Behind the Scenes by Elizabeth Keckley

Behind the Scenes is a story told by the dressmaker and confidante of Abraham Lincoln´s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. I´ve always heard that Mary was a little "tetched in the head", but this book shows her in a very different light. She was high strung maybe, but not crazy.

Before reading this book I had no idea how hugely unpopular Mary Todd Lincoln was as first lady. She fought tooth and nail to protect her husband from those who took advantage of his child-like faith in them which brought her many political enemies. Her faithfulness to the Union was doubted because she had brothers fighting in the South. She was criticized for her expensive, low-cut gowns.

The book was written to counteract the rumors and lies in the press, but it is much more than the story of Mrs. Lincoln´s troubles. It´s the story of a courageous and talented African American woman who earned the respect and love of all who knew her. Elizabeth Keckley was born a slave yet through hard work and ingenuity she was able to buy her freedom and work her way up to working in the White House. There she befriended a very lonely and misunderstood president´s wife and wrote a book to set the record straight. Fascinating reading!

Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare

I read classics not because I "have to", but because I actually LIKE them. But when it comes to Shakespeare I have to admit intellectual laziness. I read some of his plays in high school and college. I´ve watched the movie versions and have seen at least 5 of his plays acted out on stage. But his works are NEVER on my list of books to read.

I can´t make the excuse that it is too complicated in reading plays to remember who´s who. One of my favorite books of all time is Cyrano de Bergerac  which is an extremely poignant and well-written play. And it´s not because Shakespeare does not appeal to me. For my 30th birthday my husband and I saw Kenneth Branagh´s Henry V at the theater and fell in love with it. My husband has watched it so many times that quotes from it are part of his daily vocabulary!

Laziness is my only excuse. Before my recent move I grabbed the thinnest book on my shelf and stuffed it into my purse for the trip. (Does anyone else feel underpacked unless they have at least 3 books to take along on a trip?) It happened to be Shakespeare´s Much Ado About Nothing . As I began reading I was captivated from page one by the rich language (Yes, I know Shakespeare and "rich language" have been synonymous for centuries!)

Leonoto describes his return from a battle with very few casualties with these words: "A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers". Young, handsome Claudio is praised for his military prowess with these words: "He has borne himself beyond the promise of his age by doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion."

The main love story of Claudio and Hero is overshadowed by the love story of minor characters Benedick and Beatrice. Their puns and verbal jabs are superb! My favorite line in the play is in Act 5, scene 2 when Beatrice is upset over her cousin´s problems and tells Benedick she feels ill. His response is, "Serve God, love me, and mend." What a prescription for what ails us!

I highly recommend this short play. My Wordsworth Classic edition came with a helpful glossary of archaic words.

Would Jane Eyre Be Your Best Friend?

I´m typing from a library computer because we haven´t got internet hooked up at our new house yet. I miss blogging, but haven´t had much time for reading so I guess I´ll have much more to say by next week. I was pleased by this article mentioned at the Bronte Blog. I have often thought of Jane Eyre as a "friend", but would never have had the nerve to say it. When I was very young I even considered her my mentor. I liked the things Lesley had to say and if you´re a Jane Eyre fan, I think you´ll enjoy them too.

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

I liked Lady Audley's Secret in spite of myself! When I began listening to it via Librivox, I had very little idea of the storyline. I only knew it was a Victorian novel and that I’d heard the title bandied around somewhere before. But I was captivated from the very first chapter with the descriptive writing: [The house] was very old and irregular and rambling. The windows were uneven, some small, some large… great piles of chimneys rose up here and there behind the pointed gables and seemed as if they were so broken down by age and long service that they must have fallen but for the straggling ivy which crawling up the walls and trailing over the roof wound itself about them and supported them.

It was only when I’d reached chapter 7 that I learned (from another source) that this was a classic example of the “sensation” novel that was so popular during the Victorian period (1860-1880). According to the Wikipedia definition “The sensation novel typically focused on shocking subject matter such as adultery, theft, kidnapping, insanity, bigamy, forgery, seduction and murder”. Not my idea of a “good read” by a long shot! You may remember from an earlier post that I’m a huge fan of Anthony Trollope who purposely wrote against the sensational grain of popular fiction of his time. But I have to take my hat off to the Victorians for writing about such subjects without making them tawdry. This particular book (as well as another example of the genre, Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White) manages to touch on these taboo subjects without dragging the reader through the mud.

The first half of the book is very calm and well-written with not a cliff-hanger chapter in sight. I began to think that “sensational” in 19th Century England must have had a very different definition from the word today. But the book starts to live up to its reputation at around chapter 30 with its many surprising turns of events. Nothing prepared me for the biggest surprise of all in the penultimate chapter. I was delighted with the final outcome of the book and with all due respect to Trollope I have to give a humble nod of approval to Braddon for an intriguing and well-crafted story. Apparently this was her first of EIGHTY novels. If you like excellent, old-fashioned writing you’ll enjoy this book.

Profanity in Books and Culture

One of my reasons for avoiding books written in the last 50 years is because I don’t enjoy the onslaught of profanity that is often offered up in popular fiction. Just as expletives in spoken language are proof of laziness so in the written word they show lack of thoughtfulness and “word precision”. Isn’t finding “just the right word” one of the secrets of great writing?

I tried to read The Eyre Affair a year ago, but got tired of all the gratuitous swearing. I wondered if "normal" people really talk to each other like that (i.e. every other word a profane one.) It’s bewildering to me that the word touted as “dirtiest” when I was growing up has now become a part of popular slang. If you like someone or something you may use that ugly expletive to describe them!

I enjoy reading books on WWII history. Often there is less-than-pleasant language in them, but you would expect ugly words about an ugly subject. But in most fiction profanity is not only inessential to good story-telling, it is just plain distracting.

Comedian George Carlin died this week. I have never heard any of his comedy routines, but I know that in the 70’s he was arrested for his “Seven Things You Can Never Say on Television.” Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling (yes, it went all the way there) the act was ruled as “indecent, but not obscene”. It is my guess that you can probably say all seven words on television now, at least on cable. Carlin helped usher in a new level of indecency in our culture for which he was proud. What a sad legacy.

I receive Daily Writing Tips in my inbox every day and was intrigued by Monday’s article. The author was honest enough to express his dismay at having seen someone use the noun “pimp” in a positive sense. He wrote, “Pimps exploit, abuse, and degrade women. What kind of cultural perspective enables pimp to evolve into an inoffensive word?”

Indeed!

(I addressed this issue again in 2014 here.)

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The back cover describes Brideshead Revisited as “Evelyn Waugh’s best-loved, most passionate and most poignant novel” and I honestly tried very hard to like it.

Another book blogger wrote recently about not enjoying a book because it had redemption through suffering themes and as a non-Christian she just didn’t “get it”. In my case (as a believer) after reading almost 300 pages about drinking, adultery, and homosexuality I just didn’t “get” why anyone would enjoy reading a book about people who are so clueless! By the time some of the characters came around to seeing their need for faith they were on their death beds. I couldn’t help wondering, “Why couldn’t they find God in life and not just in death?” What a waste!

The “faith” in the novel is connected to Catholicism. Lady Marchmain, the matriarch of the story, is a devout Catholic and is rejected by her wayward son and husband because of it. In a conversation on page 254 we read:

“I sometimes think when people wanted to hate God, they hated mummy.”
“What do you mean by that, Cordelia?”
“Well, you see, she was saintly, but she wasn’t a saint. No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can’t really hate God either. When they want to hate him and his saints they have to find something like themselves and pretends it’s God and hate that…

It was interesting to me that the two people in the book who had a chance at happiness realized they could never achieve it because of the “Great Divide” brought about by religion (or lack thereof). Although Julia was a nominal believer she couldn’t accept the fact that her lover was an agnostic. At their breakup she says, “I’ve always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can’t shut myself out from his mercy… It may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, he won’t quite despair of me in the end. (386)

Sadly, this is not how to experience God’s mercy – by giving up things to prove we are somehow worthy of it. I applaud Waugh for writing about the pull of grace on even the worst reprobate, but I felt dissatisfied with the lukewarm reactions of the characters to this same grace. If only they could have loved God as fervently as they had once hated Him!

Maybe to Waugh any reaction to grace is paltry in comparison to the extravagant love of the Giver. If you have a different take on this book I’d be happy to hear it.

"Fat" Classics

I read an interesting article in the Guardian by Rob Woodward who promotes classic literature for summertime reading. He writes:

Not only do I like to subvert my summers with lengthy books, but my preferences in this area run hard towards what I like to call "fat classics" - great doorstops of supposedly unassailable brilliance such as War and Peace, Les Misérables and The Brothers Karamazov.
I like folks who craft words well and this young journalist seems to fall into that category. (My husband and I often wonder why the British are so much better at writing than we Americans…) Read the article for the sheer enjoyment of good writing, but then look at the reader responses for some summer reading ideas you may have overlooked. Happy reading!