Yikes! It's Almost Spring!

Well, so much for my good intentions of keeping up with blogging this year. It's almost March now mid-March, and I haven't posted about my other January reading yet, not to mention February. Oh, dear!

I already mentioned my L. M. Montgomery reading, so I won't reiterate that. My other personal reading in January consisted of rereading Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton-Porter. I first read this book in 2010, and you can read my original thoughts and some really good quotations here. It was well worth rereading, and I'm so glad a friend picked it for our book club selection. We were amazed by the work ethic and self-sufficiency of this 19th century farm family - how many chickens would they have had to have to put on a spread like that every Sunday and for special occasions like a wedding? We were also saddened by the many changes that came to the real-life Stratton family soon after happy ending for the Stanton family of the book. As I mentioned in my earlier review, Laddie is the most autobiographical novel of Gene Stratton-Porter's, and it really is a true blue story when you understand it in the context of her and her family's life. I'm really looking forward to reading this one aloud to my kids and rereading it again myself in years to come - it's that good!

As for reading aloud to the kids, we were off to a good start this year. We finished two books in January: Treasures of the Snow by Patricia St. John and The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks. Both were received with great enthusiasm! Treasures of the Snow engendered some thought-provoking, faith-building questions from my 5-year-old, and I could see my 8-year-old's mental wheels turning, too. While we enjoy a wide variety of books, I don't mind reading something overtly Christian and morally didactic every so often, because such stories can give my children concrete examples of our faith that is, more often than not, communicated abstractly, in spite of our best efforts to help them understand their sinfulness and need of Savior. I would highly recommend this one for your family read-alouds, too!

The whole family, including Daddy, enjoyed the imaginative fantasy of The Indian in the Cupboard. We discussed what we would like to make real if we had a magic cupboard. My daughter and I thought a Victorian family that could live in a dollhouse would be fun. My son has a plastic Indian, so he wanted one just like the book. And my husband tried to think of something more lucrative, such as a goose that would lay golden eggs, even if the eggs were only the size of a pinhead! My kids are looking forward to reading other books in this series, but I learned from the Chester Cricket books, and we will be spreading them out over a good long time, not reading them all at once.

Fall Reading - the catch-up edition

With the start of home schooling (K & 3rd grade) and various weekly church activities, I haven't had much time for reading these past few months. Additionally, I fell into a serious reading funk, which I think was due more to the mode (Kindle) than the material, although at least one title was funk-inducing in and of itself (more on that later). So, briefly (I hope), here is what has been read during the fall months (September - November).

(If you're visiting from a Read-Aloud-Thursday link, the read-alouds are at the bottom.)

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
This was an enjoyable classic, and I'm glad I gave Gaskell another chance after reading Cranford a few years ago. I wouldn't say she's one of my favorite British authors, but it was a well-paced, period piece in which the characters brought the distinctions of industrialized England into sharp focus. Aside from a few melodramatic scenes, which seemed out of place for the very reserved characters, it had none of the silly pettiness of Cranford.

The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne
Did you know A. A. Milne wrote more than Winnie-the-Pooh? Murder mysteries, to be exact? Well, this was a fun diversion, if not a very complex plot, and I'd recommend it.

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
(Who names their child Jerome Jerome?) This is described as a comic travelogue, but for some reason I just wasn't in the mood for such humor. I think (I hope) it was intended as a parody on idle young gentleman who think too highly of themselves, but I had my fill of that with Brideshead Revisited. Now Three Men in a Boat was not so disheartening as Brideshead, but for some reason it put me in a real reading funk, perhaps because I didn't have a real grasp for it's size on the Kindle and it seemed rather interminable. I found it soooo tedious, yet I kept reading thinking it would surely get better. There were, in fact, a few interesting historical divergences in a vast sea of stream of consciousness rabbit trails, but it still took me more than a month - a month! - for me to read this relatively short book. I persevered, mostly because I thought it would be helpful to have the background before reading To Say Nothing of the Dog. This more recent time-travel story sounds fascinating, but the original was so disappointing that I'm almost afraid to start it.

The Hobbit (or There and Back Again) by J. R. R. Tolkien
If I had nothing better to do, I'd spend a year or so reading Tolkien's entire corpus. I find that his idea of "true myth" gives me much to ponder, though it's all too easy to get caught up in the adventure and miss the broader truths. I appreciated the read-along posts on Redeemed Reader this November, particularly this one which explores his true myth concept in more detail.

Yes, we've seen the movie. I loved parts of it and was really irritated by other parts. That almost always happens with books adapted to screen, especially when I've just read the book before seeing the movie. With more distance I might be able to appreciate the movie for its own merits, but not this time.

Harry Cat's Pet Puppy
Chester Cricket's Pigeon Ride
Harry Kitten and Tucker Mouse
Chester Cricket's New Home
by George Selden
Yes, we've read them all, and if there are more I don't want to know! While it was a pleasant journey, the sequels aren't as good as the original Cricket in Times Square. I think E. B. White knew what he was doing when he brought Charlotte's Web and The Trumpet of the Swan to a satisfying close and didn't try to capitalize on whatever success they gained. If your children are voracious readers, I'm sure they would enjoy these continuing tales of unlikely animal friends. However, I'm a little sorry that we spent so much time on these read-alouds when there are so many other wonderful children's classics to read.

Such as Homer Price and Centerburg Tales by Robert McCloskey!
These books are just downright fun bits of Americana. Since I grew up in a small Ohio town not far from Robert McCloskey's own hometown, these stories just ring true to me. I'm afraid I might even pick up the dialect a little too well! My kids love them, too! They are funny enough to appeal to kids, but there's some subtle humor for the grown-ups, too.

Our home school co-op of 6 families read Homer Price for a book club week, and each family acted out one chapter, which was loads of fun! While the older kids did some art and map projects, the younger children then did activities related to Make Way for Ducklings - another favorite of mine!

Lessons from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

If your memories of Little Women have been muddied by watching the movie version, I highly recommend a re-read! Far from the feminist and transcendentalist overtones of the movie, this well-loved classic by Louisa May Alcott extols the virtues of home and homemaking and a simple faith in and dependence on God that is quite refreshing. I also found several gems of wisdom for mothers both in Marmee's gentle dealings with her girls and advice to her grown daughters. While some might find the moralistic tone of this novel a bit overbearing, I, for one, don't mind a bit being reminded of the ideals and virtues of a distant generation.

After re-reading Little Women, I also read Little Men and Jo's Boys recently, both of which were new to me. I enjoyed getting an expanded knowledge of the March family, although the main characters of Little Women take a secondary role to the boys at Jo & Mr. Bhaer's school. There is more emphasis on women's rights in the younger generation, but it is well-balanced with the wisdom and training of older women in home duties, as a picture of Titus 2 in action. My only complaint is that Jo and Laurie's relationship seems a bit unusual as they get older and raise families side by side. I thought some of their interchanges a bit odd, or at least a bit too chummy for sister-in-law and brother-in-law, even if they had been the best of friends as children. Let's just say that Amy was very gracious - much more so than I could ever be in a similar situation!

Here are some of my favorite passages from Little Women:

"The patience and the humility of the face she loved so well was a better lesson to Jo than the wisest lecture, the sharpest reproof. She felt comforted at once by the sympathy and confidence given her; the knowledge that her mother had a fault like hers, and tried to mend it, made her own easier to bear and strengthened her resolution to cure it; though forty years seemed rather a long time to watch and pray, to a girl of fifteen." (83, such wisdom about confessing and battling sin, in this case anger, over a lifetime.)

"'I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good; to be admired, loved, and respected; to have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send. To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman; and I sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience...My dear girls, I am ambitious for you, but not to have you make a dash in the world, -- marry rich men merely because they are rich, or have splendid houses, which are not homes because love is wanting.'" (101)

"'I am quite satisfied with the experiment, and fancy that we shall not have to repeat it; only don't go to the other extreme, and delve like slaves. Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well.'" (121)

"To outsiders, the five energetic women seemed to rule the house, and so they did in many things; but the quiet scholar, sitting among his books, was still the head of the family, the household conscience, anchor, and comforter; for to him the busy, anxious women always turned in troublous times, finding him, in the truest sense of those sacred words, husband and father." (244, nary a bit of feminism there!)

"I also doubt if any young matron ever began life with so rich a supply of dusters, holders, and piece-bags...People who hire all these things done for them never know what they lose; for the homeliest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them..." (247-248, a good reminder for one not so fond of dusting!)

"'Laurie, my lad, if you ever want to indulge in this sort of thing, get one of those little girls to help you, and I shall be perfectly satisfied,' said Mr. Laurence,settling himself in his easy chair to rest, after the excitement of [Meg's wedding in] the morning.'
   'I'll do my best to gratify you, sir,' was Laurie's unusually dutiful reply, as he carefully unpinned the posy Jo had put in his button-hole." (260-261, see, it's not all moral instruction!)

"Mrs. March knew that experience was an excellent teacher, and when it was possible she left her children to learn alone the lessons which she would gladly have made easier, if they had not objected to taking advice as much as they did salts and senna." (266)

"'Never deceive him by look or word, Meg, and he will give you the confidence you deserve, the support you need. He has a temper, not like ours, -- one flash, and then all over, -- but the white, still anger, that is seldom stirred, but once kindled, is hard to quench. Be careful, very careful, not to wake this anger against yourself, for peace and happiness depend on keeping his respect. Watch yourself, be the first to ask pardon if you both err, and guard against the little piques, misunderstandings, and hasty words that often pave the way for bitter sorrow and regret.'" (287)

"'Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I've a right to be hurt, I don't intend to show it. They will feel that more than angry speeches or huffy actions, won't they, Marmee?'
   'That's the right spirit, my dear; a kiss for a blow is always best, though it's not very easy to give it sometimes,' said her mother, with the air of one who had learned the difference between preaching and practising (sic)." (310)

"'Ah, Jo, mothers may differ in their management, but the hope is the same in all, -- the desire to see their children happy. Meg is so, and I am content with her success. You I leave to enjoy your liberty till you tire of it; for only then will you find that there is something sweeter. Amy is my chief care now, but her good sense will help her. For Beth, I indulge no hopes except that she may be well.'" (339)

"The conversation was miles beyond Jo's comprehension, but she enjoyed it, though Kant and Hegel were unknown gods, the Subjective and Objective unintelligible terms; and the only thing 'evolved from here inner consciousness,' was a bad headache after it was all over. It dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to pieces, and put together on new, and, according to the talkers, on infinitely better principles than before; that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only God...[Mr. Bhaer] bore it as long as he could; but wen he was appealed to for an opinion, he blazed up wit honest indignation, and defended religion with all the eloquence of truth...He had a hard fight, for the wise men argued well; but he didn't know when he was beaten, and stood to his colors like a man. Somehow, as he talked, the world got right again to Jo; the old beliefs, that had lasted so long, seemed better than the new; God was not a blind force, and immortality was not a pretty fable, but a blessed fact. She felt as if she had solid ground under her feet again..." (361-362)

"[Beth] did not rebuke Jo with saintly speeches, only loved her better for her passionate affection, and clung more closely to the dear human love, from which our Father never means us to be weaned, but through which He draws us closer to Himself. She could not say, 'I'm glad to go,' for life was very sweet to her; she could only sob out, 'I try to be willing,' while she held fast to Jo, as the first bitter wave of this great sorrow broke over them together." (382-383)

"[Meg] was nervous and worn out with watching and worry, and in that unreasonable frame of mind which the best of mothers occasionally experience when domestic cares oppress them." (398)

[Marmee's advice to Meg as a young mother] "'I  nearly spoilt [Jo] by indulgence. You were poorly, and I worried about you till I fell sick myself. Then father came to the rescue, quietly managed everything, and made himself so helpful that I saw my mistake, and never have been able to get on without him since. That is the secret of our home happiness: he does not let business wean him from the little cares and duties that affect us all, and I try not to let domestic worries destroy my interest in his pursuits. We each do our part alone in many things, but at home we work together, always.'" (400-401)

"She had often said she wanted to do something splendid, no matter how hard; and now she had her wish, for what could be more beautiful than to devote her life to father and mother, trying to make home as happy to them as they had to her? And, if difficulties were necessary to increase the splendor of the effort, what could be harder for a restless, ambitious girl than to give up her own hopes, plans, and desires, and cheerfully live for others?" (445)

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

I read Jayber Crow earlier in 2011 and recorded my favorite passages, but nothing more. So in an effort to tie up loose ends, I'll just leave it as it stands and publish it.



"Sometimes I might take off a whole day to go fishing...always taking care to get back before six-thirty. Of course, if I didn't leave until after six-thirty in the evening, I had all night to get back. And since nobody was apt to want a haircut at six-thirty in the morning, I could stay away until the next evening. My clock said I would be back at six-thirty, but it didn't say what day. And sooner or later, until the last time, I always got back." (5)

"My relation to that place, my being in it and my absences from it, is the story of my life. That story has surprised me almost every day--but now, in the year 1986, so near the end, it seems not surprising at all but only a little strange, as if it all has happened to somebody younger." (12)

"There really was nobody else to do it [adopt him after the death of his parents], but she treated me like a prize she had won...I suppose Aunt Cordie and Uncle Othy had a store of affection laid away that they now brought out and applied to me. Later I would know how blessed I had been." (15)

"Back there at the beginning, as I see now, my life was all time and almost no memory. Though I knew early of death, it still seemed to be something that happened only to other people, and I stood in an unending river of time that would go on making the same changes and the same returns forever." (24)

"I'd had the idea, once, that if I could get the chance before I died I would read all the good books there were. Now I began to see that I wasn't apt to make it. This disappointed me, for I really wanted to read them all." (47)

"In most of them I saw the old division of body and soul that I had known at The Good Shepherd [Orphanage]. The same rift ran through everything at Pigeonville College; the only difference was that I was able to see it more clearly, and to wonder at it. Everything bad was laid on the body, and everything good was credited to the soul. It scared me a little when I realized that I saw it the other way around. If the soul and body really were divided, then it seemed to me that all the worst sins--hatred and anger and self-rightousness and even greed and lust--came from the soul. But these preachers...all though that the soul could do no wrong...and yet these same people believed in the resurrection of the body." (49)

"'You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out--perhaps a little at a time.'" (54)

"Now I have had most of the life I am going to have, and I can see what it has been. I can remember those early years when it seemed to me I was cut completely adrift, and times when, looking back at earlier time, it seemed I had been wandering in the dark woods of error. But now it looks to me as though I was following a path that was laid out for me, unbroken, and maybe even as straight as possible, from one end to the other, and I have this feeling, which never leaves me anymore, that I have been led." (66)

"The Good Shepherd and Pigeonville Collee were trying to be the world of the past. The university was trying to be the world of the future, and maybe it has had a good deal to do with the world as it has turned out to be, but this has not been as big an improvement as the university expected. The university thought of itself as a a place of freedom for thought and study and experimentation, and maybe it was, in a way. But it was an island too, a floating or a flying island. It was preparing people from the world of the past for the world of the future, and what was missing was the world of the present, where every body was living its small, short, surprising, miserable, wonderful, blessed, damaged, only life." (70-71)

"Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there...Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led--make of that what you will." (133)

"And so the farm came under the influence of a new pattern, and this was the pattern of a fundamental disagreement such as it had never seen before. It was a disagreement about time and money and the use of the world." (186)

"She had come into her beauty. This was not the beauty of her youth and freshness, of which she had had a plenty. The beauty that I am speaking of now was that of a woman who has come into knowledge and into strength and who, knowing her hardships, trusts her strength and goes about her work even with a kind of happiness, serene somehow, and secure." (191)

"But thinking of Mattie's marriage, I saw too how a marriage, in bringing two people into each other's presence, must include loneliness and error. I imagined a moment when the husband and wife realize that their marriage includes their faults, that they do not perfect each other, and that in making their marriage they also fail it and must carry to the grave things they cannot give away." (194)

"But she loved him, however at odds with him she may have been, for however long. She remembered and kept treasured up her old feeling for him. She treasured up the knowledge that, though she was not happy, happiness existed. And so as Troy's character wore lower and more awry, her own grew straighter and brighter." (342)

The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway

Short and (bitter)sweet - that was one impression that The Old Man And The Sea left with me. It was a simple and poignant story of an old Cuban fisherman's determination to outsmart a massive marlin after eighty-four days with no catch. As he rows far out to sea and waits for something to take his line, waits for the great fish to tire and come to the surface, makes the kill and heads for home only to have his catch eaten by sharks, the reader realizes that the life and thoughts of the old fisherman are as profound as they are simple.

I do not remember reading Hemingway before, although I'm sure I must have read excerpts in literature courses. Some have said that his stories are rather dark, but this one wasn't, really. From one perspective it could be viewed as a hopeless, fatalistic tale - an old man almost kills himself to catch a fish that he never brings to shore - but on the other hand, it is a story of perseverance, of doing one's work well in spite of the difficulties and impossibilities of the task. It is also a story of loyalty, for the young boy who used to work with the old man loves and cares for him still. So while the circumstances are sad, they are not hopeless, as you can read in the excerpts below: 

"'Thank you,' the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride." (13-14)

"He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as el mar which is masculine. The spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought." (29-30)

"He had no mysticism about turtles although he had gone in turtle boats for many years. He was sorry for them all, even the great trunk backs that were as long as the skiff and weighed a ton. Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle's heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too and my feat and hands are like theirs." (37)

"When once, through my treachery, it had been necessary to [the marlin] to make a choice, the old man thought. His choice had been to stay in the deep dark water far out beyond all snares and traps and treacheries. My choice was to go there to find him beyond all people. Beyond all people in the world. Now we are joined together and have been since noon. And no one to help either one of us." (50)

"...he thought much and he kept on thinking about sin. You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love hi, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?
'You think too much, old man,' he said aloud.
But you enjoyed killing the dentuso [a shark who had attacked the dead marlin strapped to the boat], he thought. He lives on the live fish as you do. He is not a scavenger nor just a moving appetite as some sharks are. He is beautiful and noble and knows no fear of anything.
'I killed him in self-defense,' the old man said aloud. 'And I killed him well.'
Besides, he thought, everything kills everything else in some way. Fishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alive. The boy keeps me alive, he thought. I must not deceive myself too much." (105-106)