Day Fifty-Eight
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.
 
February 28th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
You’ve convinced me to read Marquez’s book. I’ve read _Memoria de mis putas tristes_, and I love his writing style. The language is worth the read, but now I’ve got to pick up _Love in the Time of Cholera_. I’ve yet to see the film, but I prefer to read the text first to get my own ideas of the characters and places. Thanks for sharing.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
All those books stacked up next to the computer: sublime. Knowing all those books have stitched bindings: awesome.
A great book with a bad binding is like a woman with out discretion. (Proverbs 11:22 Brent’s Paraphrase)
February 28th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I like the paraphrase and that’s a religion I could subscribe to wholeheartedly!
How about Proverbs 9:1-2 “Wisdom hath arranged her signatures, she hath sewn them together. She hath bound with calf; she hath mingled her inks; she hath also furnished her shelves.”