The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Recently I was at my local library and they had a copy of this book. I had an instant reaction that this book was a load of tosh, but then I thought, 'Well, that's kind of negative, right?' And the book is about being positive.  I am a fan of joy, and hope, and laughter, and hope, and all of those things are very positive.  And I'm in a place where I'm reading books that I don't always agree with (even with the title, or with my initial reaction to it), so I took it home.

Yep, it's a load of tosh. :) 

The thing is, it's very difficult to criticise a book that's all about positivity.

You feel the book and its author are smiling, smiling, smiling at you, and no matter what you say they are going to smile some more, and laugh, and tell you that you are just being negative. 

The deal is, there's a lot that is good in here. Much of that good comes from the source of all good, the Bible. He quotes verses continuously, and seems sincere when he avers the truth of them, or encourages others (or you the reader) to be encouraged by them as well.  He encourages reading the Bible, spending time with God, being disciplined, memorising Scripture, and many other good things.  It's not (most of) the content itself that strikes a false chord, and it wasn't until I finished the book, thought about it, and then went to church the next day hearing the Word preached that it really hit me.  Peale's book is entirely, completely, one hundred percent about what YOU can get in your life.  It is not about putting God first simply because He is first. Or trusting Him even when your life falls apart (as it can and does, and in my experience can happen more than once in a lifetime).  None of the reading, or praying, or meditating, or memorising is 'simply' because of who God is: it's because of what you can get from it. 

He talks a lot about how he has proved his theories. He tells story upon story of this person who attended a seminar and his life was changed, that person who read his book and was happy from then on.  He casually mentions once or twice that you don't necessarily always get what you ask for, but then he reverts right back to implying that you probably will if you just follow his formula.  "Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade."  It's all about technique. He explains how important faith is, and even quotes a verse from Ephesians about how we need to have faith as a shield to protect us from the devil, and then goes on to say, "Faith, belief, positive thinking, faith in God, faith in other people, faith in yourself, faith in life. This is the essence of the technique that it teaches."  Unfortunately that's not what the verse teaches, at all.  There's nothing in it, or in the entire rest of the Bible, that tells me to have faith in myself or faith in life.  It's not a generic faith: it's centred on the person and work of Jesus Christ.  But Peale's goal is happiness, and the kind that you get down here on earth when things go your way.  "Since a fundamental desire of every human being is for that state of existence called happiness, something should be done about it."

One of the problems I have with the whole concept of positive thinking and positive speak is that I am an ultra-honest person.  I hate lying in anyone, most of all myself, and so sometimes, as I've told my friends, I will tell 'the truth, the whole truth, and a little extra of the truth that you didn't really need to know'.  And so when I'm weary, or tired, or struggling, or unwell, or hurting, or discouraged, I tell people.  If they ask how I'm doing, I answer with how I am really doing. (For the most part, that is. I don't always burden the shopkeeper or the man at the petrol station with my issues, but I've been known to be honest even then.)  But Peale tells me, "Say to yourself, 'Things are going nicely. Life is good. I choose happiness,' and you can be quite certain of having your choice."  I have not had life 'easy', or 'happy' in his sense of the word.  But given the choice, I'll take the suffering, and the challenge, and the hurt, and the confusion, with a God who meets me there.  Because Jesus suffered, cruelly.  The Book of Hebrews says that we do not have a 'High Priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." The glaring problem that came home to me when I was at church on Sunday was not that having happiness is a bad thing, or that we should go around being negative because things are so hard. But it was that Jesus Himself did not come with the purpose of 'making us happy', with the definition Peale uses, in which we have health and strength and enough money and a good family and a good feeling and a smile every day.  Yes, Jesus healed diseases and illnesses everywhere He went: but when they pressed Him to stay, to heal more, to do more good, to make more families happy, Jesus refused. He actually said no.  He tells them, "I must go to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose."  Jesus' purpose was not primarily to heal, to make better, to make happy.  He does it: oh, yes, He does it.  But it's the eternal happiness, the everlasting peace and healing and wealth that He promises.  And this is what His own people didn't understand when He came. They were expecting a Messiah who would make everything better on this earth - who would destroy their Roman enemies and make life better and bring back the wealth and pomp of the old days, and raise up a physical, golden temple in which they could worship.  And they were so confused and frustrated and angry that Jesus said in one breath "I am the Messiah" and in the next "that is not why I came", that they conspired against Him and killed Him.

The problem Peale has is that of using the excellencies of the Bible to get what you want.  Often, God does give us what we ask for, and what we want. He goes far beyond what we need and blesses us more than we can possibly imagine. But it's not in the blessing that I truly see Him for who He is, that I become who He means me to be.  None of us would ever ask for suffering - and God never tells us to.  But His Word is filled with encouragements to us that when we are suffering, we can look to God for help, and we are being made into the best version of ourselves, the version that we would never become if we were the ones calling the shots.  St. Paul says, "For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead."  And Jesus explains to His disciples that they will be mocked, and beaten, and tortured; that they will have sorrow and will not understand.  He finishes by saying, "I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."  His goal is not that they have no trouble, but that they remember something bigger, something so much greater that the existing trouble appears as nothing - and, even, that we can rejoice.  "We also rejoice in suffering, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope."  If you get everything you want, if you never think a negative thought and always insist on happiness down here, then no perseverance is needed. And no character is built, and therefore you have no hope.  Eternal hope.

In the end, I'd rather have my illnesses and weaknesses and struggles and really bad days, and the God who ministers to me through them, and to be able to comfort others who are suffering, than go round in the kind of happiness that doesn't last.  Several of my very good friends have been through pain and illness and fear and hurt so deep that nothing and no one could reach them but the words of the God who suffered more.  Because there is never, ever anyone who suffered more than He did - and through His suffering has purchased for us such wonder, such beauty, such priceless gifts as we will have on the other side of eternity.   I wonder for some of the people whose stories Peale tells, if they will at the end of their lives be told, like the rich man in one of Jesus' parables: "Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish." If you are looking for transitory happiness, the kind that may last an entire seventy or eight years, perhaps, you might get it from this book. Apparently many people have.  But if you know there is something deeper, that as Jesus said, "Life does not consist in the abundance of what one possesses", then you need much more than just happiness.  You need a release from suffering that will last seven hundred years, seven thousand years, no, time without end. 

It's true that you can't buy happiness.  It's also true that buying this book won't give you real happiness, either.

A Circle of Quiet by Madeline L'Engle

I confess to being extremely disappointed with this book. Not in the book itself - once I got into it I fair enjoyed what she had to say.  It was the deceiving title that threw me. I read the first page or two and along with the title thought that she was writing about a 'Circle of Quiet', the place that she goes when everything in the world is spinning around and she needs a centre, a place to call her own, somewhere that confusion becomes clarity (or, ceases to matter anymore).  "I go to the brook because I get out of being," she writes. "I go to the brook and my tensions and frustrations are lost as I spend a happy hour sitting right in the water and trying to clear it of the clogging debris left by a falling tree."  I love that concept of a place where you truly rest, truly be, and was looking forward to understanding more about having a place like that, letting the mind empty, and unclogging it from the world's debris.

Unfortunately for my expectations, that is not what the book is about at all.

After the first few paragraphs (which is the only bit I read when I decided to buy the book), it turns out that this is simply bits from her journal, thoughts she has had, vague ramblings of the mind. Whilst this may be a nice thing to read, it's not what I set out to read, not what I intended to read, and not what my mind was ready for.  I felt a little like the famous story (famous in our family, and now it will be famous to you as well) of my dad in the Navy, going to the dinner meal and discovering that hash browns were on the menu. There they were, heaped in pieces and waiting to be enjoyed, so he filled his plate as high as he could with them.  With great anticipation he took his first bite, only to discover he was eating sauerkraut. He didn't have a very strong feeling towards sauerkraut before that, but unfortunately in the Navy the food you take is the food you eat, and he had to finish the entire plateful.  His eagerness dimmed to disappointment and then weariness and then loathing, so that he has almost never touched sauerkraut since.  I doubt I'll steer clear of Madeline L'Engle in future - I still like her writing, especially her children's books, and I agreed heartily with much of what she had to say in this book - but I have no desire to read volumes 2 or 3 of this series, and still feel a bitter taste in my mouth having finished it.

Of course, that all being said, if you'd like to read something that's a rambling journal of thoughts, like the 'morning pages' suggested by the Artist's Way, then this is the book for you.  It's philosophical for the most part - her thoughts on life, love, God, purpose, writing, and society - which for me was a bit hard work. Anything that presents an alternate view of how to look at the world (L'Engle is an agnostic) takes thought and effort, and I was prepared to read something easy, something that flowed. It does flow, but flows like a river.  A real river, with rocks and sticks and fish and waterbugs and a few rapids and whirlpools and tree branches and noise.

So, I thought I'd just include a few quotes from the book that struck me, so you can enjoy them. I would recommend the book - just with that careful caveat of what it's really about!

"To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy."

"I think that all artists, regardless of degree of talent, are a painful, paradoxical combination of certainty and uncertainty, of arrogance and humility, constantly in need of reassurance, and yet with a stubborn streak of faith in their validity, no matter what." [This is remarkably true of me in every particular.]

"Love is not an emotion. It is a policy." -Hugh Bishop

"If we ever, God forbid, manage to make each child succeed within his peer group, we will produce a race of bland and faceless nonentities, and all poetry and mystery will vanish from the face of the earth."

"Sometimes, doing violence to language means not using it at all, not being afraid of being silent together, of being silent alone. Then, through the thunderous silence, we may be able to hear a still, small voice, and words will be born anew."

"We tend, today, to want to have a road map of exactly where we are going. We want to know whether or not we have succeeded in everything we do.  It's all right to want to know - we wouldn't be human if we didn't - but we also have to understand that a lot of the time we aren't going to know."

"Can we produce a single human being like Leonardo, who could reach out into every area of the world of his day? Our children have never known a world without machines: dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, electric heaters...there are more machines than we can possibly count; beware, beware, lest they take us over."  [Note: this was written in 1972.]

"Sometimes I answer that if I have something I want to say that is too difficult for adults to swallow, then I write it in a book for children.  Children still haven't closed themselves off with fear of the unknown, fear of revolution, or the scramble for security. It was adults who thought that children would be afraid of the Dark Thing in [A Wrinkle In Time], not children, who understand the need to see thingness, non-ness, and to fight it."

"It's far more exciting to be enthusiastic about the real book that deals with life in all its peculiarity than to allow ourselves to be dazzled with the cheap substitute that tickles the palate for the moment but leaves us with a hangover."

"In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.'"

"Beethoven had the right idea: he played one of his sonatas for someone, and when he had finished, the person said, 'That's very nice, but what does it mean?' And Beethoven sat down and played the whole thing over."

"It takes a certain amount of living to strike the strange balance between the two errors either of regarding ourselves as unforgivable, or as not needing forgiveness."

A strange, eclectic compilation, no doubt...and therefore probably a perfect representation from the book. Or, perfect as it reflects what stood out to me.  You might be struck and moved by sentences that entirely passed me by.  That's the beauty of it.  And there is, indeed, beauty there.

The Choice by Nicholas Sparks

Okay, I admit it.  I read a Nicholas Sparks novel. (Heavy sigh.) I think I knew exactly what I was getting myself into, but I was tired and wanted something easy to breeze through.  Well, it was easy all right.  I feel like some of my friends who commented that after reading Mockingjay they "wanted those lost hours back".  I didn't feel that way about Mockingjay, but excepting the fact that there's always something to be learned from every reading experience, reading 'The Choice' was definitely a few hours in which you're transported to a time that - let's be frank - doesn't exist.

The kind of time that is constantly smoothed over with a dreamy, sunset kind of feel.  Where people fall in love over a weekend, instantly know they are meant to be together, have a few arguments that you know don't matter (and you feel were thrown in as an afterthought with a nod to reality), and generally have (and constantly recognise they have) the best [fill in the blank] in the world.  Life, husband, wife, children, house, small town, job, talent, boat, family.  Phrases are thrown about that you feel grown men never say, much less think.  Guys ruminate reflectively on their lives.  Women are somehow both fiercely independent and desperately needy, whilst remaining incredibly beautiful at all times.  Beautiful, mind you, with the girl-next-door meets supermodel kind of beauty, and of course they have no idea how beautiful they are (but they manage to be casually confident in it).  You see where this is going?  No one in the entire novel is really ugly. Or annoying. Or bad. And that's where the distance from real life comes.  Granted, we don't read novels to live in the real world.  Even Jane Austen admitted that in order to find a man like Mr Darcy, she had to make him up.  But something's not quite right.

Naturally, there's a Crisis that occurs about halfway through the book.  This is common to all of Nicholas Sparks' novels (I say this not because I've ready any others, but because I've seen a few of the films - again not the best hours I've spent in my life).  There's the fairy-tale stage, followed by a short 'real life' stage (but not really real), and then the Crisis occurs. Someone gets cancer. Or leukemia. Or goes to war.  Or is in a coma.  Something drastic, and it's hard and challenging and burdening....but you (well, definitely I) never connect with the hero. Or the heroine, or anybody.  The only person in the entire book I almost liked was the hero's sister, who had a caustic wit and slung around sarcasm with her constant energy.  Naturally, she was gorgeous and talented and had a PhD and a guy who loved her although she wasn't sure if she loved him back, and she never once lacked even an ounce of confidence. I don't know why I liked her, she was like a Greek goddess in the modern woman's body.  Must have been the sarcasm.  But the hero, her brother, just sort of mooned around the whole time replaying moments in his mind, and (I doubt I'm ruining anything for anyone here, since I'd highly recommend you not bother reading this or any other Sparks novel) naturally gets exactly what he wants in the end, and they all live happily ever after.

The funny thing is, I'm not opposed in the slightest to people getting a happily ever after. (Okay, maybe on some of my bad days I am, a little, but that's just jealousy.)  And I love reading good fiction that brings it about.  But I think what frustrates me so much about this kind of novel is that you never connect to the suffering.  It's as though they suffer at a distance, in a disembodied way, and you're not allowed - even through the pages of the book - to come in and feel it with them.  Perhaps the author has never suffered to the depths of his soul as his imaginary characters have. I don't know - I could be completely wrong. Perhaps he has, and he's describing it the best way he knows how.  But if he hasn't, and his life has been pretty good, and he had a happy childhood and went to university and met his wife there and married her and had some children and worked a few jobs and wrote some novels...well...that explains a few things.  Because I admire so many authors for their incredible flights of imagination, but I'll tell you this from real experience: suffering can't be imagined.  Not the down-deep, life's-dreams-gone-wrong, bitter heartache of despair suffering.  You have to go through it.  I've had a little, and I have friends who've had a lot.  And I just get the odd feeling, reading this novel at least, that as hard as he tries, there's still a little sunset glow left.  And unfortunately that's the first thing to go in deep-down-suffering.  Oh, it comes back - praise God, it comes back.  But the moments when it's gone with no hope on the horizon, well, that's the bit I felt was missing for a novel like this to really connect. 

So, read it if you like....nah. Don't. Do something real with your time.  Phone your mother, or your sister, or a good friend.  Write a long email.  Bake a cheesecake.  Go to church.  Clean the house.  Just sit in a comfortable chair and watch the world go by.  You'll be better off.  And if a genuine Crisis comes into your life (or already has), face it with all the love and joy and defiance and spirit that's in you. 

From Fatigued to Fantastic by Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D.

Almost ten years ago, I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known in the UK as ME.  I've journeyed a long road to get to a place where I can manage my energy levels well, but I've been meaning to read this book for probably five or six years at least.  If you have CFS (or Fibromyalgia, or Lyme disease), or you think you may have it, this is an absolutely excellent resource to skip a lot of the pain, difficulty, expense, and heartache I went through discovering how to live well with something that is debilitating to so many.  I thank God regularly that I can live not just a 'normal life', but better than normal: I can genuinely say that if not for this illness, I would never have been able to do what I have in life.  That's because, until you're faced with the fact that your energy supplies are limited (on a daily basis), you tend to fling them around indiscriminately, knowing that after a rest, or a nap, or a good night's sleep, or a holiday, your energy stores will be replenished, and you can deplete them to your pleasure again.

CFS doesn't work like that.  The best way I can think to describe it is that before you get this illness, you view your energy stores as I've just described - like a great storehouse that depletes on a daily basis, but is always renewed.  After getting CFS, I came to realise that my storehouse was cut in half at one fell stroke, and would very likely in this life never rise to its full height again.  My experience is not everyone's - some are brought down much further than I ever was, and others have risen to higher energy levels than they ever had before.  But one thing among many that I have gained is the knowledge that energy is an extremely valuable, and not very renewable, resource in my life.  It is precious, and should be held and used and poured out with great care.

[Before I go on, I'd like to add that I am very, very cautious about 'encouraging' people that they have, or could have, CFS.  It is a diagnosis of exclusion, because there is no test that can be done to determine it, and I would strongly recommend some very simple steps to be taken for at least six months or a year before seeking to diagnose fatigue or weariness as CFS.  This is not to diminish the illness in any way - it's because I have experienced many, many well-meaning people who are tired or exhausted in their lives and they immediately jump to wondering if they have this illness, instead of doing some incredibly simple things like managing their nutrition well, sleeping 8-9 hours a night, drinking water like a camel, working less, exercising more, and taking basic vitamins.]  

For a 'medical tome', which this book primarily is, it reads very well.  The author has great turns of phrases that help you truly see how the body works - things like "M antibodies are like your body's storm troopers" and "caffeine is a loan shark for energy".  And even some hilarious statements that make you realise that he really does know how you feel (the author, a medical doctor, contracted CFS himself): "Some physicians still like to say that vitamins are excreted in your urine, so all you're doing by taking vitamin supplements is making expensive urine. Using this line of reasoning, these cynics can stop drinking water (it just goes out in their urine). That way, they'll soon stop annoying people who are in the process of getting themselves well."  I actually laughed aloud reading this - I could tell how frustrated he gets with physicians who don't understand - or don't try to understand - this illness, and the many things that can be done to improve it.  He even says, "I apologise for the medical profession's calling you crazy just because we cannot determine the cause of your problem. It is inappropriate and cruel."

The bulk of the book is spent discussing the four key areas that should be addressed for anyone with this kind of illness - sleep, hormones, infection, and nutrition.  I particularly found the sections on sleep and nutrition the most beneficial (and the most encouraging, since I was doing most of what he suggested, and because there are so many herbal/natural remedies as opposed to medical/prescriptive ones).  It reminded me of some basics I've fallen away from - like removing white bread, white rice, and sugar from my diet.  (Or, if you do have these, preparing yourself for the consequences.)  It also helped me understand in a new way why I was doing what I've been doing for so long - why D-Ribose is so effective for rebuilding energy, why margarine is so much worse than butter and what it does to your cell membranes, how extra Vitamin C protects the body from infection, and how much of an impact the lack of sleep can have in gaining extra weight.

It was nice, too, to have a short chapter on why you're not crazy, why most people who get CFS are "mega-type-A overachievers" (yes, me), and how that affects not only your contracting this illness, but prolonging it.  I remember when I first was diagnosed, and I made every effort to change things in my life, and after about 6 months I genuinely felt all my energy come back. I was thrilled - but instead of being wise and continuing on the path, I left it completely and began flinging it around immoderately again. I was the Prodigal Energy User, and it took me a long time to come broken and depleted back to the beginning, with a lot of sorrow for what was lost. 

I don't have any sorrow relating to this illness anymore.  Oh, maybe once in a while, on a bad day, or when I have to say no to something that it seems like 'everyone else' gets to do - but overall, if you asked me what I thought, I'd be thankful for it more than almost anything else in my life the Lord has chosen to give me.  It set me right when it comes to my energy - and that is a very valuable and precious resource. 

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Today I finished the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  The best word I can use to describe it is 'horrifying'.  This one, for me, was real in a way the other two never were.  Constant battle. Dead bodies. Nightmares. Pain. Torture. The beautiful turned enemy, the good hijacked to the purposes of the Enemy until no one knows what is real and what is not real.  For me it was like reading a nightmare - everything seemed to make sense, and then suddenly it didn't, nothing made sense, and you hoped with the rest of the players in the book that you and they would wake up to everything restored and a happy ending at last.  Except...no ending could be 'happy' when there is so much that has been lost.

This book more than any of the others says, the Hunger Games are not games. They are evil, ruthless, devised by those who have lost their humanity and wish only for a revenge that never satisfies, and then turn that into entertainment for all to celebrate, in a macabre way.  It was twice as horrifying when you look back into history and realise that much of her 'fiction' was drawn from the brutal games of the capitol that was Rome.  'Panem et Circenses' - "Bread and Circuses".  "In return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power", says a Head Gamemaker in the book. And Katniss herself identifies the greatest danger when she comes to after a fierce battle and asks, "Was there fighting after I was shot?"  Her friend answers, "Not much. The workers...turned on the Capitol soldiers. The rebels just sat by and watched. Actually, the whole country just sat by and watched."  "Well," says Katniss, "that's what they do best." 

I think this is where the nightmare began to feel very, very real.  For the most part, we as a society find it far easier just to sit by and watch.  Complain about the current politics or politicians or potential leaders, and rally support on Facebook or Twitter...but don't bother to vote, because it won't make a difference anyway.  Gather round a screen for Britain's Got Talent or American Idol or Big Brother and get caught up in the lives of people you don't even know or understand.  Seek our own, and be content on full bellies and entertainment. 

Yes, I'd recommend the book, and the series - but it's not just a good read that you put down and then sigh and smile and go on with your life, glad that you have food and a warm home and your family nearby.  At least, I hope that's not what it is.  I hope it's hard, and a bit shocking, and brutally horrible. Spellbinding, yes, but not an easy read.  Nothing this heartbreaking and nightmarish should be.

Amish Peace by Suzanne Wood Fisher

Reading this book is like stopping to take a deep breath during the middle of a race.  I've always loved the stillness, beauty, and age-old traditions of the Amish - people who live with wisdom and grace in an unhurried way while the rest of the world spins like crazy tops all around them.  When I finished the book I felt like I would do well to go and live with the Amish for a year - work hard outside, make and eat good food, talk less, pray more, listen deeply, notice beauty, and have a stillness of soul that the rest of the world has given up on.  (My friend Megan says that with all my Apple technology, they wouldn't let me in, but I accept that I would have to leave all that behind.)

There was a lot in the book I really liked, although something that significantly detracted from its wisdom and my enjoyment of it was the questions at the end of every chapter. I've come to really hate this tendency in modern-day Christian books - as though I don't have a brain enough to simply learn from reading the book itself, but I have to be dragged and guided to a place of new understanding and growth, like a child who has to do homework instead of learning for the sheer joy of it, or (gasp) learning something you didn't think they would learn.  I felt that I was perfectly capable of being struck by a particular thought in the book, and I didn't have to be pushed and prodded to ask myself, "How dependent are you on modern conveniences?" or "Do you see dependence on others as a weakness or a strength?"  What frustrated me most is that it was in direct contrast to what the purported purpose of the book itself was. I doubt that the Amish would like it.  I imagine when reading they would stop and think about something that struck them, without having someone or something pointing, reaching, grabbing their arm to make them think along certain lines.  And then there were these random Amish facts at the end of each chapter - small items about how the Amish live that generally had nothing to do with the chapter I'd just read.  Made me feel as though there wasn't enough material for a 'good book', and so they packed in a little extra to please a modern world.  Misses the point entirely.

In spite of that, there were some very moving quotes and comments I thought I'd share:

"A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to leave alone." -Amish Proverb

"Time might pass slowly on Amish farms, but it is filled with a promise about what is to come: small miracles in the course of a day, long miracles of passing generations."

"A task takes as long as it takes."  -Amish proverb

"Drawing is in the eye, not in the hand." -Susie Lapp

"If you sense your faith is unraveling, go back to where you dropped the thread of obedience." -Amish proverb

"They had forgiven me, and they never, ever went back on that decision. And they backed it up with a real relationship. It was powerful." -Joel Kime (responsible for a car accident that caused the death of a young Amish woman)

"Blessed are they who have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded to say it." -Amish proverb

"When we fail to practice silence, God must go to great lengths to get our attention through all the noisiness of our own thoughts, the noisiness of our feelings, the noisiness of the world....There is no substitute for silence. No trick. No shortcut."  -Ruby Zook

"Swallowing words before you say them is so much better than having to eat them afterward." -Amish proverb

"You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him."  -Amish proverb

I did enjoy reading this book. It was an easy read, but a little tough to read all at one go - like trying to have dessert and dinner and coffee all at the same time.  It's best enjoyed one little piece at a time, mulling it over, considering it, and going back to it once you've given it some thought. Otherwise it just becomes the next book to read, and tick off the list.

Three Men In A Float by Dan Kieran/Ian Vince

I didn't even know what a milk float was until I picked up this book - and it isn't really fully described at first, so I did a little Googling to see images and understand.  It's an electric vehicle that was used in the 1950's to deliver milk - there are still a few that exist, but of course our desire for speed and convenience mean that we get our milk from grocery stores or corner shops, and the milk float, in Britain, has for the most part ceased to exist. 

The book is funnier than I thought possible - three men travel (in the aforesaid milk float) at half the speed of a cyclist, from one side of England to the other.  It's narrated in classic British style in a book more hilarious than anything I've read since Round Ireland With A Fridge, which made me laugh so hard in the bookstore I had to buy it to avoid the glares of those working there (in Britain a fate worse than death).

What I loved most about this book was its reminder to enjoy the travel opportunities nearest you (they didn't go to Europe, or America, or somewhere 'exotic', they simply explored their own home country), and to do it in a way that enables you to truly enjoy it.  "It certainly felt as though time had broken free from its normal routine; or perhaps re-established an older meandering one, distinct from the modern rigidity in which most of us find ourselves."  The concept of not being able to go a half a day without a charge (they had to constantly charge up their electric vehicle in odd ways) sounded ludicrous until I realised this is what we do with our phones and gadgets. We stumble into an Apple store, or park ourselves uncomfortably on the floor in an airport, simply to stay connected as we move through our travels and our life.  As the authors of this book and the travelers of this slow journey point out, travel has become "some kind of grandiose box ticking exercise", and I have seen that often enough to know it to be true.  "The world certainly seems to have been reduced to a list of places you 'have to see' before you die, as though merely seeing them gives you any kind of insight or experience from which you can learn something meaningful." I agree with these men that travel - the best travel, the kind that you learn from and grow from and laugh about later - should be slow and unhurried.  If you miss your train, you get another one, or you spend the night in a very dodgy "hotel" flanked by kebab shops and suspicious looking characters, trying to shower in a space smaller than your body, and sleeping on sheets that for some unexplained reason are dotted with a proliferation of cartoon hedgehogs. (True story. Geneva, Switzerland has a lot to overcome the next time I go there. But I tell you, I will never forget it.)

I spent the second half of the book wishing I could start the next book I'd picked up, which is not enviable, and I was tempted to give up this ridiculous effort at staying committed to only one book at a time. But then I remembered that what I've learned from reading Kidnapped and from these three men in a float, is that the best things often result from sticking to your guns and doing what is hardest. Keep reading, I tell myself. You're gaining more than you know. (As it turned out, the book I was so much looking forward to, J.K. Rowling's 'The Casual Vacancy', was such a great disappointment that I ended up not reading it at all, so there's another lesson for you.)

If you want a really good laugh, definitely pick up this book - if you can find it.  I got it for 59 pence at a charity shop, and my mind and life are the richer for it. 

Kidnapped by R.L.Stevenson

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Following the inspiration and motivation gleaned from reading How The Scots Invented The Modern World, I turned to another book I've been meaning to read for years, Kidnapped. 

It was startlingly easy to read (perhaps after the 'ye olde' language of Marmion and eulogies on David Hume), and quite funny in parts.  I loved the essential Scottishness of it all, the descriptions, the words I still hear to this day, the places I'd visited, the descriptions of heather and hills and unceasing rain. 

I was overwhelmingly struck by how anything adventurous or impressive is often made up of a great deal of very, very hard times.  I connected with this very well as my life of glorious adventure (as it appears to some, an international photographer living in Scotland) is not always easy going. There are pages given to David Balfour (our hero) wandering lost, cold, wet, sick, weary, angry, fearing for his life, and more - and that's probably a large reason I quite enjoyed the book.  "Classics" show life as real life, lived the way we live it, described with remarkable accuracy.  There's not always a fairy tale ending, and people and places are unpredictable.  I know what it is to be weary, exhausted, done for, and wanting to give up on the whole thing; and so I could associate with David.  "By what I have read in books," he says, "I think that few that have held a pen were ever really wearied, or they would write of it more strongly. I had no care of my life, neither past nor future, and I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour."  Perhaps one of those reasons is that we have the blessing and curse that extremes always fade in time - the things that are so horrible, and so difficult and wearying, we later wonder if they were so bad; and the things that are so amazing and beautiful, we tinge with a bit of what we call 'real life' and forget to rejoice in as we once did.  (Bear in mind that this very connection that I found may cause those who are expecting a rip-roaring adventure novel to be disappointed. In one sense, the story is about David wandering from place to place, and who he meets along the way, and how he determines his own character. It's not a swashbuckling boy's novel with thrills at every turn.)

In spite of this comradeship of affliction, I never really connected with David as a person or friend.  He made a good narrator, but I was more taken by the other characters he describes so well.  Alan Breck, who becomes his companion for half the book, is a more 'alive' and real character than any other, including David himself.  (Of course, this is probably because David sets off on his journey as a young lad with no real life experience of any kind, and so he is absorbing, like a sponge, the character and interests around him whilst trying to discover who he actually is himself).  Alan, with his fancy French clothes worn to tatters, his constantly referring to himself as "having a king's name", his Highland generosity and knowledge of lands and persons, his pride and unfailing loyalty, as well as a neat turn of phrase, make him a fascinating personage indeed.  Even Hoseason , the captain of the ship on which David is taken at the beginning, fascinates.  "He was neither so good as I supposed him, nor quite so bad as Ransome did; for, in fact, he was two men, and left the better one behind as soon as he set foot on board his vessel." There's also Cluny, an almost royal personage who lives quietly in a hidden place, surrounded by loyal followers, and says, "My life is a bit dreigh; I see little company, and sit and twirl my thumbs, and mind upon a great day that is gone by, and weary for another great day that we all hope will be upon the road."  There's Ransome, the young lad on the ship with David, who "could not say how old he was, as he had lost his reckoning....He swore horribly whenever he remembered, but more like a silly schoolboy than a man; and boasted of many wild and bad things that he had done...but all with such a dearth of likelihood in the details, and such a weak and crazy swagger in the delivery, as disposed me rather to pity than to believe him."   And then there are all the "little people" on their journeys who are rich in generosity, hospitality, and the Scottish language, if not always in manners or wealth. And they are all the better for it. 

Again I found myself glad that I know many of the places described on David's journey.  The Hawes Inn in Queensferry still stands, and one day not very long ago I had a mug of hot spiced ale and a warm meal whilst looking out the tiny thick glass windows to the forth bridges and the water beyond.  (You can visit the town through my eyes here.)  The Isle of Mull is as remote as hauntingly beautiful as it ever was, and the houses and cottages as far between. The rain falls on me in Scotland as unceasingly as it did on David Balfour, and many of the words and turns of phrases are heard to this day.

The ending is...odd. I won't go into too much detail lest I prevent you from reading this excellent book, but it wound up with such a rush (and not a flourish but more like a flop) that I sat dumbfounded for a moment wondering if Stevenson had gotten interrupted and thought he would return soon, or alternatively was perhaps knocked over the head and kidnapped himself, with the kidnapper kindly dashing off a short paragraph in his absence. In spite of this, it's still one of the best historical novels I've read in a while, and encourage you to brew your most Scottish cup of tea and read it all the way through. And if you can manage it, drop by the Hawes Inn for a mug of ale.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I love reading books before films come out (or before I see the film).   We all know that ten times out of ten, the book is better. It has more description, it gives you better insights into the heroes and heroines, and what's best of all, you get to imagine what they look like before Hollywood swoops in and makes up your mind for you.

I think that's one of the things I love best about reading.  You get to push your imagination to do some hard creative work - it doesn't just sit back and have everything brought to it, as in a film.  (Interestingly enough this meshes well with the concept of the Hunger Games, in which people have to fight for their lives, livelihood, and everything they care about, with nothing handed to them on a platter.)

The Hunger Games (the first book in the trilogy) did not disappoint when it came to readable entertainment.  (The copy I had proclaimed joyfully that Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer couldn't put it down, just in case you weren't sure.)  If you've read any of this blog, you'll know that it's been a while since I picked up a page-turner like this one, an easy read in the sense that I didn't have to stop every few minutes and make sure I understood all the words or could grasp the political or historical implications of what I was reading.  This pushing of myself to read books I don't necessarily 'feel like' reading also had the added benefit of enabling me to put the book down halfway through.  This type of book used to keep me up reading til 3 or 4am, until I finished it, even if I could hardly keep my eyes open. 

When I did finish it, I was disappointed to discover that it left you wishing that you had book two ready at hand.  It feels a little as though the author has, instead of writing a full story and letting you read the whole thing, been persuaded by her publishers to split it into three so that she and they make more money.  Of course this didn't work on me because I beat the system by borrowing a copy from a friend.  (Although interestingly enough, and as a side note, I was startled a bit when I asked one friend who had just finished it if I could borrow her copy, and she said, "Oh, I read it on my Kindle".  It made me realise that one of the many downsides to the digitisation of society is that everything is individual.  I often put little pencil-marks next to quotes or sections I like, and friends of mine love to borrow books from me because it gives them an insight into what I enjoyed. No such thing with Kindles.  And I like being able to read anytime - even when a plane is taking off, or landing, or whether or not I have a charged battery.)

The book was very readable (including a few genuine mouth-drops, which is impressive), but it reads fairly dispassionately.  Despite my interest in the heroine, I felt that Katniss herself wasn't overly zealous about anything - her life, her death, the boy she's supposed to be in love with.  Perhaps, though, that's appropriate considering the society in which she lives, where an ominous Capitol feeds twelve children a year to a "game" that is more brutal than life, a bitter sacrifice year upon year for seventy-four years running, until the world that plays with people as toys, and the players themselves, become as numb as the computer screens on which they watch the games.

And strange to say, it didn't strike me as this horrifying thing that could happen...in many ways I feel it already has.  Big Brother; the emails about Christians being imprisoned or tortured for their faith; starving children who barely get a 'like' on Facebook...sadly I think the appeal of the Hunger Games is not the horror that this might happen, but the deep-down keen interest by most of the world that is already wishing it would.

Marmion by Sir Walter Scott

Inspired by my recent read about how the Scots invented the modern world, the next book I selected was the famous poem 'Marmion', by Sir Walter Scott.  My initial interest in the poem was inspired by one of my favourite Scottish fiction authors, D.E. Stevenson.  In some of her novels, one of the main characters will tell an old Scottish story, but will do it with such interest and feeling that instead of sounding like a history lesson, it resounds with romance and beauty.  Marmion is a poem, and not a historical lesson, of course, but it's based in historical truth, and if Sir Walter Scott is said to have invented the modern historical novel, then this is the place to begin.

Marmion is a delight from beginning to end.  It's a classic ballad, a love story, a stirring tale that takes you back to valiant knights and glory lost and battles fought.  Pale maidens, eager but untested youths, ghostlike figures, nuns, abbeys, castles, ships on seas and blood-stained battlegrounds, waving banners and secret letters, fear and joy and pain and love and hope revived and honour regained.

The language, like Shakespeare's, takes effort at first to wrap your head around. It's hard trying to read Marmion on a train, with a group of loud drunken boys singing at the top of their lungs; or when text messages are appearing on my phone, or after I've finished a day at my computer working with email and websites and online marketing.  But once you settle in, and turn off (or tune out) all the distractions, it captivates your mind and your heart, and you find yourself wishing you and those around you spoke so graciously or fiercely as you read. And much of it, if you interpret it aright, applies well today.  "Arise, Sir Ralph, de Wilton's heir! For King, for Church, for Lady fair, see that thou fight." - "Grieve not for they woes, disgrace, and trouble; for He, who honour best bestows, may give thee double."  Some quotes we know so well I expected to see them in quotation marks, then realised with a start that this was the statement in its infancy, before it was known.  "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!"- "And come he slow, or come he fast, it is but Death who comes at last."  

Some of it must be read aloud - I found myself muttering away to myself as I read, or sighing, or laughing aloud.  Marmion is told by one of his young charge that the Palmer had left quickly in strange array.  "In what array?' said Marmion, quick."  Young Blount begins, but takes so long over his speech that Marmion cuts in,  "Nay, Henry, cease! Thou sworn horse-courser, hold thy peace. Eustace, thou bear'st a brain - I pray, what did Blount see at break of day?'"   But some of the phrases inspire, or make me sigh to think I could ever write.  "But, when I think on all my wrongs, my blood is liquid flame!" - "Then happy those, beloved of Heaven, to whom the mingled cup is given; whose lenient sorrows find relief, whose joys are chasten'd by their grief."  "O, life and death were in the shout, recoil and rally, charge and rout, and triumph and despair." 

Clare, the sighing beautiful maiden, does not move me.  I find her insipid and pale, drifting along battlements and moaning in her spirit for the hard lot that is her life.  I feel a little like Gilbert Blythe, telling Anne Shirley, "Anne, nobody speaks that way. Look at that sap Percival who sits around mooning the entire time. He never lets a girl get a word in edgewise."  Anne insists that his poetry would win any girl's heart, but Gilbert retorts that "In real life she'd have pitched him."  I did feel a little like 'pitching' Clare for all her mooning...and to further confuse things, I was a full two-thirds of the way through the poem when I realised that Marmion (who is strong and valiant and fierce) is supposed to be the enemy, and I am supposed to be championing the also colourless Sir Ralph de Winton.  (With a name like that, I'm surprised he achieves anything battle-worthy.)  And I find myself agreeing with the editor's commentary at the end of the poem, that "it is in his incidental characters that Scott's gift of happy characterisation gets freest scope."  I've already mentioned the two young lads who make me laugh aloud, and the story of the ghostly warrior gives me a delicious shiver.  The most moving moment for me is when the Earl of Douglas, fierce, proud, refuses to shake Marmion's hand as he prepares to leave Tantallon Castle.  "Douglas round him drew his cloak, folded his arms, and thus he spoke: 'My manors, halls, and bowers, shall still be open, at my Sovereign's will, to each one whom he lists, howe'er unmeet to be the owner's peer. My castles are my King's alone, from turret to foundation-stone - the hand of Douglas is his own; and never shall in friendly grasp the hand of such as Marmion clasp."  And Marmion's "swarthy cheek burn'd like fire", and he roars, and wheels, and dashes out of the castle, and the Douglas orders the gate to crash, but the portcullis clangs shut having only managed to slice of the plume of Marmion's glorious helmet.  The descriptions of Tantallon Castle are all that I imagined them to be, and I move it higher on my list of places in Scotland to visit, so that I can stand there at the edge of the sea, with the wind whipping my hair, and see the whole story laid before me, perhaps quoting in my mind some of the verses:

 "Far less can my weak line declare
Each changing passion's shade;
Brightening to rapture from despair,
Sorrow, surprise, and pity there,
And joy, with her angelic air,
And hope, that paints the future fair,
Their varying hues display'd;
Each o'er it's rival's ground extending,
Alternate conquering, shifting, blending,
Till all, fatigued, the conflict yield,
And mighty Love retains the field."

Of course this is what made - and makes - Sir Walter Scott's works classic.  Strength, and fight, and love, and beauty.  What more do we each look for?  What do we feel unworthy of, yet still seek on?  And Scott knows this propensity of his readers, knows that the best he can wish is this, and with this he finishes his great poem:

"To every lovely lady bright,
What can I wish but faithful knight?
To every faithful lover too,
What can I wish but lady true?
And knowledge to the studious sage;
And pillow to the head of age.
To thee, dear school-boy, whom my lay
Has cheated of thy hour of play,
Light task, and merry holiday!
To all, to each, a fair good-night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light!"

How The Scots Invented The Modern World by Arthur Herman

This book has been sitting on my 'To Read' shelf for a long time - probably at least a year or two.  I love the idea of it, that the Scottish nation has influenced the modern world in more ways than many people (including the Scots) even realise.  But I had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't be an 'easy read', something to curl up with on a Monday evening with a cup of hot chocolate, so it stayed on the shelf until this year's resolution brought it out.

I am glad that I read it, and I would recommend it.  I'd recommend it for its overview of Scottish culture, the remarkable level to which this small country did influence (if not invent) the world as we know it, and a different perspective on British history as we've probably known it.  But unless you're (like me) in the midst of a strong resolution to read a full book all the way through to the end, I'd intersperse it with some other lighter books, because this can be hard going.  The first half is more of a political and economical history book - sprinkled with phrases like "James Mill made this quasi-paternalist view the cornerstone of British colonial policy".  You get the feeling that the author just shivers with delight at reading another tome by Adam Smith or David Hume, and imagines that you do, too.  He spends pages of detail on a publication like the Edinburgh Review, why it was influential, who contributed to it, how long it lasted, and why it was a shining beacon of truth and beauty in a land coming to know itself.  On Jacobitism and Ulster Scots and Culloden and the Forty-Five, and sometimes I'd read a paragraph three or four times before I saw a glimmer of understanding.  Partly that's me - I tend to read and skim quickly, and this isn't my normal kind of reading - but partly it's just this author's way of focusing on what's most interesting to him.  As per usual, with authors!

What also made it hard going was the classic hard view on the Presbyterians and Calvinists.  He starts right in quite literally on page one of chapter one saying that Calvinism's "austere and harsh dogmas...that the God of the Bible was a stern and jealous God, filled with wrath at all sinners and blasphemers...were themselves natural extensions of Knox's own personality".  As a Calvinist who attends a Reformed Presbyterian church in Scotland which is directly descended from the churches of that time and place, it's never enjoyable to see your beliefs and denomination reduced to that which is harsh, unkind, and miserable.  Statements like "the Kirk wiped out all traditional forms of collective fun" (and then listing out pagan rituals), or "one of the pillars of 'worldlie strength' that Knox despised was political authority" (it wasn't a despising of authority, it was a desire to see that authority relegated to its correct place, under God's authority), or "the Covenanters were inspired less by their love of democracy than by their hatred of Satan".  The author seems to almost thrill in scaring us with these horror-mongers who crept around the church, rooting out all fun and joy and laughter, and replacing it with anger, hatred, and wrathful judgment.  Sadly, this is a fairly typical view of Calvinistic theology by those who wish to see Scotland grow and thrive: I've attended business seminars at which the speaker proclaimed that one of the reasons Scots don't start businesses is because their spirits were crushed by Calvinistic theology.  Naturally many people want religion to be warm and welcoming, with no one feeling bad at any time, and I can definitely confirm that God's Word does not have that as its primary objective.  As a matter of fact, a clear understanding of the Scriptures indicates that you must have the bad news (we are sinners, we deserve God's judgment) in order to get to the good news (God in love paid the penalty Himself for sin, and we thereby escape that wrath and judgment, entering into abundant joy!).  But lest I turn this into a sermon (too late), I'll just say that one of the things I appreciated about this book was understanding how many people do view this aspect of Scotland's history.  There's no point only reading books with which you agree!

As you move into the second half of the book, things begin to speed on a bit.  The heavy-going of discussions on economics and descriptions of battles begins to move into details of Scots who invented, contributed, supported, delivered in thousands of ways you never knew.  You must give massive credit to the Scots (and I do); you truly get a sense of how they did indeed, for such a tiny country, massively impact the whole world.  The telephone, Morse code, universities all over Britain and England and America, the steam engine, the proliferation of exceedingly well-trained and educated Scottish doctors, the immigration of Scots especially into Canada and the United States, are just a few examples of many.  Andrew Carnegie (himself a Scot) says, "America would have been a poor show had it not been for the Scotch."  Sir Walter Scott:  "I am a Scot and therefore I had to fight my way into the world."  It's fascinating to learn about Sir Walter Scott, and his influence on the culture.  "Scott had not only invented the modern historical novel, but one of its enduring themes: the idea of cultural conflict. He revealed to his readers that the development of 'civilisation' or modernity does not leave  clean or neat breaks; one stage does not effortlessly pass on to the next."  The same for David Livingstone and Andrew Carnegie - the look into their lives was revealing for themselves, for their country, and for the results that were borne out of their efforts.

It made me want to read more of the greats - more Sir Walter Scott, more Robert Louis Stevenson; to read biographies of Andrew Carnegie and David Livingstone (although not, I confess, any more about Adam Smith, David Hume, or Francis Hutcheson - I think he covered those pretty thoroughly).  And this is often the beauty of pressing on through a classic, but challenging, book - it inspires you.  It doesn't leave you worn out and exhausted from staying up all night to 'find out what happens', it livens you up a bit, stretches your mind and imagination, increases your sense of pride and nationality, and brings the past just that little bit more into the present, so that you press on with more focus and commitment to what lies before you.  It made me thankful - as a Christian, for what God did in and through Scotland and its reformations.  It gave me newly opened eyes to the history and beauty surrounding me on a daily basis.  It rang true that so many Scots had such a remarkable combination of a hardworking ethic combined with creativity and a willingness to take risks.  As one who is American-born, and Scottish by naturalisation, I'm proud to see a combination of these very factors in my blood, and to understand a little better why.  If I look back to the very beginning, and take on board what Herman proposes, then I'm merely returning to my roots, not creating new ones.  Many Americans would feel the same - sometimes in Scotland we feel as though every American who comes through insists that they, too, are Scottish, even though they're not quite sure how or why.  The author here would agree - and reading his defense of the incredible outpouring of talent and energy that went into the United States from Scotland, I'm tempted to, as well.

Herman tried to end the book by putting a twist on Samuel Morse's first message, "What hath God wrought?"  As one whose focus is not God and His wonders, the author of this book wanted to put all the glory on the Scots.  I feel fairly confident that many of those whose works he so gloriously lauds would refuse that honour, and turn it back again on the God they worshiped, imitated, and loved.

Howard's End by E.M.Forster

This book was a trial to me from beginning to end.  I started it eagerly enough - even though it wasn't really on my 'list' of books I've always wanted to read, it's a classic (or at least I think it is) and what's more it was a short paperback.

By the time I was two-thirds through it, I was reading it the way Tom Hanks 'reads' Pride and Prejudice in the film You've Got Mail.  I literally would fling the book away, promising myself that I was done for good, I wasn't even going to finish it.  Then I would roll my eyes and pick it up again - mostly because I'm stubborn as a rock when it comes to reading books, and also because unless a book is actually sordid or perverted, I will finish it so that I know what it's like from beginning to end.

Well, I know now, and let me tell you: I cannot think of a single good reason to recommend it.  The story wanders along so aimlessly, as though the book itself is disinterested in its own plot.  There are two sisters who are admirable in their love for each other, and a lovely house that you anticipate they will one day live in, but the struggle to keep the sisters in a good relationship with each other, and to get to the house in the end, is not in the least worth all the bother of finding out how they get there. 

I think part of my frustration with it was that there is so much reality - so much of what real life dishes out that we don't like, and struggle through, and weep over, and hurt from - and no redemption.  The first scene that really caused me to scowl and fling the book away was Margaret (one of the sisters) writing a note to a neighbour to explain why she felt they shouldn't spend any time together. The note was written in haste, and even its content admitted that she was probably going to regret its writing, but it was written and sent, and later on Margaret goes with abject apologies to the neighbour and has to struggle through an awkward friendship that never quite gets on the right footing again.  I've done things like this - sent a text, or an email, or said something, and later regretted it and apologised, and had to manage through difficult relations as a result.  It's not pleasant, and I don't like to think on it further, and even less do I like imagining someone else doing it, especially when the result is a tepid understanding, and things are worse off than at the beginning.

Everything in the book seemed so wan, so uncaring.  I thought I liked Helen (the other sister) at first, and then she seemed flighty and irresponsible and foolish.  Then I thought I liked Margaret, but she was stiff and hard and illogical.  Margaret falls in love, but with a man who is not worthy of her (or anyone), and I can never admire her or her husband, and the book resignedly agrees with me in the end.  No one is admirable, no one joyful.  England is proclaimed as the greatest of all countries (perhaps this is one of the aspects I hold against it, as one loyal to Scotland), but there is nothing to support its claims.  Even the house itself, Howard's End, struggles to stand as something worth loving, when it is filled with such fools as these.

And to add blankness to folly, no one has strong beliefs of any kind - about anything, or anyone.  Pale, washed-out statements about there perhaps being a God, but perhaps not; or heaven being a vague and uninteresting place, and hell about the same; no point to life and no eternity to hope for.  "Life was a deep, deep river, death a blue sky, life was a house, death a wisp of hay, a flower, a tower, life and death were anything and everything..." - these kind of vague statements are peppered throughout, and make you feel a little as though the book was simply the result of Forster's dream, or babbled words on a psychologist's couch.

No, I didn't like it.  I'd be happy if I never finished it, but finish it I did, and although it was nice to get some kind of conclusion at the end, I felt a little as though there were several endings to it that were considered in succession and this one was simply chosen haphazardly from a scrap-bag.

I thought at first it was simply jet lag, or weariness, or just being tired of reading; but no, my point from Midnight in Austenland stands: a little too much reality is not what anyone wants - much less bland, washed-out reality with no clear trumpet call to glory, on this earth or beyond it.

At least Tom Hanks knows how I feel.

Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale

Interestingly enough, I ended up (thanks to jet lag) actually reading this book at midnight. And beyond.  After months of pressing on through books like Les Mis, Dante on Hell, The Letters of Samuel Rutherford, and Middlemarch, just to name a few, it was an incredibly smooth ride to pick up a novel like this and just breeze through it.  I forgot how easy reading could be.  One of the reasons I committed this year to finishing all the books I was half-way through is that I have a great tendency to fly through books like this, easy and fun reads, and to set aside the harder, more challenging ones. 

So when my sister excitedly sent me a copy a few months ago, I sighed and set it on the shelf for when I had finished all my half-started books.  After a few months in America (and a lot of traveling), I returned with the aforementioned jet lag and realised that I was ready to start a new book! Midnight in Austenland it was.  I brewed a cup of Earl Grey (with a slice of lemon, of course), and curled up on my favourite red sofa to read. 

Novels based on Austen are a dime a dozen these days – everyone fancies themselves an Austen fan, and a potential Austen writer.  I liked that this book isn’t an Austen wanna-be: the heroine lives in current times and has pretty normal twenty-first-century problems (like going through a divorce, trying to stay connected to her teenage children, and re-figuring out who she is as a person).  But she loves Austen, and decides to take a trip to England to visit some of the Austen sites.  The opportunity arises to stay for two weeks in a Pemberley-style house, dressing in the Regency style, living and speaking and eating as in the Austen days.  

I like her merging of a current-times mindset with a past-times style of living.  As any of us would do, she disappears into historical times for the most part, every once in a while wondering what she’s doing there and whether it is changing her life yet.  As she arrives at the venue, she looks over the landscape and wills it to help her, thinking to herself: “Come on, change me. I dare you.”  And later on, dressed in full Regency style, she stares at herself in the mirror and wonders if the change has begun.  “Lately she’d become the Divorced Woman. She’d let herself be defined by what James had done to her. Now it was her chance to redefine things.  I choose this, she told the reflection. The reflection didn’t change. She hoped it wouldn’t take its time. She only had two weeks.” 

In some ways, the plot twists and turns surprised me a little, if only because from the beginning I thought maybe, just maybe, this would turn out to be one of those books that mirrors real life a little more accurately.  I have a feeling if I went to Austenland for two weeks, I wouldn’t be nearly murdered (twice), solve a centuries-old mystery, and fall in love to boot.  And get a few other happy endings that I won’t spoil for you.  And sometimes I almost wish that books like this went that route, so I don’t feel so bad that my life doesn’t have the perfect happy ending in the middle of my days.

But then, that’s not why we read books like this.  We read them for the exceptions, for the fairy tales.  We read them for inspiration and remembering that, sometimes, people do get happy endings.  The handsome man appears out of nowhere, the relationship with children is restored, the woman who thought herself as plain is actually quite beautiful.  We all want to be Cinderella (or Elizabeth Bennett, or Emma), and so we read – and write – books like this.

So go on – have a read.  Curl up in your favourite chair, or couch, or bed, make yourself a perfect cup of tea, don’t let anyone interrupt you, and get whisked away to Austenland.  After the day (or week, or year) you have probably had, you could use a little fairy tale happiness. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

 

This was a surprising treatise on beauty, and the manner in which it is distorted by sin. 

The opening preface included a few nuggets that captured my interest immediately, and caused me to choose this book over a few others I was debating reading at the moment:

• The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
• Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.  Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
• No artist desires to prove anything.
• No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
• It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. 
• The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.

The more I read, the more I find that I’m trying less to understand if I think the writer or the book is ‘right’, and I’m endeavouring more to simply look intelligently at what is written and glean some new light, or new perspective, on my own thoughts and life.  (There are some books that are sordid or ugly, and they poison the mind even in a small way. Those I set aside the moment the realisation comes upon me, because there will be no good or beauty to be gleaned from something that has set itself out to destroy, or to describe destruction in an ugly way.)

The rough story of Dorian Gray is that of a beautiful, almost a young Greek god of a man, whose portrait is painted.  He stands before it and utters the wish that he might always be so beautiful, and that only the portrait itself would reflect the passing of the years.  “For that – for that – I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!” the young Dorian cries.

And over the years it is so.  What fascinates me is the resulting effect on those who relate to this young man.  They cannot believe any atrocities of him, any sins, because one look at his young, glorious, untroubled face, and their minds are soothed.  “Men who talked grossly became silent when Dorian Gray entered the room. There was something in the purity of his face that rebuked them.”  Sin and evil are always, eventually, reflected in the face.  Even just a cruel twist of the lips, or a ‘something’ in the eyes, but those whose souls are cruel cannot reflect a purity and innocence to the world – truly the soul shines out of the eyes, and the face.  Dorian cheats this rule, but as always with rule exceptions, there are effects he did not imagine.  He longs to be pure and beautiful inside, but when he makes brave resolutions, he is falsely comforted by his own visage and beauty. 

The portrait, as he wished, takes on all the ugliness of his own soul, and Dorian has a lifelong fascination with it – going days or months hardly thinking of it, and then suddenly possessed with a fierce desire to see it, in a vain hope that the beauty will, somehow, return.  Even when he makes a noble sacrifice and rushes to the painting with a desire to see change, he is horrified to discover that there is “no change, save that in the eyes there was a look of cunning, and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome – more loathsome, if possible, than before.” 

I was struck by the constant references to art and beauty – the author has a true passion for it, and a real understanding that true beauty cannot exist hand in hand with evil, or with sin.  There are passages without number detailing Dorian Gray’s search for beauty in the world around him – in jewelry, and tapestries, and music, and perfumes.  You feel swept away reading about “the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates, and stitched over with iridescent beetles’ wings; the Dacca gauzes, that from their transparency are known in the east as ‘woven air’.”  His descriptions are like few I’ve read before – here are just a few of the phrases that caught at the edge of my mind:

“The light shook and splintered in the puddles.”

“The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl.”

“Noiselessly, and with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden. The colours faded wearily out of things.”

There are more, many more…but to go on would prevent the need for you to read the book in its entirety, and there is nothing like reading the fullness of a book to come away with a real understanding of its heart and soul.  Be aware as you read it that you may be holding a mirror up to your own soul.