Little Women Page: 370

Despite reading nothing but a children’s book today I’m still behind. I had so much work in the bookstore and the babies were a handful and a half so there was nothing for it but to fall further behind. I spent a few hours logging books into our database, packaging books for shipping and answering emails. I also spent a lot of time rolling around on the floor and playing with Alex. It is such fun to get him giggling. Luc has been on the fussy side and isn’t yet to the point that he can entertain himself. As he is staying up for longer hours during the day I’m spending long stretches working with one hand. It’s not too hard to read one-handed, but it usually works out that as soon as I get settled with book in hand and Luc across my lap, Alex gets into trouble or the phone rings or I have to pee.

Jared and I conned Brandi into working a little late today so we could go to Fanci Freeze for lunch and take Alex to run and play in the park. He had so much fun running on the grass, sliding, and crawling through the plastic tunnels. He wasn’t too thrilled with the swings but he’s still pretty small so I can understand why the motion might be a little scary. We didn’t take the camera to the park but here are a couple shots from this morning in the bookstore.

Alex is trying to hug his brother who looks more like a little old man than a two-month old!

Essays George Orwell Page: 63

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Page: 220

I haven’t read Little Women in almost forever (at least 10 years) and I’m having the same nostalgic experience I had with Black Beauty. If anything Little Women is more preachy than Sewell’s book but I’m liking it better. No temperance league nonsense so far and the girls are sweet but real with real problems and tendencies. I’ve actually been close to tears a couple of times this afternoon and not just because I’m fondly remembering my mom reading it to us. I like the lessons it is trying to teach and I don’t remember finding them offensive as a child so they must not be too nauseating (children are really the best judges).

I know I’m not far enough into the Essays to make this kind of proclamation but damn the torpedoes. Orwell is a Gawd-Awful Prig. He is dreary, dull and unhappy. Nothing is good enough for him and he wants to legislate away all our problems. But oh my goodness, the pettiness of it all! And the dreariness, it makes me want to go bathe in The Divine Comedy again. Even the “Inferno” would at least be more vivid. I did enjoy the first half of Orwell’s essay “Bookshop Memories” but not his conclusions. He writes of the foibles of bookstore customers, all of whom I readily identify, but then his feeling that thousands of books together are ugly and his distaste for the dusty smell of them alienates me. I love books, love them piled together, love to dust and wipe them to make them clean, love organizing them into decent shape and love to see rows upon rows of titles lined up together.

I decided to go back and add to this post right after posting it because I realized I hadn’t said anything about my day…which was fairly normal and not at all exciting. So why am I editing? Well, Jared says he likes it when I post both about the books I’m reading and the day-to-day stuff too. And speaking of Jared, this is the third night this week that I’ve closed the shop and for some reason I miss him more than ever. I’m one of those annoying people that still likes their spouse (and I know we’ve only been married three years but we have had two kids, started two businesses, and partially remodeled a house together so it’s almost like we’ve been married ten years) and I hate the way our schedule keeps us from spending much time together. When we’re at Veritas we may have peaceful moments but we’re liable to be interrupted any second by either a customer or our boys so extended conversations are hard to manage. And, of course, we’re rarely home together unless we’re falling asleep. None of this has changed or gotten any worse but it’s been lonelier to be at the coffeehouse; probably because I don’t have Alex and Luc to distract me or to hug and hold. I’ve really enjoyed the change of pace and having a little more time to read and some peace from the incessant demands of little ones but I’m missing my husband more acutely so I think I’m making him stay up late tonight so we can have some alone time.

Love in the Time of Cholera Page: 422

Essays by George Orwell Page: 30

I’ve been contemplating a more in-depth analysis of Marquez’s book than has been my wont in this project. It is a love-story. And it is complex and well-written. It is also serious. Which leads me to this quotation from Doug Wilson’s blog: “At any rate, here is the thought that came out of this, and is related to something C.S. Lewis said somewhere, I think describing the oeuvre of D.H. Lawrence (oeuvre is a fancy French word to describe the work of self-important people). Lewis said that there is a common fallacy out and about that thinks that a long face is a moral disinfectant, that basic moral considerations do not come into play just so long as you take whatever it is you are doing seriously. According to this odd theory, the sin is not found in the sin itself, but rather in any frivolous response to it. What we need around here is a furrowed brow, intensity of purpose, a willingness to talk about how ‘Americans need to become more comfortable with our bodies,’ the tapping of the front teeth with a thoughtful pencil, and a desire to tie sexual liberation in with justice concerns for coffee growers in Central America.” Serious (in heavy quotes and with due emphasis) immorality is still immorality. And a literary treatment does not make sex scenes not sex scenes. There are well written books that deal with the topics of love, marriage, and adultery that do so without indulging in the same type of sin they are portraying (Anna Karenina comes to mind). This is a well-written book. So well written that it is inspiring me to renew my practice of keeping a diary of love notes to my husband. But it fails by being unchaste and it is not a book for chaste people. Unfortunately it is very easy for an intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual) to be fooled into believing that he is immune to the charms of erotic writing because it is of such low literary quality, unfortunately he will easily fall prey to pretentious erotic writing while imagining that he is appreciating it for its literary merits. Rant over.

We got away from the bookstore this evening thanks to the gracious volunteerism of a friend and so we went out for dinner. Madness I know. We took both little ones and had dinner with Jared’s folks. Fortunately, they are patient people who didn’t mind the minor chaos of a one-year-old in a restaurant, Gabe and Colby showed up giving us two more people to take turns wrestling with Alex and Luc was a sweetheart and slept the whole time. We had Mexican food with the help of a gift card from another gracious friend and while it’s not my favorite cuisine I love a margarita and took the opportunity to enjoy one. I have a few pictures…one of the books I’ve bought so far. The column on the left is the books I’ve read, the short row between columns is the selection of children’s books and I’ve read up to the third from the right and the column on the right is the books I own but have yet to read. Orwell’s Essays is the book sitting on the desk and it’s definitely the fattest one on my list. It looks pretty impressive I think (at over 1500 pages it ought to).

And here’s the adorable Alex from his trip to the park yesterday.

Love in the Time of Cholera Page:319

I’m finding myself less emotional and more at peace with life as the days go on. I still long for more and uninterrupted sleep and I would love to have a little more time off with Jared. But on the whole life is achieving a sort of even keel and contentment is gradually becoming mine. Gradually the specter of Post Partum Depression is receding. One nice development has been Jared becoming more confident of being able to care for the boys on his own. This means that in the last three days I’ve actually worked at Veritas by myself twice. Sunday afternoon was restful because of the chance to be alone with my thoughts for awhile and this evening has worked out the same way. Of course tonight Jared kept sending me messages with pictures of him and Alex playing in the park so I’m continually being reminded of how much I miss all three of them.

Marquez’s book is proving quite the contrast to Austen. Austen is probably the least physical writer imaginable. Her characters bodies are described in the most limited way and with generalities, while their minds are frequently, explicitly and meticulously demonstrated. Marquez is almost grossly physical. His prose is lovely, so lovely that it sometimes takes a moment to distinguish the repulsiveness of the scene he is describing. Gross sexuality is fairly graphically detailed and the disgusting city his characters inhabit minutely portrayed. I cannot imagine having to live in the midst of so much dirt and dirtiness but somehow he manages to describe it affectionately. I’m thinking about the issues of sexuality in the book and may provide a thoughtful review tomorrow…or I might forget all the deep thoughts I had today and all the input Brent provided and just post fluff…ahh the vicissitudes of life!

Now I have more books I want to read but can’t until next year! I want to read this one which is apparently about a made up territory that was sold by a con artist to unsuspecting settlers.

Persuasion by Jane Austen Page: 249 Finished

A Apple Pie and Traditional Nursery Rhymes by Kate Greenaway Page: 96 Finished

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Page: 57

Persuasion was excellent and the ending as satisfying as all of Austen’s. Her heroines are the most cerebral in fiction and I love the way all her stories are stories of thoughts, impressions and manners. Her characters are so recognizable and the frustrations endured within the family circles she creates are true today though we often do not have the patience-to-endure that her heroines exhibit. I’m sure her social life must have contained many of the little irritations she describes so well.

Reading Kate Greenaway’s book makes me feel like I’m cheating. It’s both short and incredibly easy to read but truly, I’m glad I read it, I’m glad it’s on my list. The illustrations are marvelous and just the kind of thing I want to have around for Alex and Luc to read and look at. I think it is important to have beauty around and both Greenaway’s and Caldecott’s illustrations fill the bill.

I haven’t long intended to read Marquez’s book and as I start it the contrast between it and Austen seems sharp. I’m not sure how the novel will develop but I’m pretty sure that the “carnal love” referred to on the flap will end up being full-blown sexual sin but not identified as such, although the Catholicism of the culture may provide the appropriate check. Some people can read Christ into any work of art no matter how opposite that reading may be to the intentions of the artist. But I’ve a harder time seeing past the surface of such works and identifying the ways in which reality breaks through the pretensions of art. Anyway, we’ll wait and see.

I’ve firmly decided on Ulysses for my read-aloud and hope to start this week. I have to wait until the book arrives though, so hold your Thursday night schedule in suspense until mail-time that day…

I had one of those mom-days today. Alex spit-up all over me (the result of too much roughhousing I think) and when I went home to change clothes I realized that I’d forgotten that I didn’t have my house keys. They were nowhere to be found this morning because Jared mistook them for his (which he’d left at Veritas on Saturday) and absconded with them early this morning. I had Quinn drop by and lock the house up this morning but failed to get my keys back from Jared before heading home to change. Therefore, I’ve been wearing my fleece jacket all afternoon and ROASTING in it. Better than smelling of baby puke but still not comfy. Blech.

Persuasion by Jane Austen Page: 180

So I said in yesterday’s post that I had finished The Divine Comedy and when I wrote and posted it I was within 20 pages but instead of actually finishing those pages like I intended, I stood in the kitchen and chatted with Gabe and Amanda. Bad llama. Normally I count only the pages I’ve actually read by the time I do my blog post and any pages read after that count for the next day. That makes it much easier to keep track and it keeps me honest. But for some reason I really wanted to be done with Dante and so I lied. It’s not that I haven’t been enjoying the book, I have very much, it’s just that I felt like I’d been taking too long to finish it I guess. I’ve actually enjoyed almost every word of it and I can see myself picking it up again and again in coming years. Dante evokes such powerful images of both peace and torment, his philosophy deserves thoughtful consideration, and his theology is so far from contemporary feel-good, name-it and claim-it garbage that I want to linger over his words. Anyway, The Divine Comedy now joins The Confessions of St Augustine and Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson as future re-reads.

I’ve been reading Persuasion most of the afternoon and find it just as enjoyable as ever. I don’t really have a favorite Austen novel, they are all so perfect but I do have something to complain of in Everyman’s edition of Persuasion. It actually has several typos in it including several that make the sense of a sentence hard to get at. Still the novel is quite pleasant and I almost burst out laughing (in the middle of our crowded coffee shop) when Sir Walter described another man as “shockingly underhung”. I’ve no idea what he meant by it but I know what I think of!

I’ve been quite surprised to find myself reading only one or two books at a time. Normally I’m into three, four, maybe ten and enjoying everyone. I think the necessity of typing out the titles of the books I was reading that day and calculating the page numbers has constrained me to limit myself. It might actually be good for me…I’m not sure.

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell Page: 281 Finished

The Divine Comedy Page: 541 Finished

So there are plenty of wondering comments here and elsewhere as to how I can actually read so much every day. A few points of explanation. I really, really like to read and while some of these books are not necessarily my first choice, they are still mostly the type of books I like. I’ve never been a reader of current or popular fiction so if I’m not reading a classic, I’d be reading a non-fiction work. When you really, really like to do something you tend to make it your priority. A lot of people want to be readers like a lot of people want to be in shape but if you don’t actually love reading or love exercising you probably won’t be spending your time with your nose in a book or running five miles a day. Some people have great character and substitute discipline for passion but I’m not that virtuous; I just happen to love what other people think is a “good” thing and I read very fast - about twice as fast as is ‘normal’. Also as insane as my work and ‘mom’ schedule is I happen to be married to the sweetest and most considerate man alive. Jared is happy to take whatever job is busier so I can read. If the boys are sleeping he watches the coffee shop so I can curl up with my book; likewise if the boys are up and needing attention and I’m behind, he’s happy to take care of them and watch the bookstore while I read between making lattes. When I told him I wanted to do this project he was very supportive and as our lives have stayed insane he has continued to make my schedule his priority (and seriously in two months the only time he’s been away from work and us was one short afternoon ski trip with his dad up to Bogus Basin). Anyway, he’s the hardest worker I know and he also manages to be the most selfless person I’ve ever met. Even though he gets up for work every morning at 6:30 and he closes Veritas nearly every night he still gets up in the night with Luc at least once and he always asks me how my reading is going for the day as soon as he gets to Veritas after his shift at ShutterCrafts. We both work hard but I couldn’t do any of this without his support.

I read Black Beauty today and it was such a trip. I read it fairly often as a child but I haven’t picked it up for years. It’s a very preachy book (like a lot of children’s books) but I never minded that as a child; and so much of what it teaches is so much a part of my mental furniture that it feels like going home. I loved horses as a child (all little girls do) and my whole attitude toward them was shaped and taught by books like this. I remember reading an old book called Beautiful Joe about an abused dog around this same time and I was alway sad when reading it or Black Beauty. The only downside to these books is the rampant teetotalism in them. Unfortunately in the late 1800s/ early 1900s women got a hold of all definitions of virtue and along with legitimate causes like ending abuse of people and animals we got weak beer and ever more effeminate preachers.

And before I collapse into bed (for the two hours until Luc wakes up…) here is a shot of Alex sporting his footie pyjamas and a faux-hawk.

The Divine Comedy Page: 455

I think today is my worst day so far in total pages read. However, I’m hoping to have plenty of time tomorrow, and maybe even some late this evening while I wait for Luc’s 11pm feeding. The boys were a handful today and I found myself laying on the floor behind the bookstore counter with Alex crawling all over me several times. He wanted to be played with pretty much all day and as he is far more important than a book…I only read 94 pages. Quinn and I went shopping briefly this evening and then after I got home at about 8 Luc was hungry then fussy and Alex was full of energy. He enjoys nothing more than emptying drawers, dumping out trash cans and pulling books off shelves. His favorite thing is to empty his laundry basket by flinging clothes over his shoulder and then empty his dresser drawers on top of that. Sorting out clean and dirty is difficult at best and I think some things get washed before they’re worn; hopefully the environment doesn’t get too pissed about it.

As I’ve been reading Dante I’ve realized that even though I grew up in the church I haven’t had a good imagination of Heaven and Hell; and for those outside Christendom the lack is even greater. Perhaps Catholics are better versed in both the theology and the imagery but I think that we live in an age that doesn’t imagine the afterlife much at all. Dante’s descriptions are almost shocking, both the horrors of Hell and the wonders of Heaven are so unfamiliar. And, of course, growing up Protestant, Purgatory should be entirely foreign, although I’d be interested to hear how many that spent time in an evangelical church actually felt that the doctrine of Purgatory was embodied in the kind of repentance that was taught there. I wonder what it would have been like to live in a culture that regularly preached and imagined the state of the soul after death.

…not that I don’t have enough of my own…

Any way, I’ve been thinking that one way to get through a thick difficult book would be to read it aloud one evening a week at Veritas. That way I’m forced to get through it but not in a way that completely fries my brain and my love of literature. The vote is between reading Ulysses (I’ve never read it, I don’t have respect for what Joyce did with it, I think reading his prose will make want to tear the book up) or reading Orwell’s Essays (I don’t care what his political opinions are and the book is 1,585 pages!). So tell me, if you were going to come down and hang out on Friday nights and listen to me read, what would you prefer to hear?

   OR 

The Divine Comedy Page: 361

Before I get started on today’s regularly scheduled update, let me take a moment to correct a misperception. I think Shelf Awareness misunderstood a bit out of the article Erin Ryan did for the Idaho Statesman. I’m not working on this project as any kind of protest against Americans not reading. She just compared me to the average American as described in that report. I’m actually doing this so that my brain doesn’t turn to mush while I take care of two very small kids…

Today I have lots of help with my boys because my little brother and sister are hanging out with me. Zach is 11 and mostly just interested in playing on the computer but he still takes out the trash for me and things like that. Rachel is 13 and super-helpful with the boys. She plays with Alex and walks Luc around when he’s fussy. So I’ve gotten plenty of reading done.

I finished The Inferno and nearly finished The Purgatorio today and reading so much reminded me of a thought I had while reading Milton’s Paradise Lost while I was in college; when reading epic poetry, the more the better. If you read it in small pieces you don’t get the ‘epic’ effect and the more you read the more accustomed you become to the style and the easier it is to understand. I suggest reading Dante, Milton, etc…with a small notebook in hand to note the classical references you don’t get, and after finishing a good chunk (10 cantos or a book), go look them all up (an encyclopedia is good Wikipedia almost as good and much faster) and then, if you have the time go back and re-read that section. You’ll be amazed at how much better you understand it and how much more you’ll remember over time.

Reading Dante reminds me of thoughts that I’ve had over time about really great classic literature. C.S. Lewis once said about The Wind in the Willows that it wasn’t a book you judged; it judges you. And that is how I feel about the greats like Dante, Augustine, and Homer. We modern Americans are eager to judge but not so eager to be judged. We dismiss everything from Shakespeare to Virgil as “not all it’s cracked up to be” or we claim that things like truffles or escargot don’t taste as good as others claim. The one thing we never seem to consider is that the fault may lie with us. Our palate may not be refined enough to appreciate the delicacy of a ‘47 Cheval Blanc and our minds may not be disciplined enough to handle the complexity of Dante’s poetry. I know I reacted against Augustine’s extreme self-abnegation in The Confessions thinking that he was “beating himself up over nothing” but when I faced reality I realized that that reaction came because my own conscience was just that much duller than his. I think this comes from living in such a democratic age. Because we are all equal before the law, we imagine that we are equal in all respects and if someone raises himself above the crowd by appreciating something finer, wiser and better than we can understand we have an impulse to pull him back down to our level. Certainly there are those that pretend an appreciation when they themselves do not really understand but that doesn’t mean that all who claim it do not have it. It is high time we started to acknowledge our betters and a good place to begin is with the classics. Your character will have grown the day you can put down a book and say “I could not get into it…it must be beyond me”. And you will have grown even more the day you can say “I will now try to train myself to appreciate that which I could not before”.