February 29-Friday

It’s a good thing this is Leap Year or else there would have been no desultory note at all this month!  I’m doing more reading but a lot less journaling than when I first started this idea.  I can’t decide if I’m not reading as many books that would lend themselves to journaling or if I’m just too lazy to get down to do the writing.  I also seem to have a hard time getting my summaries of the books I’ve read done.  I still have 3 from this month to do.

I should have journaled while I was reading The Man Born to be King. That gave me so much to think about and ponder.  I probably should make it a Lenten tradition to read that book every year.

I did find a poem today that I may decide to use for my birthday poem this year-it just so perfectly seems to fit the mood I’ve been in lately.  Although, from what I’ve read of her I think that most people who know me would think I’m “nicer”  than Dorothy Parker (it’s her poem) I sometimes think we have a lot in common-at least underneath my “veneer”.  She didn’t have a mother to help her smooth her rough edges.  She is famous for saying “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”  That sounds like me-except I’ve learned not to blurt out everything that pops into my head when I’m talking with others.  Thinking about this poem made me want to compare it with the other choices I’ve used in my journals.  Each time, I felt they were very appropriate to my feelings at the time.  It will be interesting to see if some other poem speaks to me later this year.

Birthday Poems:

2006

For age is opportunity, no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,

And as the evening twilight fades away

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

H. W. Longfellow

2007

The Old Poets of China

Wherever I am, the world comes after me.

It offers me its busyness. It does not believe

that I do not want it.  Now I understand

why the old poets of China went so far and high

into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.

Mary Oliver

Possible selection for 2008

Afternoon

When I am old, and comforted,

And done with this desire,

With Memory to share my bed

And Peace to share my fire,

I’ll comb my hair in scalloped bands

Beneath my laundered cap,

And watch my cool and fragile hands

Lie light upon my lap.

And I will have a sprigged gown

With lace to kiss my throat;

I’ll draw my curtain

And hum a purring note.

And I’ll forget the way of tears,

And rock, and stir my tea.

But, oh, I wish those blessed years

Were further than they be!

Dorothy Parker

Well, I notice they are getting longer.

I also noticed when I went to 2007 to get that poem that I have never done the final quarterly report of the year end tally of my reading for that year.   So this “not getting things done” has been going on for quite a while!   I’ll try to find some time to get that done this week.

Beaton, M.C.:  Death of a Village

I picked up this book at the library when I couldn’t find the book I was looking for. The detective is Hamish Macbeth who works as the main police officer in a small village in the highlands of Scotland.  Hamish solves several local cases in addition to the main one of why the people of a neighboring village called Storye are suddenly so strange.  His good police work comes to the attention of the authorities in a larger city but Hamish manages to avoid getting promoted by a couple of nefarious ruses.  An easy afternoon’s read and better than most television shows. This is the first book in this series I have read and I will probably try another one sometime.  I don’t know anyone else who reads them so I’m not sure if I ought to start with the first one.  I should research this series on fantasticfiction.com.

Cooper, Susan:  The Dark Is Rising (#2 in The Dark Is Rising Sequence) 

See the review of the first book in January fiction.

This book, published about 7 years after the first one, is much more interesting and better written than the first.  It was a Newberry Honor Book the year it was published.

Will Stanton is celebrating his 11^th birthday on Midwinter Day.  At this time it is revealed to him that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark.  He is immediately sent on a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle.  Merriman Lyon (aka Great Uncle Merry-and probably Merlin) is revealed as the first of the Old Ones and is there to aid Will as he discovers his destiny.  The quest takes place during the twelve days of Christmas and we discover that the Old Ones can move through time at will.

Cooper, Susan:  Greenwitch (#3in The Dark Is Rising Sequence)

This short book features both the Drew children and Will Stanton as they endeavor to redeem the scroll that in the first book Barney threw into the sea to avoid the Dark getting it.  The scroll is needed to decipher the message on the grail.  Another plot twist is that the grail has been stolen from the museum that was guarding it-while it was on display.  (You would think that the Old Ones could think of a safer way to keep it until they need it! -one of many plot holes in this series.  If Tucker was unhappy with the “plot holes” he found in the Harry Potter series I think he had better avoid this series altogether.)  The story was interesting but again, the Drew children sometimes detracted from the story.  Also, Cooper does not seem concerned with developing the characters of the children so they seem to be more deus ex machina to move the plot along rather than real characters.

Cooper, Susan:  The Grey King (#4 in The Dark Is Rising Sequence)

This was the Newberry Winner the year it was published.  One of its strengths is that the Drew children don’t appear.  It takes place in Wales and we get deeper into the Arthurian legend.  The new character, Bran, is interesting and you care about both Bran and Will.  Will’s task, with Bran’s help (who turns out to have a pivotal part to play in the contest between the Dark and the Light) is to wake-with the golden harp-the six who must be roused from their long slumber to be ready for the final battle between the Dark and the Light.  The Grey King is the spirit of the mountain determined to keep Will from succeeding.   This is the best book in the series so far.  It also gives such a good description of Wales that now I would like to go there.

Cooper, Susan:  Silver on the Tree (#5 in The Dark Is Rising Sequence)

The last and longest book in the series holds the reader’s interest and does not disappoint but it is not as tightly put together as the previous book-perhaps because there were so many threads that had to be pulled together.  All of the characters from the previous books have a part to play - for good or evil-in this final installment.  For younger readers there are probably more surprises than for older readers who pick up on “clues” that are dropped, whether intentionally or unintentionally I’m not always sure.  All in all it was a series which I enjoyed but will probably not read again.

Orwell, George:  Down and Out in Paris and London

This was the first novel that Orwell wrote and is seems to be more autobiographical than fiction.  Although the subject matter is definitely not a happy one this was a fascinating and compelling read.  In Paris we learn about the seamy side of working behind the scenes in restaurants (I may never want to eat in a French restaurant again!) and in London we learn about the life of tramps (homeless people who must stay on the move if they don’t want to end up in jail).  We see great misery and depression of people barely able to find enough food to keep themselves alive but we also see people who are trying to make the best life for themselves that the circumstances allow.  Even more important we see them as individual people with the same kind of attributes of goodness and evil that we all have.  I will never view a homeless person the same way again-they are each individuals as we all are.  Orwell developed a fondness for many of them which he transfers to us and although he had a “safety net” as much as possible he tried to experience the same experiences of the truly down and out.  I bought this book because it was recommended by Anthony Bourdain (formerly a chef on the cooking channel) at the Fresno (California) Town Hall lecture I went to last year.  I’m glad I did.

Eiseley, Loren:  The Immense Journey

I first read this book when I was a sophomore in college and the book was relatively new (published about 3 years before I read it).  I was going through a “faith crisis” as the time with the fundamentalist teachings of the church I had belonged to as a child being badly shaken by what I was studying in college.   It had been my choice of church-not my parents; I’m sure my Presbyterian Dad didn’t realize just how fundamentalist they were since he was out at sea so much and never really attended and Mom was raised Baptist so probably didn’t notice.  Now more than 40 years later I remember vividly how much Eiseley’s  book had seemed like a life-line helping me to reconcile what I was learning about Darwinism (a very big topic in the 50’s and early 60’s) and what I had been taught about creationism in Sunday School.  The most vivid image from the book that stayed with me all these years was his floating down the river on his back-what he called the river of time-and feeling at one with the universe.  I wondered how much power I would feel from his essays so many years-and so many life experiences-later when I didn’t need it bolster my faith.  That essay still carried the same impact it had in my youth.  The other essays were still very enjoyable, also, although perhaps I read them a little more critically now.  It is interesting that both Tucker (who gave me this copy so I would read it) and I both give it 5 stars even though we disagree about much in our life views.

One of the great attractions of the essays is the beautiful, at times almost poetic, writing:

p. 11: …has come to stand symbolically in my mind for a dimension denied to man, the dimension of time.  Like wisteria on the garden wall he is rooted in his particular century.  Out of it-forward or backward-he cannot run.  [note: --this is why we love fantasy.  At the same time as I was reading this book I read a series of young adult novels in which certain characters with special powers could do just that-go forward and backward in time! See reviews of  "The Dark is Rising" series]

p. 13-14:  If my record, like those of the sixteenth century voyagers, is confused by strange beasts or monstrous thoughts or sights of abortive men, these are no more than my eye saw or my mind conceived.  On the world island we are all castaways, so what is seen by one may often be dark or obscure to another.

p. 20-21  If [Thoreau] had been possessed of the geological knowledge so laboriously accumulated since his time, he might have gone further and amusedly detected in the planetary rumblings and eructations which so delighted him in the gross habits of certain frogs, signs of that dark interior stress which has reared sea bottoms up to mountainous heights.  He might have developed an acute inner ear for the sound of the surf on Cretaceous beaches where now the wheat of Kansas rolls.

p. 37 …were all a part of one of Life’s strangest qualities-its eternal dissatisfaction with what is, its persistent habit of reaching out into new environments and, by degrees,  adapting itself to the most fantastic circumstances.

Zachter, Mort:  Dough

Mort Zachter was a young boy growing up on the Lower East Side of New York where his uncles continued to run a discount resale bakery that had been started by his immigrant grandparents.  His mom, the sister of the uncles, spent many hours working in The Store without pay meaning she had to give up her teaching job and could only substitute when she wasn’t needed at the store.  Mort gave up his dream of being able to major in English and become a writer because he needed a steady job so he became lawyer and accountant with expertise in taxation.  When Mort is in his thirties and his father is in the hospital he has to get Uncle Harry’s mail and he discovers that the uncles had amassed a fortune of millions which they never spent or shared.  He learns that his parents knew this but were too proud to ask for money.  The memoir is beautifully written as Mort remembers his family when he was a child and comes to terms with what they did.  He learns to accept what was and then he learns an even harder lesson-not to repeat the same mistake of hoarding.

This was on this year’s list that my former book group in Savannah sent me which is how I happened to read it.  It is one of the best memoirs I’ve read.  You understand what a hardship was caused for his family by his uncles’ actions yet Zachter doesn’t complain and also seems to accept rather than blame his uncles.  We should all take life’s kicks in the stomach with such grace!

Sayers, Dorothy L.:  The Man Born to Be King

This is a cycle of 12 radio dramas depicting the life of Christ.  I think I will make reading this a Lenten tradition.  The introduction is wonderful and full of Sayer’s theological views as well as explaining about the plays.  Dorothy Sayers was a scholarly and devout Christian who had a way of driving home her points that makes her theological writing exciting to read.  But in this volume it is the drama and emotion of the plays that draws us into the life and times of Jesus Christ in such a powerful and realistic way that I felt I was actually experiencing these events with the disciples.  In all my years I have never experienced so deeply what Jesus must have been like when he walked the earth and lived a human life just as we do.  I found this even more moving that the movie “The Passion of Christ.”  This was a masterful work and I wish every Christian could have the chance to read this.  Even better, I wish we could have the chance to hear it as it was intended by Sayers.

Paulos, John Allen:  A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

I bought this book several years ago and never got around to reading it.  Therefore the news stories he talked about were old news-but at least familiar to me.  However the currency of the stories had little to do with his premise that most people don’t recognize much of the bias in news reporting because they are not familiar with how math influences the reporting.  Also, they often don’t recognize if the numbers quoted were really the result of valid testing or just thrown out to bolster a (probably weak) argument.  I was able to follow some of the math but not all.  What I chiefly learned is that all the math I learned way back in school  actually taught me to be a more critical reader-and a more skeptical one.  I am always questioning the validity of arguments and on what basis they are made.  I also notice that many people will take what they read as “gospel”-because if it’s in the paper it must be true!  Most people don’t recognize false correlations because they’ve never studied logic.  If our nation is going to remain strong we must improve the critical thinking skill of our next generation of voters. They have declined even further since this book was written.