A New Blog!

I've been taking more and more pictures lately, and even with what I post here a lot of them end up sitting on my hard drive. So I finally decided to start a separate blog for them: de Lumine, hosted on Blogger. I spent all last week setting it up and there are still some things to be done, but I'm ready for visitors!

My sister

Book Find: Will o' the Mill

On July 4th we went downtown to see a parade--down in the old section of town, with all the little shops and artisans and restaurants--and afterwards we spent some time poking into the shops. Brother J spotted this book in one of the antique stores and I loved it. It's leatherbound, with ink-and-watercolor illuminations and a beautiful frontspiece. It was made by Elbert Hubbard at the Roycroft Shop in East Aurora NY (which is about a half hour from Buffalo--we came very close to visiting while we were up there).




Unfortunately the binding is broken and several of the pages are coming out. Does anyone know how a book like this could be repaired, or whether it would be wise to try?

Silver

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and a silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

- Walter de la Mare

(John Duke did a lovely job putting this poem to music. I'm learning the song for my voice lessons.)

Book Find: Y Bibl

I like looking at old books. I like looking at books in other languages. So I was curious when I was in the Old and Rare section of our local used books store a couple weeks ago and saw the title of this Bible. Imagine my excitement to find that it's in Welsh, one of my favorite languages, and it was printed in honor of the coronation of an English King. I mean, I say!

Edward VII R & I
Coronwyd
Mehefin 26
1902
Duw gadwo'r Brenhin

("Edward VII R & I, coronated June 26 1902. God save the King." I'm not sure about the R & I.)

Presented to Arianwen Thomas

The Gospel of John

Quote for Pip

In my Twilight review I mentioned a C.S. Lewis quote, and I think this is the one I was thinking of:

"In this sub-species [of bad science fiction] the author leaps forward into an imagined future when planetary, sidereal, or even galactic travel has become common. Against this huge backcloth he then proceeds to develop an ordinary love-story, spy-story, wreck-story, or crime-story. This seems to me tasteless. Whatever in a work of art is not used, is doing harm. The faintly imagined, and sometimes strictly unimaginable, scene and properties, only blur the real theme and distract us from any interest it might have had." (C.S. Lewis, On Science Fiction, in the collection Of Other Worlds)

There's also this one: "I have sometimes wondered whether the 'excitement' may not be an element actually hostile to the deeper imagination." That's taken from On Stories (also in Of Other Worlds), in which Lewis is arguing that there is more that draws us to story than the action and suspense of the plot. It's an excellent essay; if you ever get the chance, read it.

Twilight

I also read the first three Twilight books this week. They were engaging some of the time (I like Alice) but I found them rather frustrating. Stephanie Meyers has a good story in there, but she can't seem to find it. (Not that I won't read the fourth book too when I get the chance...) Anyway, I've been thinking about the books in relation to three quotes.

The first is C.S. Lewis's, which I shall have to paraphrase because our internet is still down and I am working away from home and I don't have my copy of Of Other Worlds with me. Lewis said that there are certain ideas that can only be explored with fantasy. But many writers unfortunately jump onto the fantasy bandwagon, missing the point of fantasy and writing "fantasy" stories that could just as well--or better--be written without the fantasy element. Lewis laid down a general rule, that if the fantastic element isn't integral to your story--drop it.

Stephanie Meyers seems to me to have this problem. She has the makings of a great fantasy story in the love affair between a mortal and a vampire (I'm hearing echoes of Tuck Everlasting and the Lay of Luthien), but she instead fills her story with irrelevant action and teen angst.

I'll leave the other two quotes without commentary.

"Love, having become a god, becomes a demon." (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves)

"Q: Maybe writing is some kind of Resurrection Stone.
"A: Yes, of course, but I think you realize that once you’re writing to make a dream come true. If it’s just like that then, for me, writing loses its worth. Describing your fantasy is not the same as creating a world." (J.K. Rowling, interview with Spanish magazine El Pais)

Offline

This will be short - I'm posting from a friend's house because, after some bad storms on Thursday, our internet went out and is still out two days later. I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever have internet again.

In the meantime, this week I read the first three books of the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, about unextraordinary Bella, who goes to Forks, Oregon and is suddenly every guy's dream, including the unearthly gorgeous vampire, Edward, who she falls in love with, and one of the local werewolves. Werewolves happen to be the mortal enemies of vampires.

There are so many questions left unanswered . . . What will happen to Bella? Will she end up a vampire and love Edward forever? Will Edward put up with her whining, stubbornness and selfishness that long? Will she stay human and pretend to be his grandmother when she's eighty and he's still seventeen because vampires don't age? Or, in a bizarre twist, will she ditch Edward altogether and decide to run away with the werewolf? Would this series seem less self-absorbed if it hadn't been written in the first person, from Bella's point of view? Was it really necessary for this series to be so steamy that I'd blush to think of my preteen daughter reading it (if I wanted her reading about vampires and werewolves, that is)? Why is it that every time I think of Bella and Edward, I can't get the song "Muskrat Love" out of my head?

This quote from the first book pretty much sums it up (it may not be exact; the book is loaned out and I typed it from memory): "There were threre things I knew for certain. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was some part of him--I didn't know how large a part--that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."

Everything seems to hinge on the Big Question of whether vampires have souls. There's a new fourth book in the series. I might just read reviews (spoilers) to see what happens. But I have my own theory. I think it will go something like this: "But if the Volturi could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, they would have read there a different incantation. They would have known that when a willing vegetarian vampire who had committed no treachery was willing to suffer eternal destruction in a human's stead, the Table would crack and Transformation itself would start working backward . . . "

Here's my favorite quote from the series--Good Vampire Edward can read most peoples' minds; Good Vampire Alice has a limited ability to see into the future. "Edward and Alice playing chess was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. They'd sat there nearly motionless, staring at the board, while Alice foresaw the moves he would make and he picked the moves she would make in return out of her head. They played most of the game in their minds; I think they'd each moved two pawns when Alice suddenly flicked her king over and surrendered. It took all of three minutes."

I've also started Ruth Beechick's You Can Teach Your Child Successfully. And I'm changing over Parents' Review article files on the amblesideonline website - merely a cosmetic change, just so they look better. The last 150 are done; the rest are in progress. Then, during the next couple of years, I'll read through them one a day, proofreading as I go.

Miss M's Swing Pictures

The cute one

The silly one

The sweet one

The fun one

Miss M's Plans for Grandma's Future

Miss M was thinking out loud as I was laying with her at bedtime. She said out of the blue, "Tutu (grandma) needs to marry somebody." I asked her why. "Because then I'll have a grandpa. Both of my grandpas are in heaven. I wish I could go to heaven to see them." She never met either of her grandpas, but she loves her Tutu, who she's met. Actually, I didn't know she was able to put all of that together. We haven't talked about it all that much.

I don't think Tutu knows that plans are being made on her behalf.