Reminscing about Books #7

This will be my last nostalgic post this year because my teaching schedule is lightening up, and soon I'll have the head space for reading and reviewing. I've missed writing about books!

In the year 2014, I wrote my one and only post that went viral (in a modest sort of way). I had discovered Librivox a few years earlier and was able to recommend some of the better readers. That garnered enough interest to get almost 8,000 views (rather than my average of about 50). One responder told me about Adrian Praetzellis who is absolutely remarkable as a narrator, especially for Treasure Island.

Two children's classics bowled me over that year: Charlotte's Web (reviewed here) and C.S. Evans' beautiful version of Sleeping Beauty (reviewed here and here). 

My final gem was David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (reviewed here). I'd been trying to like Dickens for decades, and this book turned me into a devoted fan. 

That was also the year I wrote my personal favorite post on Christian romance novels. I got a lot of suggestions for "better" Christian fiction, but am still not convinced. I devoured Grace Livingston Hill books as a teen, and read other Christian authors until I was about thirty. But when I began to read the classics (especially Trollope), I somehow lost my taste for the fluffier stuff. (I still like an occasional light, fun book, as you know if you've read this blog for any amount of time!)   

Have you found that your reading tastes have changed over the years? 

P.S. Amazon usually has an end-of-the year deal on Kindle Unlimited for 99 cents for three months. I saw it earlier, but couldn't find the link to post here. It would be worth it just to read the first ten Ngaio Marsh novels. But there are also quite a few D.E. Stevenson and Miss Read titles (cozy British village settings).

Blessings,

Fairy Tales and the Cosmos - quote by G.K. Chesterton

My last post was about how fairy tales prepared G.K. Chesterton's heart to recieve the gospel. Here is one of the choice quotes: 

Cinderella had a glass slipper, and it cannot be a coincidence that glass is so common a substance in folk-lore. This princess lives in a glass castle, that princess on a glass hill; this one sees all things in a mirror; they may all live in glass houses if they will not throw stones. For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact that happiness is bright but brittle, like the substance most easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-tale sentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the whole world. I felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond, but as brittle as the window-pane; and when the heavens were compared to the terrible crystal, I can remember a shudder. I was afraid that God would drop the cosmos with a crash.

(from page 86 of Orthodoxy)

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in October 2023

Our rented apartment has no television so I continue to get a remarkable amount of reading done. The books I read in order of most-to-least appealing were 1) The Bridge on San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (simply astonishing in its breadth of understanding of the human condition), 2) The King's Equal by Katherine Paterson (a delightful fairy tale with a strong, yet feminine heroine), 3) Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson (1957 Newbery winner), 4) Reading for the Love of God by Jessica Hooten Wilson, 5) When the English Fall by David Williams (dystopia in an Amish community), 6) On Asking God Why by Elisabeth Elliot (collected essays), 7) Out of a Far Country (non-fiction redemption story), 8) The Gabriel Hounds by Mary Stewart (I love her suspense novels, but this one droned on for 150 pages before my heart rate even mildly accelerated.)

The movies that I watched on my computer were: The African Queen (via Hoopla), which was a fun classic that my husband and I both enjoyed. On YouTube I started to watch a Hallmark mystery called The Curious Caterer, but turned it off after 5 painful minutes of poor acting, banal script and odd situations. The Carrot Cake Murder is a sequel of sorts to the Murder, She Baked movies that I've raved about, but was so badly done that I barely hung on until the end. Finally, I watched another Hallmark mystery (via Frndly TV), The Dancing Detective. The male character was over-the-top ridiculous, but he kept me laughing. Plus, the footage of Malta was breathtaking. 

I linked to the books so you could read more about them, but I read all of them from library, thrift store or loaned copies. Hopefully, so can you. 

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in August

I dreaded writing this post because I've had another awful reading month (since I have been mostly preparing for my upcoming theology class.) I finished Howard Snyder's Radical Wesley and read half of Roger Olsen's critique of Calvinism, Against Calvinism, but couldn't finish it because it was too snide. The one book I read for pleasure was George MacDonald's The Quiet Neighborhood, which I hope to review soon. 

A bright spot in the month was that I finally heard about The Literary Life podcast. I listened to the first three episodes and also three more recent ones on "Leaf by Niggle" and "On Fairy Stories" (both by Tolkien). I also listened to those two stories (on YouTube) and enjoyed them immensely. Hearing Angelina Stanford talk about the Gospel in Fairy Tales was a real treat.

After a good day of studying, I generally give myself a half an hour of a youtube movie, which came out to 5 movies: The two Signed, Sealed and Delivered movies (To the Altar, The Road Less Traveled) were pretty hokey, but the cast grows on you after a while. And it was amazing to hear one of the characters talk about how he had kept himself for marriage. When was the last time you heard that in a movie??? My favorite flicks were Hallmark mysteries because I enjoy the clean humor combined with an intriguing plot and very little romance. (Murder, She Baked: Deadly Recipe, Mystery 101, and Aurora Teagarden: Dead over Heels.) Although I sometimes make fun of Hallmark movies, I am sad that their channel is going the way of political correctness. 

Blessings,

Stories as Truth Teachers - Quote by Andrew Peterson

If you want a child to know the truth, tell him the truth. If you want a child to love the truth, tell him a story. (Andrew Peterson quoted by Sarah Mackenzie in The Read-Aloud Family)

Blessings,

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley

He cannot be so bad if he loves roses so much.

 

But he is a beast, said Father helplessly.

 

Cannot a beast be tamed? (p. 139)

 

Beauty was a perfect book to read after Tolkien's On Fairy Stories. So many of the elements of "the land of Faërie" are present: the good catastrophes, the secondary world that requires spiritual eyes for seeing, and the Joy of sudden grace.

Beauty was named as a baby but has grown into a gawky teenager. She's smart, but not pretty. Wikipedia describes McKinley's heroines as feminists, but I didn't sense that the heroine in this story was out to prove anything. Unless loving books and not being gorgeous make you a women's libber.

The novel is surprisingly literary: Our father, bless him, didn't seem to notice that there was an egregious, and deplorable difference between his first two daughters and his youngest. On the contrary, he used to smile at us over the dinner table and say how pleased he was that we were growing into such dissimilar individuals; that he always felt sorry for families who looked like petals from the same flower. (p. 15)

I picked up my skirts and ran upstairs to my room as if Charon himself had left his river to fetch me. (p. 293) And, I could see the morning star shining like hope from the bottom of Pandora's box. (p. 296)

Obviously, the author loves the classics since there are many references to great literature sprinkled throughout (with a dash of Jane Eyre and a little bit of the Ugly Duckling thrown in for good measure.) Beauty loves the Greek classics. The beast's library is so magical that it includes books that haven't even been printed yet. (How fun!) Beauty revels in the stories of Sherlock Holmes and the poetry of Robert Browning although she can't understand some of the realities of their time periods.

I was very world weary when reading this book which may explain why my tears came easily at the most poignant points of the story. It seems likely that those who wrote/filmed the 1991 Disney version must have read McKinley's book (published in 1978) because they had many of the same images. But the book was better.

Pure literary comfort food.

Blessings,

Tolkien on Fairy-Stories - a review

It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass, house and fire, bread and wine. (p. 69)

I have always been intrigued by G.K. Chesterton's passion for fairy tales as important precursors to a child's understanding of divine truths. C.S. Lewis echoed similar sentiments when he said, "Someday you will be old enough to read fairy tales again," implying that there is a hidden depth to these stories. Tolkien's lectures "On Fairy Stories" add to the conversation of the importance of these tales and why they continue to endure.

First, he defines a fairy story. It has much less to do with tiny, ethereal creatures than it does with the creation of a secondary world beyond the five senses. He coined a word for this place: the land of "faërie." Anyone can say "the green sun, but to make a secondary world inside which the green sun will be credible demands a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. (p. 140)

Just as humans are hard-wired for human language, so they are hard-wired to make stories out of that language, and to make a world out of their stories. Unfortunately fairy tales have been relegated to the nursery as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the play room. (p. 43) But, writes Tolkien, fairy stories have more meaning for adults. Fairy stories offer in a peculiar degree or mode these things: Fantasy, Recovery, Consolation, all things which children, have, as a rule, less need of than older people. If fairy story is worth reading at all it is worthy to be written for and read by adults. They will, of course, put more in and get more out than children can. (p. 58)

Essentially, Lewis, Tolkien and Chesterton viewed fairy stories not as "untrue," but as stories within which the greatest truths are hidden.  (See this quote on fairy stories as vehicles of grace.) That is why Chesterton calls the gospel "The Truest Fairy Tale" and why Tolkien writes, The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy stories. They contain many marvels - peculiarly artistic, beautiful and moving; 'mythical' in their perfect self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe [Christ's resurrection]. (p. 78)

This book is not light reading. Because Tolkien invents various words to describe his ideas, you are literally working your way through new language. But it's a worthy endeavor. The intro by editors Flieger and Anderson was very helpful.

One of my favorite quotes on fairy tales by Victorian author Juliana H. Ewing is here. I wrote two posts about them here and here.

Blessings,

Tolkien on Fairy Stories - a quote

My head is still reeling from the depth and richness of Tolkien's lectures on fairy stories. Until I cobble together a few thoughts for a future blog post, I'll leave you with this quote. The words in italics are words that Tolkien himself coined.

The consolation of fairy stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the "good catastrophe," (a eucatastrophe) the sudden joyous 'turn' (for there is no true end to any fairy tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist' nor 'fugitive.' In its other-world setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure; the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief. (p. 75)

 Blessings, 

The Value of Fairy Tales - Part Two

When I wrote about the value of fairy tales in my last post, I was not referring to the Disney versions. I am not thrilled with the messages that most of those stories convey of ignoring your parents to follow your heart (Little Mermaid, Aladdin, etc.) and female  empowerment (Mulan and Brave). Nor do I support the Princess mentality that says girls are entitled to bling and pampering.

Which brings me back to The Sleeping Beauty. In the version by C.S. Evans, we have an antidote to the fluff mentioned above. As the fairies give their gifts to the long-awaited baby, the third fairy gives virtue. "And the queen nodded her head and smiled, for though she esteemed beauty and cleverness, she knew that neither was of any worth without goodness of heart."

The above quote is one of many examples of the story´s rich language. Here is another: The king's decree required that all spinning wheels, whether they be worked by hand or by treadle or by any other device, together with all spindles, shuttles, bobbins, and all other accessories or appurtenances, shall forthwith be rendered up to the officers of the King. (Hooray for books without dumbed-down language!)

Not only was the story well-written and slyly humorous, it was morally uplifting. It effortlessly dealt with eternal truths such as:

1) We were made for happy endings. No, this is not the same as saying life will have no problems. We live in a sinful world, but Christians are called to be hope-ers. We believe God's power is available to help us overcome struggles and that even with less-than perfect lives, life is a gift worth living. And because we have eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11), no earthly pleasure will truly satisfy  us. We were made for more.

2) We were made to await a bridegroom. Not everyone will get married and live happily ever after, but the key theme of fairy tales is still a biblical one. We were created to live in intimate fellowship with God. This begins on earth when we believe in Christ for salvation, but will culminate when He comes back for his pure and spotless bride. (Revelations 19:7-9, II Corinthians 11:2)

3) We were made to be virtuous. We were created in the image of God and meant to be holy. When Adam and Eve sinned, we were robbed of our heritage. Salvation and sanctification are what God uses to slowly restore what was lost.

Who knew there could be so much theology in fairy tales!?

There are many versions of the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk, but my favorite highlights goodness of heart. While the huge giant (with his enormously long legs) is chasing after the little, helpless boy, we are amazed that Jack can outrun him, but the narrator quickly explains, "Jack was not a bit afraid, for he saw the giant was so tipsy he could hardly stand, much less run; and he himself had young legs and a clear conscience, which carry a man a long way."

A nice, free source for fairy tales for Kindle is Andrew Lang´s The Blue Fairy Book. The Audible.com version is only 99 cents.

Any thoughts? Comments? Story recommendations?

The Value of Fairy Tales - Part One

I just finished reading The Sleeping Beauty, which was a poignant reminder of how much I love fairy tales. Why would a 50-something, no-nonsense mom/teacher/missionary who hates sappy books and gushy movies, have a yen for this kind of thing? Aren´t fairy tales unrealistic and unhealthy?

Both G. K Chesterton and C. S. Lewis believed in the power of story to transmit eternal truths. Some would argue that fairy tales are hogwash. (In my early years as a homeschooler I read many diatribes against them.) But I tend to agree with Victorian author Juliana Ewing who wrote:

Fairy tales have positive uses in education, which no cramming of facts, and no merely domestic fiction can serve. Like Proverbs and Parables, they deal with first principles under the simplest forms. They convey knowledge of the world, shrewd lessons of virtue and vice, of common sense and sense of humor, of the seemly and the absurd, of pleasure and pain, success and failure. . . . They treat not the corner of a nursery or a playground, but the world at large, of forces visible and invisible, of Life, Death, and Immortality.

If you read my post on On The Shoulders of Hobbits, you will remember the quote on how politically correct stories have taken the place of  fairy tales. Now instead of virtues such as courage, honesty, and self-sacrifice, we are starving our children´s moral imaginations by teaching them that the highest virtues are tolerance, multiculturalism and environmentalism. Ugh.

Obviously, not all fairy tales are created equal and discerning parents must choose carefully. Hans Christian Anderson is often too dark for my tastes (even though I know the deaths in his stories mirror the self-sacrificing love of Christ). Some versions of Rapunzel have her getting pregnant out of wedlock; other stories deal with problems such as injustice (Cinderella), abandonment (Hansel and Gretel), cruelty, greed and imprisonment (Rapunzel). But it is in the context of these stories that children learn that evil can be overcome. As Chesterton so famously said, Children know that "dragons" (evil) exist. Fairy stories tell them that dragons can be killed. (paraphrase from Tremendous Trifles)

My next post will go into more detail of the lush prose and spiritual imagery of Charles Evan´s version of Sleeping Beauty.

Michael O'Brien Quote on Stories

Because I appreciate a good discussion about children's literature and the value of fairy tales, I enjoyed Michael O'Brien's A Landscape With Dragons. He argues against most modern fiction for young people because it makes the macabre appealing. (This was written well before the vampire craze.) Fairy tales, says O'Brien, have bad dragons and good knights and children are very aware of the line between good and evil. Modern stories, on the other hand blur the lines between the two.

Our truest stories tell us who we are and where we should be going. They inform us about the nature of the enemy. They strengthen us for the journey. A badly flawed tale, on the other hand, can weaken and confuse it. It may even direct us into some very dangerous territory. (p. 102)

My favorite quote along this line will always be G.K. Chesterton's on dragons: Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell the children that dragons can be killed. (This is a paraphrase of the quote from Tremendous Trifles: "What fairy tales give the child is  his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.")

Victorian Challenge Wrap-Up

One of my goals for 2013 was to read one Victorian author per month. I read ten authors and had mixed feelings about them. As I wrote earlier, the more obscure novels (even some by well-known authors) have fallen off everyone's radar for the very good reason that they don't hold up over time. These are the last two books I read, neither of which merited a review of its own.

Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales by Juliana Horatio Ewing - While I did not love this book, it did grow on me. In several stories, foolishness is severely punished rather than virtue being rewarded (a little hard on modern sensibilities). Half of the stories were very good and the other half were forgettable. Unfortunately the book starts out with the mediocre tales. The story of the two widow ladies who live at the base of a monastery is a classic which needs to be revisited. I loved the introduction, which is quoted here.

Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems by Matthew Arnold - Arnold was a lover of classical Greek literature and many of his poems have themes relating to those well-known (at the time) stories. But this makes his poetry obscure to most modern readers. Helpful explanatory notes for each poem are in the back of book but were virtually unusable on my Kindle since it’s very difficult to page back and forth.

The tweaked list:
1. George Eliot - Adam Bede - really liked it

2. Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone - liked it but didn't love it
3. Robert Louis Stevenson - The Master of Ballantrae - really enjoyed it
4. Charles Dickens - David Copperfield - really enjoyed it
5. Anne Brontë - Tenant of Wildfell Hall - liked it
6. Margaret Oliphant - The Marriage of Elinor - strongly disliked
7. Charlotte Yonge - The Heir of Redclyffe - didn't make it to this author
8. Mary Louisa Molesworth - The Carved Lions - okay
9. Juliana H. G. Ewing - Fairy Tales - see above
10. Thomas Hardy - A Pair of Blue Eyes - liked it, but didn't love it
11. Matthew Arnold - Sohrab and Rustum and other Poems - see above
12. Anthony Trollope - The Claverings - okay

The Benefit of Fairy Tales by Juliana H. Ewing

Fairy tales have positive uses in education, which no cramming of facts, and no merely domestic fiction can serve. Like Proverbs and Parables, they deal with first principles under the simplest forms. They convey knowledge of the world, shrewd lessons of virtue and vice, of common sense and sense of humor, of the seemly and the absurd, of pleasure and pain, success and failure, in narratives where they plot moves briskly and dramatically from a beginning to an end. They treat, not of the corner of a nursery or a playground, but of the world at large, and life in perspective; of forces visible and invisible; of Life, Death, and Immortality.

They cultivate the Imagination, that great gift which time and experience lead one more and more to value - handmaid of Faith, of Hope, and, perhaps most of all, of Charity. (p. 6)

from intro to Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales by Juliana Horatio Ewing (Victorian children's author)

The Dragon's Grandmother by G. K. Chesterton (Part Two)

Continued from last post:

        I listened to what he said about society politely enough, I hope; but when he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe in fairy tales, I broke out beyond control. . . .  “Look at these plain, homely, practical words, ‘The Dragon’s Grandmother,’ that is all right; that is rational almost to the verge of rationalism.  If there was a dragon, he had a grandmother.  But you – you had no grandmother!  If you had known one, she would have taught you to love fairy tales.  You had no father, you had no mother; no natural causes can explain you.  You cannot be.”. . .

        It seemed to me that he did not follow me with sufficient delicacy, so I moderated my tone.  “Can you not see,” I said, “that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible?  Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels.  Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming.  The problem in the fairy tale is – what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world?  In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad, but the hero does not go mad.  In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.

        In the excellent tale of ‘The Dragon’s Grandmother,’ and in all the other tales of Grimm, it is assumed that the young man setting out on his travels will have all substantial truths in him; that he will be brave, full of faith, reasonable, that he will respect his parents, keep his word, rescue one kind of people, defy another kind, etc.  Then, having assumed this center of sanity, the writer entertains himself by fancying what would happen if the whole world went mad all around it, if the sun turned green and the moon blue, if the horses had six legs and giants had two heads. 

        But your modern literature takes insanity as its center.  Therefore, it loses the interest even of sanity.  A lunatic is not startling to himself, because he is quite serious; that is what makes him a lunatic. . . .  A man who thinks he is a chicken is to himself as common as a chicken.  It is only sanity that can see even a wild poetry in insanity.”

        I saw him still gazing at me fixedly.  Some nerve snapped in me under that hypnotic stare.  I leapt to my feet and cried, “In the name of God and Democracy and the Dragon’s grandmother – in the name of all good things – I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more.” Whether or no it was the result of exorcism, there is no doubt that he definitely went away.

(End of chapter 16 of Tremendous Trifles)

The Dragon's Grandmother by G.K. Chesterton (Part One)

 I wrote an earlier post on Chesterton's view of fairy tales as metaphors for the supernatural. This chapter (slightly edited) from Tremendous Trifles highlights his thinking on that subject.

 I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales… he did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into a coach… And, he was wholly unable to give me an intelligent reason for it.  He tried the laws of nature, but he soon dropped that.  Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary experience, and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted pumpkinity.  But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply the attitude we adopt towards all unusual occurrences.  If we were certain of miracles we should count on them.  Things that happen very seldom we all leave out of our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. 

        I do not expect a glass of water to be turned into wine; but neither do I expect a glass of water to be poisoned with prussic acid.  I do not in ordinary business relations act on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but neither do I act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost heir of the Holy Roman Empire.  What we assume in action is not that the natural order is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet on common incidents than on uncommon ones.  This does not touch the credibility of any attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned into a coach.  If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car with my own eyes, that would not make me any more inclined to assume that the same thing would happen again.  I should not invest largely in pumpkins with an eye to the motor trade.  Cinderella got a ball dress from the fairy; but I do not suppose that she looked after her own clothes any less after that...

                The man had come to see me in connection with some silly society of which I am an enthusiastic member; he was a fresh-colored, short-sighted young man, like a stray curate who was too helpless even to find his way to the Church of England.  He had a curious green necktie and a very long neck; I am always meeting idealists with very long necks.  Perhaps it is that their eternal aspiration slowly lifts their heads nearer and nearer to the stars.  Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that so many of them are vegetarians; perhaps they are slowly evolving the neck of the giraffe so that they can eat all the tops of the trees in Kensington Gardens.  These things are in every sense above me.  Such, anyhow, was the young man who did not believe in fairy tales; and by a curious coincidence he entered the room when I had just finished looking through a pile of contemporary fiction, and had begun to read “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” as a natural consequence.

        The modern novels stood before me, however, in a stack; and you can imagine their titles for yourself.  There was “Suburban Sue:  A Tale of Psychology,” and also “Psychological Sue: A Tale of Suburbia”; there was “Trixy: A Temperament,” and “Man-Hate: A Monochrome,” and all those nice things.  I read them with real interest, but, curiously enough, I grew tired of them at last, and when I saw “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” lying accidentally on the table, I gave a cry of indecent joy.  Here at least, here at last, one could find a little common sense.  I opened the book, and my eyes fell on these splendid and satisfying words, “The Dragon’s Grandmother.” That at least was reasonable; that at least was comprehensible; that at least was true.  “The Dragon’s Grandmother!” While I was rolling this first touch of ordinary human reality upon my tongue, I looked up suddenly and saw this monster with a green tie standing in the doorway. 

(to be continued in next post)

The Truest Fairy Tale - G. K. Chesteron

I never pay full price for a book, but when I saw The Truest Fairy Tale, I not only bought it new, I ordered it all the way from England.  It’s an anthology of the religious writings of Chesterton edited by Kevin L. Morris.

Everyone loves Chesterton’s pithy quotes, but sometimes it’s just plain hard work to read his books because they are so dense with epigrams that you can barely sift through them.  I thought that this book would ease the pain, by pulling out the best ideas from each book to save me the trouble of slogging through.  I found another problem, however:  Gems pulled out of their settings sometimes lose their sparkle.

Nevertheless, I was enamored with the book’s concept and kept plugging away.  The title reflects Chesterton’s child-like wonder over the world and its mysteries.  Science, he says, cannot explain why an egg turns into a bird.  The only answer to that is “magic.”  He scoffs at a science that boils the world down to facts that ignore the spiritual and the supernatural.  

From his book, The Thing he writes, The Faith gives a man back his body and his soul and his reason and his will and his very life.  The man who has received it receives all the old human functions which all the other philosophies are already taking away.  He alone will have freedom.  He alone will have will.  He alone will have reason, since ultimate doubt denies reason as well as authority.  He alone will truly act, because action is performed to an end.  All [society’s] hardening and hopeless despair of the intellect will leave him at last the only walking and talking citizen in a city of paralytics.

 I believe in fairy tales, said Chesterton, in the sense that I marvel so much at what does exist that I am the readier to admit what might. p. 44

He writes of his conversion:  I had always believed that the world involved magic; now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician.  And this caused a profound emotion always present and sub-conscious; that this world of ours has some purpose; and if there is a purpose, there is a person.  I had always felt life a story; and if there is a story there is a story teller. (from Orthodoxy)

I could include many more Chesterton quotes, but I think I’ll save them for next week.

I mentioned in a previous post that while homeschooling my sons, I did a lot of soul searching about the value (or harm) of fairy tales.  Some of the books that helped finalize my decision are listed here.

Tending the Heart of Virtue by Guroian

I just finished Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian in which he makes the case for awakening a child’s moral imagination through fairy tales. I know there are two schools of thought on this among Christian parents. One group discards fantasy and fairy tales as dangerous and untruthful; any mention of witches, goblins, wizards, etc. is considered evil. The other group contends that the presence of fantasy and “unreal worlds” in stories reinforces the “mysterious” and opens the child’s heart to truths regarding the supernatural (i.e. realities beyond our visible universe). Guroian says that “Fairy tales lead us toward a belief in something that if it were not also veiled in a mystery, common sense alone would affirm: if there is a story, there must also surely be a storyteller”. (p. 39)

The book was worth the purchase price alone because I finally saw in print a phrase from C.S. Lewis that I’ve heard quoted (and misquoted!) for many years. The idea presented to me has been, “If it’s not good enough for an adult to read it’s certainly not good enough for a child to read. But the actual quote is: “I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story.” (From Of Other Worlds by C.S. Lewis, p. 24)

Guroian decries the sterilized teaching of “values”. It is one thing to tell children it’s bad to lie, but quite another to show them the awful consequences of it in a story. Guroian also makes an interesting distinction between values (basically subjective in today’s culture) and virtues (unchangeable).

While I enjoyed this book, I’m not sure it would have converted me to “fantasy literature” if I had belonged to the aforementioned “anti-fairy tale” group. Guroian leads the reader through several of his favorite books, pointing out the virtues (or lack thereof) of the lead characters. I resonated with his favorites that were also mine (The Princess and Curdie , The Wind in the Willows , and Charlotte's Web ) and remained skeptical about some of his other favorites that I’ve considered too dark. (Once when I tried to read the original Pinocchio  story to my boys they begged me to stop!) The only book he influenced me to get out and read was Prince Caspian , but my sudden enthusiasm for the book may also be because the film arrives in Brazil next week and I can’t bear to see a movie without reading the book first.

Here are some great resources for book lists that build the heart:

Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong by William Kirkpatrick
Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson
Books That Build Character by William Kirkpatrick
Children of a Greater God by Terry W. Glaspey
Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt