This Month's Books - August 2005

It has been a fun month of reading. I was introduced to Father Brown, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Catherine Morland, and explored deeper the wonderful realms of C.S. Lewis's imagination and Jane Austen's 18th century England.


The Life of Thomas More by William Roper (More's son-in-law)
Actually a re-read, but I had forgotten a lot. It has some strict biography mixed with anecdotes from his family and personal life, as well as the tale of More's friendship and disagreement with (and eventual execution by) Henry VIII.

Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers
My first Sayers novel. A well-wrought, exciting and rather unusual mystery.

The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
A collection of short mysteries solved by the equally short Father Brown: a very likeable man with a turn for theological philosophy and criminal cases. Chesterton's "uncommon sense" shows through tantalizingly. I must read some of his apologetic works...

The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
The same as the above, only more so (if possible).

Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
A series of short stories, each based upon a theory or principle of modern science. The principles themselves are sometimes questionable, but the stories are very entertaining--if very strange, in a way that reminds me of Madeline L'Engle or Lewis Carroll. Some mild sensuality appears in the love of the quantum particles, mollusks, dinosaurs et cetera that make up the characters of these stories.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
A well-written story (no surprise there), witty and entertaining. Miss Morland is a different heroine than I am used to in Austen--more naive, perhaps. I confess I prefer Lizzy...but a good book all the same.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
There's so much I don't know where to begin. Several levels of enjoyment: wit and humour, "knowable" characters, and a surprising plot (even if you know it already). Much food for thought, too: the prudence and imprudence of Elinor and Marianne, the intricate characters with understandable motives and morals, and even Marianne's romantic opinions on poetry, life and cliches.

Of Other Worlds by C. S. Lewis
A collection of essays and short stories. Lewis's opinions on film, fairy-tales, criticism (et al.) are enlightening, and his short stories are interesting. Did you know he started a novel about Menelaus and Helen after Troy?

AO Curriculum Help for Katrina's Displaced Families

It's not enough, and it was a rush job, but it's something. Hopefully, it helps families who lost their homeschool materials in the hurricane.

"A free, complete, user-friendly curriculum plan for homeschooling families who need support, encouragement and alternatives to the curriculum they've lost in a disaster, and also for churches and other groups needing to set up temporary schools for children who may not have been homeschooled. All texts and teaching materials needed to implement this plan are free online. The only things you need are access to a computer and printer, paper and pencil."

http://www.amblesideonline.org/HELP.shtml
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So Quiet . . . .

I'm not used to the house being this quiet. Where are the boys? I don't hear them playing. Are they building with Legos in their room? No. Swinging wooden swords in the basement? Running around outside? No, too windy. Where are they??

There they are, in the family room, all three of them, one on the couch reading The Black Arrow, one in the rocker reading Sense and Sensibility and the other on the floor reading Paddington Bear. What a picture!

It's really unusual for the house to be this quiet, and for all of them to be reading for so long in one day. And we haven't even started our school year yet!

Our First School Tea

I feel like I lost the last couple of years, between working with AO and having the baby. But this year is going to be different. My children are growing up so fast and I feel like I could be making more of the opportunity to be with them while I still can. I've had this verse in my mind for awhile: "A wise woman strengthens her family, but a foolish woman destroys hers by what she does." (Prov 14: 1) I don't want to let the time I have with them slip through my fingers. I'm inspired from the recent AO conference, both from hearing the speakers, and from watching Queen Shenaynay's family in action during our stay at their beehive. I'm hoping to spend more time enjoying my kids and enjoying our school year instead of just trying to rush through it. I haven't got it all worked out yet, but one thing we're going to do is to have tea a couple times a week.

We've done that some Sundays, but I think we need something to make our schooldays a little more fun. Tuesdays and Thursdays we have nothing going on, so those will be our tea days.

The first thing to do--plan for success by getting the tea things out where they'll be easy to get to, and easy to put away. I re-organized a shelf to make room for the teapot and cups - including Miss M's plastic cup and saucer. :)

Then a trip to the health food store to get some non-trans fat treats and organic cheese. I figure fruit-nuts-cheese-and a treat ought to be a nice routine.

Today, being Tuesday, was our first school tea (even though we don't start school for almost two week). We put on Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, buckled Miss M in her chair, and we had tea.

Jane Austen Novel Quiz

The Pride and Prejudice type: Truly an Austenite,
this type is a Romantic at heart, but they
always keep their head and are wary of
melodrama. Lively, clever, and independent.
These people are easily amused by their own
foibles and the quirkly foibles of others. They
lament society today, and dream of the time
when guys were gentlemen and s were ladies.


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Our Little Hobbit

Picture taken by J

My Favorite Cow

I don't know why I love this cow, but I do. I'm not even particularly fond of cows. It's something that somebody painted on the side of their out-building on their farm. I took this picture years ago, but it seemed to want to be posted in my blog, so here it is:

The Educated Imagination chapter 6 by Northrop Frye

I started writing my own summaries of this book as a way to help myself absorb more of it. Previous chapter summaries are here:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

I had to set the book aside for a couple of weeks to tend to other things, but I finished the sixth (and last) chapter just now, and it was the best chapter in the book! He explains how education needs to expand our entire beings, not just bits and pieces of us, and we need to have a vision, not just cliches and opinions . . . it all ties right in with why CM thought that the whole *person* needed to be educated, and taught to reflect and think. Very CM, this book is. ;)

Chapter 6 - The Vocation of Eloquence

Everyone should know how to read and write, but why does that have to include literature? Language/communication is on three levels, and reading and writing needs to be done at all three levels. We all have an imagination. It's what makes us dream when we sleep. And some of us have educated our imaginations, and some don't.

The way we experience society is based on our imaginations, it's our perception of what the world is that makes us act the way we do. Our worldview isn't a tangible reality, it's how we perceive reality--it's within our imagination. We rarely speak totally honestly--it wouldn't be proper. We don't say how awful our friend looks, or we choose to overlook an awkward remark, or we keep our discomfort to ourselves for the benefit of others. Frye likens this kind of speech to wearing Sunday clothes. Our words clothe our real feelings and hide what would be improper to show publicly. On the receiving end, we pretend to take what we hear at face value. When a friend insists that she's fine, we may opt not to pry, even though we know she's upset. It's a kind of dance we do, reading between the lines while being polite about taking the words at face value.

As a society, we have a bigger dance. We refer to a country or our own government as a single individual. Advertisers have gotten wise to this aspect of society and they use it for their own ends, to sell the public an image of status, acceptance and security that everybody idealizes, yet knows doesn't really exist. It's a world of illusion, and we choose what to accept and believe, and what to reject as false. Politicians attempt to appeal to our emotions by presenting only part of the truth. If we're not wise, we can be swept up, like the Nazis were under Hitler. Our part is to accept a certain amount of status quo, to adapt to the illusion enough to survive in the world without rocking the boat.

When people in a society get insecure, usually because changes are coming too fast, they huddle for security behind cliches and stereotypes. They label those who are different ('commie,' 'imperialist pig,' racial slurs) in an attempt to dehumanize or even demonize them. People who wholeheartedly buy into those stereotypes are not thnking freely, they're refusing to see the whole truth. Real people are complex and never fit neatly into a stereotype.

Then there's jargon, where lots of impressive but vague words really mean nothing, or hide the truth (the kind of language that turns a housewife into a 'domestic engineer.') Politicians use it to hide or soften the truth. Ordinary people use it for diplomacy, or tact. Direct speech is forceful, but jargon makes things sound less imposing than they really are. For instance, an email moderator might say, "We'll activate your membership when we've assessed your interest in this list," instead of "We don't want spammers! If you're a spammer, stay away!" LOL!

There are other illusions that society uses--the myth that it was better in the simple, good old days and that the world is declining and society is getting more and more immoral. The truth is, every society has always thought the world was getting worse and youth was corrupt and rebellious. Or, conversely, that progress with its factories and technology will bring a better world for everyone. The truth is rarely that black and white.

Generalizations and stereotypes aren't useful to someone seeking the truth. They tend to be used by people who want to sway the masses with fear. When people feel threatened, they react without consciously thinking through their actions--they resort to name-calling and labelling.

Wise people understand that they need to exercise discernment and choice. In wartime, a society agrees to accept propaganda, understanding the need for half-truths until the war is over. In a totalitarian regime, discernment and choice are limited by only allowing one view to be spoken. In George Orwell's book 1984, language was so debased that only meaningless jargon was allowed.

What does this have to do with studying literature? Language and literature are part of our right to free speech. Mob rule has no free speech--the mob overrides and drowns out everything in a cliche or slogan. Generalizations (the kind of liberalism that criticizes Bush every time he opens his mouth, or right-wing fanaticism that sees a conspiracy in every bit of environmental legislation) aren't really free speech. They're hysteria that's blinded to the truth. They're vague cynicism looking for a mob to follow along. And a mob can never exercise freedom.

Mobs operate on fear and ignorance. Freedom operates on truth, and that takes education. To improvise freely on the piano, you need training and practice. To go wherever you want, you need to be able to walk, and that takes practice. In the same way, freedom of speech doesn't happen all by itself. It takes more than skill with rhetoric and grammar. It takes years of practice handling ideas until you have something worthwhile to *say.* So, freedom of speech is really something that's exercised fully by only a very few thinkers.

Most people adapt to the illusion of society, they accept status quo. But in order to find meaning in life, people need more than that. They need more than keeping pace with the illusion of reality. it's those who see beyond the illusion with their imagination, and imagine something better. Then they use their freedom of speech to pass that vision on to others and make it a reality. It's the few educated people whose ideas inspire people to work together to make the real world a better place. That's why people become doctors, or work for peace as a social worker, or teach. Their vision for a better world becomes an unselfish act.

Humanity is a constant. People are always people, whether they live in 1500 or 2005. And the spirits of those people are immortalized their ideas and thoughts, which are stored in books. So, while fashions may come and go, and buildings may crumble, the human spirit lives on in books. The vision of a better world (or the warning about not seeking a better world) is what we find in the best of literature. That's usually what's meant by 'culture.' It's in the records of those visions for a better world that we find the standards and values that are more eternal than the shadowy illusion of current society. If we're going to go beyond just existing and keeping the status quo, we need to read those books.

It's natural to use language to express our immediate needs, and to be diplomatic. That keeps society running. But the world pressures us to live in fear and join the mob, labelling anyone who's different and regarding new ideas with suspicion. Every time we resist that pressure, we're using language to express something beyond our own immediate needs, and beyond diplomatic politeness. We're exercising our free speech and joining the 'great conversation' that tries to preserve the permanent spirit of man. We're using our imagination to go beyond the illusion and to join with the voices of all of humanity.

Jane Austen novel quiz

The Sense and Sensibility type: These delightful
(:-P) people have their feet set firmly in the
Eighteenth Century. Devotees of satire and
irony, they are far more likely to be reading
Alexander Pope or Jonathan Swift than Lord
Byron or William Wordsworth (no offense to
these men; all four have merit). Generally
reserved and self-controlled, they quite often,
though not always, resemble Elinor more than
Marianne.


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Prelude in C Major by J.S. Bach

I apologize for the static. And yes, there is a skip in the audio file; I'm not sure why.