dual personalities

Tag: books

October 20, 2014

Weekend reading

by chuckofish

leavesin street

I had a quiet weekend and spent a good part of it reading Marilynne Robinson’s new novel Lila. 

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In this third novel that takes place in the town of Gilead, Robinson revisits the characters we have met in the earlier books (Gilead and Home), in particular the mysterious woman who marries the old minister John Ames. As usual, the author examines the mystery of existence. She quotes John Calvin freely–without smirking. It is terrific.

Robinson just blows me away. Her characters are thoughtful and have inner monologues that are deep and penetrating. The story takes place some time after WWII when people did not have attention spans reduced to tweets. They still think about things. And we are encouraged to think about them (and the mystery of existence) as well.

Anyway, of course, I highly recommend this book and the first two if you haven’t already read them. (Why haven’t you already read them?)

Have a great week!

Almighty God, who hast bestowed thy grace upon thy people by thy Son Jesus Christ: Grant us, we beseech thee, to be enriched with his manifold gifts; that patiently enduring through the darkness of this world, we may be found shining like lamps in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he cometh in his kingdom; to whom be praise and glory for ever and ever.

(Prayer posted by Kendall Harmon on TitusOneNine)

4 Comments
October 14, 2014

“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”

by chuckofish

Mottisfont - Winnie the Pooh, -® The E.H.Shepard Trust reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group

On this day in 1926 Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne was published in England.

As I have mentioned before, our pater was a big fan of Winnie-the-Pooh, and, therefore, so were we. No one read A.A. Milne’s stories and poems better than our father. This ability was one of his most endearing qualities.

So in honor of old A.A. Milne, maybe we should put on our Big Boots and have an adventure! But first we need some of these I guess.

Side note: It has been raining cats and dogs here for days on end. Big Boots have been on my mind.

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October 13, 2014

“I can’t look at everything hard enough.”*

by chuckofish

Field of Lilies, Louis Comfort Tiffany

“Field of Lilies”, Louis Comfort Tiffany

Last week I watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir  (1947) and cried through much of it. Then this weekend I watched Our Town (1940) and wept through the entire third act.  I must say that much of this was due to the great musical scores of both films, by Bernard Hermann and Aaron Copland, respectively, but still. They even changed the end of Our Town! (Spoiler alert) Emily doesn’t die! They softened up the hard ending of the play, but it was still effective.

Then I finished Jan Karon’s Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good and got a little weepy. It is not a sad book at all, but it reminds us all to rejoice and be glad and you know that that can make me tear up.

Then we sang hymn #624 in church–“Jerusalem the Golden”–and I was done (or undone as the case may be).

Well, you know what Frederick Buechner says about tears:

You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you’ve never seen before. A pair of somebody’s old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow, the high school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay close attention.

They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.

(Whistling in the Dark)

So keep your eyes and your heart open as you go forth into the world this week. Thanks be to God.

*Emily in “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder

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October 6, 2014

“You may have found your sweet spot. But there’s what Bonhoeffer said: ‘We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.'”*

by chuckofish

pumpkinAh, it’s pumpkin weather. Seriously my favorite time of the year. The OM of course is complaining that it is cold, while I am throwing open the windows to let in the fresh air. C’est la vie.

Several people have sheepishly asked me about my own little pumpkin patch, which they notice I haven’t mentioned in quite awhile. Well, my pumpkin patch, which at first seemed to thrive, shriveled up in August and is no more. Heavy sigh. The OM said it didn’t get enough sun. Daughter #1 surmised that it was because I planted the pumpkins in the Indian Burial Ground corner of our yard where nothing has ever grown. Whatever. I refuse to get all upset and weepy about it. The pumpkin patch at the Methodist Church has a ton of pumpkins and so I bought one there on Saturday.

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It’s a beauty!

Meanwhile I finished The Big Sleep and have moved on to Jan Karon’s newest Mitford book—Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good–which I am enjoying immensely. Reading it is like taking a vacation. I know some people find Father Tim and his wife a little cloying, but to them I say, “Bah humbug!” This is science fiction, after all. Furthermore, Karon and I are on the same page. And she includes enough Thomas a Kempis and Wordsworth and references to the BCP to deepen the storytelling. Her focus is always on God.

In any decision making, he’d learned to wait for peace; it was heedless to make a move without it. There was no time for waiting, and yet waiting was imperative.

He remained on his knees, prayed aloud. ‘Heavenly Father, in whom we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray thee so to guide and govern us by the Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget thee, but may remember that we are ever walking in thy sight…’

He moved directly then to the abridged version. ‘Help me, Jesus.’

And she’s funny! So if you are in need of a little literary vacation from the vicissitudes of modern life, I highly recommend Jan Karon.

‘Tis also the season when Evensong starts back up at church. I dragged the boy along with me yesterday and it’s a good thing we went, because we made up 2/3 of the congregation. Afterwards I cooked dinner for him. His wife was at a meeting at the flyover college where she is the recruitment advisor of her sorority chapter, so I think he appreciated the meal.

Hope you are enjoying some glorious fall weather. Try to get out and breathe some fresh air. Have a good week!

*Jan Karon, Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good 

4 Comments
September 23, 2014

“Shake your business up and pour it. I don’t have all day.”

by chuckofish

This past weekend I finished a mystery that was recommended to me by someone at work whose opinion I respect. The book was okay. I mean I read the whole thing and that is saying something. It was well-written and engaging enough, but as mysteries go, it just wasn’t Raymond Chandler.

So I decided to re-read, for the umpteenth time, The Big Sleep.

And, omg, on the first page you are greeted with

I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

And a few pages later, Philip Marlowe says, in reply to Mrs. Regan saying she doesn’t like his manners:

“I’m not crazy about yours,” I said. “I didn’t ask to see you. You sent for me. I don’t mind your ritzing me or drinking your lunch out of a Scotch bottle. I don’t mind your showing me your legs. They’re very swell legs and it’s a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. But don’t waste my time trying to cross-examine me.”

Nobody writes like Raymond Chandler. He is just the  best. And as I’ve said before, Philip Marlowe is one of the great characters in fiction. Right up there with Hamlet and Holden Caulfield, if you ask me.

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And R.C. was an Episcopalian. I know we would have been best friends.

5 Comments
September 4, 2014

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

girl-reading-758651

“These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and their capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect; everybody’s little display of genius.”

–Michael Cunningham, The Hours

This is so true, don’t you think?  The Hours, which I read over the weekend, is full of such truth. I liked it very much.

I remember going to see the movie when it came out back in 2002 and liking it very much. There was some major mis-casting, but I liked Meryl Streep as Clarissa a lot.

meryl

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”

Not surprisingly, I liked the book better.

Indeed, there are not many instances where the movie is an improvement over the book. Ben-Hur (1959) comes to mind.

Some movies actually measure up to the book: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) does. And although the author did  not think so, I think Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) is as good as the book.

This would make an interesting blogpost topic no doubt, but…back to what I’m reading.

I picked up Malcolm Cowley’s And I Worked at the Writer’s Trade off a shelf at home–I think it was my father’s copy from 1977–and started that. I like reading about writers. Cowley is one of those guys who knew everybody and has a lot to say about them. He spent most of his career as a literary critic and editor and never really made it as a fiction writer himself. He did win a National Book Award for this book, writing about other writers.

I seem to remember thinking that he had a little chip on his shoulder, that he always managed to cast some aspersion on whomever he is writing about, that he makes himself more important than he probably was. But I have not found that to be the case reading this book now. Perhaps I am thinking of Exiles Return which he wrote in 1933 and then revised in 1951. Perhaps he had mellowed by 1977 when he wrote And I Worked at the Writer’s Trade. We do tend to do that, don’t we?

So what are you reading?

2 Comments
August 27, 2014

They say that…

by chuckofish

Books make the home

Woodcut by Rockwell Kent

And, as you know, I agree.

more-books-in-the-home-by-jessie-willcox-smith

Here’s what Dylan Thomas said about books:

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books,
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,
such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
such and so many blinding bright lights,
splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.

Maybe I have too many books in my house.

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This is a pile of books I backed into and fell over when talking to daughter #1 on the phone recently. No, I’m not kidding.

And I do move books out of my house–just not as quickly as they move in.

5 Comments
August 18, 2014

“In Naomi’s Eyes we were about as Jewish as Episcopalians.”*

by chuckofish

"Barrow Farm" by William Stott of Oldham (1857--1900)

“Barrow Farm” by William Stott of Oldham (1857–1900)

“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change.”

–E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

As I have mentioned before, summer in our flyover state is hot and muggy and generally pretty terrible. But this summer has been just lovely and I am loathe to see it end. Sigh.

End it shall…but not yet.

This weekend, which followed a long, stressful, sad week, I decided to throw in the towel and leave the rest of my bathroom to the professional who is coming to paint this week. If there’s one thing I know, it’s my limits. I cleaned up the mess I made.

I watched Out of Africa (1985) which is a pretty wonderful movie and one of the few which deserved its Best Picture Oscar.

Out_of_africa_poster

I hadn’t seen it for many years and I think it has certainly held up. Although some may think it over-rated and slow, I think its pace is perfect. It has a smart script and it is beautifully directed and the cinematography is sublime. Good grief, Meryl Streep is perfect. It is very romantic. And who doesn’t love Isak Dinesen? Granted there are no car chases or explosions, but there is a great sequence in a bi-plane.

I re-read The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank, which is the follow-up to her best-selling The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing. Bank’s writing, you recall, was one of the first to be labeled “Chick Lit”–so unfortunate. When the Girl’s Guide was published to such acclaim in 1999, I spurned it because it sounded stupid and it was so popular–it couldn’t be good, right?  Then ten years later when I was having a very bad week, I saw it at a rummage sale and thought, “What the heck? I’ll give it a whirl.” (This was one of those shoulder taps from my guardian angel that I have learned to listen to.) When I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. It was so good–genuinely funny without being vulgar, heart-felt and remarkably kind.

The Wonder Spot was not the giant best-seller of its predecessor, but I like it, and I enjoyed re-reading it. I laughed out loud on numerous occasions. It is both funny and sad–a combination of which I approve.

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“The women are young, young, young, liquidy and sweet-looking; they are batter, and I am the sponge cake they don’t know they’ll become. I stand here, a lone loaf, stuck to the pan. ” (“The Wonder Spot”)

Have a good week!

* “2oth Century Typing”, Melissa Bank

 

3 Comments
August 14, 2014

Vain expectations

by chuckofish

"Bowl of Goldfish" by Childe Hassam

“Bowl of Goldfish” by Childe Hassam

‘One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy. I am just beginning to make some progress in the science, and I hope to disprove Young’s theory that “as soon as we have found the key of life it opens the gates of death.” Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead. I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one!’

– George Eliot

4 Comments
August 5, 2014

The right instructions

by chuckofish

Farmer with a Pitchfork by Winslow Homer

Farmer with a Pitchfork by Winslow Homer

 

“You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this:
‘Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.’
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

–Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

Happy Birthday, Wendell Berry  (born August 5, 1934)–American novelist, poet, environmental activist, and farmer!

 

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