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Les Misérables, Quotes from Part One: Fantine

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It’s been three weeks since I’ve finished Les Misérables. It is so enormous, that I find myself intimidated. I decided to break my responses into bits. One post will be Great Quotes from the Boring Parts; another post on Words I Learned from Les Miz; another, perhaps, on Problems with Hugo’s Theology. After those, I might gird myself with courage and write my response to this masterpiece.

For now, however, I will just shower you with favorite quotes from Part One: Fantine. Read them and you may be drawn to the source. Or not.

…in the remaining time he (Monseigneur Myriel) worked. That is to say, he dug his garden or read and wrote, and for him both kinds of work bore the same name; both he called gardening. ‘The spirit is a garden,’ he said.  P. 33 [Garden, read and write: a life I could love]

The devil may visit us, but God lives here.  p.47 [a great distinction]

With the admirable delicacy of instinct they knew that some forms of solicitude can be an encumbrance. p. 48 [Isn’t this profound? And so true?]

There are men who dig for gold; he dug for compassion. p. 69 [Monseignor Bienvenu: my favorite character. Name means well + come]

The priest’s forgiveness was the most formidable assault he had ever sustained; p. 116 [forgiveness = assault: intriguing]

She worked in order to live, and presently fell in love, also in order to live, for the heart, too, has its hunger. p.125

Gluttony punished the glutton. Indigestion was designed by God to impose morality on stomachs. p. 136 [Ouch!]

…with the chaste indecency of childhood, displayed a stretch of bare stomach. p. 145 [chaste indecency: another glorious paradox]

‘What’s your little girl’s name?’ ‘Cosette.’ In fact, it was Euphrasie, but the mother turned it into Cosette by the use of that touching alchemy of simple people which transforms Josef into Pepita and Françoise into Silette. It is a kind of linguistics which baffles the etymologist. We once knew a grandmother who contrived to turn Theodore into Gnon. p. 149 [Laugh out loud delight!]

The supreme happiness in life is the assurance of being loved; of being loved for oneself, even in spite of oneself… p. 162

He [Javert] possessed the conscience appropriate to his function, and his duties were his religion; he was a spy in the way that other men are priests.  p. 166 [a chilling comparison]

Curiosity is a form of gluttony: to see is to devour. p. 183 [Guilty as charged]

God moves the soul as He moves the oceans. p.213

 

Reading Year in Review

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2012 was the year I rediscovered inter-library loans. I whittled books off my Wish List at Trade Books for Free - PaperBack Swap., thanks to Oregon libraries.  I also read more Kindle books this year than ever before. My bookshelves are patiently waiting for me to notice them. The lists are in order of my favorites. The ones I especially liked have an asterisk in front of them. You are welcome to ask questions or make comments or suggest titles for 2013.

Happy reading!

 

Biography

* Bonhoeffer, Eric Metaxas (2011)

Children’s Books

* Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing, Sally Lloyd-Jones, (2012)
Two are Better Than One, Carol Ryrie Brink (1968)
The Giraffe That Walked to Paris, Nancy Milton (1992)
Baby Island, Carol Ryrie Brink (1937)
Trudel’s Siege, Louisa May Alcott (1848)
Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl (1970)

Christian

Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1938)
Prayers: A Personal Selection, Michael York and Michael Hoppe (2010)

Classics

* Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (1862)
Jill the Reckless, P.G. Wodehouse (1920)
An Eye For An Eye, Anthony Trollope (1878)
Piccadilly Jim, P.G. Wodehouse (1917)
A Room with a View, E.M. Forster (1908)

Cultural Studies

Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell (2008)
Alone Together, Sherry Turkle (2011)
Distracted, Maggie Jackson (2008)
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell (2005)
What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell (2010)
The Secret Knowledge, David Mamet (2011)

Fantasy

* To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis (1997)

Fiction

* City of Tranquil Light, Bo Caldwell (2010)
Olivia in India, O. Douglas (1912)
Buffalo Coat Buffalo Coat, Carol Ryrie Brink (1944)
The Distant Land of My Father, Bo Caldwell (2002)
A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote (1956)
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons (1932)
Chasing Mona Lisa, Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey (2012)
Strangers in the Forest, Carol Ryrie Brink (1959)
Arrow of God, Chinua Achebe (1964)
The House at Tyneford, Natasha Solomons (2011)
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Walter Mosley (2010)

History

For All the Tea in China, Sara Rose (2010)
Practicing History, Barbara Tuchman (1982)

Memoir

* Surprised by Oxford, Carolyn Weber (2011)
* A Homemade Life, Molly Wizenberg (2009)
* My Reading Life, Pat Conroy (2010)
The Invisible Child, Katherine Paterson (2001)
My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell (1956)
How Parking Enforcement Stole My Soul, Ben Friedrich (2012)
The Heart of a Soldier, Capt. Kate Blaise w/ Dana White (2005)
A Chain of Hands, Carol Ryrie Brink (1981)

Mystery

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley (2009)
Shoofly Pie, Tim Downs (2003)
A Red Herring Without Mustard, Alan Bradley (2011)

Non Fiction

Simplify, Joshua Becker (2010)
The Book Whisperer, Donalyn Miller (2009)

Poetry

Kitchen Sonnets, Ethel Romig Fuller (1931)
Skylines, Ethel Romig Fuller (1952)

Travel

* China Road, Rob Gifford (2007)
American Places, Wallace and Page Stegner (1993)
The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float, Farley Mowatt (1969)

Les Misérables – No Spoilers

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I had planned on a solo viewing of Les Misérables. My husband doesn’t do musicals. But, he replied, I do dates with my wife. He was familiar with the story: we had watched the 1998 film with Liam Neeson.

In some mysterious way, Curt has learned how to see things in movies that astonishes me. In a movie about redemption, there are many symbols. But when we got home, Curt pointed out three crosses that you should look for when you watch this film. There is a cross of slavery, a cross of redemption, and a cross of salvation.

 

Satisfied with Small

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Growing up in a large family with a dad who invited students over, my idea of a holiday meal is a groaning board laden with food, tables jammed up against each other with tablecloths dressing the wound between the two, good plates for company with everyday plates tucked in less conspicuous spots, windows steamed, a procession of mounded bowls, a continuous buzz of conversation, singing Doxology, and hours of clean-up for the poor souls whose names on the calendar rotation indicated dish washer and dish dryer. That was my normal.

Early in our marriage we continued the tradition and gathered friends like you would wildflowers: always room for a few more in the bunch.

As our family grows we have the possibility of expanding to 29, as we did for Thanksgiving, or contracting to a table for four. My preference is for big and boisterous. But—shock!—there are others to consider. 

As silly as it sounds, the first time we had one of our small holiday meals, I had a personal crisis. I was smiling and saying It’ll be great!, but the real me inside was stomping, banging pots, and feeding my misery. All sorts of traitorous thoughts ran through my head, the foremost being “Why go to all this trouble for a meal for five?”

A shaft of light, a tiny thought, was the game-changer. What if Mom could come, if she were your only guest? Would you do all you could to make it a special meal?

Serious? If I could have my mom at my table just once, I would plan for weeks to have the most splendid menu. I get all throat-lumpy just imagining the privilege of serving Mom a meal in my home.

The light shaft widened to a illuminating column: What if the Lord Jesus came to your little dinner? Would you be crabbing about all the work for a small meal? My Lord at my table? I would buy the best ingredients, take pains to make things lovely, be thrilled to my tippie-toes! I’d be nervous choosing the wine, but we’d figure it out.

Oh child, I tell myself, numbers-schnumbers. Cherish each celebration, great or small.

 

Terryisms – A Tribute to My Pastor

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When there is trouble, he enters into the situation, ready to help.
When there’s a party, a ring of laughter surrounds him.
When there is failure, he brings clarity and hope.

He preaches with passion.
He lives to tell stories.
He sings from his toes.

He used to be a long-haired surfer dude,
the delinquent son of the math teacher,
a doubtful outcome.

Then God snatched him from the waves,
set him on dry ground,
and redirected his life.

He teaches Logic and other subjects,
but mainly he is a docent of humanity,
explaining how life works.

It’s funny: his recap of a movie
is invariably better
than the movie itself.

If Pastor Terry and Yente the Matchmaker
lived in the same town,
Yente would go out of business.

His kids talk to him. Often.
He finds any excuse to visit them,
constructs play kitchens for his granddaughters.

He can read Greek and Hebrew;
but he’s even better at reading people.
Approachable. Winsome. Accessible.

He pastors pastors,
near and far,
giving a lift with encouraging words.

We know other churches would love to have him.
But right now—and for the last two decades—he belongs to us.
The Shire is his home.

 

 

He likes to talk. He’s very good at it.
Sometimes the stuff comes out funny.
Sometimes it comes out clear.
Sometimes it comes like a freight train.
But it is always good.

 

•Show up to life everyday!

• Get off your attitude.

• Life is so daily.

• God hit me like a plunger between the eyes.

• Does the glove get muddy or the mud get glovey?

• Raising children is like pouring concrete: you only get one shot.

• You never know what can happen in a day.

• Don’t be old and alone.

• A litnis test

• Our goal is generational fruit:
to see our children’s children walking with the Lord.

• Never despise the day of small beginnings.

•We know there is a balance somewhere…
we see it every time we pass by,
swinging from one extreme to the other.

• Idle hands are the devil of a workshop.

• Repent as loudly as you sin.

• Take off the uniform and stop playing church.

• God isn’t up in heaven, wringing His hands,
wondering what to do next.

• Grab him by his circumcision. [He meant to say baptism.]

• Is your marriage dead?
God does dead.
He loves resurrections.

• When God redeemed me, He was pursuing you. [said to his children]

 

 

 • Unity, order, progress.

• If you really love her, you wouldn’t marry her!
[tongue in cheek advice in courtship]

• God’s story includes you.

• If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.

• Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

•When someone criticizes you and calls you a blockhead,
respond with “You don’t even know the half of it!”

 Thank you, Pastor Terry, for your work and your words on our behalf.

 

Rediscovering My Sound System

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There is a renaissance of sound in our home.  Or, she reflects, perhaps a Middle Age. An acoustic Enlightenment.

In an effort to manage my time better, I’ve been disconnecting myself from the computer. And—I won’t lie—it’s been hard. The computer’s tentacles are long and many. It is too too easy to just “check my email” or Google one factoid and end up saying hasta la vista to a sizable chunk of time. 

You know what works best for me? Turn it off at night and don’t turn it back on until x, y, and z are completed.

But, she sputters, I need my music! Yes, dear. [I talk to myself all the time.] I have an iPod and an iHome in my bedroom, but the volume doesn’t make it to the kitchen; the quality of sound doesn’t cut it.

So it’s back to CDs—discs in their cases. I can play them in our brand new BluRay player. One at a time. On good speakers with an amplifier. And my home is filled with warm, soaring, nourishing, luminous music. It’s a glorious thing. Stupendous! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear my home full of good sounds.

It gives me pause. I feel like I have cheated myself for, oh, five or more years. 

There are correlations with the Kindle/real book debate. I love my Kindle for many reasons, but it will nevah [hear Winston Churchill’s voice] replace my library of books. I love my digital music for its portability and availability. But oh! the glories of an amplifier and good speakers.  And I know that it reveals my age, but I really prefer to have hard copies of my music.

 

I often do a long post with my favorite Advent/Christmas music, but today I will highlight one CD: Chanticleer’s Our Favorite Carols*. Talk about irony: I discovered this CD from Pandora. On the computer.    It came up on my Liz Story (Holiday) channel and I loved everything I heard. On a whim I purchased this CD in January. It has been in the shrink-wrap until Sunday (beginning of Advent). And I am smitten.  There isn’t a preview available on Amazon, but there is on iTunes.

The tone is mid-to-high brow. A capella vocal ensemble. All guys but it some of them sound like girls. Seventeen resplendent carols. No jangles. Some Billings, Tallis, and Holst, for you music majors. There’s not one track that I want to fast-forward, and that itself makes it a winner.

In the Bleak Midwinter arrangement has some dazzling and unexpected key changes. Gabriel’s Message and Huron Carol are  gems.  For some reason I feel like I own Thomas Tallis’ Third Mode Melody (the tune Vaughn Williams based his Fantasia on, also heard on the movie Master and Commander); it possesses me, however, and when it popped up on this CD there was the flush of recognition. There are two tunes for Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day.

This CD is doing some heavy lifting on keeping my Yuletide sound and serene. Here is Huron Carol:

* Be sure you listen to Our Favorite Carols. Chanticleer has several Christmas albums, but this is my favorite.

 

Let Me Go! (55 Places I’d ♥ To Visit)

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The world is a book, and those who do not travel
read only a page.
— St. Augustine

Where I’ve been: 55 Photographs

Perhaps I should start, meaning no disrespect, with places I have no desire to visit.
Because I usually prefer rustic over production, I don’t want to go to:
Disney Land
Disney World
Hawaii, the main island
Florida during spring break
Arizona in the winter
Dollywood
A cruise to anywhere
Las Vegas
Reno

My dream travel schedule, funds and time mine in abundance,
would be to visit a place and stay for a month.
I prefer off-the-path places, and off-season travel.

The order below is random—out-of-my-head random.

The photos not credited are from Wikimedia Commons.

If you always go where you have always gone
and always do what yo have always done,
you will always be what you are now.
— Tristan Gylberd

photo: Christina Jose
1. Albania — because Audrey and Brian live there.
Audrey and I (and Ruth, Barb, Eileen and Nancy) grew up together in Lombard, IL.
If I’m dreaming HUGE, our next girlfriend reunion would be there.

2. Istanbul, Turkey
— because Will and Emma (my nephew and niece) live there.
Ever since I’ve read about the Hagia Sophia I’ve wanted to see it with my own eyes.
And there is Lamb Shawarma. (I wrote that *before* I saw The Avengers!)

3. Cape Town, South Africa — because my Aunt Betty lived and died there.
I want to meet her adopted son, Jean-Blaise, and his wife, Loret.
And dear Virginia, who—via Skype—talked me through my Aunt’s life and death.

4. Monhegan Island, Maine
This is my brother and sister-in-law’s favorite place.
A haven for artists twelve miles off the coast of Maine,
Monhegan is the perfect place to recharge.



photo: Katie Boyd
5. Harare, Zimbabwe
Harare is on more than one list of where NOT to go.
But a friend, with whom I used to swap weekly emails, lives there.

6. Budapest (and the glorious Danube River) —
Did you know this city used to be two cities: Buda and Pest?
I love trying to pronounce Pest the local way: Peshhht.
Norm and Michelle, friends from almost 40 years ago live here.

7. St. Petersburg, Russia —
The Winter Palace is part of The Hermitage, a museum founded in 1764
which holds the largest collection of paintings in the world.
In preparation for the rare chance that I would go to St. P.
I’m *thinking* about reading the great Russian writers.

8. Krakow, Poland —  It was the children’s book,
The Trumpeter of Krakow, that first put this city on my globe.
I would be sure to visit Karen, a fellow bibliophile, who blogs at U Krakovianki.
One of Europe’s oldest cities, Krakow is a gold mine of architectural styles.
The Jewish Quarter is a must see.

9. Why Wales? — Most castles per capita, for one.
Hay-on-Wye, world renown bookstore town. 30+ secondhand books!!
How Green Was My Valley, Welsh revivals, the tradition of Welsh singing, and Welsh Corgis (my first dog).
And all those charming LL words in Welsh: Lloyd, Llewellyn, Llangollen,
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

10. Quebec City, Quebec —  I want to go for the sheer romance of the city.
To hear French spoken. Willa Cather’s historical novel,
Shadows on the Rock, piqued my interest, oui?

 

11. Jerusalem. All of Israel — from the Negev to the Golan Heights;
from Tel Aviv to Jericho.
My grandpa went to Israel.
My dad went to Israel.
I’d like to go…someday.

The perfect journey is circular —
the joy of departure and the joy of return.
— Dino Basili

12. Dublin (home of the Book of Kells) —
A dear friend took a solo trip to Ireland, the land of her fathers.
A young man I know saved his nickels and spent a month hitchhiking Ireland.
Dublin, Belfast, Shannon, Wexford, Cork, Donegal, and the Blasket Islands:
I want to see them all. (And oh! the reading that would precede that trip!)

13.  China — where the Terracotta Army is being excavated.

14.  The Lake District, England — It is both romantic and literary.

photo from East-Coast-Golf-Vacations.com

15. Prince Edward Island — Who has read Anne of Green Gables
and not wanted to visit PEI?

 16. London (soundtrack: ♫♪♫ England swings like a pendulum do ♪♫♪) —
Confession: I’ve been in London, but not really. Heathrow doesn’t count.
Nor does a drive through. We planned a day in London which we canceled.
One day to see Westminster Abbey and the British Museum and 84 Charing Cross Road and…?
I promised myself that if I came to see London, I would give myself
at least four days. It’s an expensive destination, but so worth it.
I’ve never seen so many ethnic groups as I did in London.

17. New York City — I’ve been threatening to visit NYC for a while.
One week for the museums, one week for shows, one week for
people watching. Some of my favorite Facebook statuses (stati?) are
Rebeccah’s 4:56 a.m. Starbucks/subway updates. She’s got a hilarious book
inside her on commuting protocol.


Photo from angelfire.com

18.  Kwajelein — a 1.2  x 2.5 mile atoll (a coral island that encircles a lagoon)
in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew lived
there for a few years. I keep meeting people who lived once on tiny Kwaj.
Since it is a restricted island, I don’t think I could ever visit, but it’d be fun!


Photo from Readers Digest rd.com

19.  Florida Keys — These words captured my imagination long ago.
It may have been Key West, President Nixon’s favorite escape.
If you don’t know who President Nixon was, please don’t say it aloud.
Can you imagine *driving* from island to island?
Doesn’t this picture say, “Come, check me out?”

20. The Netherlands — my maternal grandmother emigrated from Holland when she was nine. I would visit Barendrecht, her birthplace. My own grandma’s place of birth!
And look at tulips. And eat cheese.
And visit the Rien Poortvliet Museum.

211. Cappadocia — History abounds in central Turkey.
Cliff dwellers, underground cities where early Christians lived.
This video made Cappadocia my cuppa.

Not all those who wander are lost.
— J.R.R. Tolkien

22. Dubrovnik — a coastal fortress in Croatia
My brother-in-law is the son of Croatian emigrants.
When they came back from a visit, my sister-in-law
gave me a book about Dubrovnik.
It’s a city steeped in history.

 

23. The Orkney Islands — Have you heard of the Thules? (pronounced TOOL lees)
They are the northernmost part of the habitable world. The Orkneys qualify.
Leslie Thomas’ book Some Lovely Islands fanned an
already burning fascination with insular culture.
There are thriving communities of folk art and crafts.

 

24. The Blasket Islands — Some Lovely Islands
introduced me to Greater Blasket Island. This forsaken island produced authors and books. I’ve read Peig Sayer’s An Old Woman’s Reflections
and Maurice O’Sullivan’s Twenty Years A-Growing.
The last day people lived on this island was November 17, 1953. The Irish government
evacuated the population because it could not maintain their safety.
Some cottages still have furniture, kettles hanging from chains, crockery…all abandoned.

25. Mont Saint-Michel — Blame Henry Adams. An island fortress,
an abbey, that spire pointing upwards. Oh yes, please!

26. Venice — I have read so much about the pigeons in the piazza at
St. Mark’s, that I can practically hear the cacophony they make.

  27.  Florence — how this missed the top five is a mystery.
Firenze! (Italian name) Tuscany! I can taste you in my mouth.
Michelangelo. Giotto. Donatello. da Vinci. Dante. Galileo.
Ah, Firenze.

28.  Parma — A culinary festival.
Parmesan cheese, Proscuitto di Parma, home of Verdi.
Go ahead and laugh: John Grisham’s Playing for Pizza made me salivate.

 29. Geneva — Switzerland, in general.
Calvin, clocks and Lake Geneva.

30.  Paris — Notre Dame, the Louvre, Eiffel, Tower, Arc de Triomphe,
left bank, right bank, Latin quarter,
cafes, patisseiries, brasseries, chocolat.
Ooh-la-la!

 

31. Steens Mountain — Harney County, Oregon
Only navigable in the warm season, this mountain is
composed of “basalts, stacked one upon another.”
Steens has been on my husbands wish list for years.
We recently flew over this wilderness area and
renewed our intention to go visit.

Whenever I start pulling out this list of places I’d like to go,
Curt’s comeback remains: I’d just like to see Steens Mountain.

32. Victoria — British Columbia
Canada: you have to love a country that is book-ended
by Victoria and Prince Edward Island.
Charming gardens, historical architecture, people from all nations.


There are only two rules.
One is E. M. Forster’s guide to Alexandria: the best way
to know Alexandria is to wander aimlessly.
The second is from the Psalms: grin like a dog
and run about through the city.
—  Jan Morris


photo: The Minam River Lodge

33. The Minam River Lodge — Minam, Oregon
The only way into this wilderness retreat is by chartering a plane,
horseback and hiking a 8.5 mile trail. I hope to get into shape
for the hike with my husband next summer.

34. Corfu — Greek Island in the Ionian Sea
Reading My Family and Other Animals put this island on my map.

35. Sweet Home, Oregon
If it’s wrong to like a place simply because of the name, then indict me.
When we first contemplated a move to Oregon, we looked at the map.
It’s twee, but I’ve wanted a Sweet Home return address ever since.

36. Cape Mendocino Coast — California
Earlier this year we were talking about the prettiest drives we’d taken.
Since we were just getting acquainted and I was more enamored with my
boyfriend when we drove on Highway 1, I’d like another chance to see it.

37. Lolo Pass, Idaho-Montana
Highway 12, between Lewiston, ID and Missoula, MT
has some of the most stunning vistas you can imagine.
We’ve traveled through. We need to travel to.

38. Sunnyside, Washington
My great-grandfather immigrated from Holland to Sunnyside.
The town’s history fascinates me: Dunkards started a Christian colony,
and included a “morality clause” (no drinking, dancing, gambling, or horseracing)
in every land deed sold. I’m sure we still have distant relatives living there.
It’d be fun to go exploring with one of my brothers or sisters.
Oh brother (sister), where art thou?


photo: elklakeresortmontana.com

39.  Elk Lake Resort, Montana
When our friends moved to Elk Lake Resort near Yellowstone Park,
we said we’d come visit. We’ve dropped that ball, but there is still time to follow through!

 40. Civil War Battle Sites – (shown is Burnside Bridge at Antietam)
Perhaps I should limit it to the Top 10 Sites. I’ve been to
Gettysburg, PA and Franklin, TN and I will never forget either.
You would need a year to read and prepare, but this kind of
excursion would ignite me.

41. Baseball Park Tour (Wrigley Field)
In the late 1980s two guys in my small town mapped out a summer
tour in their VW Bug to see a game in all 30 major league baseball stadiums.
I wouldn’t want to try the one season gig, but with my penchant
for collecting, a repressed passion for baseball, and a love of
road trips, I am enticed.

Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday,
placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting,
so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear.
Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of,
giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.
— Freya Stark

42. Tallinn, Estonia
The Singing Revolution DVD put this country on my map.
Who wouldn’t want to visit a country who gained
independence from the Soviet Union by singing?

43.  St. Louis, Missouri
One doesn’t have to go to Europe to see cathedrals.
Cathedral Basilica, with its organ, would be a must see for me.

44. Cannon Beach, Oregon
I want to take a picture of Haystack Rock. (It seems all my friends have.)
And hear the surf. And sleep in a yurt.

45. Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, Washington (visited April 2013)
April 2013. Tulips galore.
Beauty abounds.
This is doable. I just have to make a plan.

46. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
The best reason to visit is to see our former neighbors—
and my mom’s best friend—who have retired here.
Oh, brother/sister where art thou?

47. Upper Peninsula, Michigan
In my youth I always heard about the U.P. Because it was remote
and beyond, it has remained one of those places I’d like to visit.
Lighthouses, bridges and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.
I’m already humming Gordon Lightfoot.

48. Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Yes, I would. I’d like to see an Amish community.
But when I Googled Lancaster, the first thing I saw
was their convention center. Yep.

49. Bath, Somerset, England
A Jane Austen literary tour. Lyme, Chawton, Steventon, Winchester.
Be still my heart. Calm. We must be calm.
Of course, preparation would include reading the complete Austen canon,
watching every DVD. What fun, what fun!

50. Napa Valley, California
Beautiful scenery, do a little wine tasting.
I could be persuaded.

51. Provence, France
On a whim, I picked up a French Audio course at the library yesterday,
curious how much of my high school French stuck. Not. much.
It would be great to refresh it in Provence, n’est-ce-pas?
We dream about going with college friends.
M.F.K. Fisher’s Two Towns in Provence made me thirsty for France.
Allons-y!

52. Door County, Wisconsin
Another destination that I’ve been told about many times.
They have fish boils are legend.

53. St. Augustine, Florida
I can’t remember the book that long ago made me want to
see St. Augustine. Give me history and I’m happy.

54. Troy, Oregon (visited September 2013)
You’ve never heard of Troy,OR (pop 25-30) Not to be confused with Troy, ID (pop 862).
On our way home from church we pass a road with a sign: Troy 38 miles.
And I’ve always wanted to follow that dirt road. At least once.

 55. Charleston, SC
Southern hospitality, Lowcountry cuisine,
cobblestone streets, Huguenot church. Yes!

November Reads

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Les Miserables  I’m on page 420/1232. Part of me (about 35%)  says Why, oh why have you not read this before? The greater part thinks it is splendid to have the exquisite joy of reading this for the first time while I’m in my fifties. A friend warned me about Waterloo; she got bogged down. But, you know, I really only know Waterloo by its name. To me it was exciting as reading Shaara on Gettysburg. This sentence describing the cavalry grabbed me for its onomatopoeia and the progression of 3-, 4-, and 5-syllable adverbs:

They rode steadily, menacingly, imperturbably, the thunder of their horses resounding in the intervals of musket and cannon-fire.

The Hobbit  I’m on Disc 3, listening to Rob Inglis’ superb reading of Tolkien’s classic. I laugh at my teenage self who didn’t care for the book after reading three pages. It was all so confusing: hobbits, Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, seed cakes. I’m trying to wait until Curt is home so we can listen together. To have two such magnificent books going through my head is an embarrassment of riches.


Arrow of God I’ve read several excellent books on Africa, but they since they have all been from a colonial perspective, I read Chinua Achebe’s novel. It took me about 2/3 of the book to get into the story of a Nigerian village. An old priest struggles to keep the old culture in the midst of change.

He found it refreshing to be talking to a man who did not have the besetting sin of smugness, of taking himself too seriously. 103

 

The Invisible Child: On Reading and Writing Books for Children  I expected Katherine Paterson’s book to be a memoir. As in a narrative. Instead, it was a collection of speeches. Once I got over that disappointment, I found many quotes to copy into my journal. Paterson’s books make me uncomfortable; they aren’t nice happy books. Oh, but they are powerful: one made me hiccup-sob 15 minutes.

Books are not TV or, heaven help us, MTV or the Internet. I suppose it would be possible to write a book whose plot jumped around like a frog on pep pills, but that’s not what books are about. If that’s the kind of writing you want to do, I think you should be in a more hectic medium. Books are meant to be read slowly and digested. These days people don’t pray much or go to services of worship, they don’t commune with nature—why, they hardly go to a national park without a TV set, a laptop, and a cell phone. The book is almost the last refuge of reflection—the final outpost of wisdom. I want children to have the gifts that books can give, and I don’t believe they can get them from a book that attempts to imitate the frantic fragmentation of contemporary life. 55

 

Baby Island  I responded to Carol Ryrie Brink’s book here.

 

Trudel’s Siege A little know book by Louisa May Alcott. My review.

 

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other Back in the 80’s, our telephone used to ring often throughout the day and evening. When we got overwhelmed with calls, we used to joke that it was time to move so our phone would quiet down. Lately, we get one, perhaps two calls a day. (Keep in mind that we only have a land line. Would it be different with a cell phone?)  Does this example resonate with you? It is just one of the things I’ve reflected on since I’ve read Sherry Turkle’s book. I didn’t connect with the first half of the book, an exploration of the role of robots as companions for the elderly and caregivers for the young. 

In the second part of the book, Turkle examines our increasing connectivity with each other online, but how oddly we are more alone than ever. I was struck with Turkle’s use of the word tethered to describe the pull and grip that technology has on us. I highly recommend this second half.

My own study of the networked life has left me thinking about intimacy—about being with people in person, hearing their voices and seeing their faces, trying to know their hearts. And it has left me thinking about solitude—the kind that refreshes and restores. Loneliness is failed solitude. To experience solitude you must be able to summon yourself by yourself; otherwise, you will only know how to be lonely. 288

 

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Seven Bookish Questions

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After three bloggers I admire (Mental Multivitamin, Quiet Life, and Semicolon) have posted answers to this meme, I’m eager to join the game.

1. What book (a classic?) do you hate? Gulp. I hesitate to say, because so many, many, many of my friends loved it. But I did not love Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping. It was too dark and I didn’t see the point. I read it to the end, but I just wanted it to be over. I really didn’t like Antigone either.

2. To what extent do you judge people by what they read?  Not as much as people assume I do. But I’ll be honest: I make judgments. When a friend recently told me she plans to read what I call 50 Shades of Grime, I inwardly grimaced. But if my friend apologizes because she only likes to read mysteries or light reading, I truly don’t think any differently about her and don’t need apologies. On the other hand, when I sat across the table from a man who told me that life is too short to read fiction—implying that fiction is unimportant—it was all I could do not to glower.

3. What television series would you recommend as the literariest?  Masterpiece Theater. My non-bookish husband grew to love Dickens, Trollope, Eliot and others through watching Martin Chuzzlewit, Bleak House, Barsetshire Chronicles, and Daniel Deronda.

4. Describe your ideal home library.  Three walls of floor-to-(cathedral)-ceiling books, with the sliding ladder; a fireplace somewhere on one of the walls; a wall of windows to let in the light; overstuffed chairs; a foot rest; a yellow lab who doesn’t emit bad odors at my feet; a pot of tea on the table, a string quartet playing in the corner. I’ve been in this room once (sans dog and strings) at my friend’s house; I wanted to move in. I’m in the midst of a year-long bookshelf crisis, with stacks and boxes of books in our garage after we dissembled our book wall in the bedroom. But a trip to IKEA is on the docket and I hope to install floor-to-ceiling shelves in our living room soon.

5. Books or sex? One after the other, but I won’t say in what order.

6. How do you decide what to read next?  Sometimes I stand in front of a bookcase in my home and think, “There is enough great reading here to keep me occupied for two years.” And I earnestly make a plan. Then I go into a different room in the house and have the same conversation in front of a different bookcase. I vacillate between reading books in order to release them—to make space on the shelves—and reading the best, most glorious books, which I, of course, plan to keep. This spring I re-discovered inter-library loans and read a dozen books that have been on my wish list for years.  Movie release dates push me into certain books: I’m currently listening to Rob Inglis’ masterful reading of The Hobbit and reading Les Miserables.

7. How much do you talk about books in real life (outside of the blogging community)?  All the time. If I have read a great book, my joy is not complete until other people have read it and loved it like I do. People know if they talk to me they will hear, I read a book about that…  My favorite dinner table question is Tell me what you are reading, and going around the table to hear responses. That question doesn’t come out unless I’m confident it would not put people on the spot. It is a gift to have reading friends. It is a gift to have patient friends who act interested when I go on and on. I love being the resident reader to whom people go for a book recommendation.

Mental Multivitamin said it best:

In a perfect world, it is what I do all day long: Read.
Talk about what I’m reading, what others are reading.
Read about what I’m reading, what others are reading.
Write, often about reading.
Read some more.
Sleep.

What To Expect When You’re Grieving

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Dear friends recently lost their dad. I remember being surprised after my dad died at how bone tired I was. As one acquainted with grief, I offer this short primer, not as a scientific study, but as an anecdotal narrative of what I’ve experienced, what I’ve observed and what you may expect.

1. Exhaustion   
Emotional work is physically exhausting. You will wake up tired, your sleep patterns will be disrupted, a deep weariness settles in. Make allowances for being tired; avoid extra responsibilities if you can. Take a nap without apologizing for it.

2. Disorientation    
Your brain is overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings. It is hard to focus. You repeat yourself in conversations. You begin a sentence, but can’t finish it. Fog is everywhere. Your ability to think sequentially is diminished. Basic decisions—where to eat, what to do next—are challenging.

3. Absorption
When someone you love dies, you look for clues, for signs, for anything that can help you make sense of his/her life. Or make sense of his/her death. You examine the relationship you shared, reviewing communications, reminding yourself of what is true. The more contradictions there are, the more you ponder. We want to understand, but the understanding doesn’t always come.  

4. Apathy
You couldn’t care less.  You stop eating. Or you can’t stop eating. Personal hygiene slips. You are tempted to veg-out with TV, computer games, mindless occupations. Habits help. Brush your teeth, take a walk. 

5. Isolation
Grief is a lonely thing. After the outpouring of your friends’ comfort and compassion, life for them returns to normal. But your life is unalterably changed. Grief makes people uncomfortable, unsure of their response, so they may avoid you in an effort to protect themselves. You may be reluctant to articulate your grief to yourself, let alone to others. Living in community can propel you into social situations that insulate you from isolation. 

 

There is no getting around the fact that grief is painful. We don’t like pain, so we search for shortcuts that will make the pain go away. I’ve seen folks allot 4-7 days to grieve and then pack up their grief and put it into storage. But grief too quickly stowed will return, ringing the doorbell, insisting on being present. 

How long will this last? Ecclesiastes 3 gives a clue: To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven. (emphasis mine) Three months is a normal time to experience the deep initial wave of grief. The loss will be with you until the end of your days; you will never be “over it.”

And then there will be the realization that—for a moment—you had forgotten how sad you were. It feels like betrayal to experience a slice of joy.

Another time will come when you feel like you should be sad, but the emotion is just not there. Then you make a decision to either manufacture the sadness or to let that moment pass. There is a ditch on both sides of the road: the ditch of denying grief, pretending you are fine; and the ditch of gripping grief with clenched hands that won’t release it.  When the tears come, let them. But don’t force them.

The summer after my mom died, I remember a scene of social awkwardness and resulting tears at a summer camp. Some girl impatiently demanded to know why I was crying. I was too embarrassed to articulate my awkwardness, so I played my trump card: “Well, wouldn’t you cry if your mom had died?” It was patently dishonest, and my ten-year-old self recognized—and regretted—the manipulation the moment those words left my mouth.

Underneath all of these thoughts is my faith that God is sovereign, that He knows my tears, and that I can trust Him. He doesn’t erase the pain as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but He does promise to comfort us. And that is enough.