Enchantment by Orson Scott Card

Jun27

Last year, on the the recommendation of some of my blog friends, I read Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi materpiece, Ender’s Game. Although I thought the ending was bit weak, I enjoyed the book very much. Now I’ve read my second book by Card, and it’s quite different from Ender’s Game, but also delightful.

Enchantment is a fantasy fairy tale based on the story of Sleeping Beauty, set in Russia, and reminiscent of Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. A late twentieth century American young man named Ivan goes back in time to the ninth century to the kingdom of Taina after rescuing a sleeping princess from the clutches of a ravening bear. The book is full of paganism and witchcraft mixed with, sometimes clashing with, Orthodox Christianity and Judaism. Ivan is Jewish; the princess is Christian; both lapse into scientism or superstition at times. The atmosphere of ninth century Eastern Europe is recreated in a way that feels right. Christianity has become the official religion of Taina, but for some it’s only a thin veneer over their native paganism. And when the kingdom must confront and fight true, powerful Evil in the shape of Baba Yaga, the witch, it’s necessary to call on both the old gods and the new Christ and on all the help that the twentieth century can send into the past.

If you’re interested in retellings of fairy tales or in medieval historical fiction, Enchantment is one of the best of either I’ve read. It’s an adult or young adult book with some (married) sexual descriptions and innuendos.

Some children’s fairy tale novels that I like:

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. In fact, you can hardly go wrong with any of Levine’s books for children.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale.

Beauty by Robin McKinley.

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen. Another Sleeping Beauty recreation set in and around the Holocaust. I know it sounds odd, but it works.

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. Loosely based on the ballad of Tam Lin.

Sarah Beth Durst’s latest fairy tale commentary: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Ms. Durst also has a fairy tale-based book, hot off the presses, that I’d like to read and make one of my favorites. It’s called Into the Wild, and I’m going to read it as soon as I get my hands on a copy. I’d also like to read some of Donna Jo Napoli’s fairy tale novels for children and young adults. She’s a good author.

If you read this genre, what are your favorite fairy tales retold or adapted to novel form?

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born June 26th

Jun26

Pearl Buck, b. 1892. She was born in West Virginia, but since her parents were only on furlough from the mission field in China, Pearl grew up and lived much of her life in China. She was homeschooled by her mother and by a Chinese tutor. After the publication of her second novel, The Good Earth, Pearl Buck won both the Pulitzer Prize and, ten years later, the Nobel Prize for Literature. She was able to have only one natural child, a daughter, Carol, who was mentally handicapped as a result of PKU. Mrs. Buck adopted seven more children.

Charlotte Zolotow, b. 1915. Charlotte Zolotow celebrates her 92nd birthday this year. She’s written over 90 books for children and edited many more.

The Official Charlotte Zolotow Website.

Charlotte Zolotow on children’s emotions: “Children have the same emotions as adults, though they experience them more intensely, since they haven’t yet learned the protective camouflage with which we adults disguise our feelings.”

Does this mean that as adults we hide (camouflage) our feelings even from ourselves?

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born June 25th

Jun25

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

Big Brother is watching you.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.

George Orwell, b.1903, added these ideas and terms to our collective wisdom. If you’ve never read 1984 or Animal Farm, you should. Both books are directly applicable to current events.

Also born on this date, Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider, among other favorites. I noted a couple of years ago on this date that The Grouchy Ladybug would make a great blog title.

Projected

Jun24

This morning in church a brother spoke about memorizing Scripture and what a blessing it has been in his life to memorize God’s Word. I thought, ” Yes, that’s a really good thing. I should be memorizing the Bible. I would like to memorize Scripture. I could start a project and memorize one verse a day, then review what I’ve already learned . . . it would be fun and spiritually beneficial.”

Then I thought of all the other “projects” I have in my life. I even listed a few on a piece of paper, in no particular order as they came to mind. All of these are projects I would either like to do, have committed to do, or must do. I can’t or don’t want to give any of them up. I am limited in terms of time and energy. I hate being limited.

My Projects:

The Blogging Project: This blog is a project I don’t want to give up. I love blogging. I think it helps me to remain halfway sane.

Reading Blogs Project: I also want to keep reading other people’s blogs. This project can take a lot of time.

Mexico Project: I’m leaving in a couple of weeks to go on a mission trip to Mexico. Two of my daughters are also going. I thought about giving up this project, but I am the only one on the team who speaks Spanish. I think I need to go, and I’m finally starting to get excited about it.

Ancient History Project: I’m supposed to teach ancient history and literature at homeschool co-op next year and at home to four of my own urchins. I need to do a lot of preparation for fall, and I’ve barely started.

Historical Fiction Project: Related to the Ancient History Project, theis one has taken on a life of its own. I’m making a list of historical fiction ofr children and young adults set in various time periods from Genesis to the 1600’s. I’m also trying to read these books so that I know which ones to recommend and which ones I want to use with my urchins next year. I’ll probably be reviewing a lot of historical fiction set in ancient times here at Semicolon in the next few months. If you have any book suggestions (hf set in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Europe, Africa Greece or Rome in particular), please leave a comment.

Housework Project: This is an ongoing project that I tend to neglect until it becomes overwhelming. Then, I have a dirty house and it becomes necessary to mobilize the troops to get the house into some kind of decent order.

Bible Reading Project: I’m supposed to be reading my Bible every day. I’m not.

Pay the Bills Project: Self-explanatory, but we’re broke, and I have to “find” enough money somewhere to pay the bills in July. I don’t know how I’m going to do that yet.

Mama and Daddy Project: My mom and dad just moved here from West Texas. Praise the Lord! However, getting them settled and comfortable and getting everything set up (phone, internet, meals, transportation, medical help) is and will continue to be a major project. I’m so thankful that now I can do something about this one instead of worrying about them long distance.

Newbery Project: I’m still reading as many of the Newbery Award and Honor books as I can. Some of them will fit into my Historical Fiction Project.

LOST Project: I’m also reading several of the books mentioned or shown on the TV series LOST. I’m interested in this particular project and unwilling to give it up.

L’Engle Project: Yet another reading project. I started back in January trying to read through the works of Madeleine L’Engle, one of my favorite authors.

Reading List Project: I keep adding books even though I know I’ll never be able to read them all.

Dancer Daughter Project: DD is having trouble with her knees, and we’ve been trying to find the right doctor/physical therapy/help for her. Also, we’re trying to prepare her for college in fall 2008, find the finances to send her, and get her registered at the junior college for some classes this fall.

Homeschool Project: I do homeschool five children still, and I need to do a little planning for that project.

Co-op Project: In addition to teaching an ancient history class at co-op, I’m supposed to be the resident “counselor” and help parents figure out testing, college entrance requirements, scholarships, transcripts, and all the myriad of paperwork that goes along with homeschooling high school.

Summer Reading with the Kids Project: I’ve posted some of the reading lists here, here, and here that I made for my urchins for this summer. Now I’m trying to get them signed up for various summer reading projects so that they can reap some rewards for all their reading in addition to the obvious reward of having read such wonderful books.

Bible Study Project: I’m involved in a summer Bible study in which we are studying this book. I’m sure it will be good for me to attend and study with others who will keep me accountable.

Prayer Project: I would like to spend some time in concentrated, disciplined prayer this summer.

Meals Project: My hope is to keep mealtimes simple this summer, but someone still must plan and implement meals if we all plan to eat.

Shakespeare Project: I want to not only read, but also study, the three plays that Eldest Daughter is studying at Shakespeare at Winedale in preparation for their late July/early August performances. I also need to find a place for us to stay near Windale when we go to see the plays and find the money to pay for it all. If any of you own a house in south central Texas near Giddings/La Grange that you would like to loan to us for a weekend, please let me know. Then, I’ll need to plan meals and logistics for that vacation time.

Poetry Project: I would like to get my urchins memorizing and reading poetry. I would like to read and memorize poetry. I would like to have more Poetry Parties.

Transportation Project: Another one of those ongoing projects. Currently, this one involves me in driving the taxi to take my kids to karate, church, and swim team —and to visit their grandparents.

Yard Project: My yard is a mess. I need to work on it. I didn’t plant a garden this year —again.

Teaching Z-Baby to Read Project: It’s time I got serious about teaching Z-baby, almost six years old, how to read. She wants to learn, but our efforts have been somewhat sporadic.

By my count, that’s over twenty projects, and I didn’t even include the Bible Memorization Project that I’d like to start, the sequels to Picture Book Preschool that I’d like to write, and the ongoing Engineer Husband Project which involves attempting to pay some attention to my very loving and supportive husband.

If you have some tricks that enable you to fit it all in, please help. Don’t tell me to jettison projects. That decision may have to be made, but right now I want to do it all. I will do it all. I may do it poorly, but I will do it.

I am SUPER-SEMICOLON.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born June 24th

Jun24

Ambrose Bierce, b. 1842, author of The Devil’s Dictionary. Bierce was irreverent and cynical, but funny. Semicolon quotes from The Devil’s Dictionary.

Back in March, when I was on my “blog vacation”, I read a biography of Mr. Bierce, one that was recommended here, called Bitter Bierce. I borrowed the book through interlibrary loan from some obscure college library, hoping to read something about the life and mysterious disappearance and presumed death of Mr. Bierce, lexicographer, journalist and humorist. Instead, I got a quaint biographical/critical study of Bierce’s life, psychology and literary works by Professor C. Hartley Grattan, copyright 1929. The book was fascinating, not because it gave a great deal of illumination to the life and writings of Ambrose Bierce, but because it did give insight into what I presume was the prevailing attitude among the American intelligentsia circa 1929.

A few examples:

Mr. Gratten writes in some detail about Ambrose Bierce’s anti-female attitudes and statements, but the author finds it completely unnecessary to try to excuse or even explain such an antipathy on the part of Mr. Bierce toward half of the human race.

Mr. Grattan on government and the arts:

Certain it is that sweetness and light have often radiated from the courts of tyrants and usurpers; for thought for creative artists, rulers can do little directly beyond giving them the benefits of order and security and leaving them alone, for civilization they can do much. They can endow and defend a civilizing class. That is why I think of sending copies of this essay to the Russian ‘bosses’, to Signor Mussolini, and to Mr. Winston Churchill.

A pre-World War II sentiment if I ever heard one! Bring on the dictator with his order, security, sweetness, and light!

Mr. Grattan calls Bierce “old-fashioned” because Bierce held to strict moral standards. He calls Bierce’s diatribes opposing socialists and socialism “sloppy and inconsequential thinking.” (Perhaps they were; I haven’t read them.) Grattan equates Bierce’s support for “selective breeding” with advanced thinking. Then, Grattan proceeds to write about “the essential modernity of the ideas that Bierce evolved.” Morality and opposition to socialism are antiquated and out-dated; eugenics are advanced and modern. And Bierce is both old-fashioned and modern at the same time.

Mr. Grattan calls Ambrose Bierce a contradictory, enigmatic sort of person. Bierce’s contrariness must have affected Mr. Grattan’s writing. Of Ambrose Bierce I did learn one thing I didn’t know before:

Bierce was one of twelve children each having a name beginning with A: Abigail, Addison, Aurelius, Amelia, Ann, Augustus, Andrew, Almeda, Albert, and Ambrose. (Two died in infancy.)

From The Letters of Ambrose Bierce: “My father was a poor farmer and could give me no general education, but he had a good library and to his books I owe all that I have.”

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born June 23rd

Jun23

Theodore Taylor, author of The Cay and The Trouble with Tuck, was born on June 23, 1921 in North Carolina. He also has published an autobiography according to his website. I haven’t read it, but I like the title: Making Love To Typewriters. The Cay is a good coming-of-age story about a boy from the Southern United States during WW II who is marooned on an island with an elderly black man.

Jean Anouilh, b 1910. French playwright. We read Anouilh’s Antigone a couple of years ago for a class I taught at homeschool co-op. It was . . . interesting, existentialist. Anouilh quote: “One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.”

Many-Colored Question

Jun22

I’m almost afraid to ask this question for fear of being attacked, but I was told not too long ago that I’m “bold”. I didn’t know I was bold, but I like the idea. So I’ll ask the question.

Is “colored” a bad word? As in, “a colored lady” or a “colored man”? I know that it’s not the term of choice; I think that Africans and African Americans like to be called “black” nowadays. I find it it hard to keep up with the politically correct terms for various groups of people. However, I’m asking because an elderly man I know got into major trouble at the nursing home because he was calling one of the nurses “that colored lady.” This man is seventy-six years old, probably a bit racist, but in this particular case I don’t think he was trying to be rude. He grew up calling black people “colored” and truly didn’t mean to offend. He got reported, and the director of the nursing home came to speak to him and tell him that under no circumstances was he to call anyone “colored”. The entire incident seems like an over-reaction to me. Why couldn’t the nurse just ask him to call her by her name?

Hence, my question. Is colored a bad word? How about “people of color”? What about NAACP?

Poetry and Fine Art Friday: A Book

Jun22

I’ve written here before about my college professor, Dr. Huff, who was the initiator and chief of what he called “The Six Hundred Club.” For his freshman English classes, he encouraged the students to memorize six hundred lines of poetry; his upper level Shakespeare classes were asked to memorize six hundred lines of SHakespeare. Either accomplishment entitled one to membership in “that exclusive and august society, THE SIX HUNDRED CLUB.” He wrote as an introduction to the mimeographed pages of poems for the freshmen, “Because one of the fringe thrills of your life will be your ability to recall the magic of some of literature’s greatest lines long after your college years, the following selections are offered for you to commit to memory.” The following poem is one of Dr. Huff’s selections:

Who Hath A Book

by Wilbur D. Nesbit

Who hath a book
Hath friends at hand,
And gold and gear
At his command;
And rich estates,
If he but look,
Are held by him
Who hath a book.

Who hath a book
Hath but to read
And he may be
A king, indeed.
His kingdom is
His inglenook-
All this is his
Who hath a book.

By the way, I am a member of The Six Hundred Club, not because I memorized this poem or any of the others on the freshman poetry list, but because I once could quote six hundred lines of Shakespeare. I still know some of the passages: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day/ To the last syllable of recorded time.”

The Poetry Friday round-up is posted at A Wrung Sponge today.

Summer Reading Programs

Jun21

In2Books: Online reading program.

Shake, Rattle, & Read! Challenge: Register, read books, win prizes!

Barnes and Noble Summer Reading Program
Get a free book when you read eight (8) other books!

Reading is Fundamental Summer Reading Contest
Reading gets you in the race to win prizes and help donate books to needy children at the same time!

Book Adventure
Book Adventure is a FREE reading motivation program for children in grades K-8. Children create their own book lists from over 7,000 recommended titles, take multiple choice quizzes on the books they’ve read, and earn points and prizes for their literary successes.

For the fall, there’s the Book It! Program for homeschoolers.

LOST Reading: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

Jun20

I’ve heard of Ambrose Bierce’s short story, but I don’t remember ever reading it. According to Wikipedia, “Kurt Vonnegut referred to ‘Occurrence’ in his book A Man Without a Country as one of the greatest works of American literature, and called anyone who hadn’t read it a ‘twerp’.”

I guess I just escaped twerpdom, thanks to LOST. In the second season episode entitled The Long Con, “Locke is shown holding this book (Occurrence) upside down, in the Swan, flipping through the pages as if he’s trying to find loose papers between them.” So, getting overly-analytical as I’m prone to do, I wonder what Occurrence has to do with LOST? (If you haven’t read the short story, there are spoilers ahead.)

In Bierce’s story, Peyton Farquhar is a Confederate sympathizer who falls into a Union trap and tries to burn down a bridge, Owl Creek Bridge. He’s about to be hanged from said bridge and in the brief interval between drop and death, he imagines that the rope breaks, he escapes, swims downriver, and returns to his home. Alas, the return home is only a figment of his imagination, and at the end of the story, Farquhar is dead; “his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of Owl Creek Bridge.”

Bierce plays with Time in this story just as the writers of LOST play with Time and Space in their story. There’s also a possible analogy between Peyton Farquhar’s supposed escape from death and the near-miraculous escape of the LOST survivors. (People don’t usually survive in a plane that breaks in half in mid-air and falls from the sky.) Are they really dead, as Naomi indicated when she said that the plane had been found and the passengers mourned? Maybe they’re caught somewhere between the final moments of life and death, and the Island itself is just an illusion? In the story, Farquhar imagines an alternate series of events in which he escapes the noose, escapes the bullets of the Union soldiers, and returns home to his wife, and the reader is conned into thinking that the escape is real. It feels real in the story; the circumstances surrounding Farquhar’s escape are described vividly.

So, is LOST a “long con”? I don’t really think so, but if we find out at the end that everyone’s really dead, that the entire six seasons were only a brief imaginary interval, a great many viewers are going to be unhappy. People don’t like being swindled, even by such a handsome devil as Sawyer/James/Josh Holloway.

“Doubtless, despite his sufferings, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have travelled the entire night. . . . As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!”

Lostpedia on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

Read Bierce’s story here.

More information about Semicolon’s LOST Reading project.