I was wandering through the National Gallery of Art recently when I rounded a corner and came upon a fellow bookish princess in the form of Fragonard’s “Young Girl Reading.” I paused to admire the vibrant, clever brushstrokes of yellow and purple in the dress and pillow. I didn’t like to disturb her, but I do wonder what book she was reading. 😉 My summer has been quite packed with peregrinations and pages! Before we march any further into August, I wanted to round up my favorite reads from June and July…
Pat of Silver Bush by L.M. Montgomery
The peace of the old kitchen was in delightful contrast to the storm outside. The stove was glowing clear red in the dusk. Thursday was coiled up under it, thinking this was how things should be. It was so nice to be in this bright, warm room, supping Judy’s hot pea soup and watching the reflection of the kitchen outside through the window. Pat loved to do that. It looked so uncanny and witchlike…so real yet so unreal…with Judy apparently calmly setting bread under the thrashing maple by the well.
The “Thursday” referenced in the above passage is a cat. I highly approved of all the cats in Pat of Silver Bush! There’s no one like L.M. Montgomery for picking out the magic of quick, passing, ordinary moments like a cozy, stormy evening or the mystery of seeing outside and inside scenes superimposed on each other in a window’s reflection. Montgomery is so good at highlighting the beauty of phrases as well as scenes…
Pat loved the sound of “a day to spend".” It sounded so gloriously lavish to “spend” a whole day, letting its moments slip one by one through your fingers like beads of gold.
“A day to spend” is wealth indeed! As I mentioned in the video, Pat of Silver Bush had many delightful elements but was also a bit slow-moving and light on plot for my tastes. One of our book club members pointed out that we’re seeing the world through the mind of Pat as a child, which I thought was so insightful. I heard Jordan Peterson make the point in one of his lectures that when you’re young, two weeks feels like two years, whereas when you get older, two years can feel like two weeks. The narrative of this book definitely telescopes to that slow pace of a young girl’s life, and her small worries are often similarly overblown and can be a bit wearying from a reader’s perspective. Pat hates the idea of change so fiercely and wants everything to stay the same. For example, she doesn’t care for her sister’s dream of becoming a missionary because it would take the sister away from home…
“Do you think, Judy, it would be wrong for me to pray that Winnie will change her mind before she grows up?”
“Oh, oh, I wudn’t be meddling much wid that kind of praying,” said Judy looking very wise. “Ye never can tell how it will be turning out, Patsy dear. I’ve known minny a quare answer in me time. Just trust to the chact that Winnie’ll change her mind av her own accord.”
Luckily Pat has a Judy to give her good advice! I loved Judy’s wisdom, her Irish brogue, and her feline familiar, Gentleman Tom.
And speaking of cats…
Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart
Just outside the offices of Meyer, Meyer, and Hardy there is a pedestrian crossing. The light was at red, Don’t Walk. Just under it, on the very edge of the pavement, a black cat was sitting, waiting apparently for the light to change to green. As I paused beside him he glanced up. I said to him, “Can’t you reach? Allow me,” and pressed the button. I have a theory that the button never has the least effect on the lights, which are totally unaffected by pedestrians’ needs, but at that exact moment the light switched to green. Walk. The cat got straight up and walked across the zebra-striped way, tail in the air. He was black as coal. “I may need you yet,” I told him, and followed him on to the crossing. There was a shriek of brakes.
Every so often I treat myself to a new Mary Stewart, and I’ll admit I picked this one because of the title! The cat motif was light but fun, and I enjoyed how the history of the main character Bryony’s family was woven into the mystery, although her ancestor was a decidedly unadmirable fellow. Mary Stewart takes an unexpected twist in this murder - the heroine has a mysterious mental connection she can’t explain but fully believes in, and we the readers are meant to believe in it too. I wasn’t sure how this element would play out, but I thought Stewart took a measured, down-to-earth approach and used it to great effect in the plot and in building suspense in her usual masterful way. I loved Bryony’s discussion about this “sixth sense” with her vicar.
“Yes, perhaps this is the answer. Since you have this, er, privileged communication, you must pay for it in this way. In other words,” said the Vicar, kneeling there in his old patched jacket with the scissors in his hand, and looking like the law and the prophets rolled into one, “in other words it is your duty to act as the voice of his conscience, if he has not a sufficiently powerful one of his own.”
“‘Stern Daughter of the Voice of God,’” I said, a little dismally.
“Exactly. Not an attractive lady. Duty. One of Wordsworth’s more inspired descriptions, I feel.”
Bryony’s friendship with her vicar is a fairly small part of the plot overall, but it was so beautiful to see. It makes you realize what an invaluable service a good vicar or good priest provides to a community. I also love Stewart’s casual classical allusions - in case you’re curious, here is the full Wordsworth poem, which is well worth a perusal.
And speaking of poetry…
Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.
Thoreau’s “The World Is Too Much with Us” came to mind when I was at the beach earlier this summer, but Emerson’s “Each and All” also has reflections that would be just right to recite by the sea. Inspired by Alcott April, I picked up an Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets edition of Emerson when I was bookstore browsing last month, and when I sat down with it the other evening, I found I couldn’t put it down! I need to spend more time reading poetry; I would love to be able to pull more passages from my memory, as Bryony and her pastor did with Wordsworth. So many bright and beautiful thoughts are embroidered in Emerson’s verses! I loved the theme of “Each and All,” which dwells on how interconnected everything is - even the shells need the background of the beach to retain their full magic, and it’s the same with mankind. “Nor knowest thou what argument / Thy life to thy neighbor’s creed has lent.”
And speaking of life and creeds and living well…
Love and Responsiblity by Karol Woytyla
What is my vocation? This means: in which direction should the development of my personhood proceed in light of what I have in myself, what I can give of myself, what others - people and God - expect from me? A believer thoroughly convinced of the veracity and reality of the evangelical vision of human existence is also aware that this development of personhood through love is not accomplished merely by the power of his own spiritual assets. By calling to perfection, the Gospel at the same time presents the truth about grace for us to believe. The action of grace places man in the orbit of the action of God, who is inscrutable in his personal life, and in the orbit of his love. The point is so that by discerning the proper direction for the development of his personhood, and together with it the main direction of his love, each man knows at the same time how to enter into God’s action and respond to his love. The fully-mature solution of the problem of vocation depends on this.
“Love” is a funny word. We use the term interchangeably in a wide variety of contexts and situations, some of them vastly dissimilar from one another. In Love and Responsibility, Saint John Paul II sets about separating out the tangled threads and getting to the root of real love, which is a yearning for the good and the true, for God himself. He slowly and meticulously defines his terms, examining difficulties and complexities, digging deep to get at truths about femininity, masculinity, ethics, and human nature. As in the passage above about vocation, JPII always comes back to the necessary interplay between our own free will and God’s irreplaceable though often inscrutable grace. This book is the perfect antidote to the confusion that is so prevalent in our world today. A must read!
And speaking of crazy conundrums humanity can get itself into…
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Grant knew that people could not imagine geological time. Human life was lived on another scale of time entirely. An apple turned brown in a few minutes. Silverware turned black in a few days. A compost heap decayed in a season. A child grew up in a decade. None of these everyday human experiences prepared people to be able to imagine the meaning of eighty million years - the length of time that had passed since this little animal had died.
My brother Athos loves dinosaurs and is a huge fan of Jurassic Park. I added it to the book club schedule on his suggestion, and I’m so glad I finally got around to reading it - Michael Crichton is a fantastic writer! The premise, the pacing, and the philosophical and paleontological asides were all fantastic. The best books expand your mind and help you to see the world in a new way, and so many different parts of Jurassic Park, like Grant’s observations on geological time above, did just that. As a gardener, I also loved Ellie’s observations on plants…
People who imagined that life on earth consisted of animals moving against a green background seriously misunderstood what they were seeing. That green background was busily alive. Plants grew, moved, twisted and turned fighting for the sun; and they interacted continuosly with animals- discouraging some with bark and thorns; poisoning others; and feeding still others to advance their own reproduction, to spread their pollen and seeds. it was a complex, dynamic process which she never ceased to find fascinating. And which she knew most people simply didn’t undsestand.
But if planting deadly ferns at poolside was any indication, then it was clear that the designers of Jurassic Park had not been as careful as they should have been.
Speaking of this year’s book club reads…
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
So thought Fanny, in good truth and sober sadness, as she sat musing over that too great indulgence and luxury of a fire upstairs: wondering at the past and present; wondering at what was yet to come, and in a nervous agitation which made nothing clear to her but the persuasion of her being never under any circumstances able to love Mr. Crawford, and the felicity of having a fire to sit over and think about it.
The last sentence made me laugh out loud. The humble comfort of the fire and the kindness of Sir Thomas that it represents have the power to sneak even into the midst of Fanny’s distress and lend some “felicity” to her preoccupation with the perplexities of the moment. Just as I’ve gained an increased appreciation for the apparently-overly-obnoxious Mrs. Jennings the last few times I’ve reread Sense and Sensibility, I’ve gained an increased appreciation for the apparently-overly-imposing Sir Thomas over my last few rereads of Mansfield Park. He makes some mistakes in relying on the judgment of Mrs. Norris, but he has enough character to own up to his mistakes and to recognize the value of Fanny’s moral strength.
Fanny’s inner fortitude is so impressive, and I think it can be traced back to her humility and patience - two virtues that are not very popular or attractive on the surface, but in the story and the character of Fanny, Austen shows what important and powerful virtues they are to practice and master. Every time I reread Austen, I fall in love with a new sentence that I somehow never noticed before. This time it was a beautiful reflection on what to do and where to turn in seemingly-hopeless situations…
Till she had shed many tears over this deception, Fanny could not subdue her agitation; and the dejection which followed could only be relieved by the influence of fervent prayers for his happiness.
Cry it out if you have to, but then pray it out; that’s the only way to beat dejection. And those comforting fires in the East room can help too.
The Bookish Kingdom Book Club pick for the month of August is The Way of Perfection by St Theresa of Avila which I am very much looking forward to starting. We’ll have to see what other books I can get to this season. Sending summer sunshine your way! ☀️
Sundry Summer Books and Travels