Thackery and Dickens

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Much has been written comparing the writing of Dickens and Thackery, two prolific Victorian writers.  I recently finished listening to Thackery’s Vanity Fair on Librivox (tag line: acoustical liberation of books in the public domain) while I worked in the kitchen, close to the computer.

Opening sentence of Vanity Fair: A Novel Without A Hero by William Makepeace Thackery: “While the present century was in its teens, and on one sun-shiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton’s Academy for Young Ladies, on Cheswick Wall a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles per hour.”

~   ~   ~
“…but the difference between Bunyan and Thackery is simply
this, — that Bunyan made Vanity Fair a small incident
in a long journey, a place through which most of us
pass on our way to better things; while Thackery,
describing high society in his own day, makes it
a place of long sojourn, wherein his characters spend
the greater part of their lives.”  ~ William Long, English Literature

It is tempting to see Becky Sharp as the lying, conniving, manipulating female and Amelia Sedley her foil as the pure, trusting, generous female.  No, NO!!  I believe Thackery is showing us the error of both sides of the ditch.  Amelia is as wrong in her lack of discernment, idolatrous love of her son, simpering, passive, mishmash; she is certainly not a role model. 

This book was pleasant enough to listen to.  If you have a pathological liar in your life, a person who, with wide open eyes, swears she is telling you the truth that you find out later are verifiable lies, you may find yourself more than a little amused at the dialog between Becky and anyone.  A phrase or paragraph occasionally grabbed me, but mostly it was ho-hum.  I much prefer Anthony Trollope.

On walks, in the car, in the garage, and other places, I listened to Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

Opening of Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist: “Among other public buildings in the town of Mudfog, it boasts of one which is common to most towns great or small, to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse there was born on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business of all events, the item of mortality whose name is prefixed the the head of this chapter.”

Sigh.  William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White were born a century too late.

Dickens is dark.  Dickens tends towards sentimentality.  This go around with Oliver, I found myself a cynic, questioning elements of the storyline and a little miffed that our precious Oliver was so perfect.  The good women in this story were smothering, cooing, schmaltzy, mushy pots of emotion. I have the distinct notion that I would not like an adult Oliver raised by one of these women. Yikes!

Dickens does has a way with words.  I will continue to read or listen to Dickens just for his character’s names.  One name in this book always went past me when I read it, but when I heard it I laughed out loud.  (It’s too ticklish to put on the blog; he makes his appearance in chapter 9)
I often wished I had a notebook handy to write down one of Dicken’s phrases. 

Thackery writes about high society; Dickens about low society.  I still prefer Anthony Trollope.

Hoffer

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My baby, my first born son, turned 25!  Christopher (always with three syllables) became Hoffer (his brother’s best pronunciation); Hoffer became Chris.  Since his mother-in-law, my good friend, is also named Chris, he is often My Chris.  But to me he will always be Hoffer or The Old Gentleman. 

Chris has always had a keen sense of propriety, a kind and gracious heart, and a relaxed but courtly bearing; I started thinking of him as T.O.G. when he was five or six.   No one calls him The Old Gentleman – this is all in my head – but it captures a part of who he is.  Masculine modesty without improper prudishness. 

Don’t be fooled though.  He’s a magnet for fun; he laughs heartily and delights in practical jokes. 

When I think about Chris it is always in the context of relationships.  Old or young, very old or very young, he is good with people. I love to see him in the various roles he’s been given: husband, father, son, grandson, boss, big brother, friend.  He’s nothing if not dependable.  He’s learned to work hard and God has given him success.  Blessed (is) the man that fears Jehovah...

For those interested in homeschooling, I want to share his success to give you a different sort of encouragement.  Chris always did well academically, but wasn’t particularly brainy. He was a solid B+ student, an 89 per center. He did what was assigned to completion whether or not he enjoyed that subject. These are his strengths: he likes to work hard, he’s great with people, and he enjoys learning new things. 

He started working part-time for a manufacturer when he was 17, an entry-level job in which his fingernails got very dirty.   He mastered that job, challenged himself, and kept at it. He was moved to another job and worked at that.  His boss recognized his native abilities, appreciated his attitude, and tacitly put him through an informal management training.  Marrying the boss’s daughter wasn’t part of the scope and sequence, but Chris applied for that position and was granted permission. This spring when a retirement opened up a foreman job, managing the assembly plant, Chris was the man the managers thought best suited for the job.  He is highly respected by both his subordinates and his superiors.

He doesn’t have a college degree.   I don’t either.   I have often wished I had.  When people suggest I go back and get a degree, I laugh and say, “Then I’d have to study whatever they require, and I don’t want to take Abnormal Psychology, thanks all the same.”  I’m not against a university education.  But I want to go on record saying it’s not necessary for success.

We’ve always chanted the mantra: we’re raising our sons to be lifetime learners.  We’re giving them the tools with the hope that they will continue.  I see that happening with Chris.  He will never read Virgil in Latin, but he just roofed his steep 1920’s roof.  He won’t discuss Quantum Theories, but he will counsel  people in need.  He started reading his son Winnie the Pooh at about 18 months.  He opens his home to others, leads his family with confidence, loves his Grandpa and Grandma, and he always has a smile and hug for his mom!

Happy (belated) Birthday, my Hoffer.  You make your dad and me happy and grateful parents, you bring us joy all our days.

Food Words

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Wednesday Words

“Sugars and starches are compounds made of only three elements — carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. When sugars and starches are broken down to these elements, there are two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen for every atom of carbon. Two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen are the same as a molecule of water.  For this reason, sugars and starches were called carbohydrates which means watered carbon.”


“In the eighteenth century, scientists became interested in a kind of substance found in all living things that acted differently from all other substances.  If a fluid like blood or egg white was heated, it did not become a boiling liquid like water or oil.  Instead, it became a solid.  And, if this was not strange enough, once changed to a solid, it could never again become a liquid.  Nothing could be done to return blood or egg white to its original liquid state. It did not take scientists long to realize that this strange material that changed permanently when heated was the very basis of all life. For this reason, they named it protein meaning, of first importance.“

~ Vicki Cobb in Science Experiments You Can Eat

Hitting the Jackpit

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Kenny, our nice neighbor and friendly mail carrier,
walked up to our door with letters in his right hand;
then, in a dramatic gesture, he pulled out of bundled pile of packages from his bag.
“Wow!” I exclaimed, “I’ve hit the jackpit!”
I was so excited for ten seconds that I couldn’t think of the correct word.

Only one of these is an assignment for school.
I’m excited about each title.

Hat Tip to Deb for turning me on to Gervase Phinn,
‘The James Herriot of schools…’

PaperBackSwap:  it’s a beautiful thing.

Sweet Land

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“It’s a poem, not a documentary.”
Ali Selim, writer and director

If you like Wendell Berry, you’ll like Sweet Land.

If you like Andrew Wyeth, you’ll like Sweet Land.

If you want to show how sexy it can be not to touch, watch Sweet Land.

There’s a mail-order bride, Inge, who arrives in Minnesota in 1920 carrying a Victrola. She is prevented from marrying her husband-to-be because she is German.  The story is told in a double flashback, from 2004 to 1968 to 1920.

Stark, spare, simple, poignant, economical, lush, slow, subtle, gorgeous, sweet, lyrical, sad, funny…..lovely!

I must own this film.  I might even buy the soundtrack.

(Thank you to sweet Valeri and dear Rachel for the urgent summons to watch this.)

Note: I recommend watching this with subtitles.  Inge speaks German and Norwegian and, although neither is translated, the subtitles distinguish this.  Olaf understands Norwegian, but not German; knowing which she is tells you what he understands.  The movie is very slow.  This movie is as opposite the Bourne movies as one can be.  If you like action, this one’s not for you.


The Imagination of Men, Young and Old

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The Young Cavalry Man
Augustus Edward Mulready
Bridgeman Art Library

~     ~     ~     ~ 

Funny Quote from Vanity Fair

Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family gallantry, and it was his happy belief that almost every woman upon whom he himself cast friendly eyes was in love with him.  He left Emmy under the persuasion that she was slain by his wit and attractions and went home to his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her.

She was not fascinated, only puzzled by his grinning, his simpering, his scented cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled lacquered boots.  She did not understand one half the compliments which he paid. She had never in her small experience with mankind met a professional ladies’ man, as yet, and looked upon my lord as something curious, rather than pleasant.  And if she did not admire, certainly wondered at him.

as transcribed from Librivox recording, chapter 63
~ William Makepeace Thackery

Kitchen Project – Silver and Linens

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Ironing is a bit like cooking.
You can certainly live without doing it,
but you occasionally suspect that
the time you save isn’t worth
what you sacrifice.
What you give up is this:
a small, but indelible act of grace.

~ Monica Nassif in Laundry, The Spirit of Keeping Home



The fact that you are a Christian should show
in some practical area of a growing
creativity and sensitivity to beauty,
rather than in a gradual drying up of creativity,
and a blindness to ugliness.

~  Edith Schaeffer in The Hidden Art of Homemaking

It is scarcely surprising then, that so many people
imagine housekeeping to be boring,
frustrating, repetitive, unintelligent drudgery.
I cannot agree.
Each of its regular routines brings satisfaction
when it is completed. These routines echo the rhythm of life,
and the housekeeping rhythm is the rhythm of the body.
You get satisfaction not only from the sense of order,
cleanliness, freshness, peace and plenty restored,
but from the knowledge that you yourself
and those you care about are going to enjoy these benefits.

~ Cheryl Mendelson in Home Comforts

Baking bread, weaving cloth, putting up preserves,
teaching and singing to children,
must have been far more nourishing
than being the family chauffeur or shopping at super-markets,
or doing housework with mechanical aids.
The art and craft of housework has diminished;
much of the time-consuming drudgery–
despite modern advertising to the contrary-remains.
In housework, as in the rest of life,
the curtain of mechanization has come down
between the mind and the hand.

~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh  in Gift from the Sea

Ideas inspired from these authors,
which have been percolating for some time,
are coming to fruition.

My tall son emptied the cupboard above the fridge –
a tottering pile of tarnished silver.
As I polished each piece I thought of ways
to incorporate these beautiful wedding gifts
into our life more regularly beginning now.

My favorite piece is this bread plate.
This month I’m baking the communion bread for our church.
This Lord’s Day I will put the loaves on silver plates.

I found cloth napkins in four (!) different cupboards and drawers.
Using the container principle, I found a large basket to hold them.
I touched them all up and folded them uniformly.

Lost treasures (birthday placemat) were uncovered.

A table runner from Ecuador, never used. Aren’t the colors magnificent?

With boys grown and gone, I have room in our guest room closet to hang the tablecloths …

…leaving room in this cupboard for my basket of napkins and runners.

Drudgery?  Are you kidding?  Glory!!
It’s amazing
how invigorating,
how liberating,
 how energizing
 clean can be.

Thank you, Lord!

I Used to Think

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I used to think … that a woman who lost a day of productivity each
month due to her cycle was a wuss and lacked gumption.

I used to think… that the persistent taking off and putting on
of reading glasses was vanity over appearances,
not simply because one cannot see some things with them,
nor can one see certain things without them.

I used to think … utility trumped beauty every time.

I used to think … liturgy in worship was mechanical, cold, and dead.

I used to think… painted toenails were pointless.

I used to think … if you listened to country music, you were a moron to be pitied.

I used to think … because it was fruit, I could eat all I wanted.

I used to think … cloth napkins were a waste of time.

Forgive me, Lord.

How have you changed?

What did you use to think?

Monday Miscellany

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~ Gambling is stealing from yourself.

I’ve never thought of it this way, but a few stanzas in The Inferno caught my attention. 

Man can raise violent hands against himself
and his own goods; so in the second round,
paying the debt that never can be paid,

are suicides, self-robbers of your world,
or those who gamble all their wealth away
and weep up there when they should have rejoiced.

While throwing away money isn’t a sin I struggle with, throwing away time is a form of stealing which I participate in.


~ Pish! Drivel! Waffle! Balderdash!

Quote of the weekend from the series To Serve Them All My Days.  These words were one master’s description of student exams as he returned them, graded, to his students. 

~ A fun resource

There are several books in this genre, but of the ones I own, this is my favorite.  Friday night DH and I were reviewing the next day’s duties shortly before we slipped into sleep. One of us said, “You can count on me.”  My husband wondered aloud how counting came to mean depending. That was it!  No sleep for me until I looked it up.  He teased me that I wouldn’t be able to sleep without telling him what I discovered; which was just enough of a dare that I clammed up in fits of giggling.  Then he squirreled the word “count” into every other sentence for the next two days. 

My first foray into phrase origins came from a fellow word bird who explained the phrase “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”  Kelly told me that cat was short for catfish, which is a prickly, difficult to handle fish. 

~  Why is *finishing* such a challenge to people like me?

The kitchen project is 90% completed.  It is the matter of one evening or one afternoon to finish it.  Yet, I hold back.  Part of it is perfectionism: this isn’t done to the highest standard, it never can be, so I am very hesitant to say with authority, “It’s done!”  But mostly it is a character flaw.  It is fairly easy to begin a new project with enthusiasm and oomph;  it’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax to put it to bed.

~  Any ideas on managing email? 

I manage my email the same way I grew up managing my bedroom: let things pile up and then deal with Mt. McKinley in one long cleaning frenzy.  Certain friends respond immediately to each email.  I bet they wake up at 5:00 a.m. every day too.  Others may never respond.  I fall in the middle.  I try to respond to each email but it could be weeks later.  And then I might send four or five emails replying to four or five former messages.   It must frustrate them and clog up their system.

My son taught me to use folders and I have a folder for each sender/recipient.  These are where store emails I want to keep.  I don’t move a message from the Inbox to personal folder until I’ve responded and there is no further action to take.  I’ve recently been working through my Sent folder which had over 1,000 items. I’m deleting ephemeral messages and distributing more substantive emails to personal folders so correspondence back and forth is in one place. 

Neil Postman is right:  we’re drowning in information.  How dost thou deal with such things, dear reader? Is there anyone out there who just deletes them ALL?  Yikes!

Going Somewhere, Limbo

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George Grant’s book Going Somewhere makes a cameo appearance within itself (!), explaining its purpose .  Dan (Dante Alighieri Gylberd) is working on four manuscripts while he is traveling.

The third manuscript was a contemplative novel.  Because it contained
only two characters, a very limited frame of reference, and a strict linear
plot, it was essentially a novel of ideas. There was hardly any dialogue,
virtually no sensory descriptions, no significant character conflicts, and
no mystery or intrigue.  More than anything, it was an anthology of
cultural critiques set upon a modern stage after the pattern of Dante’s
Inferno or Thoreau’s Walden. If Seinfeld had been a television show
about nothing, this was a book about everything.  (p.26)         

Anthology of cultural critiques.  That’s it!

So the story is simply the platform for the stuff Grant wants to write about.  And it is great stuff!  Books (50 are cited), bookstores (specific stores in different cities), newspapers, ethnic food (real restaurants still doing business), kitsch, architecture, work, worship, culture and brief local history of twelve American cities.

If you know nothing about Dante’s Inferno you need to begin by learning the famous opening line:

Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,    
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,            
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

During a stint of jury duty, Bea reflects on how lost and fumbling many of us are:

Bea was struck by how many of these jurors seemed to benefit
little more than materially from their jobs. (snip) They were
mercenaries, working merely for money with little or no
sense of destiny, vision, or calling. (p.41)

The emphasis on mercenaries is mine, but that popped out and bit me when I read it.  Oh, it is a sad commentary of our impoverished culture that for far too many people, life consists of dragging the body out of bed, numbly performing a task, guiding their cars through a snarl of traffic and the maze of drive-through windows, clicking the remote, falling asleep, cycling through the routine in a coma.

Maybe that was why even she had taken to fantasizing
about getting away from it all more and more lately–
pondering what it might be life to actually do what
Dan had always dreamed of doing: selling everything
and heading off toward the blue horizon.  She read the
wonderful bestsellers of Frances Mayes and Peter Mayle–
Mayes and her husband left their promising careers
and moved to Italy, recounting their adventures
in Under the Tuscan Sun, while Mayle and his wife
had dropped out and moved to France, telling
their tale in A Year in Provence.  She discovered
that rather than inspiring her, they left her
with a profound sense of yearning as well as
a bit of melancholy over her maniac lifestyle. (p.60)

Dan and his wife Bea (get it? Beatrice?!) decide to leave Limbo
(humorously enough, Wheaton, IL) in their VW named Virgil and travel
across the country on pilgrimage.