning that it was safe to do this.

The first half of the book is about her conversion and the second half is about the subsequent years of ministry, marriage and child-rearing. Her “secret thoughts” are negative opinions about people who put Bible verses up on their lawns, Rick Warren’s (and all mega church's) ministry, and homogenous churches; she has positive opinions about church membership, a capella psalm singing, the authority of the Bible over all of life, and the beauty of the body of Christ when it’s functioning properly. I agree with many of the reviewers at Goodreads who say the second half is weaker than the first. Butterfield may have felt compelled to add the post-conversion info because (as she states early in the book) she doesn't want to be mainly seen as a "poster child for lesbian conversion."

This is a very unusual testimony and a very important book for Christians who want to learn how to break down barriers that hinder them from reaching non-believers.

I've had this on my Kindle for two years and I'm grateful to the 2017 Christian Books Challenge for finally nudging me to read it.

Blessings,

A Bride Goes West by Nannie T. Alderson

The title of Nannie Alderson's biography sounds like a romance novel, but it's anything but romantic. A Bride Goes West is about her life as a Montana rancher's wife in the 1880s and 90s and although she's upbeat, she doesn't gloss over the hardships.

I went with romantic ideas of being a helpmeet to a man in a new country, but I was sadly ill-equipped when it came to carrying them out. Before I left West Virginia a dear old lady had taught me how to make hot rolls, but except for that one accomplishment I knew no more of cooking than I did of Greek. Hot rolls, plus a vague understanding that petticoats ought to be plain, were my whole equipment for conquering the West. (p. 19)

Since there were so few women nearby, Nannie learned to cook and keep house from the men who worked for her husband. She was amazed at how much they knew! At first it was all a big adventure, but as the years wore on (with the children arriving and with various financial failures), the glamour wore off.  The remoteness of their lives, the constant work and stresses made her worry more and more: I don't think I was naturally of a nervous disposition. I think I was overworked. I had four children to care for with practically no help; I had gotten up too soon and had done too much work after the last two of them were born; I was worn out, and once more took to feeling sorry for myself.

In spite of the difficulties and occasional bouts of self-pity, Nannie's perseverance and hopefulness shine throughout the book. My husband enjoyed the book as much as I did, pronouncing it a "nourishing" read. Nannie writes about the ups and downs of marriage. She tells of the elusiveness of riches and how they had to carve joy out of simple things. She never sugar-coats her life, but there is a sense of fierce determination to make things work out that is inspiring.

Elisabeth Grace Foley lists this book among 10 exceptional western memoirs here.


Blessings,

The Scarlet and the Black by J.P. Gallagher

A statue of Father O'Flaherty in his hometown of Killarney

A few months ago I reviewed the movie, The Scarlet and the Black, and now that I've read the book, I'm not sure which one I like better.

Both the book and film show the dangerous games played to outwit the Germans as they hunted for escaped POWs. The film was very true to the book (except when it was necessary to combine several characters into one person) and covered all the main incidents. The book, on the other hand, fleshed out the characters, added a few extra hair-raising events, and ended differently. Whereas the book highlighted hundreds of acts of kindness done by O'Flaherty at the war's end, the movie condensed them into one huge act of mercy. Frankly, I loved both endings.

The book does a better job of explaining why there were hundreds of POWs roaming around the Vatican and also explains why the Italians were so willing to look the other way when O'Flaherty and others hid them. Gallagher shows how O'Flaherty's audacity and trustfulness were balanced by the caution and discernment of the others in the rescue organization. His descriptions of the resourcefulness of butler John May from the English embassy had me chortling all the way through.

Get this title if you enjoy stories of heroism on the homefront.

Profanity in Books and Culture - Part Two

Many years ago I wrote a post about profanity in books and culture. Instead of rehashing what I have already written, I want to add a few thoughts based on the book I just finished called The Exact Place by Marjorie Haack.

First of all, this book is about a young girl's hunger for a father's love. Every page is loaded with the heaviness of her stepfather's rejection, making it a ponderous read. Second, the book is about the glory of everyday things. "I loved the daily ritual of feeding a crowd of chickens who waited eagerly for you to dump their oats and mash into the feeders, of gathering eggs so fresh they were still warm in your cupped hand, of throwing slabs of hay over the fence to the horses who nickered to you as they watched..." Third, the book is about finding grace in the dark places, which is why I liked it very much.

But I didn't love it because of the author's choice to use crass language. I know it's trendy for Christians to swear, but I still found it disheartening.

Beautiful and well-chosen words edify and bring joy. Smutty words denigrate. John MacArthur, in an excellent article about how the Christian community is bending over backward to look, talk and act like non-Christians (in order to better reach them), wrote: I frankly wonder how any Christian who takes the Bible at face value could ever think that in order to be “culturally relevant” Christians should participate in society’s growing infatuation with vulgarity.

Here are two differing posts on the theme of profanity:

Why Christians Shouldn't Cuss and Why Christians Should Cuss

(We all know how wonderful it is to have friends who love us unconditionally, for whom we don't have to clean the house or put on makeup. But to use profanity to weed out your real friends from the false ones seems a trifle juvenile.)

Last of all, I disagree with profanity because the Bible is clear that "the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." (Luke 6:45) If we've experienced the transforming power of God in our lives, our words should be hopeful, grace-filled and life-giving.

James comments on this in chapter 3, verses 10 to 11: Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? Additional thoughts on this subject can be found in this good article over at Gospel Coalition.

Baggy Pants by General W. E. Brougher

I was fascinated by Brougher’s WWII diary, South to Bataan, North to Mukden, when I read it in 2011.  This was a man who kept his sanity in a POW camp by reading books and writing poetry!  And the snippets of his poems were quite good.  So I was eager to get my hands on his other book, Baggy Pants and Other Stories, which was published in 1965. 

I have mixed feelings about the book.  Most of the stories are okay.  Where Brougher really shines is when he’s writing about his experiences in the war.  “Baggy Pants,” “I Was Liberated by the Russians,” and “Rook’s Nest” are exceptional.  “Gangway for the V.I.P” was a bit hokey, but still intriguing in its backhanded tribute to Skinny Wainwright.  Brougher described Wainwright’s defeat at Corregidor with poignancy:  Like Prometheus chained to the rock, the vultures pecking his vitals out, the Old Cavalryman found himself driven underground, Japanese bombers constantly overhead, pulverizing everything on the surface of the Island, and finally forcing his surrender. (p. 76)

While I didn’t love this book, I was very glad to add it to my repertoire of World War II books because of my great respect for General  Brougher’s talents and courage.  Now I’m on the lookout for his book of poetry, The Long Dark Road.

More on Brougher on this previous post.

(This post was originally published on my WWII blog 4/17/13.)

Complete Surrender by Julian Wilson

I was looking for a good missionary biography and found this one on Eric Liddell available for Kindle. Anyone who has seen the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire knows the story of the runner who shot to world fame after his amazing performance in the 1924 Olympics. But while the movie majors on his athletic ability and minors on his faith, Julian Wilson’s book, Complete Surrender, does the opposite. He passes lightly over Liddell’s Olympic accomplishments and focuses on his evangelistic work and on his eight years as a missionary in China.

Despite his dazzling success on the running track and meteoric rise to national prominence Eric Liddell remained modest and unaffected. Those who knew him well knew he was more concerned with what God thought about him than what the people around him thought. His one overwhelming concern was to do what was pleasing to God.

Most of the testimonies in the book refer to his kindness and unselfishness, particularly after the Japanese put him in an internment camp (during WWII) where he cared for those who were weak and sick. The overcrowded camp with its horrible food and appalling living conditions caused the majority of its inmates to grumble and quarrel.  Eric, on the other hand, sought to be a peacemaker by sowing seeds of encouragement. He taught math and science, planned sports activities and puppet shows and taught the children how to play chess and checkers.

Julian Wilson shared this anecdote:

Camp policy was to have no games on Sunday, but a group of bored teenagers defied the ruling one Sunday and organized a boys versus girls hockey match. Without a referee, tempers became frayed and the match ended in a brawl. The following Sunday, Liddell was out on the field umpiring. “Eric decided it was far more important that the youngsters played and worked together in harmony than it was to keep his Sabbatarian principles inviolate” according to his close friend Joe Cotterill. So the man who gave up the chance of winning a gold medal in the 100 meters at the Olympic games, because he refused to run on Sundays, was prepared to sacrifice his principles for the sake of fostering a spirit of peace and unity among the young people.

The book contains many more amazing stories. But Wilson is careful to emphasize that Liddell was just an ordinary man who walked in complete obedience to Christ. Eric's favorite theme when he talked to young people was “a God-controlled life” and his last words were, “Annie, it’s complete surrender.” Although he had given up his athletic career to go to China, he won the only race that really matters. At the end of his life he could say with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (II Tim 4:7,8)

Nothing Daunted: The Story of Isobel Kuhn

Isobel Kuhn (1901-1957) is one of my favorite missionary writers.  She and her husband, John, served the Lisu people in the mountains of southern China from 1934 to 1950.  Nothing Daunted gives an overview of their life and ministry.  When Isobel and John went to China they had no idea that they would be ousted because of WWII and later because of communism, but God laid it on their hearts to focus on a teaching ministry.  They knew they could never reach the hundreds of Lisu villages by themselves, so they held yearly Bible schools for men, women and teens. These were intensive weeks of training in the newly translated Lisu New Testament.  

The Kuhn’s encountered many trials.  Some of their carefully trained leaders died of illness because they lived so far away from medical care. Their daughter Kathryn was sent to a boarding school that was captured by the Japanese during the war. Fighting among the clans threatened to destroy the churches. But John and Isobel toiled on.  When they left China in 1950 there were 17,000 believers.  Because of the Kuhn's insistence on thorough Bible training, the Lisu Christians continued to preach and teach; 50 years later there were 200,000 Lisu Christians.

After you read this book, you should read one of Kuhn’s own books. Green Leaf In Drought is probably the most famous, but By Searching is another gem.

Give Me This Mountain by Helen Roseveare

Helen Roseveare was an English medical missionary in the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) from 1953 to 1973, but her stories reach a much broader audience than most missionary biographies.  I have long thought that Roseveare's four other books (Living Sacrifice, Living Faith, Living Holiness, and Living Fellowship) should be required reading for every Christian.  In spite of the silly subtitles (which somebody added later), these are serious books about what it means to be an earnest follower of Christ.  Give Me This Mountain covers her first tumultuous years in Africa (from 1953 to 1965). He Gave Us a Valley is the sequel.

When Helen became a Christian, a pastor wrote Phillipians 3:10 in her Bible: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." The words were prophetic.  Through all her years in Congo Helen learned to know the fellowship of his sufferings.  But instead of being defeated by troubles, she grew in her knowledge of God and his faithfulness.  She learned the power of his resurrection as she was delivered from death many times.

Roseveare is disarmingly honest about her struggles and weaknesses. And she is very quick to give God all the credit for enabling her to do what he called her to do.  Her example will inspire you, too, to have a tender, obedient heart.

Helmet for my Pillow by Robert Leckie

Helmet for My Pillow was originally published in 1957 and was probably reprinted on the heels of the success of another WWII memoir, Unbroken. And it’s a title well worthy of being re-published.

Marine Robert Leckie tells of his experiences in the Pacific beginning with Guadalcanal (Aug 1942) and ending with the first battle on Peleliu (Sept 1944).  I’m used to a fair amount of profanity in books about the war, but even though Leckie does not sanitize his experiences, he describes the drinking, womanizing, and swearing with such discretion that I was able to read his narrative with nary a blush. 

What sets this book above many other WWII bios is the amazing prose.  He describes the joys of comradeship, the horrors of battle, and the drudgery of daily life in the jungle with poignancy and consummate skill.  But rather than rave on and on about the book I’ll give you a few samples:

Huts, oil, beer.  Around these three, as around a sacramental triad, revolved our early life at New River.  Huts to keep us dry; oil to keep us warm; beer to keep us happy.  It is no unholy jest to call them sacramental; they had about them the sanctity of the earth. (p. 26)

[The island of] New Britain was evil, darkly and secretly evil, a malefactor and enemy of humankind, an adversary, really, dissolving, corroding, poisoning, chilling, sucking, drenching – coming at a man with its rolling mists and green mold and ceaseless downpour, tripping him with its numberless roots and vines, poisoning him with green insects and malodorous bugs and treacherous tree bark, turning the sun from his bones and the cheer from his heart, dissolving him – the rain, the mold, the damp steadily plucking each cell apart like tiny hands tearing at the petals of a flower – dissolving him, I say, into a mindless, formless fluid like the sop of mud into which his feet forever fall in a monotonous slop-suck, slop-suck that is the sound of nothingness, the song of the jungle wherein everything falls apart in hollow harmony with the rain.

Nothing could stand against it; a letter from home had to be read and reread and memorized, for it fell apart in your pocket in less than a week; a pair of socks lasted no longer; a pack of cigarettes became sodden and worthless unless smoked that day; pocketknife blades rusted together; watches recorded the period of their own decay; rain made garbage of the food; pencils swelled and burst apart; fountain pens clogged and their points separated…everything lay damp and sodden and squashy to the touch, exuding that steady musty reek that is the jungle’s own, that individual odor of decay rising from vegetable life so luxuriant, growing so swiftly, that it seems to hasten to decomposition from the moment of birth. (p. 241)

Read this if you are a fan of World War II history, especially if you have a penchant for fine writing.  One of my favorite books of 2012.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

After reading Unbroken, I have only one thing to say:

Oh. My. Word.

Actually, I have a lot to say, but to avoid spoilers, I’ll try to condense my thoughts.

I’ve read half a dozen books by former POWs which made me a little nervous that I’d be underwhelmed by this one.  I needn’t have worried.  Louis Zamperini’s story is broader than his POW experience and Hillenbrand is a masterful storyteller. It is a tribute to her writing that whenever my husband asked me to read something out loud from the book, I never had to search for interesting passages.  I just shared from the exact spot where I was reading and everyone in the room sat transfixed.

Born in 1917, Zamperini was a kid who couldn’t stay out of trouble.  His hair-raising escapades kept his parents (and the local police) on edge. As a teen he was encouraged by his brother Pete to take up running.  He ran track in high school and his records were so impressive that he made it to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the youngest U.S. qualifier in the 5,000 meter race.  When World War II arrived, he joined the U.S. Army Air Forces as a bombardier. The details of his brushes with death (even before being taking as a POW) coupled with the horrors of his internment make Louie’s story almost impossible to put down. 

You do not have to be a history buff to enjoy this book.  It is a masterful piece of writing about an extraordinary man who refused to give up hope no matter how difficult the circumstances.

A Man for All Seasons - Worthwhile Movie #6

How can I convince you to watch a long, slow moving film with an unhappy ending?  I wasn’t enthusiastic about watching it myself, but planned to do it for my husband’s sake because he loves movies based on true stories.   We were surprised to be treated to some of the finest dialogue we’ve ever heard in a movie.  We laughed out loud over and over, not because it was funny, but because we were filled with delight at truth being proclaimed with such eloquence and beauty. 

Sir Thomas More was a contemporary of Henry VIII and was famous for opposing the king’s divorce to Katherine of Aragon (and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn).  A Man for All Seasons details his lonely stand against pressure to sanction the marriage.  Because More was a man of utmost integrity and honesty, false charges had to be trumped up against him and he was eventually tried for treason.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a film when a man of faith was portrayed so well.  Paul Scofield does a superlative job in this 1966 Oscar winner.  By the way, Orson Welles plays a small part in the film as Cardinal Wolsey and he’s horrifically good. 

A Village Girl by Sarah Shears

This was another book recommended in Gladys Hunt’s, Honey for a Woman's Heart. It recounts a young girl’s childhood in the county of Kent (southeast England) between the first and second world wars. Although the book is subtitled “Memoirs of a Kentish Childhood” and is told from the point of view of young Sarah, I feel the book could almost have been titled, “Memories of an Amazing Mother.” As Sarah’s story unfolds, you can’t help but admire the astonishing resourcefulness and courage of a penniless young widow with four children. She suffered hardship with dignity and without complaint, enabling her children to grow up in “genteel poverty”.

This is no action-packed novel, but rather a gentle tale told in a matter-of-fact tone. In fact, Shear’s straightforward prose gives the book much of its charm. Consider this quote from a chapter called “The Aunties.”

Grandmother Prior, who eloped with a poor farmer at the age of seventeen and was left a widow at thirty-five, had eight children – two boys and six girls. The boys, William and Henry, lived just long enough to bequeath their names to my two brothers, then quietly died – of measles. (p, 124)

In the book’s introduction, author R.F. Delderfield wrote, “Occasionally, possibly once every decade, the English literary scene is enriched by a piece of writing that glows with truth like a cottage lamp set down among a cluster of neon lights.” A Village Girl is one such book.

(Note that this book is also available with an alternate title: Tapioca for Tea)

Hearts West by Chris Enss

Hearts West is a fascinating book recounting the courage (or, in some cases, desperation) of hundreds of single young women at the end of the 19^th century in search of husbands. The idea may sound ludicrous, even humorous, to we moderns, but the book makes a very clear case for the necessity of such a phenomenon. Thousands of men had gone west to either dig for gold or buy up land. Thousands of others had been killed in the Civil War, making marriagable males as scarce as hen's teeth. Without time or money to travel back and forth for courting, many men and women began corresponding (via a paper called The Matrimonial News) and eventually became engaged through the mail. When they finally met, a few were disappointed with their correspondents, but most found happiness. Hearts West gives snippets of their histories which only whet my appetite for more.

Fortunately, I already had a book written by one of the brides mentioned in Hearts West. Elinore Pruitt Stewart was a widow with a little girl who answered an ad for a housekeeper in Wyoming. Although she did not go West searching for romance, she and her employer fell in love and married. Her book, Letters of a Woman Homesteader, is a collection of anecdotes she sent to a friend describing her new life. Her sense of humor and “joie de vivre” get her through many a trial and make her an endearing heroine.

December 1912

Dear Mrs. Coney, I have often wished I might tell you all about my Clyde, but have not because of two things. One is I could not even begin without telling you what a good man he is, and I didn’t want you to think I could do nothing but brag. The other reason is the haste I married in…. But although I married in haste, I have no cause to repent. That is very fortunate because I have never had one bit of leisure to repent in. So I’m lucky all around.

A Rose for Mrs. Miniver by Michael Troyan

Regular readers of this blog know that I sometimes digress from books to talk about classic films. This week I read the bio of one of my favorite actresses from the 40's, Greer Garson. She was a class act and her biography, A Rose for Mrs. Miniver, accentuated that. I have nothing profound to say about the book, but the paragraphs below show some of the reasons why I admire her:

But there were fewer opportunities in the 1970’s for her. Filmmakers rarely made the sophisticated, romantic comedies or dramas that she preferred, and she refused to join her Hollywood peers like Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland, and Bette Davis who were making horror films like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Lady in a Cage, and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. “I’ve been offered nymphomaniacs, kleptomaniacs, pyromaniacs, homicidal maniacs and just plain maniacs,” she reported. “I think producers felt that after playing a long series of noble and admirable characters there would be quite a lot of shock value in seeing me play something altogether different. But I prefer upbeat stories that send people out of the theater feeling better than they did coming in.”

During interviews, she frequently and sharply criticized current films and filmmakers. “I’m no a keyhole peeper in real life, so why should I go to the cinema to be a keyhole peeper?” she said. “Producers should have more courage. People will respond to stories with love and courage and happy endings instead of shockers. I think the mirror should be tilted slightly upward when it’s reflecting life - toward the cheerful, the tender, the compassionate, the brave, the funny, the encouraging..." (p. 327)

Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Theodore Roosevelt

In Through the Brazilian Wilderness Teddy Roosevelt chronicles his travels through unchartered territory in Western Brazil. Roosevelt, along with his son, Kermit, and several naturalists from the American Museum of Natural History joined Colonel Cândido Rondon, a Brazilian explorer on his scientific expedition to discover the source of a previously unknown river.

I was very interested in TR’s story because I’ve lived in the part of Brazil where his journey began. I recognized some of the city names and most of the animals he mentions. But I wondered if some of the details might be dull for someone with less knowledge of the area. Also, I felt severely handicapped by the Kindle version of this book because there was no map and I would very much have liked to have seen exactly where they were at specific times.

The trip fulfilled two purposes. The naturalists collected specimens for the museum: 2,500 birds and 500 mammals. (Amazing in light of the many laws in place to preserve Brazilian wildlife today.) The other purpose was for Rondon and company to travel up the unexplored river and chart it on a map for the first time. Roosevelt wrote:

We did not know whether we had one hundred or eight hundred kilometers to go, whether, the stream would be fairly smooth or whether we would encounter waterfalls, or rapids, or even some big marsh or lake. We could not tell whether or not we would meet hostile Indians, although no one of us ever went ten yards from camp without his rifle. We had no idea how much time the trip would take. We had entered a land of unknown possibilities.

At first the journal was a dull routine of animals seen and miles travelled. Halfway through the trip they reached some rapids that were impossible to descend. The canoes had to be unloaded and the baggage carried by land to the bottom of the next calm spot in the river. Then they were reloaded and the group went down the river for a few miles until the whole process had to be repeated over again. The action picked up as canoes were lost, a man is killed, Kermit almost drowns, and Teddy becomes ill with a life-threatening fever.

After two months in canoes (Feb 27 to April 26, 1914), their mission was accomplished. They had put a 600 mile river on the map which had previously been unknown. The unofficial name for it was “The River of Doubt”, but by the end of the grueling trip, it was dubbed “The Roosevelt River”.

Final note of interest: If you type in River of Doubt on youtube, you can see several short, silent movies of the expedition.

Hitler by Albert Marrin

I’ve heard good things about Hitler by Marrin so I was a bit put off when the librarian handed me the book with a big “J” on the spine for juvenile. I needn’t have worried, though. Because Marrin directed his writing to young people, it is very clear and understandable. And it’s a far cry from the dumbed down history books that fill our public school shelves today.

Marrin does a superb job of setting the stage for Hitler’s rise to power. He clearly explains why Hitler was so popular and why most Germans were fooled by him. He describes how Hitler’s persuasive speaking skills sent young people into a frenzy of patriotism. There was nothing they would not do for their fuehrer.

In forming his totalitarian state, Hitler made Mein Kampf required reading in all the schools. Marrin called it a “nasty, mean-spirited book that was dull and repetitious and filled with thousands of errors in grammar and spelling.” (p. 51) But since it was the law for every German to own a copy, Hitler became a millionaire from the sale of the book.

Opponents ignored Mein Kampf as the ravings of crackpot. They were wrong – dangerously, foolishly, wrong, for the terrible thing is that Hitler was sincere. He meant what he said, every word, and he would carry out his threats when he came to power. No one should have been surprised, or claimed that he hadn’t been given fair warning of the savage world Hitler would create. Had Mein Kampf been taken seriously, it might not have cost so many lives - an estimated 125 lives for every word, 4,700 lives for each page, one million lives for each chapter. (p. 52)

Hitler’s desire for power led to a staggering number of deaths . We all know the 6 million figure for the Jews.  But how many know that 20 million Russians died? Or that a deluge of Allied bombs on Hamburg, Germany killed 43,000 in two days? Two hundred thousand Germans and Americans died at the Battle of the Bulge.And in 1944, when a small group of army officers hatched a failed plot to kill Hitler, 5,000 people were killed and many others sent to concentration camps in retribution.

If you are interested in World War II this is a fascinating, articulate, and sobering look at the events that were orchestrated by one of history’s most famous villains.