Tag Archives: quotes

Hans Brinker – A Sterling Story

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Hans Brinker is a sterling story. 

Like a meal at a four-star restaurant it is delicious, beautiful and nourishing.  But a taste for delicious, beautiful and nourishing must be cultivated.  I would not serve Mary Mapes Dodge’s classic  Hans Brinker to a child who has been fed a steady diet of literary Happy Meals.  But a boy or girl who has tasted Laura Ingalls Wilder, Robert Louis Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott or Ralph Moody would eat this story up.

The setting, the time period and cultural references are foreign, and thus require some work to read.  Published in 1865, the story is set in the Netherlands.  Imagine weather so cold that the canals froze.  What would American families do?  Stay inside and watch TV.  In nineteenth century Holland every able bodied person laced on his skates, bundled up and had fun skating! 

There are benefits to reading it slowly, using tools such as Google Earth, search engines and maps to explore areas of interest.  Rabbit trails abound!

• Were the telescope and microscope invented by the Dutch Jacob Metius and Sacharias Janssen or by the English Roger Bacon? 
• A group of boys skate to Leiden and The Hague: look it up!
• Why did the art of curing and pickling herrings revolutionize the economy of Holland?

Any reader with a whiff of curiosity could learn a fair bit about Holland by reading Hans Brinker alone, in concert with other reference tools, or alongside other books like The Wheel on the School.  References to art abound; use Hans Brinker as a springboard for studying Dutch artists.  

Some favorite quotes:

Never had the sunset appeared more beautiful to Peter than when he saw it exchanging farewell glances with the windows and shining roofs of the city before him.

It is no sin to love beautiful things.

A tamed bird is a sad bird, say what you will.

Although the sermon was spoken slowly, Ben [English boy] could understand little of what was said; but when the hymn came, he joined in with all his heart. A thousand voices lifted in love and praise offered a grander language than he could readily comprehend.


Who will be the fastest skater in the race and win the Silver Skates?  Read Hans Brinker to find out!

Provence with MFK Fisher

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If you were to ask foodies who the best food writer of the twentieth century is, MFK Fisher would show up on everyone’s list.  She is on my short list of food writers I’ll never tire of reading (along with Robert Farrar Capon, Ruth Reichl, Julia Child, and Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin). 

Since I’ve only read one book by MFK Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf, I picked up Two Towns in Provence, two books bound into one.  The two towns are Aix and Marseilles. But there is precious little about food here. These memoirs focus on the people in Fisher’s daily life in Southern France: the waiter at her favorite cafe, her doctor, the proprietress where she boarded,  taxi drivers, a couple whose window faced theirs, fish wives, mendicants, students, even strangers whom Fisher repeatedly sees. 

Fisher is a sculptor and words are her tools.  She chips away the banalities and highlights the quirks and mannerisms unique to her subjects.  Her characters are not wooden; they were warm and vibrant. 

Both books would have benefited from stronger editing.  Sections could have been cut, leaving a tight, cohesive memoir.  I had to push myself through parts, knowing Fisher’s characters and turns of phrase would eventually reward me. 

The few people that used [the only bath in the hotel] evidently felt that this price [$0.10] included full maid service, but the two overworked slaveys in the hotel did not, so that I usually cleaned the tub in self-protection. I decided then that many people are latently swinish and that I would rather work anywhere than in a hotel.

I am intrigued by the skilled synthesis of fast and slow people in this description of the Two Sisters restaurant in Marseilles (emphasis mine).

What we see is the top of the iceberbg, as in any good restaurant. Beneath it is the real organization: the staff, both seen and invisible, the provisions, constantly checked and renewed; the upkeep of the whole small tight place, with all its linens, glasses, table fittings, and its essential fresh cleanliness. Above all, there is the skilled synthesis of fast and slow people, that they will work together on bad days and hectic festivals, through heat waves and the worst mistrals.

If you are a Francophile, you should probably read this book.  For the rest, pick up one of Fisher’s other titles.

The Peterkin Papers

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The Peterkin Papers reminds me of a young child who tells a joke that makes everyone laugh. Then she tells the same joke again and again and again and again, looking for the same satisfying response. 

The Peterkins–Mr. and Mrs., Agamemnon, Elizabeth Eliza, Solomon John, and various unnamed younger brothers–are a family with lofty aspirations and nothing to ground them.  If the Christmas tree is too tall for their living room, they raise the ceiling instead of cutting the tree down to size. In short, they are silly fools. The lady from Philadelphia is their salvation. After they’ve exhausted their harebrained ideas, she solves their problem with one sentence of common sense.

The foolishness is funny at first blush, but gets tiresome quickly.  On the plus side, the illustrations are well done, complementing the text.  The chapter on Agamemnon’s education entertained me because it was close enough to the truth to be very funny. This is the best taste of the book I can offer.

Agamemnon had always been fond of reading, from his childhood up. He was at his book all day long. Mrs. Peterkin had imagined he would come out a great scholar because she could never get him away from his books.

And so it was in his colleges; he was always to be found in the library, reading and reading. But they were always the wrong books.

For instance: the class were required to prepare themselves on the Spartan war. This turned Agamemnon’s attention to the Fenians, and to study the subject he read up on Charles O’Malley and Harry Lorrequer, and some later novels of that sort, which did not help him on the subject required, yet took up all his time, so that he found himself unfitted for anything else when the examinations came. In consequence he was requested to leave.

Agamemnon always missed in his recitations, for the same reason that Elizabeth Eliza did not get on in school, because he was always asked the questions he did not know. It seemed provoking; if the professors had only asked something else! But they always hit upon the very things he had not studied up.

Mrs. Peterkin felt this was encouraging, for Agamemnon knew the things they did not know in colleges. In colleges they were willing to take for students only those who knew certain things. She thought Agamemnon might be a professor in a college for those students who didn’t know those things.

Sampler of Favorite Quotes – 2010 Edition

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“I think of all the joy reading has given me,” she said. “It is not just because it is good for you, but because it is good.”   ~ Katherine Paterson

Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world
are aligned, as though they were three characters
finally in a conversation together,
three notes suddenly making a chord.
 ~ Rebecca Solnit

Beauty is to the spirit what food is to the flesh.  ~ Frederick Buechner

But a community is something different from a commodity.
~ James Howard Kunstler

 
After the work is read, attention must be given.
This is the time for serious reflection
that goes beyond the act of good reading
to the broader acts of good living.
 ~ James W. Sire

I beg Thee, my God, the pre-eternal husbandman,
with the wind of thy loving-kindness
winnow the chaff of my works,
 and grant to my soul the wheat of forgiveness,
shut me in Thy heavenly storehouse
and save me.
~ Vespers prayer quoted by Frederica Mathewes-Green

My brother and sisters and I,
we learned something a long time ago.
We learned to love one another.
That our siblinghood was strong
and gracious and unconditional.
~  Donna at Quiet Life

Love is a great beautifier.
~ Louisa May Alcott

If you are tired of parties, you ‘re going to the wrong church.  ~ Matthew Barley (speaking of our church!)

There is a particular happiness in giving a man
whom you like very much
good food that you have cooked yourself.
~ Isak Dinesen

If I didn’t become a musician I’d starve inside.  ~ Kazakh girl quoted by Colin Thubron

Laughter is like changing a baby’s diaper.
It doesn’t change things permanently,
but it makes everything OK for a while.

Life is curly: Don’t try to straighten it out.

I have not yet witnessed
a spontaneous recovery from incompetence.

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.  ~ Annie Dillard

Joy is the best makeup.
~ Anne Lamott

The purpose of music can be nothing else
but the glory of God
and the restoration of the heart.
~ Johann Sebastian Bach

I let my words drop into the silence
like stones.
~ P. D. James

[on watching the river from Millington Bridge]

It is easy to lean over the parapet at these points,
not nearly so easy to stop doing it;
the leisurely flow of the stream beneath
laughs at the scruples which would forbid you
to spend another five minutes in doing nothing…
another ten minutes…
another quarter of any hour,
so as to make it a round number by the clock.
~ Ronald A. Knox

What is the purpose of the Giraffe?
It is without doubt useless
to explain how and why
the nature of things was thus decided.
~ Étienne Saint-Hilaire
Life does often get in the way of one’s reading,
agreed the Major.
~ Helen Simonson

I want to cultivate attitudes and actions
that are vigorous and vital enough
to generate life and gusto in others.
To be contagious in my enthusiasm!
~ Luci Shaw

For the Bach Lover on your list

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I wrote this book because I have always loved Bach’s
music and always wanted to know the man who made
it. But I was also drawn to investigate the opposition
of reason and faith. ~ James R. Gaines

“I have just finished a book that I am going to count among my favorites of all time. It is that good. You have GOT to read it.”  After Gene Veith’s emphatic review, I had to read James Gaines’ Evening in the Palace of Reason.  It is the best non-fiction book I’ve read in 2010.

Evening in the Palace follows two trends: first to tether an entire book around a single piece of art, as in Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring or Vreeland’s Luncheon of the Boating Party; the second to interweave two biographies, á la Plutarch’s Lives or Julie and Julia.  Gaines writes an overview of the lives of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick the Great but focuses on a confrontation between the two men and the music that resulted from it.

What Gaines does exceedingly well is to illustrate the difference in Medieval / Reformation assumptions and those of the Enlightenment. 

[A]mong the Enlightenment’s least explicit legacies to us is a common understanding that there is a gulf, a space that defines a substantial difference, between spiritual and secular life. For Bach there was no such place, no realm of neutrality or middle ground that was not a commitment to one side or the other in the great battle between God and Satan.

What most divided him [Bach] from them [the next generation] was their motive for making music at all, of whatever sort.  The new “enlightened” composer wrote for one reason and one only: to please the audience.

[Carol sets up her soapbox and mounts it. The shrill voice emerges.]

People!

There is one and only one way to read this book: that is while listening to  The Art of Fugue Musical Offering (or here or here) while you read. When Gaines brilliantly exposits the complexity of this particular fugue, you must have the notes in your head. Listen while you commute, listen while you cook, listen while you clean. 

I highly recommend this book.  I highly recommend Bach.  Even if you have no musical background, no previous exposure to his music, Bach’s music will seep into your soul and water the parched places. If you love someone who already loves Bach, get him or her the book and the CD.   

We can talk about his brilliantly melodic part writing,
the richness of his counterpoint, the way
his music follows text the way roses follow a trellis,
in perfect fidelity and submission but at
not the slightest sacrifice of beauty.
Finally, though, one comes up against the fact that
the greatest of great music is in its ability
to express the unutterable.

Perishable

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I don’t understand Korea.  Why it is divided, why we fought a war, what distinguishes it from other Asian countries.  Helpful books are waiting on my shelf; If I Perish, by Esther Ahn Kim (Ahn E. Sook) was the first one I picked up. The setting of the book is Japanese-occupied Korea during World War II.   

Kim tells the compelling story of her six years of imprisonment for refusing to bow to a shrine. Like holocaust memoirs, it is incredible to fathom what a body and spirit can endure.  Her courage is huge, but so is her honesty: she was resolved to die a martyr’s death, but she was horrified at the thought of being cold.  She was, in short, perishable. 

The readiness is all. (Hamlet)  After her first escape from prison, Kim found refuge in an abandoned country home.  Expecting future imprisonment, she began a systematic preparation for persecution.  Did you read that last sentence?  She prepared for persecution. 

She memorized more than one hundred chapters of the Bible and many hymns.  She fasted to train her body to live without food and drink: first three days, then seven, then ten.  She barely survived the ten day fast.  The role of food in her life fascinated me.

Thoughts of food never left my mind. 146

The thought that I might die of hunger
and not be able to join the martyrs
made me gloomy.  Didn’t I even have
a little of a nature, or did I only have a
beggar’s stomach? 147

The only way I could show her my love, I decided,
was to give her my meals. However, determined as I
was, all the food went into my mouth when it was served.
What a despicable, ugly person I was.
I was upset and sickened at myself.
I rebuked and insulted myself more than I
had ever done before, but when the mealtime
came, I was again finding excuses. The battle
continued for several days, but each day I lost.
Then when I was praying, a ray of light touched my spirit.
“I will offer my meal to Jesus!”
I carried my food quickly to Wha Choon.
“This is Jesus’ meal. I have offered it to Him.
And He wants you to have it, so thank Him and eat it.”
192 (abridged)

Ahn’s mother is a great study.  She kept the view of eternity on the dashboard of her life.

“Whatever might happen to you,” she cautioned me,
“you should never forget the moment when you shall
reach the gate of heaven. Be faithful,” she said. 176

Mother couldn’t sing a tune, made some funny linguistic mistakes, but she could work. This next quote is going into my file on working to the glory of God:

Because her heart was pure, she always worked diligently
to make her surroundings clean, too, by washing, sweeping
and polishing the house. She was truly a living testimony of
God’s grace, strong spiritually, and very dependable. 128

Who wouldn’t desire to be described this way?

Wherever Mother was, it was like a
chapel of heaven around her. 129

Esther Ahn Kim’s faith was vibrant, vocal, bold.  Amazingly, she lived when many others died.  My favorite quote from this book illustrates the active nature of that faith.

I looked out the window and saw a bird trembling on a bare bough
that had long ago withered. I was just like that bird. Suddenly I shook
my head to the right and left vigorously. That courageous bird was
playing in a swirling snowstorm, ignoring her enemies. I had to be
such a bird. If she only perched on that withered bough with her
head stuck beneath her wing and feared the wind, snow, heaven,
earth, and everything else that might challenge her, she would only
freeze and die when night came. 135

The Abolition of Britain

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But I think it is important that Anglophiles, especially those
in North America, begin to understand that the imagined,
ideal Britain which they have treasured for so long has
been swept away and is being replaced by an entirely
different country-a place of shrinking liberties, of
increasingly arbitrary authority, of bad manners and
violence, of illiteracy and ignorance, of cringing conformism.
As the culture disintegrates, the physical, political,
diplomatic and military entity formerly known as
Britain is also breaking up, and is likely to be
incorporated into a new European superstate.

Any Anglophile will say his or her love began with British literature: Austen, Tolkien, Trollope, Pym; Thackeray, Herriot, Chesterton, Milne; Lewis, Eliot, Stevenson, Read; Bronte, Wodehouse, MacDonald, Grahame.  Page by page we are drawn to the customs and manners and mores of Britain.  We take trips to find the Britain of our literature. We search for pockets of preservation, places that match the geography of our imagination. 

If you want to hold on to that Britain, if a look at modern reality will dispel your dreams, stay away from this book.    

A nation is the sum of its memories,
and when those memories are allowed to die,
it is less of a nation.

What Morris Berman does in The Twilight of American Culture–describes what he calls a cultural massacre in America–Peter Hitchens does in The Abolition of Britain.  Hitchens outlines the changes that have taken place within one generation, between the death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965 to the death of Princess Diana in 1997.  Morris’ view is from the left; Hitchens’ is from the right.

The face of Britain has undergone radical plastic surgery
so that it can no longer recognize itself in the mirror.

Hitchens recapitulates themes from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death; the decline in literacy, curiosity, imagination, and the ability to think for oneself. He examines the effects of television and computers, the decline in education, the rise in divorce and single parenting, the ignorance of history, the rejection of great literature, the loss in one generation of religious sensibilities.  

Anyone trained from his earliest years in the television
habit is likely to become extremely passive,
because his ability to imagine, to hold conversations,
to think without prompting, has already been
weakened and withered.  He does not need them.

We welcome into our homes the machines that
vacuum the thoughts out of our heads
and pump in someone else’s.

Blunt as his brother Christopher, but conservative and unrepentant of his politically-incorrectness, Hitchens exposes the inconsistencies and unintended consequences of present policies.  One weakness I see in this book is that Hitchens ignores the failures of the British Empire; there is a reason that it came down. While he decries the direction England is going, he doesn’t delineate a solution.  As a journalist, Peter Hitchens’ thoughts are accessible at his blog.  A few random quotes from the book:

The universal conscription of women
 into paid work has emptied the suburbs…

Home death is becoming as rare as home birth.

…fewer and fewer children have two parents,
and where more and more women are
married to the State.

The most significant change for the majority
is that life is no longer so safe, so polite or
so gentle as it once was.

Letters to an American Lady

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I’m sorry to say that my initial response to Letters to an American Lady was one of annoyance.  The book contains thirteen years of letters from C.S. Lewis (Jack) to a woman who kept writing him back.  Only Jack’s letters to Mrs. ——– (Mary) are published, but from his we get an idea of hers. She had many distressing circumstances, medical and financial.  

Lewis was from the old school of manners: for every letter he received, he wrote a reply. Jack doesn’t disguise his opinion: responding to mail was tedious and difficult and, at times, dreadful.  The daily letter-writing I have to do is very laborious for me. (May 6, 1959)  He asks Mary –nearly every year–not to write at holiday times. Will you, please, always avoid “holiday” periods in writing to me? (April 17, 1954)  And always remember that there is no time in the whole year when I am less willing to write than near Christmas, for it is then that my burden is heaviest. (January 29, 1955)

A majority of the letters have some explanation/apology from Lewis about the length it took him to respond.  (You have, you know, recently stepped up the pace of the correspondence! I can’t play at that tempo, you know.) (October 5, 1955)  I get on my righteous indignation and want to reproach Dear Mary to please quit bugging one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. 

Don’t get me wrong: there are some gems in these letters between the in great hastes and all good wishes.  All the best quotes from this book will be found in The Quotable Lewis if you’d like to skim the cream off the top.
 

As for wrinkles–pshaw! Why shouldn’t we have wrinkles?
Honorable insignia of long service in this warfare. (October 30, 1958) 

The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit,
hour by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present,
the exact present, that is unbearable. (June 14, 1956) 

A man whose hands are full of parcels can’t receive a gift. (March 31, 1958)

: :         : :        : :

The second time through this short book (124 small pages) I had a better sense of its value. In short, it is a primer on helping people who are in pain. 

He prays for her.  From the first letter, I will have you in my prayers (October 26, 1950) to a letter written on behalf of Lewis by Walter Hooper, He is much concerned for you and prays that you may have courage for whatever may be yours both in the present and future. (August 10, 1963) there are assurances of prayer.

His words of sympathy are simple: May God comfort you. (October 20, 1956)  May the peace of God continue to infold you. (June 7, 1959)  I am most sorry to hear about…

Lewis writes about the daily stuff of life:  I love the empty, silent, dewy, cobwebby hours (September 30, 1958)  A big tree and a still bigger branch off another came crashing down in the wood yesterday, in windless calm–purely for lack of internal moisture. (August 21, 1959)  In these short snippets he offers a piece of his personal life, which, I’m certain, was received as a valued gift and a pleasant distraction.

If you love Lewis and want to read everything he wrote, this is a book for you.  For the rest of you, get The Quotable Lewis.

What is your favorite C.S. Lewis title? 
Which book would you recommend to a reader unfamiliar with C.S. Lewis?

Home Below Hell’s Canyon

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After Five Five-Star Books in a row, I didn’t expect to read a sixth stellar book.  A friend loaned me this book, and I decided I’d better read and return it.  We had swapped books of local pioneer stories and the one I sent her wasn’t really that good.  I approached Home Below Hell’s Canyon with a neutral attitude. 

Well.

This book whirled me around.  During the Depression Grace and Len Jordan bought a sheep ranch in Hell’s Canyon.  With their three young children, they worked to make a go of it.  Danger, isolation, toil, trials were daily companions.  Jordan does not resort to high drama, nor does she syrup the narrative. 

Our determined frugality did not ease much, even at Christmas.  In the youngsters’ stockings there would be something practical and something they had longed for, with a treat of candy and apples.

The life of the Jordan family was so foreign to a typical family’s life in 2010.  Risks had to be taken, decisions had to be made, chores had to get done…all without a husband a cell phone call away.  The pace of life was measured, time was carefully apportioned for the family and ranch hands to be fed and provisioned.  It was typical to can 1,000 quarts of fruits, vegetables and meat for the year to come.

A  canyon is a bad place for real wrongs, far worse for fancied ones.

What fascinated me was the education of the children using the Calvert School’s correspondence course.  The Jordans homeschooled before homeschool was a word!  The way Grace Jordan met the challenges of educating the kids while running a ranch is worth the cost of the book. 

From the first day of school it was clear that only by setting a rigid program would we ever protect ourselves from the double threat of alien interruptions and our own natural inertia.

This book is worthy. I hope to re-read it down the road.  Satisfying stuff.

Creation is making something from nothing; and creation is as bad for tying up a man’s day- and night-time thoughts as the drug habit.  Yet it is soul-satisfying, and for the weeks that we were involved in the carpentering and plumbing arts, we had never been happier.

Len Jordan went on to become governor of Idaho and a US Senator. 

We got word that we might have trouble disposing of our wool unless it was certified as shorn by a union crew.  A sheep-shearer’s union in the depths of the Snake Canyon was patently absurd, but the 1938 path of the American livestock man, a normally independent and rugged creature, was certainly not strewn with government roses.

Grace Jordan wrote four more books, taught journalism and English at various Idaho universities and has an elementary school named after her. 

Five Five-Star Books

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I feel badly for the next book I pick up to read.  I’ve so thoroughly enjoyed the last five books…the next one’s bound to be a disappointment, don’t you think?  I think six great books in a row is pushing the odds. 
                                                                                                                                                                                       

There it was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters.  Crossing to Safety, the story of a life-long friendship between two couples, is full of phrases which reverberated in my bones.  It’s almost a Wendell Berry story in an academic setting.  It’s about four people who read and write and think and debate and spur each other on to excellence.  All her life she had been demanding people’s attention to things she admires and values.  She has both prompted and shushed, and pretty imperiously too.  [Thank you, Alfonso, for the reminder to read this book.]

  I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.  Out of Africa is a slow book, one that makes you pause, reflect, think.  Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen) writes with grace, clarity and beauty. Stories are told with the skill of a medieval minstrel.  Her descriptions of people, places, animals, events, weather, conflicts, heartaches…are superb.  It [rain] was like the coming back to the Sea, when you have been a long time away from it, like a lover’s embrace. // [In a drought] Everything became drier and harder, and it was as if force and gracefulness had withdrawn from the world.

One can’t imagine them reading poetry together, she thought, this being her main idea of a happy marriage.  Barbara Pym writes with the insight of Austen, the clerical flavor of Trollope, and the wit of McCall Smith. If you are looking for a light-hearted chuckle and a few horse laughs, Crampton Hodnet is for you. There is a marriage proposal as funny as any I’ve  read.  Oh, Miss Morrow–Janie, he burst out suddenly.  My name isn’t Janie.  Well, it’s something beginning with a J. he said impatiently.  Pure comfort reading.  Miss Morrow went into her bedroom.  She felt that she wanted a laugh, a good long laugh because life was so funny, so much funnier than any book. But as sane people don’t laugh out loud when they are alone in their bedrooms, she had to content herself with going about smiling as she changed her clothes and tidied her hair.  [Thanks, Laura, for the recommendation.]


Did you never hear how the life of man is divided?  Twenty years a-growing, twenty years in blossom, twenty years a-stooping, and twenty years declining. Life on Great Blasket Island, off the west coast of Ireland, was narrow, fierce and primitive.  Yet, life without distractions incubated gifted writers. Oxford University Press has published seven books by Blasket natives. (I’ve read two so far.) Maurice O’Sullivan’s memoir, Twenty Years A-Growing, offers a boys romp herding sheep, fishing the ocean, scrambling on cliffs, and salvaging shipwrecks.  The book is a taste of authentic Ireland, a sliver of joy to read.    Talk is true, but God is strong.  //  It is true, but wisdom comes after action.  //   As the old saying goes, ‘Bitter are the tears that fall but more bitter the tears that fall not.’

 
I had come to the conclusion that I must really be French, only no one had ever informed me of this fact. I loved the people, the food, the lay of the land, the civilized atmosphere, and the generous pace of life.  Julia Child’s My Life in France is full of zest and zing.  It is as satisfying as a seven-layer salad.  Foodies will frolic through the recipes.  Julia’s marriage to Paul Child is a refreshing splash of camaraderie.  Cross-cultural aficionados will delight in the Childs’ choice to make friends with the French instead of holding hands with the Americans in Paris.  Lifetime learners will lick their fingers at Julia’s example. Late bloomers will take courage from young Julia’s ignorance of cooking  This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!