In a World of Books

I liked this little walk through a book world:

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

This stop motion film was made for 4th Estate Publisher's 25th anniversary. I don't know anything about this particular publisher or its books, but I loved the image of the little man coming out of a volume and walking through a world of books. (By the way, if you have trouble watching it, be sure to click the HD IS OFF button.)

When I was a little girl, I couldn't help feeling that there was something magically alive about books. That if one could only find the key, one could, like Gumby, slip inside a favorite title and live in its world. Though I suppose it would feel dreadfully Calvinist to live inside a book you'd already read. Everything would seem depressingly preordained. (I recall in Edgar Eager's Time Garden, when the children wrangled a trip into Little Women from the Natterjack, how relieved they were that Beth was home with a cold that day rather than out sledding with Jo and Laurie. They'd felt a bit queasy at the thought of meeting her, knowing that she dies in the second volume.

Or perhaps a book's characters might somehow slip into our world. I still recall a very old cartoon (Was it a Max Fleisher or a Warner Brothers?) which took place in a bookstore. During the night the book characters crept out and frolicked on the shelves. Seemed plausible to me.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

I took a walk through the neighborhood the day after Christmas and noticed a forlorn Christmas tree already lying in the gutter, awaiting the trash truck. It reminded me of an email I'd recently received from my daughter who now shares a house with three other girls in the Pacific Northwest. She said she was thankful that we'd brought up our kids with lots of Advent and Christmas traditions in contrast to one of her housemates who reported that all they did on Christmas was open their presents and then stare at each other and feel sort of depressed. In Biblioland we celebrate four weeks of Advent (including the special feasts of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Nicholas) followed by twelve days of Christmas culminating in the feast of The Epiphany.

Naturally, food plays a big role in all these celebrations, as Darwin Catholic describes in A Taste of Christmas. And I'm with him on the tamales! But this year I have not done any Christmas baking or even any tamale making. (I've been diagnosed with prediabetes, and the only way to keep myself from eating as I oughtn't is just not to have the stuff in the house.)

However, I can still enjoy the other taste of Christmas which is traditional in our family -- reading aloud. Starting on Christmas Eve, Fillius and I have been reading Christmas stories or Christmas related selections from much-loved and familiar books. The list varies from year to year. Here is what we read during the twelve days of Christmas, 2008:

"Christmas" from Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The Little House books have many good Christmas chapters. This one is an an account of an iconic American Christmas. It's got all the elements: preparing handmade gifts, baking special treats for the big day, extended family coming to visit, playing in the snow with cousins, listening to the grownups talk after you've gone to bed, and the excitement of gifts in your stocking. Laura's ecstasy at receiving her special Christmas gift, a rag doll handmade by Ma, still moves me as much as it did when I first read it as a third-grader.

A Christmas Card for Mr. McFizz by Obren Bokich. Mr. McFizz, a fussy little ground squirrel is appalled when the Griswolds, a family of packrats, move into the hollow tree next to his tidy little burrow. He watches with increasing annoyance as the collection of clutter in their front yard grows larger and larger. Yet despite their messy ways, the Griswolds have many friends. Mr. McFizz, perhaps because he's always so busy cleaning, has none. Most of the time this doesn't bother him much. But as Christmas approaches he becomes melancholy because he never receives any Christmas cards. When the Griswolds' mailbox overflows with them, poor Mr. McFizz goes completely off his head and hatches a plot to squelch their simple happiness. How he has a change of heart and reconciles with his neighbors is one of the better examples of the "learning the true meaning of Chrismas" genre. (I especially liked that even after the reconcilation, Mr. McFizz still dislikes his neighbor's clutter. That seemed a realistic touch.)

"Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves" in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. I love reading about shy Matthew's valiant attempts to buy a new dress for Anne who, because of Marilla's notions of squelching vanity in children, has never had a pretty, fashionable dress like the other girls -- one with puffed sleeves! (It's hard to believe that there are people who haven't read the Anne books before, but if you're among them, check out the Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge at Reading to Know.)

Spirit Child: A Story of the Nativity translated from the Aztec by John Bierhorst. This story was composed in the sixteenth century by Fray Bernardino Saghagún with the assistance of Aztec poets. The basic story comes from the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but it also combines elements from medieval legends and traditional Aztec lore. The style in which the story unfolds is very much in the Aztec tradition. Some portions, such as the angels' song to the shepherds even use Aztec figures of speech. This aspect of the book is reinforced by Barbara Cooney's beautiful illustrations. (I love her depiction of the archangel Gabriel with his green feathered wings and jaguar skin garment.) A beautiful and reverent retelling of the birth of Christ.

The Church Mice At Christmas by Graham Oakley. We're big fans of Oakley's Church Mice books. They take place in the English village of Wortlethorpe where all of the mice in the community have taken up residence in the local Anglican church where, in exchange for sundry chores such as polishing the brasses, the vicar gives them a safe haven in which to live and a weekly allowance of cheese. This book recounts their attempt to acquire the funds for "A real Christmas party with paper hats and crackers and games and things." The problem is that parties cost money, and they're all as poor as, well, church mice. When their attempt to raffle off Sampson (the church cat) is unsuccessful, they attempt to earn money by Christmas caroling, having "spent the whole morning practising their scales and the whole afternoon sorting out the pronunciation of Wenceslas." But their diminutive size is against them, and an inadvertent run-in with the local constabulary results in a mad chase through a toy store. Various other attempts to scrounge up the party fixings fail until Arthur and Humphry, the leaders of the church mice, inadvertently perform a public service which rewards the mice with the party of their dreams -- "In fact it [the party] was so good that they were all ill for three days after it . . . ." My kids always enjoyed poring over Oakley's illustrations which have a lot of humorous detail.

"Godmother's Magic" and "Dumpling Speaks Her Mind" in Family Sabatical by Carol Ryrie Brink. Though better known for her pioneer novels Caddie Woodlawn and Magical Melons, Brink wrote many other novels which were among my childhood favorites and which I read aloud to my own children when they were small. Family Sabatical is about a midwestern American family which spends six months in France while their father, a history professor, is researching a book. The children's discovery of French culture and their attempts to celebrate such American holidays as Halloween and Thanksgiving are very funny. In the first of these Christmas chapters, I loved the description of their visit to Notre Dame on Christmas Eve. This non-Catholic family had never been in such a large church before "nor one so sweetly mysterious. Very quietly they walked all around in it, feeling its strangeness, which was at the same time a kind of warm familiarity." Far back in the candlelit church they discover a life-sized creche. "The children stood and looked at it for a long time, and suddenly this was more like Christmas Eve than any Christmas Eve that they had ever known before." The second chapter is about the family's celebration of Christmas the next morning and about the healing one member of the family experiences when she discovers that home is not a place as such; it's wherever your family is.

"Welcome Yule" by Jan Mark in An Oxford Book of Christmas Stories edited by Dan Pepper. This collection, which I checked out of the library, was a real disappointment. Published in the 1980s, the stories in this collection are mostly grim and gritty, often having very little to do with Christmas. "Welcome Yule" was a delightful exception. The new vicar, who has the personality of an enthusiastic steam roller has organized carol singing on the evening of the feast of St. Thomas despite the strange reluctance of the villagers to go out singing on that date. Their objection? That's the night that the "Waits" always sing. And no one wants to offend them. Who are the Waits? No one in the parish wants to explain it to the Vicar. So no one shows up at the scheduled time except the family of the narrator whose father had been shanghaied into playing a portable harmonium for this gig. Everyone else is hiding behind closed doors. The Vicar, already annoyed, is especially exasperated when they glimpse another group singing curiously antique carols. When he stomps off to confront them, he gets rather more than he bargained for.

The Story of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim, retold by Margaret B. Freeman. "Of the three worshipful Kings all the world is full of praise from the rising of the sun to its down-going, and what these three Kings did at the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ is written oft in many books and places but what they did after is peradventure to many men unknown." So begins this best seller of the Middle Ages. At the time this book was written, the Magi were among the best loved saints in Christendom. But the author, a Carmelite friar, was the first to gather together the many legends of Balthasar, Melchior and Jaspar into one book. Margaret Freeman based her retelling on a Middle English text of 1399 and managed to preserve the flavor of the original. What I love about this book is that everything is full of meaning. For example, part of the gold which Melchior offered to the Christ Child was thirty gilt pennies. And these same thirty pennies were owned by anyone who was anybody throughout history. They were made by Thara, the father of Abraham. Then Abraham used them to buy a burial ground for himself and his family. Joseph was sold into Egypt for these same gilt pennies; later they were used to buy spices in Saba for Jacob's burial. These self-same pennies were later brought to King Solomon by the Queen of Saba. And after Jerusalem was destroyed, they were brought to the land of Arabia of which Melchior was king. Our Lady lost the thirty pennies during the flight to Egypt. They were later found by a shepherd who had an incurable disease. The shepherd was cured by Christ who recognized the pennies and told the sheherd to offer them to the temple. And wouldn't you know, it was those same thirty pennies with which the temple priests paid Judas to betray Our Lord. Whew! I also love the charming and colorful detail of these stories. For instance, when the star first arose it had in it the form and likeness of a young child and a sign of the cross above him. Out of the star came a voice saying, "Unto us is born this day the King and Lord that folk have long sought. Go then and seek him and do him worship." Not historically accurate, but who cares? In a way, it's early fan fiction!

Library Kid Lit: 2 of 3

The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter

Subtitled A True Story from Iraq, this picture book recounts the amazing story of one librarian's attempt to save her library's collection from the ravages of war.

Alia Muhammad Bake, the librarian of Basra, is worried because she fears that her library's collection will soon become a casualty of war. She begs the governor for permission to move the books to a safer place, but he refuses. So every night she secretly fills her car with books and takes them home for safekeeping. When war reaches the city she enlists the help of the restaurant owner next door. Together, with other local people, they sneak the library's books into the restaurant. The library burns to the ground, but the books remain safely hidden. When the war moves to another location, all thirty thousand books are secretly removed to private homes until some future day when peace will return and a new library can be built.

This story is very sparely written. We don't know who is fighting or what they're fighting about. Or why the governor refuses to let Alia move the books to safer place. War is portrayed merely as a force, a roaming "beast." Politics as such don't really come into the story.

The focus of the narrative is the preservation of the books, some new -- some very old, which as a collection is "more precious . . . than mountains of gold." Although The Librarian of Basra will not be noted for its literary style, the rescue of the Basra's Central Library by Alia Muhammad Baker will inspire every bibliophile.

Lenten Reading

Sci Fi Catholic is going to abstain from reading fiction during Lent. Instead, he'll be plowing his way through The New Complete Works of Josephus translated by William Whiston with new editing and additional commentary by Paul L. Maier (who apparently also writes novels).

If you'd like to join The 4o-Day Josephus Read-a-Thon "put the comics and sf novels down, pick up a weighty nonfiction tome, and prove to the world that Sci Fi Catholics don't just read ephemeral garbage; sometimes we read boring stuff, too." I'm tempted to join in, but surprisingly my library has no copy of Josephus in any edition. (I'm watching the budget pretty closely right now, so get thee behind me, Amazon!) Anyway, I've enjoyed reading about his comments about Josephus here and here.

Darwin Catholic is going for a second year of Lenten Meditations on the Divine Comedy. He'll be picking up at book 12 of the Purgatorio. As Darwin points out, modern readers tend to give most of their attention to the Inferno:

For far too many in the modern world, Dante is that medieval guy who wrote the poem about hell. The Inferno is by far the most read, and when it crops up in high school or college reading lists, it's often read quickly with an emphasis on some of the more horrific images involved and Dante's notorious propensity to put real characters (ranging from political enemies to recent popes) in hell. This is a shame, because in focusing on some of the more spectacular surface elements of the first third of the Commedia, one loses the real sense of what Dante was trying to achieve.

At root, the Divine Comedy is about the spiritual progress of the soul, from attachment to sin, through repentance and purgation, to virtue and salvation. . . In the Inferno, Dante learns the nature of sin, while in the Purgatory he learns to strive to replace each sin with its opposing virtue. The Paradiso is, in turn, an allegory of prayer and the spiritual life culminating in the beatific vision of God surrounded by a "celestial rose" made of the angels and the ever-rejoicing saints.

In this sense, a prayerful reading of the Divine Comedy is most appropriate for Lent, when we seek to assure that we are on the long road that winds Eastward, and making progress towards our Maker.

I've already got the book for this one, so I'm planning to read along. I'll probably use the Dorothy Sayers translation which has excellent notes. Many people do not care for her translation because she attempted to reproduce in English Dante's terza rima. Personally, I find her translation charming, but my tastes in poetry are very hobbitish.

On Reading and Writing Letters

Despite my difficulties with pen and ink, I do manage to compose very nice handwritten thank-you notes. Conventional letters are very easy to write. More formal letters are even easier. After all, as Miss Manners points out, to reply to a wedding all you have to do is parrot back (more or less) the invitation: Mr. and Mrs. Very Polite accept with pleasure the kind invitation of Mr and Mrs. Genial Hosts for Saturday, the first of May at twelve o'clock noon. Thank you notes are a little more difficult, but if one follows Miss Manners' basic rule ("It must not start with 'Thank you for the . . . .' It must include some favorable mention of the item, and must avoid mentioning that [one] . . . already has one."), you will not go far wrong.

I adore getting letters, so I can't help feeling pleased that email has become so prevalent, though it might be nice if less of it consisted of lame jokes, cute animal photos and trite spirituality. The ephemeral nature of email and the ease of sending it makes its composition unintimidating. Not so the pen & ink letter, not so -- which is why books of sample letters are still being published. But I doubt if any of the current ones are as entertaining as Familiar Letters On Important Occasions by Samual Richardson.

Two friends had asked Richardson to prepare “a little volume of letters, in a common style, on such subjects as might be of use to those country readers who were unable to indite for themselves.” (Sort of like science nerds and MBAs.) Richardson agreed on condition that he could also include instructions on “how to think and act justly and prudently in the common Concerns of Human Life.” It was published in 1741 and was an immediate hit. Five further editions appeared before the author's death in 1761.

Richardson was a letter writing genius who later* went on to write three successful epistolary novels: Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded (1740); Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748); and Sir Charles Grandison (1753). It's not surprising that he segued into novels. The examples in Familiar Letters are filled with dramatic potential.

For example, in the very first letter, "To a Father, against putting a Youth of but moderate Parts to a Profession that requires more extensive Abilities," the writer advises the recipient against choosing the legal profession for his second son William who "has neither talents for the law, nor ever will have the presence of mind necessary to make a figure at the Bar." Instead, he counsels that William be apprenticed to a merchant, or even a creditable wholesale dealer where, despite his very moderate talents, "very often, more money is to be gained than in professions that require an extraordinary genius, a perpetual attention, and a close and intense study; which yet very seldom succeeds."

Further, ". . . tho' I hope it will never be so in your case, yet nothing has been more common, than that of two sons, the eldest brought up to the estate, the other to trade, in the revolution of twenty or thirty years, the latter, thro' the extravagance of the former, has made himself eldest, as I may say; for, by saving while the other has been spending, he has found means to keep the estate in the family, tho' it has been transferred upon the youngest, and, as it has then proved, the worthiest branch." Now there's a novel waiting to happen!

Or what about about Letter LXII: "A young Woman in Town to her Sister in the Country recounting her narrow Escape from a Snare laid for her, on her first Arrival, by a wicked Procuress." I don't know if his readers had much need of this particular sample in their own correspondence, but I doubt not that it was frequently read.

Even more exciting are some of the sequences of letters, the first of which introduces an interesting situation which subsequent letters carry forward. The reader follows breathlessly, wondering what will happen next.

Letter CV: A threatening Letter from a Steward on Delay of Payment Letter

CVI: The Poor Tenant's moving Answer

Letter CVII: The Steward's Reply, giving more Time Letter

CVIII: The poor Man's thankful Letter in Return

Or better still:

Letter XV: From a young Lady to her Father, acquainting him with a Proposal of Marriage made to her

I think it my duty to acquaint you, that a gentleman of this town, by name Derham, and by business a linen-draper, has made some overtures to my cousin Morgan, in the way of courtship to me . . . . But, I assure you, sir, I have given him no encouragement; and told him, that I had no thoughts of changing my condition, yet-a-while; and should never think of it but in obedience to my parents . . .

Letter XVI: The Father's Answer, on a Supposition that he approves not of the young Man's Addresses

Letter XVII: The Father's Answer, on a Supposition that he does not disapprove of the young Man's Addresses

. . . I would have you neither wholly encourage nor discourage his suit; for if on inquiry into his character and circumstances, I shall find, that they are answerable to your cousin's good opinion of them, . . . I know not but his suit may be worthy of attention. But, my dear, consider, that men are deceitful, and always put the best side outwards; and it may possibly, on the strict inquiry, which the nature and importance of the case demands, come out far otherwise than it at present appears. Let me advise you, therefore, to act in this matter with great prudence, and that you make not yourself too cheap; for men are apt to slight what is too easily obtained.

Letter XVIII: The young Gentleman's Letter to the Father, apprising him of his Affection for his Daughter.

I take the liberty, tho' personally unknown to you, to declare the great value and affection I havew for your worthy daughter, whom I have had the honour to see at my good friend MMr. Morgan's . . . .

Letter XIX: From the Cousin to the Father and Mother, in Commendation of the Young Gentleman

. . . Mr. Derham has shewn me his letter to you; and I believe every tittle of it to be true; and really if you and my cousin approve it, as also Cousin Polly, I don't know where she can do better. I am sure I should think so, if I had a daughter he could love. . . .

Letter XX: From the Father, in Answer to the young Gentleman

After this letter Richardson cannot restrain himself from breaking into narrative:

The father in this letter referring pretty much to the daughter's choice, the young gentleman cannot but construe it as an encouragement to him to prosecute his addresses to her; in which he doubles his diligence (on the hint that she will soon return to Northampton) in order to gain a footing in her good will; and she, finding her father and mother not averse to the affair, ventures to give him some room to think his addresses are not indifferent to her; but still altogether on condition of her parents consent and approbation. By the time then that she is recall'd home . . . there may be supposed some degree of familiarity and confidence to have pass'd between them; and she gives him hope, that she will receive a letter from him, tho' she shall not promise an answer; intirely referring to her duty to her parents, and their good pleasure. He attends her on her journey a good part of the way, as far as she will permit; and when her cousin his friend, informs him of her safe arrival at Northampton, he sends the following letter.

Letter XXI: From the young Gentlemen to his Mistress, on her Arrival at her Father's

As your good father in his kind letter to me, assured me, that he should consult your inclinations, and determine by them and by what should offer most for your good; how happy should I be, if I could find my humble suit not quite indifferent to your dear self, and not rejected by him! . . . I hope you will condescend, if not to become an advocate for me, which would be too great a presumption to expect, yet to let your good parents know, that you have no aversion to the person or address of, dearest madam, Your forever obliged, and affectionate humble Servant.

And here Richardson breaks in again:

As this puts the matter into such a train, as may render more writing unnecessary; the next steps to be taken being the inquiry into the truth of the young man's assertions, and a confirmation of his character; and then the proposals on the father's part of what he will give with his daughter; all which may be done best by word of mouth, or interposition of friends; so shall we have no occasion to pursue this instance of courtship farther.

Awww!

==========
*He started the letter writing manual in 1739, but took time off to write and publish Pamela, so it actually came out before Familiar Letters.

Timeliness and the Reading of Classics

"One time I made for myself a formidable list of classics which I proposed to read during the year. Papa looked it over and approved, but he gave me good advice.

"'Start each one, but if it doesn't hold your attention, either you don't understand the style, or it is beyond you in some other way. It won't do you any good to read anything that doesn't interest you, because you won't remember it. Set it aside. But continue to try to read it, and one day it will rush in and fill a great void.'"

--Elizabeth Borton de Treviño, in The Hearthstone of My Heart.

The author goes on to tell how thirty-five years later, after many false starts, something finally clicked. At last it was the right moment to read War and Peace, and it did indeed fill a great void.

I can think of many books which suffer from being read at the wrong time. I was made to read Moby Dick when I was in junior high. Boooooring! The only bits that held my interest were the ones detailing how whales were cut up. I've never given it another chance, though I daresay I'd get more out of it now that I'm 55 than I did when I was 13.

My husband used to say that there were some books that could not be fully appreciated until one had reached middle age. He identified Brideshead Revisited as one of these and warned all of our children against reading it until they were at least 40. (Naturally, this only incited them to read it as soon as possible.)

Some books which I blithely enjoyed in my youth strike me with greater force now. A few months ago I reread A Lantern in her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich, a novel about a pioneer woman which I'd read countless times when I was a girl. But now I could not read it without weeping because I've actually experienced the same things which the protagonist did: motherhood, widowhood, the death of a child, etc. (She'd also had artistic and musical talent, but it was a potential that she'd never got around to developing -- though she'd been able to pass these gifts on to her children. That also struck a chord!)

And though Dickens was one of my favorite authors when I was young, I couldn't bear to read him for many after I became mother. So many dreadful things seem to happen to the young, orphaned children in his novels, and my sympathies were too quick and too tender.

I wish now that I had not discarded the copy of Pamela which was required reading my freshman year of college. I think I'd be ready for it now.

Fountain Pens and the Lure of Blank Books

I love blank books. But I hardly ever use them.

I would love to have been the sort of person who has a row of hand-written diaries on her bookshelf.

Actually, I do have a shelf-full of diaries, but hardly anything is written in them. It seems that I only resort to a diary when depressed. When life is blithe, when life is gay, I feel no need to write. When it's busy and interesting, I don't have time. And when life is boring -- well, what then is there to write about?

Besides, it's hard to write with a pen. The keyboard has become such a natural extension of my brain that I'm hardly aware of it. The words flow effortlessly through my fingers. The pen lies inert, grasped tensely between fingers that have already to ache with the unaccustomed effort. I awkwardly squeeze out the words. Good heavens! I seem to be writing these words one letter at a time. And such awkward words!

I need to delete! I need to cut and paste!

Yet the romance of pen and ink (a fountain pen, mind you!) and the blank white page continues to haunt me. Perhaps some day I will express myself with these elegant implements of a more genteel age. Nourishing that hope I do own a couple of fountain pens, some chaste white note paper, and even some blotting paper.

Last night, I decided to rehabilitate my husband's old fountain pen. He bought it during our visit to England almost 30 years ago at a shop which offered to customize pen nib to the customer's taste. It's been languishing in a drawer for years. Since the ink in it had been allowed to dry out, it took a good deal of soaking, flushing, and rinsing to bring it once more to a functional condition. Then I had to let it dry overnight. While it rested on its couch of paper towels, I read a little book titled,

The pocket
GUIDE BOOK
for the
PROPER
USE AND CARE
of the
FOUNTAIN PEN

written by Mr. Pier Gustafson.

It is a very little book: 2 x 4.75 inches. Though only 15 pages long, it contains everything the new pen owner will need to know in order to enjoy "the reliable and pleasurable use of the fountain pen." Among the topics covered are the anatomy of the pen (with its charming cross section illustration of a pen being sawn in half), how pens work and how they are filled, proper fountain pen ink, and the necessity of a light touch when writing. The author also discusses the touchy subject of lending your pen, particularly when one suspects that the person requesting it is a barbarian. (Suggested gracious denials range from "I'm so sorry. It is out of ink," to "If you break it I will kill you.") There is advice about the best way to travel with your fountain pen, and the dangers of allowing it to rattle about in your handbag in company with "emery boards, baubles bristling with diamonds in the worst possible taste, keys, melted candy bars, and other such items foreign to the author."

The book's charming tone can best be conveyed by quoting from its introduction:

Psychologists tell us that we, as a species, use only a small portion of the brain's full potential. That is fortunate as there is room for improvement. We have ample cells available for new ideas, comprehending new inventions, and remembering the newly-expanded zip-code. Some of the unused sections of the brain are due to the fact the we have forgotten much. Along with hunting and gathering skills, tree climbing, and the rules of etiquette we have a neglected area of the brain that had once concerned itself with appreciation of the pen.

Since the development of the noisome ball-point pen only a few of that lobe's cells are being used. What had long lain dormant are the myriad of issues dealing with the pen in terms of quality, art, invention and pleasure. Now that you have a fine fountain pen in your hand you'll find the appreciation of that and the world around you will grow as those sleepy neurons and synapses awake and fire.

The aim of this book is to assist you in this noble endeavor.

And so it has.

Promises To Keep

Right now I'm reading a book from my biography section called Promises to Keep: A Family Close-up by William E. Walsh. It is not his memoir as such, but that of his family considered as an organic entity. The story begins in 1929 with their first date and was published in 1953 by which time they had 13 children, whose names and birthdates are listed at the beginning of the volume under the heading, “By The Same Author.”

The author writes about himself and his family the third person and so it took me a little while to realize that he was actually the “Bill” of the narrative. (Okay, so I’m not at my brightest when I’m home sick.)

The father had a large collection of books -- though he sometimes resorted to selling them when money was particularly tight. I wanted to share the following quotation. The parents are counting their blessings and the father comes to the conclusion that though many blessings are seasonal in nature, their books are permanent blessings.

But the books are constant companions, enlargers of the human experience. They are the autobiography of the family of man. They are not possesions, they are defiance.

. . .They are the great rebels against stupidity, parochialism, injustice, dullness, indifference, and blindess. They are defiance against mediocrity, because each book is a sharp awareness of personal experience, an individual savoring of the meat and drink of existence. They are flavored with the intimate moments of man’s best and surest living. Books are, like fear, the beginning of wisdom, because, like fear, they remind us of mortality and awaken in us the deep longing to live well while we have ‘world enough and time.’

. . . and I want the kids to like books, too, so they’ll know that the fight isn’t hopeless and that other men have faced every problem they will have to face, and solved it. (p. 118-119)

I hope that's what our children picked up from being exposed to their parents' love of books.

Forgotten Treasures

My friend Sartorias posted a link to this discussion of "Forgotten Treasures":

What I think of as the "Harry Potter Effect" - a renewed interest in YA or children's fantasy - has resulted in the welcome recent republication of authors who had been well-known in certain circles, like DWJ, or well-known from the past, like Edward Eager. It has also seen the reprinting of some rather more obscure but equally deserving works, like A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond or Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard. I've been thinking for a while of beginning a series of posts on old forgotten treasures from my own collection - not necessarily SF or fantasy, but books I loved that I wondered if anyone else had heard of, that I think deserve a bigger audience and potential reprinting.

I enjoyed reading all of the comments to this post. So many of the books mentioned were books that I checked out of the library time after time. Others are books I've never heard of but now intend to find. I'd been trying to make up my own list of Forgotten Treasures, but most of the ones I could think of had already been mentioned or were too well known to qualify as "forgotten" (such as Little Women or Alice in Wonderland).

But tonight the the springs of memory sudddenly started burbling and brought forth a surprising collection of titles.

Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink (also the author of the more well known Caddie Woodlawn).
As a Navy brat I got to know many school and public libraries. Baby Island was only to be found in one of them. It's the story of two sisters, Mary and Jean, who are traveling on an ocean liner to join their father in Australia. When the order comes to abandon ship, they find themselves in a lifeboat with four babies under the age of two. The lifeboat conveniently drifts to a desert island where the girls enjoy playing Robinson Crusoe with their boatload of babies until they are eventually rescued. (BTW, I just checked Amazon and this book is back in print. But the copy I read was published in 1937 and had the most beautiful color illustrations.)

Redskin Summer (?) I'm not sure about the title on this one. It was about some kids whose families always spent each summer vacationing by a lake. There was an island in the lake where the kids were allowed to camp and pretend to be Indians. But this summer there's a new Boy Scout camp across the lake and the "redskins" find themselves at war with the "palefaces." I particularly remember an exciting segment where one of the girls is captured and "scalped" by the Scouts, i.e. they cut off one of her braids.

I read Mysterious Island by Jules Verne over and over when I was a kid. It's a shipwreck story, but this time the castaways are dropped onto the desert island from a balloon having just made their escape from a prisoner of war camp during the Civil War. Unlike the characters in The Swiss Family Robinson, who had a whole shipload of goods to help them colonize their island, the plucky Americans in Mysterious Island had only the contents of their pockets and the magnificent brain of Cyrus Harding, an American engineer, to help them survive.

I was also very fond of My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craigshead George, though I guess it doesn't qualify as "Forgotten" since it's been popular and in print ever since I was a kid. The main character runs away from home to the wilderness where he lives off the land. He carves out a home in a hollow tree, makes his own deerskin clothing, grinds acorn flour and trains a wild falcon to hunt for him.

Are you noticing a theme here? It's a surprising one. I don't even like camping. I hate getting dirty. I'm scared of bugs. Why did I love all these shipwreck/camping out books? Maybe it's because I always had a fascination with doing things from scratch. Even if I never wanted to do those things in real life. Spinning wool, baking bread, skinning rabbits -- you name it, I read about it. I even remember devouring a children's novel about canning vegetables and fruit for a 4H competition. Yup. And I must have read it at least three times.

Of course, fantasy has always been my favorite genre though there wasn't as much of it available when I was young as there is now. However, all my childhood favorites have already been mentioned in the above linked post and its comments. Except, I think, for some books by Evelyn Sibley Lampman such as The Shy Stegasaurus of Cricket Creek and The City Under the Back Steps. The former is about two children who discover a live dinosaur in the Southwest and the latter is about a boy and girl who are shrunk down to the size of ants and taken prisoner in an ant colony. (My goodness! Someone else besides me must have liked that book. The cheapest copy listed on Amazon is $59.40! Nyah, nyah -- I still have my childhood copy. Update: I just checked the shelf. I only see Stegasaurus, not City. Arrrgh!)

And I don't think any of the posters mentioned Time at the Top by Edward Ormondroyd. It's about a little girl who travels back in time in her apartment building's elevator. Or Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. It's another time travel book, but the portal is a garden which can only be accessed at night when the clock strikes thirteen. And the garden isn't there in the daytime.

Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw got checked out repeatedly when I was in junior high. The main character is a slave girl in ancient Egypt who has a gift for languages. She is bought by the supporters of Hatshepsut to act as a spy against the pharoh's brother
Tutmose. But due to complicated circumstances, Mara is forced to become a double agent. It's an exciting, swashbuckling adventure which even includes a romance.

The Winged Watchman by Hilda Van Stockum used to be a Forgotten Favorite, but her books have now been republished by Bethlehem Books. The Winged Watchman is about a Dutch family during the Nazi occupation of Holland. I loved it because the characters were Catholic and there was actually some theological discussion that was absoutely germane to the story and very naturally presented.

The Family Nobody Wanted by Helen Doss. Originally published in 1954, this memoir tells the story of a young white couple who adopted eleven children of various ethnic backgrounds at a time when trans-racial or trans-ethnic adoption was inconceivable both to professional social workers and to the general public. I still have the Scholastic Book Services paperback edition I bought in the 1960s which has my name carefully printed on the inside front cover in a large childish hand. It is very well read. I think I liked it because it was about a family that was even larger than ours. It was also my first glimpse of the fact that not everyone thought that a brown Mexican baby was much prettier than a pasty blond one.

The last book I'll mention is by Elizabeth Enright. Actually, I loved all of her books. But The Saturdays, published in 1941, was a special favorite because it struck me as being the most exotic. The four Melendy children decide to found the Independent Saturday Afternoon Adventure Club. (I.S.A.A.C for short.) Each week the children will pool their allowances (a whole $1.60!) and take turns using the entire sum to to fund a special, individual adventure. All but the youngest are old enough to travel into The City (New York) alone. So twelve year old Rush, a music fanatic, goes to the opera and hears Sigfried. Ten year old Miranda visits an art gallery . Thirteen year old Mona goes to a real beauty shop and has her long braids cut off. And on each of their adventures they meet seemingly ordinary people who turn out to have fascinating stories.

If you have Forgotten Treasures to share, please post them in the comments box.

Connections

Connections was a television series on the history of science and invention that was a much beloved part of our homeschooling curriculumn. (Actually, the kinder didn't know it was part of their education. Since videos were severely rationed in our household, they thought that being allowed to watch an episode was a special treat.)

Its delightfully interdisciplinary approach sought to demonstrate how seemingly random discoveries, scientific achievements, and even historical events were actually part of an interconnected series of cascading triggers that brought about certain aspects of modern technology.

I think that one reason we enjoyed it so much is that the human mind is always searching for patterns, even where they don't exist. I know I always get a thrill when I discover unsuspected connections.

This morning I was struggling to complete a post that had been in the works since Halloween. Well, struggle is probably too strong a verb. I like writing when I'm in the midst of it. I love having written. But I absolutely HATE to begin writing. So I wasn't so much struggling as engaging in really high level procrastination. ("My, wouldn't this be a good time to totally rethread my serger?")

When I'm in this state almost any stray thought blossoms into a full blown distraction.

Halloween. Hmm. Fillius2's Jack-o-Lantern. And those potato people he carved. Should have taken a picture. They used to use turnips in England. Oh, remember the illo in that Church Mouse book? I wonder if there's a copy on the Web? (Never mind that I have a copy in the other room.) Google. Diary of a Church Mouse.

Surprise!

Graham Oakley's book didn't turn up until the second page of results. It turns out that there's also a poem called "Diary of a Church Mouse" by a fellow called John Betjeman. Apparently, he was rather well known, so I suppose that Oakley might have been referencing the poem in his title. Connection!

I rather liked Betjeman's poem. (It rhymed and was easy to understand. I know, my taste in verse is rather hobbitish.) It's about a church mouse who's always on short commons except when the church is decorated with agricultural products during the Autumn Harvest Festival.

But how annoying when one finds
That other mice with pagan minds
Come into church my food to share
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes… it's rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat
(It screened our special preacher's seat),
And prosperous mice from fields away
Come in to hear our organ play,
And under cover of its notes
Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats.
A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I
Am too papistical, and High,
Yet somehow doesn't think it wrong
To munch through Harvest Evensong,
While I, who starve the whole year through,
Must share my food with rodents who
Except at this time of the year
Not once inside the church appear.

(Reminds me of a curmudgeonly friend of mine who used to complain every Christmas and Easter when his pretty little church was invaded by "outsiders." Not quite the right attitude, I think. But that's a different story.)

So then I went over to Wikipedia to read about the fellow and discovered that he "famously brought his teddy bear Archibald Ormsby-Gore up to Magdalen with him, the memory of which later inspired his Oxford contemporary Evelyn Waugh to include Sebastian Flyte's teddy Aloysius in Brideshead Revisited."

Connection again! Brideshead Revisited is right up there among my top ten favorite novels and is certainly the best Catholic novel I have ever read. (Sometimes it seems that everyone knew everyone in that period of literary England. So guess who Betjeman's Oxford tutor was -- C.S. Lewis.)

Oakley's The Diary of a Church Mouse is one of a charming series of picture books about the adventures of the mice living in the vestry of the parish church of Wortlethorpe. In exchange for chores such as polishing the brasses and picking up the rice after weddings, the vicar makes them a weekly allowance of cheese. It's a jolly lifestyle, especially because Sampson, the church cat, has taken a vow of brotherly love and friendship to mice though they try his patience sorely. The illustrations are lavishly detailed which both amplify and contradict the text, adding an extra dimension of humor to the stories. Fortunately, we have a complete set because they are now out of print and selling for outrageous prices at Amazon.com.

This is a nice webpage about the Church Mice series which includes a fan-written interview with Arthur and Humphry, the spokesmice of the vestry. (This fellow does a good job with his "interview," lifting most of the dialogue's wording from the text of the books.)

Fling It!

“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
--Dorothy Parker

This morning I was trying to think of which books I’ve read that deserve the Dorothy Parker Flung Award. But since I routinely eschew genre that I know I won’t like and am not required to read books I don’t choose, I can’t think of any candidates right now. I must let this percolate through my hind brain and see if it dredges up anything from the past.

Certainly I've stumbled into novels I didn’t like. But since I don’t feel obliged to finish them, I usually don’t feel the need to fling them. Sometimes I’ve finished a novel I wasn’t enjoying because I kept thinking that sooner or later there was going to be a payoff that would turn the whole thing around and make it all worthwhile. The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies was one of those. I’ve liked other books by this author, but this one just left me feeling soiled.

Some books are so badly written that you end up finishing them simply from a sense of appalled fascination. Like catching sight of a road accident that makes you turn your head and keeps your eyes helplessly glued until it's out of sight.

But bad enough to be “thrown with great force”?

Okay, guys: nominate some titles. I promise not to read them.