Dearest Madame,
Get all the reading done I wish to? Nay, nay, c’est impossible! And pleasurable reading is never “done,” it is savored and enjoyed and experienced good Madame! But yes, gloriously unwound I have been, although the pressing incessant world would soon have me otherwise!
Well spoken about the power of conviction and exceptional individuals. Brings to mind Margaret Mead’s famous quote!
And yes, the tests of adversity that can make some of us much more than what might otherwise be: Your analysis is well done!
Yes, those frightful feyfolk do get around a bit too much don’t they? :)
And such regret (well, as much as one can for novel characters) for Isola for never having a passionate encounter. And then at least some balm, in that she could partially relate by reading a well-written tale of one.
And that Kit could grow up in a time before all the enfeebling nonsense, as you say: this is where the nostalgic glass, often too rose-colored or even conjured, is actual, which only makes us sadder for its absence. Of course, things weren’t all perfect (not by a long shot) in what would have been Kit’s day, and the book carried things into a bit of excessive romanticism, but as you’ve pointed out, at least the overprotective American parenting (itself partially a reflection of a disconnected, non-communal society) would not have been much in evidence.
On to a few more enjoyable snippets:
About children and the “beautiful light they have before the Age of Reason gets to them.”
‘Love letters! I’ll be bound! Will there be secrets/ Intimacies? Should gentlemen leave the room?” Today’s gentlemen (when they can be found!) would probably not leave the room or ask if they should, although a few might fall asleep, lol.
The otherwise stiff graphologist who was thrilled for a little adventure, when they got a traffic ticket, which he was “privileged to pay.”
“If there is Predestination, then God is the devil.” Remy, where were you in Calvin’s day? :)
Dear readers, although I have further things to say on our wonderful book, I must beg off for a week. It seems that being gone on vacation in the modern day is cause for some stress upon one’s return: the world insists that I take care of its many details and urgencies before I can devote myself again to such DELIGHTFUL tales of potato peel pies and other things!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Thoroughly Charmed
Okay, dear ones, this week I'm cheating just a bit. In my own defense I found this wonderful interview with Annie Barrows the amazing woman who finished our delightful book after her aunt and collaborator passed away. Here's a quote:
"I also think that this is a book that feeds the hunger we have for charm. There is also a hunger out in the world for books about people getting chopped up by chainsaws, too. But this is a book that charms, and it charms unabashedly. It's about being beguiled. It's about enchantment, and I think that is something that people want in their lives, especially readers"
This is a book that feeds the hunger we have for charm. Well, now I ask you, my book loving friends WHAT am I supposed to add to THAT? It does. So in a bit of a deviation from the norm I'm posting the link to the interview. Aren't you really tired of me anyway and just showing up to see if my blog partner survived all that relaxation? Yes, I thought so. :)
Enjoy.
"I also think that this is a book that feeds the hunger we have for charm. There is also a hunger out in the world for books about people getting chopped up by chainsaws, too. But this is a book that charms, and it charms unabashedly. It's about being beguiled. It's about enchantment, and I think that is something that people want in their lives, especially readers"
This is a book that feeds the hunger we have for charm. Well, now I ask you, my book loving friends WHAT am I supposed to add to THAT? It does. So in a bit of a deviation from the norm I'm posting the link to the interview. Aren't you really tired of me anyway and just showing up to see if my blog partner survived all that relaxation? Yes, I thought so. :)
Enjoy.
Annie Barrows Unabashedly Charms
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Confessing & Obsessing
While I would aspire to be like the character of Elizabeth I identified closely with Juliet. I thought the authoresses did a wonderful job of presenting a likeable, realistic, woman and I suspect that that is the reason, in no small part of the book's success.
I loved her honesty when she wrote, "I much prefer whining to counting my blessings."
I share her fascination for looking in lighted windows at night as I pass by. I knew exactly what she meant when she said: "...it's families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright sofa cushions." Me too, Juliet!
I saw myself too when she said "I can be discreet when I really try." and again when she said of her godson, "Now he talks to himself, which I find terribly endearing since I do too." About Elizabeth's grace under pressure I shared her "hopeless admiration."
I was completely entranced by Juliet's way of dealing with children. She seemed to know exactly what they liked or needed. She seemed to innately understand that they have a high tolerance for the gruesome--otherwise why would fairy tales be so continuously popular? I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear of modern parents doing ridiculous things like insisting that every thing their children are exposed to is sanitized. Fairy tales rewritten without violence and to be made politically correct? I loved how practical Juliet was. She did not think that playing "Dead Bride" would scar Kit for life, or worry too much that the diabolical Jack in the box would permanently scar Dominic and result in years of therapy. No one was too concerned with Kit's self esteem and she seemed the better child for it. Ah, but luckily for children of that era they missed the over-protective child rearing nonsense that was to come a generation later.
I must wonder though, why it took her so long to see Mark for who he was when the red flags were furiously flying: "He's absolutely furious because I didn't give him an unequivocal yes. I tried to explain that I hadn't known him long enough and I needed time to think, but he wouldn't listen to me."
Run Juliet Run!
She finally "imagined a life of having to cry to get him to be kind" and decided to say no. Disaster averted.
I think it is Juliet's feminine humanness that makes her so endearing as the story teller, more or less. Letting us see those little glimpses of fickle and indecisive (maybe even timid at times ;)) moments that we are all so familiar with.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
More Confession and A Little Obsession
Dearest Unwound (hopefully) One,
When I read this book again I was struck by the amount of truly gut wrenching vignettes included about the war. When you remember the book it isn't what you think of, but the wonderful characters instead and the way their charm and the simplicity and beauty of the pastoral setting seep into your heart.
Isola and Juliet's correspondence in regards to the Brontes did just what so many books do which is send me in search of more books. Though I'd read the most famous works, I knew little about the family. Weren't they fascinatingly sad? Yet out of that sadness (and what we would clearly today call "dysfunction") came masterpieces!
Something strikes me about that and your comment about Remy's statement concerning Elizabeth's heart. How often it seems that tragic circumstances and pain lead to greatness. Sometimes in action taken, other times in a powerful flow of creativity that is released. The power of conviction is often fiery enough to work for real change in an institution or a society. Maybe something in adversity hones a spirit of determination that simply outlasts others. The biographies of great leaders as well as artistic legends are strewn with hardship and deprivation.
It makes one wonder what refinement of character is lost in our constant quest for sweetness and light. Ease. What has been lost to Xanex? What talents have gone un-excavated because our current culture would rather be numb than to feel all that there is to be felt? Is it possible that many great artists will never emerge because they will never be forced to find a way to cope? It does seem that struggling with difficult circumstances can unleash something fierce in people that will not be kept down. So much good and inspiration come from pain yet none of us want to do the requisite suffering... The paradox of Elizabeth's heart that you point out on a broad scale.
So as I say I've been reading up on the Brontes. Juliet was right; it is quite difficult to find much on Anne. Poor Anne. As Juliet says: "Lord knows how Anne managed to write any books at all, influenced by such a strain of religion as her Aunt Branwell possessed...Imagine preaching that God meant women to be Meek, Mild, and Gently Melacholic." I don't know what version of the Bible Aunt Branwell was reading; I can't find those women in it anywhere. You can imagine how glad I am; I'd miss the mark by quite a bit. lol
Don't you think Auntie Glum and Dreary would have gotten on swimmingly with Adelaide? :) I loved the imagery involved in Juliet's guess at why Ms. Addison was the way she was, "...a maligant fairy at her christening." No shortage of those it seems. :)
And this from Isola about why she so admired those Bronte girls: "I like stories of passionate encounters. I myself have never had one, but now I can picture one." Bless her heart.
Next up: Just Juliet.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
A Posting We Will Go...
I too, gentle commentator, am off to vacation, and one that has no elements of work within it, and books they shall accompany me for my reading pleasure!
Well said Madame M, with your “treasures and paper and ink windows to the soul.” And you are probably right usually about the books one sees in a book lover’s home being particular treasures. But at least this book lover would also have to admit that sometimes it’s because he’s woefully behind in reading the books and determining their worthiness! :)
“Pit stops to refuel” showcases the way we Americans sell ourselves short. Perpetual motion and activity machines we too often can be. At the end of the day (let alone the week, month, year, or decade), what has it gotten us? Too often, just processing our way through life with a few treasured experiences along the way if we are lucky, but mostly slogging through “great gray heaps of trash” (John Gardner, although he was referring to what it takes to find a good book). Yet it is our cultural self-imprisonment that we see no way through, around, or out. Surely there is real balance between Protestant work-ethic/Puritan sacrifice and what might appear to be sloth and goalless dithering.
An outstanding point about authors’ effects, and the effects of good written work. There is much in the world that happens without our knowing how, but the forces of the universe do often seem to come together to effect certain things.
I thought Henry was awesome! The world needs a lot of people like him!
Juliet’s musings about Dawsey could be echoed by men as well, although perhaps not as articulately or as in-depth. The sexes do have their troubles reading each other’s non-verbal signals when they are subtle, or when they could be interpreted in many ways!
Drift back into my windbaggery? My good Madame, here I thought I was acquiring proper scrivening manners, only to find out that succinct and pithy are not exactly what are desired! LOL
Very well, then. No one needs to request a professor to “hold forth” more than once or twice! :)
Let’s continue with some snippets from the book:
“You’re not going to throw off Miss McKenna’s little girl because of that, are you?” Don’t you love that type, depth, and yet simplicity of expression? We rarely have that here, at least anymore.
“If you call being human collaboration.” Indeed. Wouldn’t we transcend our differences more if we had that idea? Wouldn’t we be less susceptible to twisting by ideologues, to be being worked into a violent frenzy for some nationalist, religious, or other cultural sentiment?
“Maybe I was about to find out what’s on the other side of that silence.” Ah, yes, Juliet. The quiet, the mysterious, the wondering, the attraction!
I thought it was so appropriate when Sidney tells Juliet the obvious: that Elizabeth should be the center of the book. How often we need the perspective of others, to bounce things off of them, to find someone who looks at the world a little differently or a bit broader.
Will Thisbee’s wanting to know of Juliet which of the two “I’d marry if I were I man, which I wasn’t.” :) I thought her advice so appropriate: “If you have to ask, generally neither.” The “Miss X will bore you to tears, and Miss Y will nag you to death,” was just the dark chocolate homemade frosting on the ultra-moist cake! (and how men dread in nearly equal measure both those Miss X and Miss Y fates!).
“One must go at cooking slowly.” Certainly correct in my case. Four tries before my cherubs could pronounce a cake of mine edible! :)
“She’s off her feed.” What an exquisitely Islander way of saying she has little to no interest in food.
And Mark’s dismissive behavior, all about what he wanted and not interested at all in what interested Juliet? “He wasn’t the least bit interested in the Island, or the Occupation, or Elizabeth, or what I’d been doing since I arrived—didn’t ask a single question about it.” Take note lovers, of the warning signs of self-centeredness and perhaps arrogance or worse! They are often there to notice if the gooey messy relationship-slag has not melted your senses away! Even when you don’t have an outright sociopath on your hands, if you’ve got someone like Mark, you’ve got someone who is going to make you hurt and suck your essence dry. Refuse and get away! Chances of reform are probably less than 1 in a 1000! (Actually, I shouldn’t even have optimistically estimated even that high; lovers are notorious for thinking “I/we’re different; we’ll beat the odds.” Sure you will sug!)
Remy’s need—verbalized by her nurse—to be around cheerful people to heal: Good medicine there! Part of what makes us sick is surely being who saps us, who diminishes us. We don’t seem to notice at the time enough though,what effect it is having on us physically, nor the spiritual and emotional tie-ins from it to our physical health.
I thought Remy’s words about Elizabeth’s standing up to the overseer were doubly complex, or maybe I only thought they SHOULD have been doubly complex. “It would have been better for her not to have such a heart.”
“Yes, but worse for the rest of us,” Juliet thought.
And yet I felt that it could also be the case that it would have been better for the rest of them that Elizabeth not have such a heart, as they missed her so, and yet had she not had such a heart, they would not have missed her so…
Such good writing, or perhaps just fortuitous, to get one to think and ponder, and re-imagine and re-postulate…
Or perhaps the prof is just off his brain juice and not seeing plainly. :)
On another subject: We are living through the great erasure. The veterans of World War II age and die in droves now. The day is not far off when they will be gone. Their collective shared experience is already fading. It is not the recording of it that is fading all that much. It is the focus, the valuing. It is the way of things for that to happen. Veterans from the dawn of civilization have usually endured the same fate. We humans are brief mortals. Even if we didn’t chew up our mortality, which we usually assuredly do, our time is so brief, our focus so our own, that the now gets nearly all our focus, and what is left is given over to the future. The past, with its hard teachings and ready references, becomes lost first in spirit, and then in forgetfulness. We do not ask enough, probe enough, inquire enough of those who have gone before us while they are still with us, and most especially not those who have experienced momentous and grand things as both individuals and cultures. “Every time an old person dies, it is like a library is burning,” Alex Haley once said.
I reflected on that in reading the many instances the authors inserted into the book about the war, the occupation, the interaction, the hardships, the sacrifices, the horrors, the kindnesses, the adaptations, the endurance.
But that doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the book. Talented these authors are, to insert these vignettes, these painful human stories, and yet take away little to nothing of the delightfulness of the book. Indeed, perhaps those are one of the many reasons the reading of it is so enjoyable!
More to say, but vacation calls! Will post more when I return!
Well said Madame M, with your “treasures and paper and ink windows to the soul.” And you are probably right usually about the books one sees in a book lover’s home being particular treasures. But at least this book lover would also have to admit that sometimes it’s because he’s woefully behind in reading the books and determining their worthiness! :)
“Pit stops to refuel” showcases the way we Americans sell ourselves short. Perpetual motion and activity machines we too often can be. At the end of the day (let alone the week, month, year, or decade), what has it gotten us? Too often, just processing our way through life with a few treasured experiences along the way if we are lucky, but mostly slogging through “great gray heaps of trash” (John Gardner, although he was referring to what it takes to find a good book). Yet it is our cultural self-imprisonment that we see no way through, around, or out. Surely there is real balance between Protestant work-ethic/Puritan sacrifice and what might appear to be sloth and goalless dithering.
An outstanding point about authors’ effects, and the effects of good written work. There is much in the world that happens without our knowing how, but the forces of the universe do often seem to come together to effect certain things.
I thought Henry was awesome! The world needs a lot of people like him!
Juliet’s musings about Dawsey could be echoed by men as well, although perhaps not as articulately or as in-depth. The sexes do have their troubles reading each other’s non-verbal signals when they are subtle, or when they could be interpreted in many ways!
Drift back into my windbaggery? My good Madame, here I thought I was acquiring proper scrivening manners, only to find out that succinct and pithy are not exactly what are desired! LOL
Very well, then. No one needs to request a professor to “hold forth” more than once or twice! :)
Let’s continue with some snippets from the book:
“You’re not going to throw off Miss McKenna’s little girl because of that, are you?” Don’t you love that type, depth, and yet simplicity of expression? We rarely have that here, at least anymore.
“If you call being human collaboration.” Indeed. Wouldn’t we transcend our differences more if we had that idea? Wouldn’t we be less susceptible to twisting by ideologues, to be being worked into a violent frenzy for some nationalist, religious, or other cultural sentiment?
“Maybe I was about to find out what’s on the other side of that silence.” Ah, yes, Juliet. The quiet, the mysterious, the wondering, the attraction!
I thought it was so appropriate when Sidney tells Juliet the obvious: that Elizabeth should be the center of the book. How often we need the perspective of others, to bounce things off of them, to find someone who looks at the world a little differently or a bit broader.
Will Thisbee’s wanting to know of Juliet which of the two “I’d marry if I were I man, which I wasn’t.” :) I thought her advice so appropriate: “If you have to ask, generally neither.” The “Miss X will bore you to tears, and Miss Y will nag you to death,” was just the dark chocolate homemade frosting on the ultra-moist cake! (and how men dread in nearly equal measure both those Miss X and Miss Y fates!).
“One must go at cooking slowly.” Certainly correct in my case. Four tries before my cherubs could pronounce a cake of mine edible! :)
“She’s off her feed.” What an exquisitely Islander way of saying she has little to no interest in food.
And Mark’s dismissive behavior, all about what he wanted and not interested at all in what interested Juliet? “He wasn’t the least bit interested in the Island, or the Occupation, or Elizabeth, or what I’d been doing since I arrived—didn’t ask a single question about it.” Take note lovers, of the warning signs of self-centeredness and perhaps arrogance or worse! They are often there to notice if the gooey messy relationship-slag has not melted your senses away! Even when you don’t have an outright sociopath on your hands, if you’ve got someone like Mark, you’ve got someone who is going to make you hurt and suck your essence dry. Refuse and get away! Chances of reform are probably less than 1 in a 1000! (Actually, I shouldn’t even have optimistically estimated even that high; lovers are notorious for thinking “I/we’re different; we’ll beat the odds.” Sure you will sug!)
Remy’s need—verbalized by her nurse—to be around cheerful people to heal: Good medicine there! Part of what makes us sick is surely being who saps us, who diminishes us. We don’t seem to notice at the time enough though,what effect it is having on us physically, nor the spiritual and emotional tie-ins from it to our physical health.
I thought Remy’s words about Elizabeth’s standing up to the overseer were doubly complex, or maybe I only thought they SHOULD have been doubly complex. “It would have been better for her not to have such a heart.”
“Yes, but worse for the rest of us,” Juliet thought.
And yet I felt that it could also be the case that it would have been better for the rest of them that Elizabeth not have such a heart, as they missed her so, and yet had she not had such a heart, they would not have missed her so…
Such good writing, or perhaps just fortuitous, to get one to think and ponder, and re-imagine and re-postulate…
Or perhaps the prof is just off his brain juice and not seeing plainly. :)
On another subject: We are living through the great erasure. The veterans of World War II age and die in droves now. The day is not far off when they will be gone. Their collective shared experience is already fading. It is not the recording of it that is fading all that much. It is the focus, the valuing. It is the way of things for that to happen. Veterans from the dawn of civilization have usually endured the same fate. We humans are brief mortals. Even if we didn’t chew up our mortality, which we usually assuredly do, our time is so brief, our focus so our own, that the now gets nearly all our focus, and what is left is given over to the future. The past, with its hard teachings and ready references, becomes lost first in spirit, and then in forgetfulness. We do not ask enough, probe enough, inquire enough of those who have gone before us while they are still with us, and most especially not those who have experienced momentous and grand things as both individuals and cultures. “Every time an old person dies, it is like a library is burning,” Alex Haley once said.
I reflected on that in reading the many instances the authors inserted into the book about the war, the occupation, the interaction, the hardships, the sacrifices, the horrors, the kindnesses, the adaptations, the endurance.
But that doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the book. Talented these authors are, to insert these vignettes, these painful human stories, and yet take away little to nothing of the delightfulness of the book. Indeed, perhaps those are one of the many reasons the reading of it is so enjoyable!
More to say, but vacation calls! Will post more when I return!
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
A Confession
My Dear Professor J,
I am NOT ready to put this thread "to bed" just because I brought up the Oscar Wilde letters, and you are more than welcome to join me in my "One More Thing throne room." I am now imagining said throne and ornate room where I can continuously bore people with just the extra odd bit of information. Complicated locks and trap doors may be in order! LOL
I am a dreadful book snooper. There. I've confessed. It is very revealing and not just because I think I may get stuck there and have nothing to read. The presence of large amounts of books points at the very least to the curiosity of the resident. A mass of a particular genre hints at interests. But in the home of a real book lover where much is read, I always think "Of all they've read, these are the books they chose to keep." The volumes taking up precious space in the home of a voracious reader are particularly telling. Treasures that simply cannot be parted with. Paper and ink windows to the soul.
A second reading provided a few insights into just how cleverly the book is written. Sydney cutting the letter short to dress for dinner not only was a sign of the times when people of a certain element of society dressed for dinner, but I thought it was also among the first clues to his sexual orientation. Straight men rarely talk of "dressing" for anything. And of course as you point out the letter writing is something lost to us along with the idea of any kind of communal dinner at the end of every day. The evening's reconnection has been lost to over-scheduling and for families to work, sports, and other activities that cause the evening meal to be eaten in sort of an uncivilized "wave" as family members make pit stops to refuel. Ah, but this is a mother complaining about a losing battle she fought for years.
I am so glad to hear you gush over this book. Like you, I found myself not wanting to finish it. The stories in many cases read as the real recollections of someone. Margaret Mitchell's details to a large extent in Gone With the Wind were from stories that she had heard first hand at family gatherings when she was growing up. I couldn't help thinking that much of the feeling of authenticity of our Guernsey friends was due to the same thing, though in the interviews I read they spoke often of extensive research.
"I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers." Is a literary conspiracy afoot? I'd like to think so. How lovely to think that the universe is twirling events, meetings, discoveries in such a way as to bring the perfect books and people to us and taking us to the places where we can find them. Think of all that never would have happened if that book hadn't shown up!
Authors of books set something loose in the world, the results of which they can never know. A kind of immortal influence that persists after they are gone and permeates whatever place their work can be taken. In the case of the Literary Society the result is the holding together of individuals and community by those kind enough (or driven) to leave their thoughts (in words) for others.
Of all the wonderful qualities about this book I think my favorite was the all around tenderness with which the story is told. Something about it wears like a comfortable pair of slippers and is comforting like reuniting with an old friend. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I think that you are right in that it is the lovely community of love and acceptance that draws you in. So much understanding exhibited even toward the young German soldiers (the enemy) far from home, or demonstrated by Henry in his story about the prostitutes and their tragic circumstances and deaths and how he reacted to his mother and aunt's comments about it.
I was amused by Juliet's perspective of the relationship with Dawsey. Every woman can relate. In one letter she is sure he's going to kiss her, a couple later she writes "Please ignore everything I have ever said about Dawsey Adams. I am an idiot." She goes on to explain that she doesn't think he's interested at all in her and she feels humiliated.
I loved some of the entertaining side items:
"Kit would love a bagpipe. I would not."
"Remy, for all she's so frail and thin, manages to look stylish at every turn. What is it about French women?"
"...all the shelves are lined with shells, bird feathers, dried sea grasses, pebbles, egg shells, and the skeleton of something that might be a bat. They're just bits that were lying on the ground, that anyone else would have stepped over or on, but she saw something beautiful in them and brought them home."
I found Dawsey's willingness to don a dishtowel and march around with Kit and Juliet particularly endearing.
Please feel free to drift back into your windbaggery. I'm sure our readers have missed it, as have I! :)
I am NOT ready to put this thread "to bed" just because I brought up the Oscar Wilde letters, and you are more than welcome to join me in my "One More Thing throne room." I am now imagining said throne and ornate room where I can continuously bore people with just the extra odd bit of information. Complicated locks and trap doors may be in order! LOL
I am a dreadful book snooper. There. I've confessed. It is very revealing and not just because I think I may get stuck there and have nothing to read. The presence of large amounts of books points at the very least to the curiosity of the resident. A mass of a particular genre hints at interests. But in the home of a real book lover where much is read, I always think "Of all they've read, these are the books they chose to keep." The volumes taking up precious space in the home of a voracious reader are particularly telling. Treasures that simply cannot be parted with. Paper and ink windows to the soul.
A second reading provided a few insights into just how cleverly the book is written. Sydney cutting the letter short to dress for dinner not only was a sign of the times when people of a certain element of society dressed for dinner, but I thought it was also among the first clues to his sexual orientation. Straight men rarely talk of "dressing" for anything. And of course as you point out the letter writing is something lost to us along with the idea of any kind of communal dinner at the end of every day. The evening's reconnection has been lost to over-scheduling and for families to work, sports, and other activities that cause the evening meal to be eaten in sort of an uncivilized "wave" as family members make pit stops to refuel. Ah, but this is a mother complaining about a losing battle she fought for years.
I am so glad to hear you gush over this book. Like you, I found myself not wanting to finish it. The stories in many cases read as the real recollections of someone. Margaret Mitchell's details to a large extent in Gone With the Wind were from stories that she had heard first hand at family gatherings when she was growing up. I couldn't help thinking that much of the feeling of authenticity of our Guernsey friends was due to the same thing, though in the interviews I read they spoke often of extensive research.
"I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers." Is a literary conspiracy afoot? I'd like to think so. How lovely to think that the universe is twirling events, meetings, discoveries in such a way as to bring the perfect books and people to us and taking us to the places where we can find them. Think of all that never would have happened if that book hadn't shown up!
Authors of books set something loose in the world, the results of which they can never know. A kind of immortal influence that persists after they are gone and permeates whatever place their work can be taken. In the case of the Literary Society the result is the holding together of individuals and community by those kind enough (or driven) to leave their thoughts (in words) for others.
Of all the wonderful qualities about this book I think my favorite was the all around tenderness with which the story is told. Something about it wears like a comfortable pair of slippers and is comforting like reuniting with an old friend. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I think that you are right in that it is the lovely community of love and acceptance that draws you in. So much understanding exhibited even toward the young German soldiers (the enemy) far from home, or demonstrated by Henry in his story about the prostitutes and their tragic circumstances and deaths and how he reacted to his mother and aunt's comments about it.
I was amused by Juliet's perspective of the relationship with Dawsey. Every woman can relate. In one letter she is sure he's going to kiss her, a couple later she writes "Please ignore everything I have ever said about Dawsey Adams. I am an idiot." She goes on to explain that she doesn't think he's interested at all in her and she feels humiliated.
I loved some of the entertaining side items:
"Kit would love a bagpipe. I would not."
"Remy, for all she's so frail and thin, manages to look stylish at every turn. What is it about French women?"
"...all the shelves are lined with shells, bird feathers, dried sea grasses, pebbles, egg shells, and the skeleton of something that might be a bat. They're just bits that were lying on the ground, that anyone else would have stepped over or on, but she saw something beautiful in them and brought them home."
I found Dawsey's willingness to don a dishtowel and march around with Kit and Juliet particularly endearing.
Please feel free to drift back into your windbaggery. I'm sure our readers have missed it, as have I! :)
Friday, June 3, 2011
Does this blog make me look fat?
Or at least my words? :) I was amused by your reference, yet I got further tickled by wondering if the Guernsey women had fat calves on their legs, lol.
Once again I am in agreement with your thoughtful writing, and your analysis of the Guernsey women. I recognize and largely agree with your points about crafted images, although I think the craftings take on a different character between men and women: men don’t get very sophisticated in their idealizing, at least in the beginning! :)
After reading your thoughts on Mark’s speech, I may have to reconsider my opinion! He was so arrogant, however, that his words still seem “stretchy” to me.
Snooping the books of other people? I suppose I’ve done that in a way! Although in my defense, perhaps I am just asking myself that if I’m stuck there, would I have anything worthwhile to read? :) But certainly, there is also getting an appreciation of what interests or informs the person in the house (if anything!).
Ah yes, I agree with you about those Brits: those “stiff upper lips” in enduring things in silent dignity does so take its toll at times!
Yes, the Oscar Wilde letters were a bit too neat, but I had abandoned exactness by then and just continued to be entertained. Long has it been that a novel has DELIGHTED me through and through. I enjoy many novels, but rarely do they keep that feeling of delight from beginning to end, one where I want to slow down and savor most everything!
And so, even though perhaps by mentioning those letters you are wanting to put this thread to bed, I have more points! And here you thought you were sole royal occupant of the “One More Thing” throne-room! :)
“Sea air, sunshine, green fields, wildflowers, the ever-changing sky and ocean, and most of all, the people seem to have seduced her from City life.” Yes, Sidney, the homey, welcoming place we long for in our inner beings, as well as the need to be outdoors, with nature, with life, not this overly indoor existence!
“Damn, damn, and damn,” or if it’s really bad, “God damn, oh God damn.” Love Sidney’s response to really awful things. Seems so appropriate, and yet so reservedly British at the same time. We Americans always think we nail British expressions so well; I wonder if we really do?
The enduring presence—often spoken of in the present tense—of such a strong-willed and yet caring personage such as Elizabeth, even long after she is gone: well, one doesn’t have to be a devotee of the movie “Phenomenon” to have a feeling of such things. Sometimes the truly exceptional touch our lives and never let go, and although we may be diminished and heart-stricken by it, we are better off in the whole.
The authors intersperse appropriate vignettes of the terrible conflict of the war and occupations, and camps, and all manner of things. And just enough to tug at you emotionally while they inform intellectually! I said at the beginning of this thread that I was enamored with this short letter format. So easy to wrap things up, and yet leave open so much, but without all the heavy handedness in formulaic writing! Easy to read, easy to digest! Fan-boy here!
Sidney’s cutting his letter short to dress for a supper party: how little we Americans do of either—letter writing or dressing (up) for special meals. Our helter skelter pace and scattered “focus” (really, probably more of the lack of focus) cause us to miss so much of what can make living and the human condition so fulfilling.
I, well, to over-use a word again, delighted in reading about the theatrical British soldier and his comrades at St. Sampson’s Harbor. Enough of this sort of thing did happen—proof, if it was ever needed—that humor survives even the most soul-sucking of large human experiences.
I wonder what motivated the authors in doing so, or if they knowingly chose those names for tangential or momentary characters. Ariel and Zenobia, for example, made me think of a mermaid and the queen for Conan, respectively.
“Isola doesn’t approve of small talk and believes in breaking the ice by stomping on it.” Deli------, uhm, most entertainingly proper! :)
And Sidney’s “coming out,” to Isola and her response: if only all revelations—gender orientation and otherwise—could be handled so forthrightly and so sweetly in all directions! The authors have landed that magical connection that Tolkien made with many readers in The Hobbit: the desire to live in such a warm, accepting, entertaining, life-nourishing, life-fulfilling COMMUNITY.
Oh my word, I am positively gushing over this book! And my manner of speech, at least in writing, seems to have received a brushing of British flavor. It all comes so naturally doesn’t it? Guess we Americans can easily get in touch with our Tudor-hangover roots!
I better pause here before I lapse back into my endless driveling windbaggery! :)
Once again I am in agreement with your thoughtful writing, and your analysis of the Guernsey women. I recognize and largely agree with your points about crafted images, although I think the craftings take on a different character between men and women: men don’t get very sophisticated in their idealizing, at least in the beginning! :)
After reading your thoughts on Mark’s speech, I may have to reconsider my opinion! He was so arrogant, however, that his words still seem “stretchy” to me.
Snooping the books of other people? I suppose I’ve done that in a way! Although in my defense, perhaps I am just asking myself that if I’m stuck there, would I have anything worthwhile to read? :) But certainly, there is also getting an appreciation of what interests or informs the person in the house (if anything!).
Ah yes, I agree with you about those Brits: those “stiff upper lips” in enduring things in silent dignity does so take its toll at times!
Yes, the Oscar Wilde letters were a bit too neat, but I had abandoned exactness by then and just continued to be entertained. Long has it been that a novel has DELIGHTED me through and through. I enjoy many novels, but rarely do they keep that feeling of delight from beginning to end, one where I want to slow down and savor most everything!
And so, even though perhaps by mentioning those letters you are wanting to put this thread to bed, I have more points! And here you thought you were sole royal occupant of the “One More Thing” throne-room! :)
“Sea air, sunshine, green fields, wildflowers, the ever-changing sky and ocean, and most of all, the people seem to have seduced her from City life.” Yes, Sidney, the homey, welcoming place we long for in our inner beings, as well as the need to be outdoors, with nature, with life, not this overly indoor existence!
“Damn, damn, and damn,” or if it’s really bad, “God damn, oh God damn.” Love Sidney’s response to really awful things. Seems so appropriate, and yet so reservedly British at the same time. We Americans always think we nail British expressions so well; I wonder if we really do?
The enduring presence—often spoken of in the present tense—of such a strong-willed and yet caring personage such as Elizabeth, even long after she is gone: well, one doesn’t have to be a devotee of the movie “Phenomenon” to have a feeling of such things. Sometimes the truly exceptional touch our lives and never let go, and although we may be diminished and heart-stricken by it, we are better off in the whole.
The authors intersperse appropriate vignettes of the terrible conflict of the war and occupations, and camps, and all manner of things. And just enough to tug at you emotionally while they inform intellectually! I said at the beginning of this thread that I was enamored with this short letter format. So easy to wrap things up, and yet leave open so much, but without all the heavy handedness in formulaic writing! Easy to read, easy to digest! Fan-boy here!
Sidney’s cutting his letter short to dress for a supper party: how little we Americans do of either—letter writing or dressing (up) for special meals. Our helter skelter pace and scattered “focus” (really, probably more of the lack of focus) cause us to miss so much of what can make living and the human condition so fulfilling.
I, well, to over-use a word again, delighted in reading about the theatrical British soldier and his comrades at St. Sampson’s Harbor. Enough of this sort of thing did happen—proof, if it was ever needed—that humor survives even the most soul-sucking of large human experiences.
I wonder what motivated the authors in doing so, or if they knowingly chose those names for tangential or momentary characters. Ariel and Zenobia, for example, made me think of a mermaid and the queen for Conan, respectively.
“Isola doesn’t approve of small talk and believes in breaking the ice by stomping on it.” Deli------, uhm, most entertainingly proper! :)
And Sidney’s “coming out,” to Isola and her response: if only all revelations—gender orientation and otherwise—could be handled so forthrightly and so sweetly in all directions! The authors have landed that magical connection that Tolkien made with many readers in The Hobbit: the desire to live in such a warm, accepting, entertaining, life-nourishing, life-fulfilling COMMUNITY.
Oh my word, I am positively gushing over this book! And my manner of speech, at least in writing, seems to have received a brushing of British flavor. It all comes so naturally doesn’t it? Guess we Americans can easily get in touch with our Tudor-hangover roots!
I better pause here before I lapse back into my endless driveling windbaggery! :)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Not Absent Minded...Just Absent
Well, Dear Reader, it's just me again. Disappointing, I know. If you've caught on to the basic schedule around here you were hoping to read some insightful new post from Professor J on Monday morning. So you checked and probably had your entire day ruined by the lack of it. A holiday, of course! That must be it but then Tuesday morning left you wanting as well. You may have to wait until Thursday or Friday even as he is, shall we say, swamped...and I was sure he was going to tell us the dog ate his blog post. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
