I'm currently writing an opinion post on the Fed's latest announcement about how they're going to "fix" Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables in honour of the author's 150th birthday. You can probably guess how enthusiastic I am about that. Unfortunately, family events (my Mum fell on ice and is in the hospital) rather derailed everything in the last few days, so the post still unfinished. I have, however, written extensively about one of my favourite novels by Montgomery- The Blue Castle. Here are the posts on that book:
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On the topic of my online book club reads, I finished our latest assigned book, Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away. I described the start of it a while back, and finished reading it over the Christmas holidays. I won't go into further detail at the moment other than to say that I hated it, pretty much from start to finish. I despised almost every character in it and was repelled by their actions. I forced myself to finish the novel but did not enjoy the experience. I don't think that I'll be picking up any more fiction by O'Connor anytime soon. On a happier note, I was recently on a short trip with my sister and her family and on the drive we were listening to an audiobook of The Code Of The Woosters. It did my heart good to hear the nephews chortling over the shenanigans of Bertie, Stiffy, Gussie, etc., with the missing notebook, the policeman's hat, and the silver cow creamer. And their delight at Bertie getting the best of Roderick Spode. It really is a brilliant book, and such a palate cleanser after reading a distasteful piece of fiction. Related Posts:For the family gift exchange, I had one of my sisters and her family. I sewed a hockey-themed pillowcase for each of the four boys, then went to a used bookstore and loaded up on books for them, because all four of them are prodigious readers. For the eldest- who is 15- I got four novels: The Time Machine by HG Wells, If We Survive by Andrew Klavan, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and The Giver by Lois Lowry. For the second nephew- 13- I got Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, Blue Fin by Colin Thiele, The Whispering Mountain by Joan Aiken, and I Am David by Anne Holm. For nephew #3 (10) I purchased Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson, The Upstairs Room by Joanna Reis, Wild Life by Cynthia DeFelice, and The Wizard In The Tree By Lloyd Alexander. And for the fourth nephew (7), I got The Vicious Vikings by Terry Deary, The Adventures Of Robin Hood retold from Howard Pyle's original work, Owls In The Family by Farley Mowat, and A Child's Christmas In Wales by Dylan Thomas. For my sister and brother-in-law, I ordered two books: Dominion by Tom Holland, and The Truth And Beauty by Andrew Klavan. I personally enjoyed both of these books a good deal and regard them as very complementary works. I think that they'll enjoy them as well. I also sewed this wall hanging for which I purchased a winter scene panel then cut it up, adding black sashing to make it seem like you're looking through a window. It wasn't quite finished in time, so I wrapped it up and gave it to them, then took it back afterwards to do a bit more stitching on. Related Posts:The double baby shower on Saturday afternoon was a rousing success; here's the loaf I baked for the occasion- pumpkin with chocolate chips and walnuts: Our usual Sunday family dinner at the homestead was off this past weekend due to a number of Sunday School play practices. I'm only peripherally involved- making costumes- and didn't need to be in attendance, so I told my parents to come over to my place for lunch after church. I didn't have time for anything fancy after I got home Saturday evening, so just roasted chicken and baby potatoes after tossing them with some olive oil and spices. I served them with steamed broccoli and biscuits, and made a blackberry cobbler for dessert. As mentioned, the baby shower was fun, and I got to hold my new nephew for the first time: Concerts and pageants are, of course, a staple of the Christmas season and I've participated in a great many of them, one way and another, over the years. And again for many years, there's been a children's story about a church Sunday School concert run amok which I've always enjoyed, at first reading it myself as a youngster, now reading it with assorted nephews and nieces. It's one of those books which is enjoyable for all ages, especially if you've ever been involved in children's ministry in any capacity. My review of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever:
I finally started the novel my online reading group is doing- a bit late, but what can you do? In my defense, I've been really busy, and a bunch of other group members were late getting started on it, too. But I put a good dent in it yesterday morning while I was waiting for the harvest loaf I was baking for the baby shower to come out of the oven. The Violent Bear It Away is Flannery O'Connor's second novel, written in 1960. I've never read anything by O'Connor before, and didn't know anything about this book before I started reading it, but so far it's pretty interesting. The protagonist is a fourteen year old boy named Francis Marion Tarwater who, when he was a baby, was kidnapped by his crazy great uncle who lived out in the wilderness and believed himself to be a prophet. A prophet who sells moonshine on the side. Francis never attends public school- Mason runs off a social worker and fools a truant officer into thinking Francis is simpleminded. He teaches Francis himself, intending that the lad will one day take over being the prophet- Elisha to his Elijah, as it were- although Francis, despite this upbringing, is never really sold on the idea. Then, one day, Francis' great uncle Mason dies while sitting at the breakfast table (he's 84) and, leaving him there, Francis attempts to dig a grave for him. A voice inside him is telling Francis to leave and go to the city; he knows his uncle whom he was stolen from lives there. While labouring at the grave, a black couple arrive to buy moonshine and, being told that Mason is dead, try to comfort the teen who is having none of it. He gruffly takes their jug to the still to fill it but, once there, decides to drink the moonshine himself; he gets drunk and passes out, later found there by the fellow who'd been waiting for his booze. He takes it upon himself to finish digging the grave and bury Uncle Mason while Francis is in a drunken stupor. When the boy comes to, he decides that he is, indeed, going to head for the city. Thinking that his great uncle's body is still in the shack they lived in, Francis sets fire to it and then, as it burns, heads to the main road where he hitches a ride with a traveling salesman who is driving to the city where his uncle lives. That's as far as I got yesterday... more to come later after I read more of it this week. Related Posts:As I mentioned before, this is the new read for the online book club I'm in- The Violent Bear It Away. I've just started, so don't really have anything to say about it yet. I just bought and downloaded the third book in Andrew Klavan's Cameron Winter series and plan to begin reading that this week as well. I thought that the first book in the series was good and the second was really good, so have high hopes for this one. On Saturday night I had to do some baking for the church potluck- we have one the first Sunday of every month, as you may recall, like good little Baptists. I was making an apple pie and apple crisp, so I set my laptop up on the table while peeling apples and started Stalag 17, the 1953 film about a W.W. II POW camp. I finished watching it while the pie/crisp were in the oven. Every year I try to watch at least one war movie in the run up to Remembrance Day, and what with everything going on in the world right now, couldn't bring myself to watch anything too brutal... I'm angry enough already. So I chose Stalag 17, which combines some seriousness with a fair amount of humour and ends with a bad guy getting shot up. Frankly, after watching the nasty little anti-Semites who have been running rampant on Western streets these past few weeks, I was in the mood to see a fictional Nazi get some ballistic therapy. I'll talk more about the film in a later post this week. Other than that, I haven't really been watching much... I've been really busy with work this past week; my counterpart had a medical emergency and wound up in hospital, so I've been trying to do both her job and mine, which has resulted in some long days with files, invoices, and fielding her calls/emails as well as my own. She's on the mend though- and out of hospital- so hopefully will be back at her desk sooner rather than later. Related Posts: As the morning of Swede's birthday dawns the family, despite what's going on, tries to make it a happy occasion for her. Reuben has purchased a western novel for her and her dad, Jeremiah, gives her a refurbished typewriter on which to write her epic poems. Davy presents Swede with a used saddle which he has repaired and polished up; this is what he was working on in the garage loft on the night of Swede's kidnapping. Of course, she doesn't have a horse but it gives her something to dream about, and to sit upon while she's composing cowboy poetry. Much to Reuben's relief, Swede seems to perk up, recovering her feisty personality. He had noticed in the last few days that, despite her trying to project toughness, Swede had dug out her old, long since discarded doll and has been clutching it tightly at night. They are happily looking forward to her birthday dinner when, to the children's exasperation, Tin Lurvy pulls up in their yard. Lurvy is a travelling salesman who always stops at their house when he's in the area because he knows that Jeremiah will feed him and listen to his voluminous conversation. The children are dismayed for exactly this reason: they know their father is too kindhearted to turn Tin Lurvy away, despite his interrupting their celebration and despite the fact that there's not enough of the birthday soup Jeremiah has made to feed an extra mouth- especially one which can put away as much as Lurvy's can. They know from past experience that their father will go without himself rather than not feed a guest, however uninvited he may be. To their confused surprise, however, the soup doesn't run out; in spite of the small pot and the copious amount Lurvy consumes, there's enough for anyone who wants them to have seconds... in Lurvy's case, fifths. Reuben regards this as one of his father's miracles. Between Tin Lurvy's arrival and suppertime, Reuben and Davy escape into the woods for a while and inevitably end up talking about the situation with Israel Finch and Tommy Basca. Davy asks Reuben if he thinks their father is afraid, and Reuben says no, because he hadn't hesitated to put a beating on the two of them in the locker room. Davy then asks if Reuben is scared; again, he answers 'no'. After a pause, Davy asks if Reuben thinks God looks out for them and, when Reuben answers in the affirmative, follows up with, "You want Him to?" Reuben nods yes, but is confused by the question. That night after Swede's birthday supper, Tin Lurvy eventually makes his farewells and motors away. Almost right after he leaves, Jeremiah comes down with one of the severe migraines he's prone to and has to go to bed. When their bedtime arrives, Reuben and Swede both retire to their rooms while Davy takes himself outdoors to have a smoke. When Reuben looks out the window from the room he shares with his brother, he can see Davy's cigarette end glowing in the dark. Later that night- around midnight- Reuben awakes suddenly when he hears the sound of the back door squeaking as it's opened. At first he thinks confusedly that it must be Davy coming back in, but then realizes how late it is and that he can hear Davy breathing deeply in the bed across from his. Reuben's asthmatic lungs contract as it becomes clear to him that someone is in their house, quiet but audible footsteps moving across the living room floor. As the steps reach the bedroom door and the knob turns, Reuben realizes, terrified, that he's waited too long to wake Davy up and now it's too late. But then Davy's voice comes out of the dark, ordering whoever's in the doorway to turn on the light. It flicks on, and Israel Finch is standing there, one hand on the light switch and in the other, a baseball bat. Tommy Basca is right behind him, looking over his shoulder. When Reuben glances at his brother, Davy's sitting up in bed with the family Winchester across his knees. For a moment everyone seems frozen in place, but then Israel raises the bat, and Davy fires, drilling Finch right between the eyes. As he slumps to the floor, Davy levers up a second round and fires again, taking down Tommy. Jeremiah comes running from his room, as does Swede; when he sees what's happening, Jeremiah grabs Swede and drags her to the bathroom, locking her in so she can't witness the carnage. While he's doing this, Tommy Basca, mortally wounded but not yet dead, is clawing the floor and screaming. Davy levers up a third round, lowers the gun to the back of Basca's head and pulls the trigger, finishing him off. In the sudden silence, Reuben can hear Swede sobbing behind the bathroom door. Then Davy says, "Well." and without looking at anyone, steps over Tommy's inert body, goes out the front door and sits on the step, waiting for the police to arrive. (To Be Continued...) Related Posts: Not long after Finch's threat, the Longs come home to find that the front of their house has been vandalized, tar smeared all over the door and posts. They try to clean it off but the door, which they can ill afford to replace, is ruined. Of course they know that Israel Finch and Tommy Basca are responsible and Reuben asks his father what they're going to do in return. Jeremiah tells him that they're not going to retaliate in any way, explaining "the principle of escalation" and giving examples of it in history. He tells his children, "What those fellows don't realize is, we've already won. The victory is ours." Davy, for one, is unconvinced. There is a certain unexpressed tension between him and Jeremiah, because he thinks Finch and Basca should be dealt with while his father wants to keep the peace if at all possible and trust God to take care of them. And then something much worse happens. There's a revival meeting of sorts going on at their church and of course Jeremiah attends, taking Reuben with him. Reuben is interested in going because a girl he has a bit of a crush on is also going to be there. Jeremiah thinks Swede is too young to go to this type of thing and leaves her at home with Davy. She's in the house working on a poem and Davy's in the loft over their garage working on a gift for Swede because her birthday is in a couple of days. He doesn't hear a car pulling up outside their house, but Swede does, and curiously goes out to see who's there. She's immediately grabbed by Israel Finch and pulled into his car which contains his henchman Tommy Basca. They drive around with the terrified young girl, forcing her to sit on their knees, and threatening her. Thankfully they don't inflict any serious physical damage; this is by way of a threat to the whole Land family, showing that they can get to what they cherish the most. Finch and Basca eventually drop Swede back at the house, telling her "We'll take you home now, but we'll be back. We're right outside your window." Davy is just coming in the back door from the garage when Swede runs in the front, scared, bruised, and shaking. He's trying to comfort her and find out exactly what happened when Jeremiah and Reuben arrive back home. As soon as Swede relates what happened, Davy is halfway out the door, going after Finch and Basca. Jeremiah grabs him and pulls him back, insisting that they call the police first... Davy listens, barely. This, unsurprisingly, proves useless; the town cop, Ted Pullet, is still too intimidated to do anything. When he hears what happened, he says he'll "talk to the boys" as though they'd been egging houses or something instead of kidnapping a nine year old. Then, when Jeremiah protests this weak response, "You said yourself they didn't hurt your girl." Pullet- a very apt name, by the way- continues with his excuses: after all, Jeremiah had given the two "a pretty bad scare" that night in the locker room, so they were "kicking a little". He also mentions that Basca's aunt had wanted to press charges against Jeremiah... obviously trying to dilute his guilt by insinuating that Jeremiah had used too much force when rescuing Dolly. Pullet returns the next day to tell them that Finch and Basca have assured him that they'd just been kidding around and had meant no harm. He's just going to write the entire incident off as youthful hijinks. Davy is openly contemptuous of Pullet's prevarication, saying "How many times does a dog have to bite before you put him down?" (To Be Continued...) Related Posts: Peace Like A River is the second book our online book club read. It was written by Leif Enger and first published in 2001. The novel is set in 1951 and centers on the Lands, a family consisting of Jeremiah Land and his three children- Davy, the eldest who's 16, Reuben who's 11, and Swede their sister, who's 9. Nothing at first is said of their conspicuously absent mother, but we eventually learn that she divorced Jeremiah. As the story spools out, we find out what happened: Jeremiah was a brilliant up-and-coming scholar when he met his future wife and married her. Then, after a near death experience, he dedicates his life to God, gives up his studies, and eventually ends up as a school janitor in the little town of Roofing. His wife, feeling cheated, sticks it out for a number of years- enough to have all three children- then deserts the family to marry a wealthy doctor in a large city. They never hear from her again. Though poor, the Lands scrape by on what Jeremiah earns and on what game he and Davy, who's a crack shot, can bring down. The book is narrated by Reuben, who wistfully wants to be an outdoorsman like Davy, strong and self sufficient, but is hindered by having severe asthma which has nearly finished him off several times. In fact, he nearly didn't survive his birth, not breathing for so long that the doctor had pronounced him dead. That is, until Jeremiah burst into the room and commanded baby Reuben to breathe "in the name of the living God". Reuben obediently does so, and is now perfectly healthy except for his lungs, even though the incredulous doctor said there was no way he couldn't have brain damage from being without oxygen for so long. This is the first of a number of 'miracles' as Reuben terms them, which his father apparently is responsible for; Reuben, awed and a little frightened, relates the others as they occur. Swede is a precocious youngster who is addicted to western dime novels and writes epic poems, always set in the old west. The family is a close, loving one, living frugally but happily until events occur which shatter their lives. It all starts at the school, on the night of a football game. Davy's girlfriend Dolly plays clarinet in the school band so is at the game. Afterwards, about to leave with members of the band, she realizes she forgot her other shoes in the girls locker room and runs back to get them. While she's there, two boys come in after her. It is Israel Finch and Tommy Basca, the town bullies who just about everyone is afraid of; they used to be the school bullies until Finch attacked a teacher, putting him in the hospital, and was sent to reform school. While he was there, Basca dropped out of school and, when Israel returned from reform school quite unreformed, they took up their old ways, only now terrorizing the town instead of just the school. Dolly tries to fight them off but is overpowered; Tommy Basca holds her arms while Israel Finch slaps her and then rips open her sweater. It is at this point, however, that Jeremiah arrives on the scene. He had been cleaning the boys locker room and heard sounds of a struggle. He unscrews the mop handle to use as a weapon if necessary, and enters the room. Seeing what's occurring, Jeremiah knocks the two wannabe rapists away from Dolly and grimly proceeds to give them a thorough walloping with the mop handle, leaving them moaning on the floor while he takes Dolly home. In a sane world, the violent perverts would be carted off to jail, but the one local police officer is too intimidated by these creeps to enforce the law, and Dolly's family is no doubt too afraid to press charges, knowing they'll get no police support. Nothing is done and, after the fact, a vengeful Finch seeks out Jeremiah to tell him that they'll be coming for his family. Jeremiah is concerned of course, but is actually more worried about Davy who is quietly simmering about what happened, furious that Finch and Basca are getting away with nothing but bruises and lumps for what they tried to do. (To Be Continued...) Related Posts:I know that I haven't really reported back on the other two books we've read in our book club, but I did finish them and will have somewhat to say about them... I just got busy and then rather slacked off most of the summer. In my defense, our online book club was kind of intermittent over the summer as well. But we're reconvening now that autumn has rolled around, and this is the book we're reading- The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O'Connor's last novel, written in 1960. I haven't read O'Conner before; I know she was a very Catholic writer, but that's about it. As a good Baptist, I don't hold with popery; the shenanigans of the current pope underscore my convictions on this matter. But I respect practicing Catholics a good deal, and have to say they've produced plenty of great writers- such as GK Chesterton, one of my favourites. In any case, I'm eager to start this novel which has been termed "southern gothic".
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