Happy Birthday, Professor Tolkien!
Last Year on Tolkien’s Birthday
Thoughts on the Silmarillion
Tolkien’s Birthday: 2004
I’ve no time this morning to write something new; I think I’ll go browse through The Hobbit instead.
Archives
Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz
The short summary of this book sounds like the beginning of a bad joke:
What do you get get when you cross a Pulitzer-prize winning Jewish journalist from Connecticut with a bunch of hardcore Virginia Confederate reenactors?
You get a lot of weirdness, to start with. (Quote from the front of the book: “Southerners are very strange about that war.”–Shelby Foote) I kept shaking my head while reading this book and muttering, “He’s exaggerating. Nobody’s that obsessed.” Do you believe that there are people who spend all their weekends reenacting the battles of the Civil War? That some of the guys obsess about their weight because they want to look like starving Confederate soldiers? That there are people who commemorate the anniversary of the hanging of Henry Wirz, commander of Andersonville prison, and celebrate him as a hero of the South? That the statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond is sixty-one feet high? That this quote from the book is for real?
. . . their passion for the War had crowded out everything else, including church.
“We were raised Methodists,” Sue said. “But we converted to the Confederacy. There wasn’t time for both.”
“War is hell,” Ed deadpanned. “And it just might send us there.”
But Sue didn’t worry about the afterlife. In fact she looked forward to it. “The neatest thing about living is that I can die and finally track down all those people I couldn’t find in the records.” She pointed at the ceiling and then at the floor. “Either way, it’ll be heaven just to get that information.”
I’ve lived in the South(west) all my life, and I haven’t met any of these people–although I do believe that the Civil War is still being fought, still at issue in many people’s minds and hearts. I have heard relatives correct others when someone called the War “the Civil War.” It’s the “War Between the States” or, more radically, “The War of Northern Aggression.” I have heard people talk about “those Yankees,” in fun, I hope. So I can believe that Tony Horowitz, in his tour through the Civl War states and battle sites found a subculture that is admirable (loyal and hospitable) in some ways and xenophobic (fearful and obsessive) in others. Horowitz himself is somewhat obsessed. He drew a huge mural of Pickett’s Charge on the wall of his attic as a child and spent hours poring through an old Civil War book with his father. The book is partly an attempt to understand his own affinity for all things Civil War, especially the Confederacy.
Another theme is the disappearance of many historic Civil War sites, overtaken by highways, office parks, and suburbs. Horowitz mourns the loss of these sites as he acknowledges its inevitability. He also gives readers a nostalgic picture of his visits to Antietam and Shiloh, battle fields that have been preserved and are cared for by the National Park Service.
Civil War historian and novelist Shelby Foote, who is quoted extensively in this book, says that the Civil War defined us. After reading Confederates in the Attic and thinking about its implications, I would say that War is still defining us. Will it ever be over?
Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere
Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. Blaise Pascal
Roberto Rivera on Japan’s declining population.
And what do we lose when we don’t have children? Well, here’s a great story from Kathryn about a wild rabbit hunt going on in her backyard. I’ll bet those kinds of hunts are dying out in Japan.
Continuing in the same vein, George Grant writes about the Feast of the Holy Innocents (yesterday) in which Christians commemorate the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem and Judea by Herod the Great and also remember the many children who have died as a result of men’s greed and cruelty.
There seems to be a continuing theme here: to add to the chorus, here’s Dignan’s 75 Year Plan on Abortion, Adoption, and Compassion. He’s right that adoption in certain Christian evangelical circles seems to be a trend, a good trend. I would estimate that more than half of the families in my church have adopted children.
One of the better commentaries on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie that I’ve read is Will Duquette’s review at The View from the Foothills. I agree that it was a good movie with a few “Hollywoodisms” thrown in. What else could one expect?
If you’re up for reading more, more, more about C.S. Lewis and his writing, David Mills has lots of links at Mere Comments.
Sallie’s Carnival of Beauty. Christian women bloggers pick their favorite posts from the year to share. Enjoy.
Homeschool Blog Award Winners. Some of my favorites are there (congratulations MMV), and maybe I’ll find some new favorites. Check it out.
DawnTreader picks out six important stories/influences to sum up 2005.: Terry Schiavo, US Supreme Court, biological design, C.S. Lewis, Katrina, and the Emergent church.
Tulip Girl suggests, instead of resolutions, a Mondo Beyondo List for the new year, “the list of all the wild and crazy dreams we have, the things that are so out there it is almost scary to write them down . . . the ideas that tug at your heart and are almost out of reach even of day dreams.. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to post a such a list on the internet. I want to see Tulip Girl’s list first–or yours.
THE LIST: 2006
THE LIST of books I want to read, that is. I tried to link or make a note about where I got the idea to add each book to my list. If you recommended one of these , and I didn’t link to you, please leave a comment. I know the list is way too long, but I”m absolutely helpless. How can I cut it down? In fact, I’m sure that I’ll add several more books to the list as I read end-of-the-year lists on other blogs. Help. I’m drowning!
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Grace–Norris I think Eldest Daughter recommended this one.
Another Place at the Table–Harrison (Browsing at Barnes and Noble)
Bark of the Bog Owl–Rogers
Behind the Burqa–Yasgur (Browsing at Barnes and Noble)
Black as Night–Doman
Book of Seven Truths–Miller I picked this one from a list of Miller’s books because I’ve only read The Singer Trilogy.
Bread Alone–Hendricks
Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity–Gold (Browsing at Barnes and Noble)
Canterbury Papers–Healey
Canticle for Leibowitz–Miller
Captains from Castile–Shellabarger I absolutely love Prince of Foxes by Shellabarger; I’d like to read his other books, too.
Charming the Moon–Snyder
Chasing Hepburn–Lee (Once again, I found this one while browsing B & N)
Christianity for Modern Pagans–Kreeft Engineer Husband got me this book for Christmas. It’s a sort of commentary on Pascal’s Pensees. I’m looking forward to reading it.
Cold Mountain–Frazier
Color of Water–McBride
Confederates in the Attic–Horowitz
Covenant Child–Blackstock Recommended by my sister.
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night–Haddon
Deed of Paksenarrion–Moon
Disappearing Duke–Freeman-Keel
Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary�Hitchings
Education of a Wandering Man–L’Amour
Eldest–Paolini. Sequel to Paolini’s first fantasy novel, Eragon.
Ender’s Game–Card
Europe Central–Vollman. Winner of the National Book Award.
Ex Libris–Fadiman
Five Paths to the Love of Your Life: Defining Your Dating Style–Chediak I’m planning to read this one for the sake of my young adult children; obviously I’ve already found the love of my life. Engineer Husband, are you reading?
Footsteps at the Lock–Knox
Forgiving Solomon Long–Wells
Freakonomics–Levitt & Dubner
Girl Meets God–Winner
Glimpses of Truth–Cavanaugh
Glory and Honor: The Musical and Artistic Legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach–Wilbur
God Is the Gospel–Piper Review copy sent by Mind and Media
Growing Pains: Diaries and Drawings from the Years 1908-1917–Gag I found this title while researching Wanda Gag, author of Millions of Cats on her birthday. I would love to read more about her life, but I haven’t been able to find the books yet.
Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age�Schultz
Hammer and the Cross–Rohan and Scott
Haunted Bookshop–Morley
Heartbreaker–Garwood Also recommended by my sister.
Home Fires Burning–Stokes
Home Invasion–Hagelin
Home With Fun: Ten Steps to Turn Your Home into a Fun Place to Live–Fitzmartin
Housekeeping–Robinson, who also wrote Gilead.
Idiot-Dostoevsky
Indigo’s Star–McKay Sequel to Saffy’s Angel.
I, Coriander–Gardner
Jewel–Lott My neighbor read this book back when it was an Oprah selection. I read another of his books and liked it.
John Halifax, Gentleman–Dinah Mulock Craik I want to re-read this book.
Jonathan Edwards, A New Biography–Murray
Kingdom of Children–Stevens
Kitty, My Rib–Mall I think my sister recommended this one, too?
Kristen Lavransdatter–Undset I’ve been meaning to read this very long three-part novel by a Nobel prize winning author for a long time. Maybe this is the year.
Lady Jane Grey–Cook
Lake Wobegone Days–Keillor
Lamb in Love–Brown
Last Storyteller–Noble
Light from Heaven–Karon
Lincoln Lawyer–Connelly
Long Spoon Lane–Perry
Lord Vanity–Shellabarger
Mad Mary Lamb–Hitchcock
Magnus–Brouwer
Mark of the Lion Trilogy–Rivers Yet another sister recommendation.
Maul and the Pear Tree-P.D. James
Michaelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling–King
Miniatures and Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen–Leithart
Miss Marjoribanks–Margaret Oliphant
Monkeywrench–Tracy Another sister recommendation.
My Garden of Memories–Wiggins
Never Let Me Go–Ishiguro
New Way to Be Human–Peacock
Niamh and the Hermit–Snyder
Nightbringer–Huggins
One School�Jacobs
Paris to the Moon�Gopnik Since Eldest Daughter is in Paris . . .
Parnassus on Wheels–Morley
Penderwicks–Birdsall
Penelopiad–Atwood
Please Stop Laughing At Me–Blanco
Possession–Byatt
Power of the Powerless–De Vinck
Preservationist, The–Maine
Prophetic Untimeliness–Guinness
Rating the First Ladies–Johnson
Sacred Way–Jones This book about spiritual disciplines seems to be big in emergent circles, so I thought I’d check it out.
Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter–Cahill
Secret of the Swamp King–Rogers
Secret Radio–Massi
Shadow of the Bear–Doman
Shell Seekers–Pilcher
Silence–Shukasu Endo
Story–McKee
Strangers on a Train–Highsmith
Streams of Living Water–Foster
Sunne in Splendor–Penman
Switherby Pilgrims–Spence
Tam Lin–Dean
Tathea–Perry.
Tenant of Wildfell Hall–Ann Bronte
Terrors of the Table–Gratzer
The March–Doctorow This book sounds like a good follow-up to Confederates in the Attic which I’m reading now–if Confederates doesn’t depress me too much and make me want to never hear another word about That War.
This Vast Land–Ambrose
Time and Chance–Penman
Tristram Shandy–Sterne
Village Watchtower–Wiggins
War Like No Other–Hanson
Wild Strawberries–Thirkell
Wives and Daughters–Gaskell
Word Freaks–Fatsis
Wormwood–Taylor Sequel to Taylor’s first book,
Year of Magical Thinking–Didion Of course, everyone and his dog is reading this one. I thought I’d read it, too.
Shakespeare’s Pivotal Year and Age
I recently read A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro. For this nonfiction book Shapiro chose the year 1599 because, he says, it was a pivotal year in Shakespeare’s career, the year in which, at age thirty-five, he “went from being an exceptionally talented writer to being one of the greatest who ever lived.” In 1599, Shakespeare completed and staged his most complex history play, Henry V, and also wrote and produced Julius Caesar and As You Like It. He also was revising Hamlet as the year came to an end, and it was probably first produced in 1600.
Shapiro deals up front with the many “probabilities” in writing about Shakespeare in the preface to his book:
When writing about an age that predated newspapers and photographic evidence, plausibility, not certitude, is as close as one can come to what happened. Rather than awkwardly littering the pages that follow with one hedge after another–“perhaps,” “maybe,” “it’s most likely,” “probably,” or the most desperate of them all, “surely”–I’d like to offer one global qualification here. This is necessarily my reconstruction of what happened to Shakespeare in the course of this year, and when I do qualify a claim, it signals that the evidence is inconclusive or the argument highly speculative.
Did you know that The Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare’s company, tore down their former landlord’s theater in December 1598 and used the materials to build the Globe Theater? They spent a great deal of time afterward in court defending their actions against a lawsuit brought by that landlord, Giles Allen.
Did you know that 1599 was the year of the Fall of Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, whom she sent to Ireland to quell a rebellion? Essex failed and returned to England without the queen’s permission, incurring her wrath. He later led an unsuccessful rebellion of his own, and the first hint of Essex’s overweening pride is the historical background against which Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar, a story of rebellion, ambition, and pride going before a fall.
Did you know that the last part of The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot echoes Brutus in Julius Caesar?
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
(I imagine that this is a revelation to no one else, but I’m a little slow.)
Did you know that Shakespeare was “probably” influenced by Montaigne’s essays and others that were just beginning to be written and published in the late 1500’s to write Hamlet’s soliloquies?
Have you ever heard of hendiadys? “Hendiadys literally means ‘one by means of two.’ a single idea conveyed through a pairing of nouns linked by ‘and.'” Some examples from Hamlet:
“Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”
“the book and volume of my brain”
“a fantasy and trick of fame”
“the abstract and brief chronicles of the the time”
There are sixty-six hendiadys in Hamlet, more than in any other of Shakespeare’s plays. Almost no other English writer uses hendiadys extensively. I tried to do it in the title to this post, but it’s not as easy to do well as it might sound. You have to pick out near-synonyms that both complement and qualify one another.
Have you ever compared Shakespeare’s Hamlet to Don Quixote? Both were mad, or feigned madness. Both had a friend, a sort of a straight man, who didn’t understand their dilemma. Both were caught between the age of chivalry and the renaissance. Both saw ghosts and phantoms. Both were unable to relate to a real woman. Don Quixote created his own ideal lady; Hamlet goaded his Ophelia into insanity and death. Shakespeare collaborated on a play late in his career, around 1612, called Cardenio that was taken from a story in Don Quixote. At the time of the writing of Hamlet, Don Quixote had not yet been translated into English. Are the similarities in the two characters coincidental or a reflection of the times? Of course, Don Quixote is a much more comic and more hopeful character, but both he and Hamlet die in the end.
I learned all these things and chased down several of these rabbit trails while reading A Year in the Life of WIlliam Shakespeare: 1599. Highly recommended for literary history buffs and Shakespeare fans.
Donate Now
There’s still time to donate to the Salvation Army via my Red Kettle in the sidebar. I only have $20.00 toward my paltry goal of $100.00.
I was so impressed with the work of the Salvation Army and other Christian relief agencies during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I really think it’s time for us “compassionate conservatives,” and others, to replenish the coffers
The Broker by John Grisham
I picked up the latest Grisham novel at the used book sale just before Christmas. It’s not his best, but it’s fun. Grisham writes well, but he’s run out of plot twists and characters. His protagonists are all starting to seem like the same guy endlessly reincarnated and making the same mistakes with the same results. The Broker is more about espionage ansd spies than lawyers, but they’re all the same according to Grisham. Lawyers and Washington power brokers and spies–they all neglect their families, sell their souls for a mess of pottage, and live with regrets. In The Broker the regrets are accompanied by dangerous repercussions of decisions made in the heat of greed and lust for power.
Joel Bachman, a former Washington power broker, has spent the last six years in federal prison. As the President of the United States is leaving office, having been defeated in the most recent presidential election, he grants Bachman a pardon. For Bachman it’s more like a death sentence since the bad guys, who couldn’t get to him in prison, are now are out to get him–with a vengeance. The rest of the book is about figuring out who the bad guys are, what secrets Bachman knows, and how Bachman will escape the evil clutches of the Israelis, the Saudis, the Russians, the Chinese, the CIA and heaven-knows-who-else. Joel Bachman is just not as sympathetic a character as some of Grisham’s other seedy heroes, and I never could decide if I wanted him to get away or not.
If you’ve read any of Grisham’s other books, you know how it ends. The suspense is just in finding out how. Adequate entertainment, but not as good as The Firm nor The Street Lawyer nor The Pelican Brief.
December 28, 1732
On this date the Pennsylvania Gazette published an advertisement for Poor Richard’s Almanack by Richard Saunders, aka Benjamin Franklin. Franklin describes the publication of the almanac in this way in his Autobiography
In 1732 I first published my Almanack, under the name of Richard Saunders; it was continued by me about twenty-five years, commonly called “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” I endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that it was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it, I considered it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who brought scarcely any other books. I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly as, to use here one of those proverbs, it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.
So Franklin was a blogger, too. He just wrote all his posts for the year and published them in magazine form. Just as bloggers do, Franklin borrowed from “the wisdom of the ages,” but he made the old sayings and proverbs his own as he published them in his own words and attributed them to “Richard Saunders”. Her are a few words of wisdom for you in order to inculcate a bit of industry, frugality, and virtue into your day:
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
He that lieth down with Dogs, shall rise up with Fleas.
If you would not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
Finally, with the new year coming:
With the old Almanack and the old Year,
Leave thy old Vices, tho ever so dear.
Do you plan to follow Ben’s advice? How? Anybody want to hold yourself accountable by leaving your new year’s resolution in the comments?
To read more about Ben Franklin and his times, The Electric Franklin is a great educational website.
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross
Stereotypes abound in this book. There’s a corrupt TV preacher, a loose woman with a heart of gold, a hypocritical Presbyterian pastor who’s only interested in his church building program, a psychiatrist with a hidden agenda, and a loyal black servant/cook who aids Miss Julia in her escapades. As long as you take the stereotypes and the escapades with a grain of Southern salt, the book will be an enjoyable read. If you try to take it too seriously or spend time poking holes in the loosely woven plot, you’ll be disappointed. This is a light, amusing comedy–fun and not too taxing on the brain.
P.S. I looked around and found that Ann Ross has written several more “Miss Julia” books and that Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind is supposed to be made into a movie starring Dolly Parton and Shirley Maclaine. As far as I can tell, the movie project in still in the works and hasn’t quite come to fruition.
The Books I Didn’t Finish: 2005
I actually have a compulsion to finish whatever book I start. I’m an optimist, in some ways, and I always think the book might get better; it might just take a while to get into it. Sometimes I’m right to be optimistic and continue working at it. For the following books, I may never know unless one of my readers persuades me to give it another try.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I tried to start this one at the park while watching my little ones play. I don’t know if I was distracted or if the author was, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the plot or the characters. And is Fford a made-up name?
Ireland by Frank Delaney. I tried this book because somebody recommended it. Thank you, but . . . I couldn’t get started, and it looked so long and I like long books, but Ireland started out with some kind of strange wandering minstrel or storyteller, and I couldn’t tell what century we were in, and maybe I missed it, but . . .
Theif Lord by Cornelia Funke. I read most of this book, and then I realized that I didn’t really care what happened to the band of orphans who make up the collective “main character.” So I quit.
Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. This one is really good, really, but I, unfortunately, have to read in snatches—lots of snatches, but snatches, nevertheless. And Pearcey’s book requires concentration. I’ll probably pull it out again when I think I’m going to have some uninterrupted time—in another life.
God Is the Gospel by John Piper. I’m having trouble concentrating on this one, too, and what’s even worse is that I’m supposed to review it. So I’ll have to find some time soon.
That’s not so very many unfinished projects for 2005. Of course, that’s only the books I didn’t finish. We won’t talk about home improvement projects or study projects or, well, you get the idea. My compulsion to finish things only goes so far.
Coming Soon: The List (which is never finished)