The Mirror Quartet, Bk. 1 – A Winter’s Promise

Having finished reading this book last night, I have written myself a quick summary in an effort to keep track of characters and events. It is by no means exhaustive, but: spoilers ahead.

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The world has been broken into pieces, such that instead of one planet, there are 21 arks (and many more pieces smaller than the arks).

Ophelia (age 21?  I think it was 21 since she had turned down marrying a couple distant cousins) has lived on the ark of Anima her whole life.  As an Animist, she has the ability to ‘read’ objects – physically touching an item reveals to her the life of previous owners.  She is also able to travel through mirrors, assuming they are large enough for her to fit through; if they aren’t, she can at least use them for listening.

She wears a pair of gloves at all times so as to refrain from accidentally invading people’s privacy or from contaminating objects with her own history and emotions.  Her skill is such that she runs a museum; her godfather is, I believe, a head archivist who can allow her to sneak down to the lower levels of the family archives, to read her ancestor’s journal and glean what can be gleaned from the family spirit’s (Artemis’s) book.  This is because the Doyennes in charge of Anima have arranged her marriage to a man from another ark, Thorn of The Pole, and Ophelia wants to learn whatever she can about The Pole in preparation.

Thorn arrives on Anima, announcing that the original courtship period must be much curtailed so he can return home for work; Ophelia and her aunt/godmother ride an airship to his ark, where the rest of the engagement will be spent. 

Thorn is Treasurer of The Pole, which apparently means that everyone hates him; this means that they will hate Ophelia by extension, so she must be kept hidden/secret as much as possible for her own safety.  Ophelia learns in time that Thorn was born a bastard, such that his half-siblings hate him too.  Thorn warns Ophelia to trust no one but his aunt, Berenilde, who raised him despite his birth. 

Berenilde is pregnant (by the family spirit, Farouk??  gross), and elects to hide Ophelia by having her pose as a mute servant, disguised with a Mirage garment that changes her appearance completely.  As “Mime,” Ophelia must wait on Berenilde at all hours, sleep in dingy servant quarters, figure out the ever-changing layout of the ark’s buildings, and give her first few sandglasses (gratuities/breaks) to Fox (Foster), a fellow servant who helps show her the ropes.

In the course of servitude, Ophelia learns that: whatever one member of the Web sees (eg, Archibald the ambassador and his sisters), they all see; the Dragons (Thorn’s half-siblings) are able to hurt/kill telepathically or something; the entire city is cloaked in glamours, hiding the bland or rundown reality beneath; Farouk, like Artemis, has a book he wants to understand better, and Berenilde is in a race (with Archibald?  with someone) to translate or otherwise understand it; there is a child who can imprison people within their own minds or steal their memories; there was a clan called Nihilists who were able to undo the Mirage enchantments; the head engineer of the ark is made of stern stuff; there is no due process; etc., etc.

Thorn is quite taciturn and only gives Ophelia information slowly over time.  He is protective of her (did he kill Gustave the butler in her defense?  Probably), but when she eventually learns that the marriage ceremony will create an exchange of their respective powers (her reading, his memory/Dragon claws), she loses trust in him, supposing that he is only protecting her skills as a reader. 

As the novel ends, the Dragons have all been killed during their annual hunt (aside from Thorn and Berenilde, who didn’t go); Ophelia is preparing to meet Farouk face-to-face; her family is preparing to travel to the ark to come see her, as she never received any of their letters and could not write back; and she’s still recovering from a broken rib.

2021 in Books!

‘Tis the season to post at least one blog for the year: the reading wrap-up.

1. How many books did you read this year?  38, according to GoodReads – though that leaves out 7 children’s books, and 11 books on quilting that I flipped through and read portions of.
   
2. Did you reread anything? What?  The only reread I recall was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I never DID get all the way through my sentimental items, and thus feel the need to re-reread it for another round through clothing, books, papers, and komono (once I’ve clarified my vision of what I want life to look like: always the difficult part).
   
3. What were your top five books of the year?  Himself and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue both had an interesting conceit and storytelling style.  So did The ABC Murders, which was rendered even more intriguing by contrast with the BBC series.  Digital Minimalism could change my life if I actually put it into practice.  I suppose we could put Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom as one long magical heist book, since they’re basically two halves of the same story.
    
4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?  Not sure about love, but I’d read more Jess Kidd, Megan Whalen Turner, Eleanor Arnason, and Cal Newport.
   
5. What genre did you read the most of?  I thought it might be mystery, but fantasy won out.  This is what happens when you dive into a bunch of Leigh Bardugo.  Plenty of Ngaio Marsh left for this year!
   
6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?  As ever, yes.  Huge swaths of my shelves are one big TBR list; the same could be said of my roommate’s shelves; ditto the whole Ann Arbor library. 
   
   More specifically: Why We Sleep, A Praying Life, The King of Attolia, and Everything Sad is Untrue were due back before I could finish them; Howl’s Moving Castle/House of Many Ways/Castle in the Air, Essential McLuhan, and a guide book to Japan were requested by someone else before I even started them; and eventually, my boyfriend convinced me that I should winnow down my checkouts, such that after reading Anteater of Death, I returned the Koala, Llama, and Puffin of Death (among other things).  The idea is that if I can’t bear to live my life without finding out who else dies in/near the Gunn Zoo, possibly with a puffin as witness, I’ll check them back out.
   
7. What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate?  3.4, which is the same as 2020.  I think I err on the side of generosity, but continue to wish for a 10-point scale rather than a 5-point scale, so it would be easier to differentiate between middling-fair and middling-poor reads. 
   
   A friend shared that she’s stopped using GoodReads ratings, since the significant point is whether or not she enjoyed the book; I continue to feel that the ratings of friends whose taste I trust is a useful metric, so I’ll keep including them for the time being. 
   
8. Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones? I completed my GoodReads goal of 33; read some things that had been on my TBR for a while (A Gathering of Ravens, You Need a Budget, A Discovery of Witches, The Thief, The Medium is the Massage); and successfully read 10 pages of nonfiction (with a bent toward self-improvement) for 75 days straight as part of 75 Hard.  This last item was most helpful and significant for reaching my yearly goal.
   
9. Did you get into any new genres? On account of 75 Hard, I guess so; I don’t suppose I’d read so many self-improvement-centric nonfiction books otherwise.  Not sure if I’d call it a new genre for me, just an unusual focus.
   
10. What was your favorite new release of the year? The closest I got to a new release were books from 2020: Delight!; The Invisible Life of Addie Larue; and Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers.  Of these, Addie Larue was the most entertaining to read, but that’s rather comparing apples and oranges.
    
11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?  All the Ngaio Marsh (and Christie, come to that) were published in the 1930s, but that doesn’t make them any less delightful!
        
12. Any books that disappointed you?  A Gathering of Ravens was more grimdark and tedious than I expected it to be; Aurora was a tremendously thorough thought experiment, but didn’t quite go where I expected or wanted; and Option B was billed as a book about resilience rather than a book about grief.
    
13. What were your least favorite books of the year?  Option B. 
    
14. What books do you want to finish before the year is over?   N/A at this point.    
    
15. Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?  Hmmm.  Some of them were nominated for awards, but not any of the awards listed, so I’m not sure it applies. Perhaps I should seek out a handful of award-winners to see if their qualities are particularly distinct.
    
16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?  Probably Shadow and Bone.  Not that it was tremendously hyped, mind you, but because there’s a show based on it, I figured it would be better than it was.  Apparently the show relies on a fusion of Shadow and Bone with Six of Crows/Cursed Kingdom, which would make it somewhat stronger.
    
17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?  No.  More frequently, though, a lackluster beginning would surprise me with how intriguing it got by the end.  Even some of the weakest books had compelling endings – although this may be a function of narrative lust; you know how it goes.
    
18. How many books did you buy? …let’s see.  7 books for my boyfriend’s parents, 2 for my roommate, a couple more for other friends, 1 for my niece, and 2 for me.  So 14?
    
19. Did you use your library?  For sure!!  I should actually use my library a bit less (ie, make fewer requests) so as to use it more effectively (read more of my checkouts).
    
20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?  Subversive, as it’s the one book I can think of where I requested that the library obtain it and was 4^th in line to read it when they did.  It explored more or less what I expected it to explore, though I thought the style a bit lacking; the strongest parts quote Sayers herself, such that perhaps one should have just done so from the start.
    
21. Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama?  Nope.  Ain’t nobody got time for that.
    
22. What’s the longest book you read? A Discovery of Witches: 579 pages. Although I reckon Aurora FELT longer. 
    
23. What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book?  An hour or two for a shorter book; I read some Avatar graphic novels which I expected to take longer than they did, and zipped right through The Biggest Story.
    
24. Did you DNF anything? Why? As noted, some things went back to the library before I finished them, and may or may not be checked back out in future.  Ninth House and Everything Sad is Untrue were two of these.  On the other hand, I got about 5 pages into Illumination: poetry to light up the darkness before I decided that I wasn’t interested in its typewritten #aesthetic, because the poems themselves didn’t take the intangible and give it form in a way I appreciated.
    
25. What reading goals do you have for next year?  The biggest one is taking my boyfriend’s challenge seriously: I’m not requesting anything else from the library until I’ve read the 18 books I have checked out, the 5 requests that are already set to come in at some point, the 12 books friends have lent me, and Studies in Words / The Ode Less Travelled (which have been my “currently reading” for about 6 or 7 years, and which went on this EXACT list at the end of 2019).  Then all the gift-books that I meant to blog about and didn’t.  Then all the Shakespeare.  Then whatever else is alone and unloved on my shelves. 
    
    Obviously at some point the Summer Game will happen and I will probably request 57 more things.  So it continues.
    
    Tell me about your 2021 reading, or what you look forward to reading in 2022! If you’ve got a particular item for my TBR, I’d love to hear about it!

2020 in Books!

It’s only been 3 posts since the last summary post, but…I figured I’d do another, even if we all want to forget 2020 and hope for better from 2021 (despite how unimpressive the 7-day free trial’s been).

1. How many books did you read this year?  34 – but don’t tell GoodReads; I technically missed my goal of 35 but accidentally marked The Girl Who Drank the Moon twice and couldn’t figure out how to correct that.  It’s enough that I got the “Completed!” ribbon instead of being taunted with my failure (like when I aimed for 65 in 2017 and whiffed it).
2. Did you reread anything? What?  Storm Front, Fool Moon, and Grave Peril, as I started a Dresden Files reread.  Unfortunately I have something of a feud with another AADL user, who keeps checking out the next book I want.  I also reread The Little Prince, The Four Loves, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and Out of the Silent Planet.
3. What were your top five books of the year?  Spinning Silver, Anna and the Swallow Man, Plum Rains, The Girl who Drank the Moon, and…well, one of those I reread, I guess.  Or perhaps one of the mysteries – When in Rome or A Shilling for Candles.
4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year? Naomi Novik (wrote Spinning Silver) and Gavriel Savit (wrote Anna and the Swallow Man).  Also, while I’d heard of Ngaio Marsh earlier than 2020, I guess that was the first year I’d actually read any of her work (and she’s got about 3 dozen books to look into)!  Additionally, I’m not certain whether I love Kelly Barnhill and Adromeda Romano-Lax, but I’m willing to read their other books to make that call.
5. What genre did you read the most of? Fantasy – at least 13 of them.  Must be down to Book Group Thing.  Other genres included sci-fi, teen, magical realism, and whatever Notes from a Public Typewriter might be.
6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to? Always and forever.  I meant to reread all the Dresden Files, I meant to finish all the books friends lent me, etc. etc.  At least I got Anna and the Swallow Man back to the friend who lent it to me.
7. What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate?  3.4. That’s down from 3.7 in 2019 – perhaps I’m more critical than I used to be.  I definitely recall a lot of books where I wished for a 10-point scale instead of a 5-point scale, so as to distinguish between middling-fair and middling-poor books.
8. Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones? I got close enough to 35 to content myself, and I mostly finished my Book Group Thing books early enough to discuss them with others.   
9. Did you get into any new genres? Not really.
10. What was your favorite new release of the year? The closest I got to a new release were Another Kingdom (May 2019) and The Starless Sea (November 2019).  Neither of them were great.
11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?   A Shilling for Candles is from 1936, and When in Rome is from 1970.   
12. Any books that disappointed you? The Starless Sea (too many motifs, trying too hard to be Current^TM, soggy); The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (too depressing without a narrative payoff); Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (so much potential! So many threads left hanging).
13. What were your least favorite books of the year?   The Starless Sea wasn’t great.  The Shadow of the Torturer went on and on forever, using obscure words for kicks, without giving me any characters I cared about.  Another Kingdom was so ridiculous in several ways.
14. What books do you want to finish before the year is over? Well, it’s a bit late to ask that.  I managed to squeeze in that Out of the Silent Planet reread but did not quite finish rereading Perelandra before it was January. 
15. Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?  Okay, so, I don’t think any of them got awards this year, but The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a Newberry winner.  I thought it was a lovely story with an interesting twist on witch tropes, city elders tropes, etc.
16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year? Starless Sea (you’re not as cool as The Night Circus!  You’re just not!); The Sunlit Night (you don’t deserve to be made into a movie); The Illustrated Man (I am very fond of Bradbury!  But it got to a point of just feeling like the same story told different ways). 
17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?   Spinning Silver.  It was SO tidy.  I appreciate stories that tie up so neatly and recommend it to anyone who enjoys fairy tales or fantasy.
18. How many books did you buy? …let’s see.  I bought my boyfriend a book in February, my friend a book in December (which I still need to give her), and I was tempted to buy Huxley’s Music at Night in September before coming to my senses and going “You can just get that from MelCat once it’s up and running again!”  Which I did.  I should finish reading that.
19. Did you use your library? Definitely.  The pandemic meant that 1-month checkouts turned into 3- or 5-month checkouts, which meant that I finished….like…3 additional books.  Maybe.  I basically didn’t finish anything in March, May, or July, which is why I had trouble meeting my yearly goal.
20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?  
    I’d anticipated Starless Sea, Particular Sadness, and Sunlit Night.  …seems I was most let down by the ones I anticipated most.
21. Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama?  Nope.  Ain’t nobody got time for that.
22. What’s the longest book you read? The Starless Sea: 498 pages.  Maybe part of what I disliked about it was how long reading it took.  Also, though Bitter Seeds, Shadow of the Torturer, and Titus Groan were shorter books, I think they all felt like they took as long.
23. What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book?  An hour or two for a shorter book, especially since I had so many rereads (Best Christmas Pageant Ever is only 80 pages, which I’d forgotten, and The Little Prince has never been that long).
24. Did you DNF anything? Why? I didn’t finish On the Map because someone else requested it from the library; ditto Outwitting Squirrels and Possum Living.  There were several sequels to Book Group Thing reads (Tombs of Atuan, Farthest Shore, Desert Spear) which I requested but never actually had enough interest to crack open.   
25. What reading goals do you have for next year?   Some are the same as before – 33 books, get closer to keeping up with my library checkouts, read all the Shakespeare I haven’t yet, finish and returned borrowed books to friends.  But I also vacillate wildly: I should read more doctrinal books!  I should read more history and/or critical theory!  I should read all my cheap paperbacks and cull the ones I don’t love!  The list goes ever on and on, down from my pen where it began. 
    
    Tell me about your 2020 reading, or what you look forward to reading in 2021! If you’ve got a particular item for my TBR, I’d love to hear about it!

2019 in Books!

I’ve been trying to compose a retrospective post about 2019, despite it being three whole days into the new year, when old things are passed away and, largely, forgotten in the mists.

So whilst my mind sorts that out, I thought I’d follow a collection of prompts to tell y’all about this year’s reading.  Do share your own reading experiences as you like!!  Here’s to further work on our respective TBR piles throughout 2020.

1. How many books did you read this year?   33!
2. Did you reread anything? What? Curse of the Pharaohs (as I hope to continue the Amelia Peabody series, and had forgotten how this story went), As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (ditto, but re: the Flavia de Luce series), Good Omens (before watching the Amazon show’s depiction of it).
3. What were your top five books of the year? Persuasion, A Gentleman in Moscow, The Stature of Waiting, Good Omens, and Thoughts on Creating Strong Towns.  The first 3 were beautiful, beneficial to the soul, and felt classic.  Good Omens remained hilarious, if blasphemous.  Strong Towns was so thought-provoking that I think it’s given me a bit of a paradigm shift in how I think about communities.
   

   

   

   

   
4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year? I definitely enjoyed Ted Chiang, what I’ve read of Amor Towles, and WH Vanstone.
5. What genre did you read the most of? Mysteries – 7 of them (2 Amelia Peabody, 4 Flavia de Luce, 1 Sherlock pastiche).
6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to? Oh, always.  Kristin Lavransdattir, Crazy Rich Asians, some things other friends lent me.  Still haven’t finished Benedict Option or A Gathering of Ravens.  At one point I had three copies of The Ode Less Traveled, but I had trouble on Exercise 4 so I haven’t finished the exercises therein yet.
7. What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate?  3.7, I guess, which sounds fair.  Just as I try not to go overboard on standing ovations, I try to save 1- or 2-star reviews for the truly terrible, and 4- or 5-star reviews for the truly edifying or life-changing.
8. Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones? I read 30 books, which was my main goal.  There will always be a TBR pile, though. I tried giving up fanfiction, which would work for a month tops before I returned to old habits.
9. Did you get into any new genres? No, I guess not, unless you count “Spanish baby books” as a genre.
10. What was your favorite new release of the year? The only new release I read was, apparently, The Golden Tresses of the Dead.  So I guess that wins.
11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?   The Stature of Waiting was originally published in 1982; A Month in the Country, 1980.  Oh, and Persuasion! 1818.  I’d seen the movie but hadn’t read it before.
12. Any books that disappointed you? A Study in Sherlock.  It’s an anthology written in homage of Doyle’s canon, but several of the entries seemed to say “Look how much I’m into memorabilia and name-dropping!!” instead of “Hey, look, a well-composed story.”
13. What were your least favorite books of the year?   Hmm.  Robinson’s Housekeeping was strange to me.  Olive Kitteridge was delicately written but so godless!  So depressing.  Bright Bazaar was a book I checked out in hopes that it could give me decorating ideas, but instead it just infuriated me – apparently bright colors are only possible for wealthy homeowners who are aggressive minimalists.  Ugh.
14. What books do you want to finish before the year is over? I squeezed The Stature of Waiting in, and got started rereading The Buried Giant, which I haven’t finished yet.
15. Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them? …okay, possibly I did?  But also, who knows.  I don’t care enough to go look it up.
16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year? I dunno about ‘overhyped,’ but – I read 3 books by Jason Fung (The Obesity Code, The Complete Guide to Fasting, The Diabetes Code) and they could have/should have been edited down into one book.  I’m also surprised that Olive Kitteridge has been made into a show; it was so depressing that I’m not interested in learning more about the characters in it.
17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?   The Stature of Waiting did.  It was also surprising in terms of content – I don’t know that I’ve ever read a gloss of the Passion narrative like this.
18. How many books did you buy? Seven, I think – 4 as gifts, 3 for me.  And I received at least 2 as gifts in return.
19. Did you use your library? Oh, for sure.  This is part of why I’m an irresponsible reader: I check out everything that catches my eye, and then it sits and waits for me for ages.
20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?   Probably Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang?  Which.  I wanted to read it because Arrival made me cry a lot.  It was both what I expected and…not at all what I could have expected.
21. Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama?  Nope.  Ain’t nobody got time for that.
22. What’s the longest book you read? A Gentleman in Moscow, apparently – 396 pages.
23. What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book? Probably an hour or two for a shorter book.
24. Did you DNF anything? Why? I didn’t finish The Story of a Soul because someone else requested it from the library.  I didn’t finish Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story because it Just Wasn’t What I Expected; I honestly thought it was a story, not a philosophical enterprise.  Lastly, I checked out several Spanish children’s books in the expectation that they would suit my level of Spanish vocabulary.  Some (Nariz, Naricita; Besos for Baby; Los Sueños) were feasible; some (Cómo Esconder un León a la Abuela; El Príncipe de los Enredos; Rooster; Los Arboles Están Colgando del Cielo) were beyond me. 
25. What reading goals do you have for next year?   To start with, I want to read at least 35 books.  I hope to read through my current library checkouts and not get out more than I can get through (even during the Summer Game)!  I want to finish The Ode Less Traveled and Studies in Words so I can, at long last, remove them from my “Currently Reading” tab.  I want to reread The Lord of the Rings.  I want to read all of Shakespeare’s plays, or at least, all those I haven’t read or watched before.

Tell me about your 2019 reading, or what you look forward to reading in 2020!

 

Review of sorts: A Month in the Country

I’m currently staying with my friend the Mead, in the final few weeks before her family raises their tentpoles to head south and east.  This time lends itself to a bit of reflection on the times one’s had, the times one might have had, and what all might be lying ahead – both generally speaking, and where one’s bookshelf is concerned.

Our conversation, amid two years’ worth of catching-up, jumped from what we’ve read and enjoyed, to what waits on the TBR list, to books that were pretentious or unnecessarily depressing, to promising new possibilities.  My friend recommended a few titles to me, including this one by JL Carr.

I didn’t read the blurb on the back and had to unfold for myself that the narrator, Tom Birkin, back in England after fighting in World War I, has been hired by a church in Yorkshire to painstakingly uncover a medieval mural that had been whitewashed over some five centuries back.  His benefactress had also, by way of putting it in her will, hired a fellow to come make a diligent effort to search for her ancestor’s remains; according to records, said ancestor had been excommunicated and thus buried outside the churchyard.  

So Birkin spends the summer at work, on a scaffold amid limestone ashlar, hassocks, balusters, and an inscribed catafalque.

Telling you anything further about the plot feels like a sort of betrayal – not because I am afraid of spoiling the story for you, per se, but because the story is so much more than the sum of those discrete events.

There’s a few lines running throughout which could be pulled taut, to become lines of tension or of humor: a Londoner amid northern folk, Anglican Church versus nonconformist Chapel (and their different approaches to purchasing organs), Birkin’s financial straits, and changing relationships (friendship or romantic alike).

Birkin understands the significance and meaning of this sacred mural, even if the battles of Ypres and ensuing shell-shock have driven out his own belief in God, and looks on the painted figures doomed to hell with a bit more sympathy than the less-compelling righteous heading for heaven.

The period of clearing centuries of grime off a painting (and what a painting, what costly materials were used, what a master composed it!) provides some rest as he is engaged in his work, smooths out the twitch and stammer he was left by the war, and reminds him of the possibility of love in this northern community.

And, at such a time, for a few of us there will always be a tugging at the heart—knowing a precious moment had gone and we not there. We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever—the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on belfry floor, a remembered voice, a loved face. They’ve gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.

It’s a quiet little book, threaded with the melancholy of autumn’s backward glance.

The first breath of autumn was in the air, a prodigal feeling, a feeling of wanting, taking, and keeping before it is too late.

More Religious Characters, Please

I concur with most everything said here, especially Katie’s note about 21st century literature. As I read, I strained my memory for “books [with religious/Christian characters] other than just The Shack and weird Amish-romances.”

The books or authors that most immediately come to mind when I think of good Christian fiction (whether they feature practicing Christians or not) are either Inklings (Lewis, Tolkien), Catholic literary revivalists (Waugh, Percy, Greene, O’Connor), or somewhat-adjacent folk (Sayers), all publishing ca. 1920-1980. And, you know, I’ll go on recommending the Lord Peter books, The End of the Affair, Brideshead Revisited, or the Cosmic Trilogy until my mind dissolves. I’ll commend anything by L’Engle even if it’s technically 20th century writing and I still have yet to read most of it.

But as Katie says, it’s harder to find representation in contemporary books. The field seems ripe for some solid idea-wrestling – what does it look like to be Orthodox in 2019?  What tension exists between you, the culture at large, and individuals around you when you’re a Calvinist?  How does your Catholicism manifest, and how do you reconcile confessing “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” with the abuses wrought by some priests and hidden by others? – all of which is to say, maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. Perhaps, as with stories about contentedly single women, I’d have to write it myself.

Some possibilities that occur:

The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell. 1996, set in 2019/2060. Features Jesuits, Judaism, and agnosticism, in the context of interstellar travel.

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson. 2004, set 1956. A Congregationalist minister’s theological and philosophical struggles as he looks back on his life and his family history.

Flavia de Luce series, Alan Bradley. 2009-2019, set in 1950. Not about faith so much as it’s about crime-solving via chemistry, but it at least depicts Catholics and Anglicans going about their lives.

The Awakening of Miss Prim, Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera. 2013, set…well, sometime after 1970. Depicts a woman entering a community in the style of the Benedict Option.

I’d also like to mention Luci Shaw again. She’s a poet, not a novelist, so insofar as her work discusses faith, it does so directly rather than mediated through a character. She’s been publishing since the 1970s.

Edited to add:  Krysta of Pages Unbound has talked about this on multiple occasions, and one of the Pages Unbound readers has assembled this list of titles which feature POF, ie, People of Faith.

What books do you know of that represent Christianity in any depth?

What books do you know that represent Judaism, Islam, or other religions with nuance?

Never Not Reading

Today I’m going to talk about something that a lot of people are going to disagree with me about. This is something that has been quietly bothering me for some time, but came to a head in recent months, and I hope you’ll give me a chance to have my say.

There’s a lot of talk about representation in literature. Most often in 2019 we talk about diversity in terms of race/ethnicity and sexuality, however there is a growing movement calling for positive representation of mental health and people with disabilities. You don’t hear much about diversity in terms of religion. And if you do, you expect to hear about Muslim characters.

However, I am here to tell you, friends, that in 21st century literature, religious characters are highly underrepresented.

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O Dies Propitie!

A most felicitous 13th of June to you all!

Today happens to be the 37th birthday of Chris Evans, and my parents’ 37th wedding anniversary.

But more significantly, where this blog is concerned…

We have noted that this is the birthday of Dorothy Sayers: academic, playwright, essayist, novelist; thinker, wordsmith, professor of the Christian faith; and inspiration for this blog, such as it is in this 8th year.

Given that she was born in 1893, this is the 125th anniversary of her birth: her quasquicentennial!

That being the case, it is good, right, and salutary to share some of my favorite lines of hers – possibly for the second or third time, but no less delightful for it!

 

“I think my mother’s talents deserve a little acknowledgement. I said so to her, as a matter of fact, and she replied in these memorable words: “My dear child, you can give it a long name if you like, but I’m an old-fashioned woman and I call it mother-wit, and it’s so rare for a man to have it that if he does you write a book about him and call him Sherlock Holmes.”
– Clouds of Witness

“Still, it doesn’t do to murder people, no matter how offensive they may be.”
– Five Red Herrings

“Do you know how to pick a lock?”
“Not in the least, I’m afraid.”
“I often wonder what we go to school for,” said Wimsey.”
– Strong Poison

“Well, we’ve only just got back from Ithaca. Bob is fearfully excited about a new set of burial-places, and has evolved an entirely original and revolutionary theory about funerary rites. He’s writing a paper that contradicts all old Lam-bard’s conclusions, and I’m helping by toning down his adjectives and putting in deprecatory footnotes. I mean, Lam-bard may be a perverse old idiot, but it’s more dignified not to say so in so many words. A bland and deadly courtesy is more devastating, don’t you think?”
“Infinitely.”
Here at any rate was somebody who had not altered by a hair’s-breadth, in spite of added years and marriage. Harriet was in a mood to be glad of that. After an exhaustive inquiry into the matter of funerary rites, she asked after the family.

“Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?”
“So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober.”

“How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks!”

“The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.”

– all from Gaudy Night

Probably no man has ever troubled to imagine how strange his life would appear to himself if it were unrelentingly assessed in terms of his maleness; if everything he wore, said, or did had to be justified by reference to female approval; if he were compelled to regard himself, day in day out, not as a member of society, but merely (salva reverentia) as a virile member of society.
…He would be edified by solemn discussions about “Should Men Serve in Drapery Establishments?” and acrimonious ones about “Tea-Drinking Men”; by cross-shots of public affairs “from the masculine angle,” and by irritable correspondence about men who expose their anatomy on beaches (so masculine of them), conceal it in dressing-gowns (too feminine of them), think about nothing but women, pretend an unnatural indifference to women, exploit their sex to get jobs, lower the tone of the office by their sexless appearance, and generally fail to please a public opinion which demands the incompatible. And at dinner-parties he would hear the wheedling, unctuous, predatory female voice demand: “And why should you trouble your handsome little head about politics?”
If, after a few centuries of this kind of treatment, the male was a little self-conscious, a little on the defensive, and a little bewildered about what was required of him, I should not blame him. If he traded a little upon his sex, I could forgive him. If he presented the world with a major social problem, I would scarcely be surprised. It would be more surprising if he retained any rag of sanity and self-respect.
– “The Human-Not-Quite-Human,” Are Women Human?: witty and astute essays on the role of women in society

“Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined?”
– “The Lost Tools of Learning”

“It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ.”
– “Creed or Chaos?: Why Christians Must Choose Either Dogma or Disaster”

“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair. It is the accomplice of the other sins and their worst punishment. It is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”
– “The Other Six Deadly Sins”

Last, but certainly not least:

“The Egotists’ Club is one of the most genial places in London. It is a place to which you may go when you want to tell that odd dream you had last night, or to announce what a good dentist you have discovered. You can write letters there if you like, and have the temperament of a Jane Austen, for there is no silence room, and it would be a breach of club manners to appear busy or absorbed when another member addresses you.”
– “The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers”

Review: The Handmaid’s Tale

This book has been on my to-read list for ages, and got bumped up a few spots by the creation of the Hulu miniseries – not that I necessarily want to watch the show, you understand, but because I want to be familiar with the story should it come up indiscussion.

I ripped through nearly 400 pages in a day, which indicates that my brain is getting up to former speeds, or it’s a very compelling book, or both.  Atwood’s prose is verbal titanium: light, swift, easy to comprehend; but strong, sturdy, full of ideas to unpack.

I’d seen it called dystopian, science fiction, or speculative fiction, and wondered about that; the book cover I’d seen most often seemed to depict a white mouse in a red dress in a castle, which didn’t seem to fit any such categories.  But, in fact, it is a woman required to wear red clothing and a vision-obscuring white hat, passing the wall where the day’s political dead are hung on hooks as an example (though these, thankfully, are not shown on the cover as well).

The book’s premise: the American birthrate had fallen below replacement level, due to both the usual suspects (birth control, abortion, infertility, disease) and some unusual ones (genetic deformities, stillbirths, and miscarriages brought on by the combined effects of nuclear waste, biochemical weapons, toxic dumping, pesticide, etc.).  Against such a backdrop, a cultish cabal of right-wing theonomists (or something like) assassinates the President and Congress, wresting control amid the resulting martial law; they quickly illegalize women holding either jobs or property; and women young and healthy enough to bear children are captured and herded into “re-education centers,” before being assigned to families of sufficiently high rank but sufficiently few offspring.

The protagonist – known by the patronymic “Offred” as she cannot use her real name in Fred, “the Commander’s” household – reveals her earlier life in snatches: her mother had raised her alone, Moira was her best friend, she’d been a man’s mistress and later his wife, they had a daughter; one day she lost her job and access to her bank account; she and Luke attempted to flee (from Boston or thereabouts) to Canada, at which point she was captured and brought to the Red Center; and throughout her time as a handmaid, she wonders where Luke might be, simultaneously believing that he’s escaped and that he’s dead.

Day-to-day existence involves guarding her tongue around everyone, as other handmaids might be spying for the Guardians or Eyes; buying household supplies using pictograms, since women aren’t allowed to read; checking the wall to see if Luke’s body has been hooked on it; periodically reading the words Nolite te bastardes carborundorum where they are carved into the bottom of her wardrobe; and literally lying in the lap of Serena Joy, the Commander’s wife, while the Commander copulates with her – thus acting as Serena Joy’s ‘handmaid.’   Kind of like the Biblical story of Jacob, Rachel, and Rachel’s maid Bilhah, except several degrees creepier.  Handmaids who successfully conceive, come to term, and bear a healthy child (a rarity) are given more respect and privileges, if not the freedom that existed before Gilead: the (municipality? region? country? I don’t believe this is made clear) that has been created in the wake of the United States.

I expected the book to be nothing but an attack: an attack on Christians; an attack on traditional values; a story that, above all, insisted that women not be subject to the original nature of their own bodies; a defense of ‘reproductive freedom’ that condemned anyone who wanted to get pregnant and bear children.

Some might still read it that way.  The Biblical quotations used (and how they are twisted) have surely misled many people who know nothing else about Christianity or the Bible to believe that the whole faith hates women and seeks only to cast and keep them down.  There are surely people who think the Sons of Jacob enact what Christians believe, and sadly there are enough different denominations out there that for a handful of people, it might be true.  But I expect that most Christians find The Handmaid’s Tale as outrageous and terrifying a world as any secular reader.

To my eyes, as written, this story is not an attack on pregnancy or motherhood per se; some of the most moving parts of the novel are those moments where Offred remembers her husband and her child.  She wants her former freedoms, yes, but she also wants to be held, to be known, to be loved.  She wants to see how big her 8-year-old has gotten, wants to mother her instead of whatever stranger has claimed that privilege.  Meanwhile, there comes a point where Offred plays the Commander’s mistress rather than a mere vessel for his seed.  What does he want with her?  A kiss (like she means it); to look over now-forbidden magazines; to see her in now-forbidden clothing; and most hilariously, to play games of Scrabble.  He wants company, and has to creep about after midnight to get it: a sad state for the men, too, if not anywhere as horrifying as mandated rape.

The story Offred shares is what she and the other handmaids undergo.  What she is not in a position to share is how exactly it got that way.  Who started this unChristlike initiative?  If the birthrate is what actually matters, why entrust the begetting solely to the higher-ranking but less fertile men?  Who demanded this amount of power, backing it up with a private military force with lots and lots of guns?  How extensive is Gilead, and how long could it possibly last before the biggest revolution in history occurs?

As in any dystopia, the power behind the curtain is shadowy at best.  Presumably the TV series will provide answers, carefully chosen to resemble current political figures more closely.  All we can know from reading the book is that Gilead cannot last, except in the studies of later scholars who themselves study the handmaid’s tale.