The Faraway Lurs by Harry Behn

Jul20

Setting: Northern Europe, c. 1000 BC

Themes: culture clash, idolatry, religion, romantic love

I remembered reading this book a long time ago when I was a kid of a girl, but I didn’t remember much about it. Reading it as an adult, I found it rather shocking. I can’t tell you exactly what I found shocking without spoiling the ending, but it wasn’t any of the usual trio: neither sex, language nor violence.

The Faraway Lurs tells the story of Heather, a girl of the Tree People, who falls in love with Wolf Stone, the son of the chieftain of the Sun People. Heather’s people live in the forest, use stone age tools, and worship at a tree that they call The Tree of Power. The Sun People worship the sun, make things of bronze, and have come to find the tree of power and cut it down to build a ship. After the introduction of this conflict, the rest of the book tells of how the Tree People defend their sacred tree and how Heather and Wolf Stone resolve their relationship in the face of the enmity between their tribes.

Unfortunately, if you read the introduction to the book you know that the idea for the story came from the preserved image of a girl called the Egtved Girl found buried near the village of Egtved in Denmark:

The Egtved Girl (c. 1390–1370 BC) was a Nordic Bronze Age girl whose well-preserved remains were found at Egtved ( 55°37′N, 9°18′E), Denmark in 1921. Aged 16–18 at death, she was slim, 160 cm tall (about 5ft 2in), had long blonde hair and well-trimmed nails. Her burial has been dated by dendrochronology to 1370 BC.

Heather is Mr. Behn’s imagined portrayal of the Egtved Girl. The Egtved Girl died young. So I kept thinking all the way through the story that it was going to be very sad because Heather was going to die. Sure enough. Think Romeo and Juliet, c.1370 BC in Denmark. It’s tragic. (I still haven’t told you what I found shocking about the ending.)

But I might suggest this book to Brown Bear Daughter. It could give her a very good picture of what life was like for some groups of people three thousand years ago.

This book is another in my ancient history historical fiction project.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born July 19th

Jul19

Edgar Degas, artist, b. 1834.

Eve Merriam, b. 1916, d. 1992. She is the author of the picture book A Gaggle of Geese and also a poet, writing mostly poems for children and young adults.

John Newbery, b. 1713, d.1756. (According to Wikipedia, he was baptized on July 9th, not the 19th, birthdate unknown.) Newbery was one of the first booksellers and publishers to specialize in children’s books. His best-selling and most popular children’s book was called A History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. Newbery’s motto, printed on his books, was “delectando monemus” (instruction with delight). Oh, by the way “Newbery” is spelled with only one “r”. I learned this useful spelling rule in library school at the University of Texas, and it has served to make me feel like a real librarian ever since; every time I see someone write about the “Newberry Award,” I feel oh-so-librarily educated. The poet Christopher Smart married Mr. Newbery’s step-daughter.

Escape from Egypt by Sonia Levitin

Jul19

‘But we escaped Pharoah and Egypt so that we could go to a better place, where we could serve God.’

‘It is true,’ said Jesse, slowly fingering his beard . . . ‘But Egypt is also within us, Jennat. Whatever we become in Canaan will depend on our choices.'”

Egypt within us. We want to serve God, but we must still, as long as we live here on earth, contend with Egypt within us. The World, the Flesh, and the Devil:
One of those is outside of me, and I can leave the devil-fighting to God.
One is part of me, and I must train my flesh to serve God instead of evil.
The other I allow to become part of who I am, and then as I strive to become more Christ-like, I must allow the Holy Spirit to bring out all those worldly/slavery habits and desires and transform them into something that honors Him.

I’ve sort of strayed from the basic plot and themes of Sonia Levitin’s Escape from Egypt, but all that philosophical and spiritual meandering is there, buried in the story of Jesse, a Hebrew slave, and Jennat, an Egyptian servant girl, both of whom follow Moses out of Egypt. It’s a book about choices, about escape from slavery, and about the transfroming power of a true encounter with the Living God. Not preachy, I’m not even sure whether Ms. Levitin is a Christian or a Jew or agnostic. (I looked it up; she’s Jewish.) Still, the description of Jesse’s and Jennat’s reaction to the experience of hearing the voice of God speaking from Mount Sinai is worth the reading time and price of the entire book.

Not everyone reacts the same way in the book; not everyone believes that Moses is God’s spokesman. Even Jesse doesn’t believe all the time. The characters in the book deal with hard stuff: the death of a beloved child, relatives and family members who disobey the law of God and are punished, confusion, doubt, idolatry, prejudice, and the old question of why do the evil (seemingly) prosper. The answers are not trite and easy; ultimately Jesse and others who escape from Egypt decide to follow God’s law, but the daily living of that commitment isn’t easy. Nor is it something that they can do for their children; each person must decide for himself.

I would recommend this one for young adults because the theological and ethical questions dealt with in the book are difficult and made for mature questioners. I would recommend it, though, because I think Ms. Levitin writes honestly about the struggles that the Israelites must have had and about the “Egyptian” temptations we all have. And it’s a good story.

Sonia Levitin’s website.

This book is another in my ancient history historical fiction project. I will probably give this book to my twelve year old to read or read it aloud and discuss it with her.

LOST Reading Project: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Jul18

Ambiguity. Spectres, ghosts, and apparitions. Good versus evil. Children captured by Others. Illicit or unrequited passion. Incipient insanity.

These are some of the elements that The Turn of the Screw shares with the TV series LOST. In a season two episode (Orientation), Desmond tells Jack and Locke that the DHARMA Initiative orientation film is on the shelf behind The Turn of the Screw. As anyone who’s been watching the show for a while knows, the books that are featured or mentioned are there for a purpose. James’s ghost story, The Turn of the Screw shares quite a bit in common with LOST.

First and last, there’s the ambiguity. I read James’s story to the tragic end, and my first thought was, “I don’t get it.” I re-read some sections and became even more confused. I wondered whether the narrator was at all trustworthy, whether she was sane, whether the ghosts were real or imaginary. (LOST fans: do those questions sound familiar?) The “screw” of the narrative does turn around and around, presenting a different view of the events in the story with each turn.

Ghosts appear —or are they real? Are the appearances in LOST real, or do they only appear to those who see them as some sort of aberrant psychological experience? Lots of dead people have appeared in LOST to various of the survivors: Jack’s dad, Yemi, Ben’s mother, Boone, Ana-Lucia. Are these messengers from beyond the grave evil or good? Then, there’s Hurley’s imaginary friend who leads him to the edge, both literally and figuratively, almost exactly the same thing that happens to the governess narrator in The Turn of the Screw.

The two children in The Turn of the Screw are also ambiguous characters. They may or may not be innocent children. They may be influenced by the evil spirits that the governess sees. According to the governess, the spirits are trying to capture the children and lead them to the pit of hell. In LOST, there’s a similar motif of Evil Others who capture children and do something to them or with them. Or the Others may not be evil at all.

The governess who narrates James’s story, who is the only one who says she sees the evil apparitions, admits from the beginning that she is in love with her employer, a shadowy figure whose main concern is that he not be bothered. Is she making up all the supernatural events in the story to impress her employer? To get his attention? Are the LOST characters also trying to get or to escape attention?

Are they all mad? Is the island imaginary or does it exist in another parallel universe? Do the ghosts that the governess sees exist in a parallel universe, or is she simply psychologically disturbed?

James leaves the ending to his story deliberately ambiguous. I certainly hope the writers and producers of LOST don’t do the same. From a review in Life magazine, 1898 by reviewer “Koch”:

Henry James does it in a way to raise goose-flesh! He creates the atmosphere of the tale with those slow, deliberate phrases which seem fitted only to differentiate the odors of rare flowers. Seldom does he make a direct assertion, but qualifies and negatives and double negatives, and then throws in a handful of adverbs, until the image floats away on a verbal smoke. But while the image lasts, it is, artistically, a thing of beauty. When he seems to be vague, he is by elimination, creating an effect of terror, of unimaginable horrors.”

What effects are the LOST writers producing as they turn the screw around and around from one season to the next? Are the LOST characters headed on a downward spiral into madness and death, or are they moving toward a resolution of their emotional and psychological dilemmas as they redeem themselves through suffering on the island?

We’re back to unresolved ambiguity —so far.

Read Together Challenge

Jul17

Ms. Jennifer, Snapshot, has another parents-and-kids-reading-together challenge, and I can’t resist. I think Brown Bear Daughter and I will post some joint reviews for this challenge. See Brown Bear’s Summer Reading List here. She’s already read several of the books on the list, and I have already read most of them. I found three that she hasn’t read yet and that I haven’t read or plan to re-read: The Moon by Night by Madeleine L’Engle, How To Be Your Own Selfish Pig by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. Hmmmm, sounds like a plan.

You can sign up for the challenge here. And there are prizes. Yeah, prizes!

Give It Away

Jul17

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Rock in My Dryer Shannon has another great idea. She’s suggesting that everyone who wants to participate give something away in a drawing at their blog. The announcements would take place on Monday, July 23rd, and the drawing, from the list of commenters, would be on Friday the 27th. Oh, go over and see Shannon’s guidelines for what she’s calling the Dog Days of Summer Bloggy Giveaway.

I’m thinking about what I might give away here . . . Come back Monday and see what my brain conjured up.

Loving Will Shakespeare by Carolyn Meyer

Jul17

Constrained by the historical record, Ms. Meyer could only make this book as “happy ending” comedic as the actual few facts that are known about Anne Hathaway Shakespeare warrant. We know that she was seven or eight years older than her husband, William, that the two of them spent much of their marriage apart with Will in London and Anne in Stratford, and that their only son Hamnet died young. We also know that William Shakespeare left his wife, Anne, the “second best bed” in his will; we don’t know why.

Then there are all the guesses. Shakespeare’s sonnets seem to indicate that he had a mistress or that he pretended to do so. He certainly spent a lot of his time in London. Did he do so in order to support his beloved wife and children or because he wanted to get away from them? Or both? Was the wedding of Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare a shotgun wedding? There is strong evidence that Anne was already pregnant when the two were married.

Author Carolyn Meyer takes all the facts and all the speculation and creates an engaging tale about the courtship and marriage of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. It’s a young adult story, not for shildren, since it assumes and and tells the story of the premarital relations between William and Anne. It’s a sort of sad little tale; Anne has great hopes of romance and love, living with such a poet as Mr. Shakespeare, but her hopes are not to be realized. The story is told from Anne’s point of view; Shakespeare’s thoughts and feelings and motivations remain somewhat mirky and unclear.

I liked some of Meyer’s other books better (Where the Broken Heart Still Beats: The Story of Cynthia Ann Parker, Mary, Bloody Mary), but this one was O.K. Note the headless couple picture on the cover of the book. Others have had similar complaints (can’t remember which blogger mentioned it first), but I must chime in and say that I’m tired of seeing pictures of headless or nearly headless people on book covers.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Jul16

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Recommended by Cassie at Scads of Books. Also recommended by Carrie K. at Mommy Brain.

This book also happened to be the first book in a new project: our new Family Reading Club. My sister and I together chose this book for June because both of us had been planning to read it. So far the Family Reading Club includes just me and my sis. But we’re planning to get others involved: Mom? Eldest Daughter?

I liked I Capture the Castle very much; Sis J was a bit lukewarm. The first interesting thing about the book was really about the author: Dodie Smith also wrote 101 Dalmatians, the story that was the inspiration for the Disney movie. Castle, as far as I can tell, has little or nothing in common with Dalmatians, aside from a tendency toward quirky, eccentric characters.

I guess it was the characters that “captured” me. I Capture the Castle is narrated by sevevteen year old Cassandra, who ives in somewhat genteel poverty in a drafty old castle with her older sister, her artist’s model stepmother, and her washed-up writer father. The only hope for the family to get out of poverty is for one of the girls to marry someone rich. (This is starting to sound like a Jane Austen novel, but it’s not like that at all.)

Cassandra tells the story in her journal. She’s a wonderful narrator, witty, insightful, and honest. Cassandra’s sister Rose is the pretty one, and she’s determined to do whatever it takes to get the family some money. Stepmother Topaz is a model for various famous artists, but by the time she pays her expenses in London while she’s modelling, she doesn’t bring home much income. Father James Mortmain wrote one highly praised novel, very popular in America, but after spending a couple of years in prison for a crime that was never committed, James got a bad case of writer’s block. All he does is read mystery stories and work crossword puzzles and show up for dinner expecting miraculous loaves and fishes.

Into this rather chaotic family, which also includes a Heathcliff-ish servant with a crush on Cassandra, walk two rich Americans, Neil and Simon Cotton. Rose is sure she’s going to marry one of the brothers; she doesn’t really care which one. And Cassandra is both an interested observer and a willing accomplice to Rose’s rather clumsy machinations. The book turns into a tragicomedy as Cassandra grows up and begins to realize that she has romantic feelings of her own. I really liked the ending of the book; let it suffice to say that the ending was not trite and expected.

A minor discussion in the book was of great interest to me. Cassandra considers escape from her feelings of unrequited love by burying herself in religion or in good works. She’s essentially a pagan with Christian cultural clothing, but she sees others who are happy in their churchiness or in doing good. So Cassandra thinks she could do the same and thereby achieve peace and emotional detachment. However, she decides finally that she’d rather hurt (better to have loved and lost) than take refuge in Christianity or even simple goodness. I think she has a very simplistic view of Christianity, but maybe for a seventeen year old who hasn’t been properly taught what being a Christian is all about, she’s fairly advanced in her thinking. I wanted to tell her that being a Christian doesn’t help you to avoid suffering and pain; it only gives you a framework in which to evaluate and give meaning to the suffering and emotional pain that is unavoidable in life. But of course, I had to remind myself that Cassandra is a fictional character.

Do you ever want to talk back to the characters in your books? Please tell me I’m not the only one.

The July book for our Family Book Club is The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton. You’re welcome to claim us as family and read it, too. Or not claim us and still read the book. SisJ’s already read the book; I still have to pick it up from the hold shelf at the library.

The Cure by Athol Dickson

Jul13

Thank you, Bethany House, for sending me a review copy of Athol Dickson’s most recent novel, The Cure. I continue to be impressed with the intellectual and spiritual depth of Dickson’s writing. I added River Rising by Dickson to my list of Best Fiction Ever. The Cure is a worthy successor to that novel, although River Rising remains my favorite.

What if there were a cure for alcoholism? What if you could take one dose of a certain mixture of chemicals and herbs and be cured completely of the desire for alcohol? No more cravings ever? How would such a cure change society? What would such a cure be worth in dollars?

The Cure reminds me somewhat of a John Grisham novel: lots of intrigue, South American missionaries, fugitives, criminals, homelessness, lawyers, a large pharmaceutical company, broken, imperfect people. I give that comparison as a person who has read almost all of Grisham’s novels and admired most of them. I do think both The Cure and River Rising have a spiritual and thematic depth that is lacking in Grisham’s novels. If you know someone who likes Grisham, and you want to give him a new book in that same vein, I would suggest The Cure.

I enjoyed the story very much, read it last night and this morning, and it got me thinking. What does it take to be “cured” of a sinful addiction? First, you want something that takes the desire away, but is that enough? I’ve heard that there’s such a thing as a “dry drunk”, a person who’s still enslaved to alcoholic behaviors even though he’s not drinking alcohol. Many addictions have a physical component. However, in any addiction there is also an element of sin, of idolatry, putting the addictive substance or behavior in the place of God Almighty, so one can be freed from the substance or behavior and still be enslaved or empty. That’s why AA insists in its 12 Step program that in order to become a recovering alcoholic, a person must place his trust in a Higher Power.

Some applicable Scriptures:

Matthew 12: 43-45 When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.

Proverbs 26:11-12 As a dog returns to its vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly.
Do you see a man wise in his own eyes?
There is more hope for a fool than for him.

Romans 7:21-25 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Anyway, it’s a great book. If you read it, come back and tell me what you think. I think I’m glad that Mr. Dickson is writing books, and I’m looking forward to reading whatever he writes next.

Writing Contests

Jul10

Goodnight Moon Celebration Contest: Johnson’s and HarperCollins Publishers are sponsoring a bedtime story contest in honor of the 60th anniversary of the publication of the classic, Goodnight Moon. Online submissions must be received by July 15, 2007.

Nancy Pearl, librarian extraordinaire, is asking:

What was your first book crush? Everyone has one. You know, the first time a book completely captured your imagination, transported you to a magical world, or introduced you to lifelong friends you will never forget?”

Sasquatch Books is sponsoring a national essay contest to celebrate that incredible feeling of having a book crush. The winning entry will receive a Book Crush Weekend in Seattle, including airfare for two to Seattle, two nights’ hotel stay, and dinner with Nancy Pearl. The winning essay will be published online at www.nancypearl.com.

Kids ages 13 and under—each month, Writer’s Digest hosts a special Your Assignment for Kids competition! Win publication and prizes!

Carrie of Mommy Brain has more links to writing contests here (scroll down to the end of the post).