Interview with Wendell Berry

Diane Rehm interviews one of our favorite authors, Wendell Berry. He talks about farming and a recently published book of poetry.

Interview with John Irving

Here's an interesting interview with the novelist John Irving. He talks about how he writes.

January Club selection: The Woman in White

Experience what it was like to read a serialized novel, to be left in suspense for a week until the next installment. One hundred and fifty years after its first publication, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins is being published once more in its original, weekly parts. Three parts have now been published. You can even see images of the original periodical pages.
 
The story first appeared as a serial in Charles Dickens's periodical All The Year Round beginning with the issue dated Saturday 26 November 1859 and ending with the issue dated Saturday 25 August 1860. The story was published simultaneously in New York in Harper's Weekly.

The first part of the reprint was available on Monday 23 November 2009 and the last will be on Sunday 22 August 2010, in the morning UK time. (The day changes because of the Leap Year in 1860.) The parts are e-texted with all faults exactly as printed.
 
A separate pdf is also published each week which captures the feel of the original in a more readable form. It can be read on-screen or printed out. Or you can subscribe free to receive it week by week in your in-box by emailing Paul Lewis. Access it all through The Woman in White web page.

The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls never got to live in the glass castle her father conjured up as the ideal family abode, but that did not cause her to cast stones. Her memoir is an unflinchingly honest yet warm appraisal of her growing-up years. I think we all came away from the book marveling at how she and her older siblings not only survived but thrived in their environment. A key question on all our minds was how did she not grow bitter?

Our discussion was wide-ranging. A main topic of conversation concerned parenthood. If the Walls children could grow up to be responsible adults having had virtually no supervision, then do modern parents over-protect? The reverse-side-of-the-coin question is, Is it right for parents to cause their children to suffer in the pursuit of their (the parents') dreams? There are no easy answers, but we have a case-history in the lives of Rex and Rose Mary Walls (as told from the point of view of one of the children). They are fortunate to be able to say their children fared no worse for neglect, or indeed their 'contributing to the delinquency of minors' in their household. How many 'helicopter parents' have seen their children become irresponsible adults? Considering Maureen's difficulties, three out of four isn't bad.

It could be said that the sink-or-swim method of parenting yields positive results. How much of that is due to the individual determination of Lori, Brian, and Jeannette Walls is impossible to say. Was it a kind of reverse-psychology that led them to work diligently, budget and save frugally, and crave cleanliness? Rex and Rose Mary filled their home with books and were avid readers themselves. Was that what gave the children a vision of a better life?

The biggest mystery of the book, to me, was how the three oldest were able to safely and sanely sort through the mixture of myth and fact their parents had given them. Psychologist couches are filled with people paralyzed by the lies they'd internalized growing up. Rose Mary, especially, had an answer for everything. Stinking, starving, shivering? It's a grand adventure! Other children have Christmas presents and three square meals a day? Who wants to live such a conventional life?!?

I could forgive them almost anything, but not Rose Mary's reluctance to get glasses for Lori. How can a parent justify leaving her child in near-blindness with the claim that every artist has a different vision? Vive la difference? Not hardly. I'd have a lot more patience with their dream-chasing if they had actually for one minute tried to provide for their children. There's a big difference between not being able to provide for ones' children and not even trying -- and covering it up with high-minded philosophy. It left me thinking that the only people who can afford to be Progressives are ones with money.

Apparently, Rose Mary was reacting against her own starchy upbringing, and Rex was escaping his traumatic one. If ever there's an example of why blaming your parents is a crock, this book is it. The lesson is, you make your own future (by God's grace).

Yes, there were positives, obviously. There was attention paid to the children, even if it was a little oddly expressed. They were loved. Their minds were nurtured, if not their bodies. There was a tremendous feeling of togetherness and inter-dependency among them. They made their own fun and fought their battles together. The children inherited a genius for creativity and resourcefulness (Jeannette's homemade braces, leaving Welch and making it in the big city). At numerous points throughout the story, disaster loomed but never materialized, thanks to the quick thinking and bravery of one or the other. It's a profoundly positive tale, one I wished had been longer.

Notable quotes:

• Page 69 - "We were always supposed to pretend our life was one long and incredibly fun adventure."
• Page 103 - "Mom and Dad liked to make a big point about never surrendering to fear or to prejudice or to the narrow-minded conformist sticks-in-the-mud who tried to tell everyone what was proper."
• Page 129 - On one occasion of Jeannette's embarrassment: "'Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy,' Mom told me. 'You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.'"

There is truth in this view of life, but at whose expense? If I could point to one instance where it was the parents who suffered for their philosophy instead of the children, I'd have a lot more sympathy.

One club member pointed out that Rose Mary could very well have been depressed or bipolar. That fits with much of what occurs. We can be thankful, then, that Someone watched out for her little ones.

Interview with The Glass Castle author

Once you've finished reading The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, (our November club selection) I recommend you read this interview. It asks questions that I wished I could ask her, such as would she have grown up to be a different person if she'd had three square meals a day and running water.

I'm looking forward to our discussion, and to reading her new book, Half Broke Horses, which is about her mother's mother.

Our visit to The Shack

Many of us never planned to read The Shack, by William P. Young, because when a book is hyped as this has been, when non-fiction-readers praise it as "the best novel" they've ever read, we're skeptical. But now I think we were glad club members chose it and gave us the opportunity to join what seems to be the rest of the world. I confess I was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed the story, despite it's being poorly (overly) written.

That's quite a feat: being a poor writer and yet telling a good tale. Mixed metaphors and hackneyed dialog are a lot to overcome. Please, get this man an editor! Others have suggested he should rewrite in order to beef up the theology; I say, rewrite and get rid of half the adjectives.

Here's an example of what I mean, from his discovery of the note from Papa: "It was confusing and painful trying to sort out the swirling cacophony of disturbing emotions and dark images clouding his mind -- a million thoughts traveling a million miles an hour." A cacophony is a swirl of confused sounds, not emotions or images. I was confused, too.

Good writing is invisible. It doesn't cause you to stop and wonder, "What did he just say?" Neither is it overdone. I wrote "Please, stop!" on my little sticky note next to this portion:

"Shortly after the summer that Missy vanished, The Great Sadness had draped itself around Mack's shoulders like some invisible but almost tangibly heavy quilt. The weight of its presence dulled his eyes and stooped his shoulders. [Interjection: How does weight dull your eyes?] Even his efforts to shake it off were exhausting, as if his arms were sown into its bleak folds of despair and he had somehow become part of it. He ate, worked, loved, dreamed and played in this garment of heaviness, weighted down as if he were wearing a leaden bathrobe [What happened to the quilt?] -- trudging daily through the murky despondency that sucked the color out of everything." Whew! Enough already!!

What's good about the story is Young's cleverness at moving the story along. For instance, I worried how he was going to handle the meeting with Papa at the shack. How would God be revealed? Would there be a long debate in Mack's mind whether this really was God or just a crazy person in the woods? What would God do to prove His presence? I thought the way Young devised the denouement was brilliant.

I also worried, nearing the end, how Mack would re-enter daily life and convince his wife his experience was "real." Like him, I wondered how he would even begin to tell her but, again, the author worked it out deftly. Because of the way he crafted the ending, there could only be one explanation for how he had become a fundamentally changed person.

There were other things we liked: his portrayals of God's love (He's with us past, present, and future), his assertions of God's goodness, his emphasis on and insights into relationships (expectancy and response vs. expectations and responsibility). These qualities combine to make this book of great help to the sorrowing, as several have attested. They also serve as an exhortation to those of us who have been in the Faith a while and have sufficient understanding to know a book like this is not to be taken as Gospel Truth. We agreed, however, that The Shack is not recommended reading for unbelievers.

Why? There are several incongruities that make it troubling. I will leave the heavy criticism to others who have been more thorough (and here). I will merely mention a few that occured to me.

1. The author maintains that love is exclusive of authority (hierarchy), but this is simplistic. As you read the Bible, I don't think you can get away from the reality or needfulness of hierarchy -- even pre-Fall. Jude says that dangerous men reject authority; Moses was certainly an authority figure who loved the people he led. So, love and authority are not mutually exclusive, and it's dangerous to speak of God (and the Godhead) as not having authority or instituting hierarchy.

2. Similarly, the author maintains that love means never being disappointed in the object of one's love. This is just silly. (It sounds like the other side of the "Love-means-you-never-have-to-say-you're-sorry" coin.) One club member noted how, as a parent, she can be disappointed in her children without losing her love for them. Another noted how the Bible says our actions can grieve the Holy Spirit. So this is a needless distinction.

3. The book is dangerously disparaging of God's word ("reduced to paper") and His Church. This would appeal to readers who feel alienated from both, and probably accounts for much of the book's popularity, but it doesn't do enough (or anything) to bring them to a proper perspective. How can the psalmist say, "I love your law, O Lord" if God's word is not wonderful?

4. Many other important concepts are only vaguely defined: sin ("is its own punishment"), eternal damnation, and salvation. Readers without the basics can be left to conclude there is no hell and that other ways to God are possible, even if Jesus is "the best way."

For instance, the story of the Indian princess is contrived as a redemption story that Papa approves. But do stories such as this really lead people to Christ, and ultimately to God? Jesus' sacrifice is fundamentally different than the princess' in significant ways. Foremost is Jesus' divinity; his was the perfect sacrifice (he being sinless), while she (although a virgin) died in her own sin. God, satisfied with with Jesus' sacrifice, raised him from the dead. Because of the resurrection, Jesus' sacrifice cared for our deepest problem (death resulting from sin), while the Indians were only temporarily healed and would eventually die.

Many other distinctions could be made, but one other thing occured to me about the princess story: no one (except Will) saw fit to transcribe it, whereas God saw it as necessary to have His story written. He wanted us to know for certain that Jesus is the focal point of history (as The Shack properly avers) and grants eternal life to those with faith in him. The Indians were not required to have faith; her story was handed down as legend, not as Truth. And that's the level on which The Shack exists. It's a good story, but just a legend.

Dissecting The Little Prince

"The day you stop loving me you can leave with my heart in your hands, and it will be blessed."
"And if you ever love another man, you'll have proven yourself faithless - but I don't want you to leave."

Such are the "vows" spoken between Consuelo (first speaker) and Antoine (second speaker) de Sainte-Exupery shortly before their marriage. They were recorded in The Tale of the Rose, a memoir of their complicated relationship, written by Consuelo a few years after her husband's plane disappeared over southern France.

If, as a college professor taught, you can't know a book until you know its author, and you can't know an author without reading more than one of his books (and books about the author), then you can't understand The Little Prince without including the memoir in your reading. I read The Tale alongside the well-beloved fable, and it did illumine the story.

Antoine, author of The Little Prince, acknowledged his wife as being the rose among roses, the one rose in all the universe who "tamed" him and that he yet abandoned time and again. For Antoine, the rose's planet was too small. He found the rose too demanding, too precious for long close contact. He would roam into the garden of 5,000 roses, be amused by them, and then return. This was a pattern of their marriage.

It could be that, like the little prince, he came to believe, "I should have never run away. I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. Flowers are so contradictory! But I was too young to know how to love her." Was Exupery exasperated by his wife? Did he mistrust her? Allow "certain inconsequential remarks" to bother him too much? Was he annoyed by her vanity? Had he failed to appreciate her perfume, and how she lit up his life? We only have his testament and her memoir.

He left unacknowledged how often he would uproot the rose, plant her in another garden, and then leave her alone. Consuelo would adapt, settle in, accustom herself to waiting for him and to being lonely. She would find work and make friends. And then he would reappear, light up her world, and say, "It's time to move!" After the move, he would soon announce, "I must be off!" Thus he would separate her from her "support system" and abandon her again.

Today, we'd call this a controlling personality. He is like the fox, who told the prince how he wanted to be tamed. Antoine wanted Consuelo all to himself, in short increments and only on his terms. This constant upheaval and uncertainty about their relationship caused her tremendous strain; her physical and mental health suffered throughout their life "together." It wasn't until what became the last year or so of his life that they actually lived happily for a space of time while he wrote The Little Prince. Then he was off again near the end of WWII, to save France, and his plane was lost.

It's difficult to read about an untamed man like Exupery. How are we to understand or sympathize with him? But Consuelo keeps you rooted. Her reactions to her circumstances are very normal. She, like you, marvels at his audacity, and yet she is not embittered by him. In the last pages of the book she confirms her love for him and relates some humerous stories that help us see his appeal. He was a charming man, delighting anyone in his presence, and leaving a vacuum in his absence. Childlike to the end of his days, his fable was true for him, if not completely true of himself. A person can write beautifully and not live that way.

-----------
Notable quotes from The Little Prince:

"The proof of the little prince's existence is that he was delightful, that he laughed, and that he wanted a sheep. When someone wants a sheep, that proves he exists."

"'It's a question of discipline,' the little prince told me later on. 'When you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet.'"

"'One must command from each what each can perform,' the king went on. 'Authority is based first of all upon reason.'"

"But the vain man did not hear him. Vain men never hear anything but praise."

"The little prince had very different ideas about serious things from those of the grown-ups. 'I own a flower myself,' he continued, 'which I water every day. I own three volcanoes, which I rake out every week. I even rake out the extinct one. You never know. So it's of some use to my volcanoes, and it's useful to my flower, that I own them. But you're not useful to the stars.'"

"'The only things you learn are the things you tame,' said the fox."

"'Anything essential is invisible to the eyes,' the little prince repeated, in order to remember. 'It's the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important. . . . You become responsible forever for what you've tamed. You're responsible for your rose.'"

"The stars are beautiful because of a flower you don't see."

Next selection: The Little Prince

For this next year, we're adopting a "members choice" format. We'll take turns selecting books, and if anyone draws a blank, they can take a look at our running list of Books We Want To Read Before We Die. We're also hoping to add to our membership.

Slow Reader went first, and had a ready selection in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. This tiny book -- only 83 pages! -- can be found in the children's section of libraries. It's also on the shelf at Schuler's. I believe it can even be read online.

But it's thought-provoking and sweet. As one web reviewer said, "The Little Prince appears to be a simple childrens tale, some would say that it is actually a profound and deeply moving tale, written in riddles and laced with philosopy and poetic metaphor." We hope it attracts new members, and encourages old ones to get back to the group.

I found some study notes here.

Gaudy Night discussion

Dorothy Sayers' romance mysteries -- Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, and Busman's Honeymoon -- while delightful, did not engender much discussion. Or maybe we were just not in the mood. Gaudy Night, our main focus, does have plenty of philosophical material in it. The female characters repeatedly discuss the merits of academic life versus marriage. Women of the 1920s and 30s couldn't "have it all." The dons also dissected Harriet's relationship with Lord Peter Wimsey, and debated the aristocracy, while Harriet grappled with these issues on a more personal level. The book does, of course, come to a gratifying conclusion.

The subject of community cropped up again in our thoughts. Characters liken the women's college where the story takes place to a cloister. While the level of commitment a nun makes isn't expected of female academics, the women do study and teach in an enclosure as nearly cut off from society as the abbey of Brede. Outsiders are rare, and visits controlled. Male academics from other Oxford colleges perform services similar to that of the Bishop in House of Brede, offering a "blessing" on a new library.

Next to community life in House of Brede and to "the membership" in Wendell Berry's books, academic life in Gaudy Night pales by comparison. Competition has replaced community. There are friendships (alliances), and if one woman succeeds it helps the college, but the price is fellowship. There's no spiritual bond, no purpose higher than academic acheivement and advancement. Little effort is made to foster grace, compassion, patience, sharing, humility, etc. It's a hollow world.

In This House of Brede discussion

The five of us enjoyed a good discussion of a book I think we all agreed was worthwhile. It's one of those books that keeps you thinking long after, and wondering "whatever happened to those nuns?"

The first point of discussion was pronunciation. Apparently "Brede" is pronounced the way it looks, "breed," according to an online reference.

We also talked about the strangeness of abbey life to a bunch of Protestants. We're unfamiliar with orders, the hours, the habit, the "grill," the difference between a claustral and a choir nun, and the whole lengthy procedure for becoming one. Much still is mysterious.

But that's due in large part to the book's stream-of-consciousness style. You have to hang on and keep reading in faith that you'll get what's happening -- and to whom -- eventually. And you do.

Rumer Godden just throws you into the middle of the story, in the midst of a crowd of characters, and expects you to swim. Sorry, mixed metaphors. Try "sea of characters." You're given an abbey-full of nuns and you're expected to remember who's who, and figure out what's going on as the story weaves in an out of time periods. (Another metaphor.) But it's okay, you'll get it. It's enjoyable to just relax and let the story take you in.

We tried one or two of the book's discussion questions, but then veered over to Wordsmith's. There were also subjects that each of us wanted to explore, like me. I wanted to talk about art. For all the abbey's seeming asceticism -- which in the Benedictine world is apparently much less than in other orders -- there was a rich artistic culture and the nuns were encouraged to indulge their passions, guided or subsumed by the needs of of the community. It seemed to me that the famous artist who came from the outside to sculpt the altar was the most interesting character in the book, and he had a profound affect on the abbess -- acknowledging her femininity and personhood without demands, with great appreciation. He made her feel beautiful. He "saw" her, despite or maybe because of all the trappings.

Of course, community is a significant topic in the book, and has been in several of our book selections -- Hannah Coulter (Wendell Berry) especially. We discussed the similarities between abbey life and The Membership. And we talked about whether or not abbey life seemed attractive to us.

Well, there was a lot more to the discussion, but I've lost track. I hope others will carry on.

Music to read by: Sounds of the House of Brede

Well, okay, Brede isn't a real place, but if you want to get a sense of what Dame Cecily was singing, go to NPR for samples of Ancient Music Revived at the Lune Convent. Three selections are available; don't miss the Choral Music for Palm Sunday: 'Miserere' down at the bottom of the page. Wonderful! Okay, and this: Palestrina: 'Kyrie' from Missa Papae Marcelli (Choir of Westminster Abbey). Sublime! One more: Bach's Mass In B Minor: A Cathedral In Sound. Enjoy!

5/18/09 - I found another style of chant music on an album in English: To St. Xenia of Petersburg, Two Canons and a Canticle. Check out 'God is the Lord.'

Another question about In This House of Brede

As you were reading, did you find yourself wondering what in the world was a "pleached alley"? I looked it up. Encyclopedia Britannica says it's a "garden path, on each side of which living branches have been intertwined in such a way that a wall of self-supporting living foliage has grown up. To treat each side of a garden walk, or alley, with pleaching and thus make a secluded walk was a favourite device of the 16th and 17th centuries. Although most pleaching is done by gardeners, it can also occur naturally. Maples, sycamores, and lindens are commonly pleached." 'Pleached' refers to plaiting or braiding.

Questions for Discussion: In This House of Brede

I finished In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden in mid-April to make sure it was a good selection for Captive Thoughts Book Club's May discussion. You can read my review here, and I hope that everyone enjoys it as much as I did. Some background information on the author, Rumer Godden, can be found here.

Even though there are discussion questions on the publisher's website, I thought a few more might fuel our discussion, and at least one is specific to our reading schedule this year. I'll post them here in case any other readers or book clubs might find them helpful too. Please add any additional questions in the comments.

1. Do you think the book is more Phillippa's story or the story of Brede monastery? Does the individual or the community have more prominence? What aspects of or examples from community life can be applicable to any type of community or relationships?
   


2. How are the themes of forgiveness and redemption woven throughout the story? Where and how does grace fit in the life of the nuns?


3. What are some similarities or differences between In This House of Brede and other books that we've read this year? For example, contrast the view of Catholicism here to that in Angela's Ashes or La Reine Margot; compare "The Membership" in Hannah Coulter to the monastic community, especially the idea of enclosure; or compare the role of the nuns to the place of women in the Bronte novels.


4. When the prioress Dame Beatrice, asked Abbess Catherine, "Which is worse, Dame Veronica exalted or humble?" the Abbess replied, "Humble is more dangerous." (318-319, ch. 16). In light of Dame Veronica's character and personality as well as the incidents in which she was involved, what do you think the Abbess meant by that statement?


5. Do you think Sister Cecily made the right choice in Chapter 17?


6. Has your view or understanding of Catholicism, particularly monasticism, changed after reading this book?

Continuing the Bronte Discussion

I apologize for not contributing soon after our "All Things Bronte" discussion night, but computer problems hindered. And then, I wanted to finish Agnes Grey. That done this afternoon, and the computer refitted with a monster-hard drive, I can post.

We only had three at our April meeting, which was disappointing because we knew others have read and enjoyed the Brontes. We wanted to hear what all had to say, and the blog is your opportunity. Please, post, whether you attended or not. Especially if you did not.

I've just read Page Turner's review of Agnes Grey, and won't add much to it. I found it much more enjoyable than The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (also by Anne Bronte), which I read in time for the book club but felt to be too much like a tract on behavior.

It's surprising to me that Tenant was Anne's second novel (with Agnes the first). Agnes Grey handles narrative more maturely, while Tenant clumsily contrives to be a series of letters and a journal. I say 'clumsily,' because I don't believe anyone would write either at such length, especially characters such as a farmer and a young mother. Furthermore, the journal portion doesn't ring true because it reads as though the writer knows the end from the beginning. No diarist knows what's going to be important until after she has reread her pages and reflected on the themes that keep reappearing. It's written as though she knows she'll need an excuse for leaving her husband. The reader is being set up. Why not use the first-person narrative, as in Agnes Grey? In it, Anne succeeds at having her heroine look back on a hard life in antipation of a more fulfilling future.

Agnes Grey is also a 'tract on behavior,' but less preachy. Tenant is full of tiresome speeches, while Agnes is reflective and interspersed with snippets of action that bear out a point the main character is making. We get her take on the many types that populate her world, as Page Turner describes. I kept having the impression, reading both, that here was the book of Proverbs fleshed out. There's the fool, the slothful person, the mocker, the drunkard, the adulterer, the prudent, the excellent wife, the poor, the humble, the simple.

The main characters of both books desire to be good and faithful. They believe they'll answer to God for their actions, and that being abused is no excuse for letting down standards. They also find hope in the reality of a future where all is made right and where heavenly joys more than compensate for whatever they might have missed on earth.

Anne Bronte seems to have been the most open of the sisters about her faith, although Charlotte certainly used her art to advance morality. (Having read Wuthering Heights long ago, I can't say whether Emily intended Heathcliff and Cathy's doomed love as a warning against unbridled passion, although it has that effect. Someone else want to chime in?) All the sisters seem to have high ideals for marriage and use their novels to spell out what they (and we) should like in a man.

We spent a little time discussing the Victorian ideals for womanhood and manhood. I found an interesting web site call The Victorian Web, on which you can find writings about the Brontes, and on various related subjects (such as The Gentleman; I can't locate what I'd read earlier on ideal womanhood). Tenant, especially, deals with these themes and, while many men in the story put their heroines on a pedestal, I'm not sure Anne sees that as a problem. The virtuous women in her stories seem to not mind being put up there, or being called "angels." It being their duty to supress their own desires in order to serve the whims of their husbands, they see themselves as extensions of their husbands. Nevertheless, the Bronte heroines maintain an understanding of their own personal worth and do not fear independence.

Beginning the Bronte Discussion...

Although Charlotte Bronte's book The Professor was her last published (post-mortem), it was actually the first novel she wrote and presents Charlotte's ideals of character and idealism of thought. The main character, William Crimsworth, is a man who must learn to live by his wits and abilities. The younger son of a tradesman, and declining his wealthy and titled uncles' connections to the Church and opportunities of matrimony, William first attempts to follow his deceased father's trade. His elder brother's unfriendly and exacting demands, however, and his own abhorence of the trade, force him away from all familial aid and turn him loose to follow another course. He lands on teaching, which suits him well and leads him to Brussels. [There is quite a bit of french dialogue in the book, so if you know any amount of french you'll have opportunity of exercising it here. But even if you don't know any french, don't use that as an excuse for not reading it; you can pick up the jist of the dialogue by context, or make use of a french-english dictionary.]

While teaching in a boys' school, William gains an opportunity to also teach classes in a girls' school. This introduces him to the world of jeune filles and Charlotte begins to paint a picture of the female sex through William's observations: "Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers, just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a sketch or two, penciled after nature." He then proceeds to describe the foibles, flaws, and feeble enticements of girls who "belonged to what are called the respectable ranks of society; they had all been carefully brought up, yet was the mass of them mentally depraved." He admits that the schoolroom does not give opportunity for the girls to show off their most charming assets. "In short, to the tutor, female youth, female charms are like tapestry hangings, of which the wrong side is continually turned towards him; and even when he sees the smooth, neat external surface he so well knows what knots, long stitches, and jagged ends are behind that he has scarce a temptation to admire too fondly the seemly forms and bright colors exposed to general view."

Two women catch his notice and William's choice surely projects Charlotte Bronte's idea of the ideal: a woman of intelligence, simplicity, and sensibility; one who is independent in thought yet willing to submit when submission does not require loss of personal or moral freedom; a woman perhaps lacking in outward beauty, but intent on developing moral character and applying to study; a woman strong but quiet, confident but unassuming. What Charlotte is doing at the same time is developing her ideal Man. In William we find some of the same traits of intelligence, rationality (slightly tinged with the romantic), and respect for personal freedom. In many respects Charlotte has presented a surprisingly modern picture.

One of the most interesting conversations comes near the end of the book when William observed to his wife that she was "a good and dear wife to me, because I was to her a good, just, and faithful husband. What she would have been had she married a harsh, envious, careless man - a profligate, a prodigal, a drunkard, or a tyrant - is another question..." If you read this book, let me know what you think of their subsequent conversation.

Review of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Page Turner has written an excellent review which relieves me of the need to write as much as I might have - please read it! (Find it in the posting below entitled, To Add to Your Reading on China. Thank you, H!) I appreciated this book and wish we could have made it more central to our discussion at the book club meeting. (This is the dilemma of choosing titles we haven't yet read...) Snow Flower brings so much to our theme of the year: women's roles and influences. Quoting Lily (the book's main character and narrator): "Anyone who says that women do not have influence in men's decisions makes a vast and stupid mistake." This book illustrates how women's struggle to define their femininity crosses all barriers of time and culture.

Page Turner has aptly discussed the theme of love, which is especially poignant set in a culture of honor and duty. Lily seems not to even recognize love and must learn, painfully, to value it. Through a series of events that lead to a crisis between Lily and her mother, and Lily's inability to forgive her mother, Lily attempts to hide her feelings, which she cannot understand. This, in turn, "set the stage for what happened later." As Lily writes, "I tried to keep an emotional distance from my mother - though on most days we were in the same room - by acting as though I'd matured into a woman and no longer needed tenderness. This was the first time I would do this - properly follow customs and rules on the outside, let loose my emotions for a few terrible moments, and then quietly hang on to my grievance like an octopus to a rock - and it worked for everyone. My family accepted my behavior, and I still looked like a filial daughter. Later I would do something like this again, for very different reasons and with disastrous results."

Another important theme in the book is the power of words. Learning about nu shu, the women's secret language, was fascinating! [This very real language has only recently died out and was used for over 1000 years!] When she is older, Lily realizes that nu shu is not secret from men, as she had been taught, but that "men just considered our writing beneath them." Men didn't think women had thoughts worth thinking about. How wrong they were! On the contrary, Lily comes to understand "that we learned ... songs and stories not just to teach us how to behave but because we would be living out variations of them over and over again throughout our lives." It is Lily's inattentiveness to the nuances of nu shu that bring about her greatest failure and cause her deepest regret.

It has already been pointed out how insignificant women were thought to be in 19th century China. I would like to know how the practice of foot-binding began, since it served to reduce women's scope of influence. But the women themselves had a part in the continuation of this culture of repression. Mothers bound their daughters' feet. There is a joke Lily explains about the use of cloth to make bride-price gifts and how Snow Flower's (Lily's laotong, best friend, “Old Same”) life was in a sense reshaped by the unusual reuse of this cloth. She ends the explanation by saying: "All of it was women's work - the very work that men think is merely decorative - and it was being used to change the lives of the women themselves."
Finally, I want to note that Lisa See has composed a beautifully-written story. She has gleaned from 19th century Chinese culture both humor and horror, information and wisdom. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is worth reading.

Chinese night

We should have had our March meeting at a Chinese restaurant, focusing as we did on Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution, with side dishes of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan -- all set in China. We spent some time piecing together what little each of us knew about Chinese history, trying to place the books in a time frame.

If you're interested, here's the Wikipedia entry for ancient Chinese history; and here's one about a book written in 18 BC about exemplary Chinese women. (Bear in mind, the title of the book is taken from a neo-Confucianist word used to mean "woman who commits suicide after her husband's death rather than remarry; woman who dies defending her honor.") For the history of modern mainland China, see History of the People's Republic of China.

Glancing through the ancient history entry, I see that the Cultural Revolution wasn't the only tyrannical period in China's history: "An estimated 25 million people died during the Manchu conquest of the Ming Dynasty (1616-1644). . . . The Manchus enforced a 'queue order' forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu queue hairstyle and Manchu-style clothing. . . . The penalty for not complying was death." Yikes!

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is set about a thousand years ago, if I remember correctly from the discussion (not having read it myself). Of the three books, it has the most to say about the condition of women, and horrifies with its description of foot-binding. There's also the intrigue of a secret language for women. Be sure to read Page Turner's post below, with a reference to a review of this book on her blog. (We were very glad to see her at this meeting, coming all the way from the far reaches of Indiana!)

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a coming-of-age book about two young men, but there is a significant young woman in the story -- a peasant girl. The young men have been sent to the countryside for re-education, their parents being on the wrong side of the Revolution. They come upon a treasure chest of Western novels, which they devour in their spare time off from grueling labor. The books act almost as a drug on the two teens; they can't get enough. The little seamstress, too, is overpowered as the boys read to her. Ironically, what makes peasant life bearable for them makes it unbearable for her.

The Red Scarf Girl depicts life for a 12-year-old girl as the Cultural Revolution unfolds. An excellent student with high hopes, her patriotism is challenged when she learns her family is also on the wrong side of the Revolution. She's puzzled, frightened, angered, and anguished when her hopes are dashed. As in Life and Death in Shanghai (by Nien Cheng), the rules gradually change and the pressure mounts. Who will be next to be singled out? Will the family's past be discovered? Should Ji-Li head off trouble for herself by renouncing her family?

I found frightening parallels between the mob behavior in Red Scarf Girl with this past week's news about the AIG bonuses. When a news report said that President Obama was "denouncing" the executives, and a US Senator said they should "retire or commit suicide," I had a shock of recognition. "Oh," I thought, "This outrage that I feel over the abuse of my tax dollars by a 'state-owned' company is what the Chinese felt over the abuses of feudal landlords." But the reaction, then as now, goes over the top. As Ji Li Jaing says, the lack of a good legal system is dangerous. She attributes the abuses of the Cultural Revolution to that lack. Without laws in place to prevent abuse and punish abusers, the mob will rule. (See this cartoon for a reference to our own Salem witch trials, and this article on Barney Frank as Madame Defarge.)

I know I haven't done justice to our discussion. I beg the rest of you to chime in.

To add to your reading on China...

I highly recommend Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See to round out your reading on China this month. It is set in rural China in the early to mid-1800's, much earlier than the Cultural Revolution described in Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution, but I expect that the cultural history and the circumstances of women that it describes might add to our understanding of the Cultural Revolution more than a century later. If nothing else, it is amazing to contemplate the many changes, especially for women, that took place within that century. You can read my complete review here.

Review of Susan Hertog's Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I just finished Susan Hertog's biography Anne Morrow Lindbergh and want to post some thoughts before I return it to the library. All in all I found it to be an interesting book, covering the story thoroughly, and written adequately well. It provides a good picture of her life, spends no few pages on the kidnapping and death of Charlie and subsequent trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, explains Charles and Anne's involvement in pre-WWII politics, and explores the over-all theme of Anne's struggle to reconcile her roles of wife, mother, writer, and woman.

M.S. has already pointed out how popular the Lindberghs were and how the stories of their life took precedence in the news over major world events. It would be very hard for us to understand how this affected Charles and Anne - there are so many famous people in today's world - but they were really the first to gain such immediate and widespread fame. It made their lives nearly impossible to live in a natural way. Furthermore, Charles believed that Charlie's kidnapping and death was proof of the failure of the democratic system and this may explain his support of Hitler's Nazi Germany. I quote from the book:

"Clearly, Charles saw the Third Reich as the embodiment of his values: science and technology harnessed for the preservation of a superior race, physically able and morally pure. While Charles valued democracy in the abstract, he had come to believe that its freedoms were not worth the price. Social and political equality, together with an ungoverned press, had produced a climate of moral degeneracy that had permitted the murder of his infant son. He did not disdain democracy so much as he did the common man - the uneducated and enfeebled masses, typified by Hauptmann, who lived like parasites on the body politic. America wallowed in decadence, the Russians sank into mediocrity, and England and France, at war with themselves, were weak, aimless, and morally defunct. To Charles, Germany under Hitler was a nation of true manhood - virility and purpose. The strong central leadership of a fascitst state was the only hope for restoring a moral world order." (pg 324)

Interesting stuff... The book explores this theme admirably.

The theme of womanhood and Anne's struggle in her marriage to Charles is also well-developed in the book. The people who influenced Anne's thinking, the experiences that shaped her, the places she lived (many), the opportunities she had - the books she wrote - all center around her need to understand her roles and live at peace with herself. Again, I quote:

"Was it possible to reconcile her need to write with the responsibilities of motherhood? She wrote to her cousin Margaret Landenberger Scandrett, that she would not choose to work if it meant denying the needs of her family. 'Deep down in my heart, I don't honestly want to be a "woman writer" any more than I once wanted to be a "woman aviator"... I am not prepared to sacrifice...those advantages and qualities that are truly feminine.'

"Echoing the poetry of Lao-tzu, Anne wrote that a woman must stand at the hub of a wheel that moves toward a larger goal. Creative work was merely one spoke of the wheel, a ray of insight leading to and from a unifying core, essential to the balance of the wheel, without which her life would simply stop turning. Out of this way of life, she wrote, 'some very great art might spring - not much but pure gold.'" (pgs 302-303)

This is my little book report. I would not have read the book had we not chosen Reeve's memoir for our selection - I am not drawn to biographies as a general rule. I think that fascination with the rich and famous - in its various degrees - is telling. But at its best, it serves as a way to better understand ourselves. So I will recommend this book.

All things Lindbergh

We had another good discussion last Thursday, just the four of us. We were missing a few, but we'd all read enough of and about the Lindbergh's to keep it interesting. Our "assigned" books were Under a Wing by Reeve Lindbergh and The Unicorn and Other Poems by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, but we had all read other books (and articles) in addition to these, which rounded out our understanding of this fascinating family.

(I hope I can do justice to this synoposis of our discussion, but I only remembered my notepad halfway through and, thus, abandoned the idea of taking notes. I won't do as well as Heather in that regard. The rest of you -- please, chime in.)

The Lindbergh's (Charles, Anne, and brood) fascinate because they're probably the first celebrity couple of the modern era. Charles' solo flight across the Atlantic brought him worldwide fame and fortune. He was a hero, one of the last in a long line of explorers and adventureres. (I'm about halfway through the flight, reading The Spirit of St. Louis, Charles' autobiographical Pulitzer Prize winning account of the feat -- you can apparently read it online here!) The kidnapping of little Charles and the trial of his murderer again focussed another worldwide spotlight, this time one more lurid and macabre. (A couple of us had read Susan Hertog's Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life and noted that, at the time of the kidnapping and murder, thousands of Chinese children were being killed in the Japanese invasion, but the front page news was only about one baby in America.) Charles' wartime views brought a wave of criticism. Finally, the revelation after his death that, completely unknown to his wife and family, he had sired three additional families in Europe -- well, what could be more modern than that?

Through the eyes of their youngest daughter Reeve, in Under a Wing, these people and events come down to earth. She describes their personalities as life-sized, not larger-than. Perhaps no one in America was more curious about the flight and the lost baby than Reeve. Her parents were reluctant to talk with family members about the two events that caused the family to live in obscurity and isolation. Then there's the shock she endured in college upon learning her father was considered a Nazi-lover and anti-Semite. A later book, Forward From Here, reveals how she and her brothers dealt with the news of their half-siblings. She's a good writer. Her mother taught her to write every day, to journal, and her books demonstrate the value of that practice, both in the skillful writing that results and in the recollection of insightful detail.

Anne's poetry is simple and accessible. We read a few selections out loud: "Testament," "Bare Trees," and "Second Sowing." Reeve tells, in Under a Wing, how her mother's book had been severely panned by a critic, and that it discouraged her from publishing more poems. In No More Words, a book about her mother's later stages of life, Reeve introduces chapters with Anne's early poetry.

But Reeve didn't only get the "writing gene" from her mother. Charles proves to be equally skillful and insightful. It's an artist that can write, "I take off from Lambert Field [in St. Louis] . . . and set course for New York City. . . . Illinois grain fields ripple in the northwest wind. The Spirit of St. Louis [his plane] has grown with those crops: I conceived the flight last fall when the wheat was planted. Now I'm getting under way with the green blades of spring." Later that flight, he observes, "Manhattan Island lies below me -- building-weighted, wharf-spined, teeming with life -- millions of people in that river-boundaried strip of brick and concrete, ech one surrounded by a little aura of his problems and his thoughts, hardly conscious of the earth's expanse beyond." Okay, the "teeming with life" is cliche, but "building-weighted, wharf-spined" . . . did Anne give him that? He credits her for everything in his dedication.

Finally, I can't help myself, but I'm always looking for references to what they believed. There are references to 'lapsed Presbyterianism,' and the Calvinism of Anne's father, but little personal reference. One chapter (so far) in The Spirit of St. Louis delves into Charles' belief system. He seems to have rejected organized religion -- mainly because it's stuffy and anti-science and separated from the natural world he loves. But then he's intrigued with his great-grandfather, a physician and preacher, and he writes:

"It's hard to be an agnostic up here in the 'Spirit of St. Louis,' aware of the frailty of man's devices, a part of the universe between its earth and stars. If one dies, all this goes on existing in a plan so perfectly balanced, so wonderfully simple, so incredibly complex that it's far beyond our comprehension -- worlds and moons revolving; planets orbiting on suns; suns flung with apparent recklessness through space. There's the infinite magnitude of the universe; there's the infinite detail of its matter -- the outer star, the inner atom. And man conscious of it all -- a worldly audience to what if not to God?"

Related articles:

• Lindbergh Family Bashes Biographer
• News from 1932, when the baby was kidnapped. And this. It's fascinating that the NY Times has the stories from the time.
• Here's a news article about the flight.
• This is a story about Reeve discussing Forward from Here and the discovery of the other families.
• Here's "breaking news" on the discovery of the other families.
• DNA proves L. lead double life

More from Wendell Berry

In the midst of a major transition, I thought some more Wendell Berry might be just the thing to find some peace and a good reminder of the importance of place, wherever that may be. My review of Nathan Coulter can be found here, if you're interested.

I hope you all have a great meeting next week. I look forward to reading the summary of your discussion of Under a Wing: A Memoir and the poetry of Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

~Page Turner

Books that ask (and answer), "What if?"

I'm sorry not to add to the discussion of Rebecca, but my mind is on a book I put down last evening - One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, by Jim Fergus. I thought it might go well with our theme of books about (or by) women, but I was disappointed. The premise relates to a 1854 incident in which the chief of the Cheyenne requested that the U.S. government give 1,000 white women as brides for his warriors in exchange for peace. It never happened, except in this author's imagination. It's an interesting premise, but not as realized here. Even though it comes highly recommended on the back cover, I found the characters to be contrived (one representative for each ethnic or social group), their dialects clumsy, and the writing without the feel of a journal. I put it down unfinished.

Another book of this type is Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policeman's Union. It asks, what if the United States had given a portion of Alaska to Jews fleeing the Holocaust? Instead of Palestine, they would have a homeland in Sitka for 50 years, after which they would have to assimilate elsewhere. The book takes up just as the 50 years are up, just as the main-character detective is drawn into a murder case that ties together the region's history, politics, society, culture, and angst. Fully conceived and executed. Entertaining, suspenseful, warm, humorous, compelling . . . everything a good book should be. Obviously, the better of the two, IMHO.

All Hannah Coulter, All the Time!

For everyone who enjoyed Hannah Coulter, there is a blog entirely devoted to discussing it: Hannah Coulter Book Club for Copy Cats. Check it out!

This one's for you, A. B.!!!!

More Discusson about Rebecca

As mentioned previously, we continued our discussion about Rebecca by e-mail after our January meeting. Instead of cutting and pasting those messages into the comments, we'll just give them their own post, and then the discussion can continue in the comments if anyone would like.

Wordsmith started the discussion:

Thanks for a good dinner, interesting show, and brief discussion. I wish we'd had more time to talk about the book. If anyone's interested in continuing the talk online, I'd like to ask this: do you think the author thought Rebecca's murder was justified?

G.C. answered:

I think the author was trying to "expand our horizons" into the thought that things are more complicated and that there is moral ambiguity. At the time she wrote the novel, moral ambiguity was not a popular concept. While "murder" *(remember that the commandment, properly translated, states that thou shalt not murder.) is most often heinous. It can be justified as Grisham posited in A Time to Kill or understandable as the author posits in Rebecca. It is interesting that the director made a change in the details fo the death much as the director made the change in The Shawshank Redemption. In the movie, the Morgan Freeman character "killed a guy in a bar fight" - it could happen. In the book, the character cut the brake lines on his wife's car and she just happened to have picked up a pregnant friend (or a friend with a child - I forget) before the accident occurred.

Maybe that says something about the expectations of the mental flexibility of "readers" (a niche group) versus movie goes (a broad audience).

I was just watching Tales of the City - The main character says to someone coming home late at night - Welcome to Manderly, I'm Mrs. Danvers. It was "tongue in cheek" scary. I love those literary references. Since I read so much, I usually get them. However, my annotated edition of Lolita (which supposedly has an average reference rate of 1 every other line) remains unread. I liked it fine as just a dirty novel!

Wordsmith responded:

I really appreciate your thoughts, G. C. There was so much we could have discussed - just not enough time! One of our goals in Captive Thoughts is to broaden our understanding, and Rebecca certainly presented a lot to think about. That being said, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by moral ambiguity, but at face value I disagree. There are moral confusions or moral complexities - it's certainly difficult to sort things out - but I do believe in moral absolutes. Life is messy and some webs of wrong (whether actively performed or thrust upon innocents) are impossible to untangle; consequences - fair or unfair - come our way and we must decide what we're going to do with them. But we always have a choice. I haven't read A Time to Kill - maybe it presents a stronger case. I do agree that definitions are important, that murder can be different from killing, that sometimes killing is justifiable. I agree that Rebecca's murder is understandable, but not justifiable. Of course I don't really know what DuMaurier is positing, but it's interesting that Maxim's murder of Rebecca is unneccesary since her disease will do her in. If Maxim had pursued the truth he would have found out that Rebecca wasn't pregnant but dying, and his patience would have freed him from her. (This is why I read the paragraph I did, b/c it points out that if only the truth had been sought, - by a lot of the characters - the outcome would have been totally different.) The consequences of his actions are severe - he loses Manderley and must live as an exile. His psyche is ruined and seems to put the nameless her in more of a position of caretaker than wife. What do the rest of you think?

Page Turner commented:

Those are some great thoughts, Wordsmith. I too pondered the same question (was the murder justified) after I read the book. Du Maurier leads us to sympathize with the characters, which makes it easier to excuse their behavior. But regardless of the circumstances, murder is still murder, and like you said, it is understandable, but not justifiable. I think the many consequences that follow that single act might be the author's subtle indication that she was leading her readers to see the moral implications of murder. I had not thought through all the "what ifs" that you suggested, but that certainly sheds a different light on the matter, too. So much could have been different.

The idea of truth in this novel is another topic we could explore. If you remember, we discussed that when we read The 13th Tale last year. (Have you read that one, G. C.?) Interestingly, it was somewhat gothic, too. I suppose that the question of truth is almost inherent in that genre since things are not always as they seem. Perhaps that's why I like the complexities and perplexities of these stories - the characters' perceptions and misconceptions of truth shape their choices and their lives, and we as readers/observers get the suspense of seeking the truth along with the responsibility of judging the outcome for good or ill. In my opinion, that makes for a fascinating read, both interesting and thought provoking!

REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier ~ January '09

We had a lot of fun with our January meeting! We read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and had a dinner theater, watching the 1940 Hitchcock film of Rebecca, staring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, while we enjoyed a wonderful meal. The only down side was that we didn't have much time to discuss the novel and the movie adaptation, but we've continued the discussion some by e-mail and can add more comments here.

This gothic romance evokes a period when the roles of men and women were so different. The movie reinforces and even accentuates those roles: the strong, handsome, yet distant male, the timid, fawning wife. We discussed whether the character of the second Mrs. de Winter was really believable. Would someone have really been that smitten and naive to be so blind to the underlying issues troubling Maxim? Was she so eager to please that she couldn't see through Mrs. Danver's duplicity? Given her options of staying with Mrs. Van Hopper or marrying Mr. de Winter, the latter must have seemed to offer a brighter future, but we really thought she should have been more cautious with Mrs. Danver's suggestions for the costume ball. That woman obviously had no good intentions toward the second Mrs. de Winter. (Many of us were frustrated that she was never named in the book or movie, though we understood how it made her even more a shadow of the first Mrs. de Winter!)

We agreed that Mrs. Danvers was portrayed in all her grim and sinister glory by Judith Anderson in the film. Apparently the Masterpiece Theater adaptation of Rebecca seems to indicate that there was something of an unnatural affection between Rebecca and Mrs. Danvers, which further intensified her grief and jealousy over Rebecca's death and the second Mrs. de Winter's presence at Manderley. You could find hints of that in the Hitchcock film if you were looking for it, but it wasn't necessarily obvious.

Our follow-up discussion by e-mail covered the idea of whether Rebecca's murder was justified and the idea of truth in this and other gothic novels like The Thirteenth Tale that we read last year. Please feel free to cut and paste those e-mails in the comments and continue the discussion here.

Happy New Year & January Meeting Update

We hope that all Captive Thoughts Book Club Members have had a joyful Christmas season and a happy New Year!

Our first meeting of 2009 will happen in just two weeks, on Thursday, January 15th. We are still finalizing the location and a few other details for this meeting because it will be our first movie night to watch Rebecca, the 1940 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel (see link in the side bar), directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Laurence Olivier. Don't worry if you haven't started the book yet; it's a really easy read, and I found it to be quite a suspenseful page-turner. I posted my personal review here - you can read it to whet your reading appetite - I haven't given away any of the twists in plot. But even if you aren't able to read or finish the book, please come and watch it with us!

More details will follow by e-mail. Looking forward to a fun evening. . .