A few book reviews

I was excited to see this review of Mariette in Ecstasy, one of my favorite books by Ron Hansen, in The Paris Review. The link was shared from the Image update. Not only is the book good, but the review by Nick Ripatrazone captures one of the reasons why so well: the strangeness of Catholicism. As the culture becomes more and more secular, it becomes harder and harder to live in it without standing out and harder and harder to explain what it means to be Catholic. Reason seems to be a lost art. One of the few ways to evangelize is through beauty - and the strangeness of Catholicism is often beautiful in its union of mystery and doctrine and liturgy.

Also in the Image update: a review of my sister's CD, which is now out!

I just finished Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis - over 1000 pages of reading in two weeks. Read about them via Melissa Wiley's blog.  Too many late nights I stayed up reading until my eyelids couldn't stay open. That's the kind of books these are: you have to race through and stay in the story until you reach the last page, the end of the journey. The books are about time travelling historians stuck in World War II London. At times the pace is slow - an editor might cut a couple hundred pages - but I enjoy long reads every now and again because the length allows time to attach to the characters more.  On the other hand, long books take over my life, and I shouldn't be spending time right now on novels with the to-do list growing.  Reading is a form of time travel itself - the reader becomes someone else in another place at another time during which time wrinkles and passes much more quickly.

I didn't mark too many quotes, but my favorite highlights from All Clear were the characters of Sir Godfrey and the vicar of Backbury and the references to Agatha Christie - makes me want to reread some of her mysteries. It's not a scientific science fiction book - the explanation of time travel is a little sketchy, with "the Net" acting as a kind of surrogate for Providence.   Definite religious overtones, especially with the central role of the picture of Jesus as "Light of the World" in St. Paul's and the repetition of the "All will be well" reassurance, but no overt discussion of God or faith, other than this one part, when the small town vicar gives a homily on hope at a bodyless funeral: "But the vital thing is that we act. We do not rely on hope alone, though hope is our bulwark, our light through dark days and darker nights. We also work, and fight, and endure, and it does not matter whether the part we play is large or small. The reason that God marks the fall of the sparrow is that he knows that it is as important to the world as the bulldog or the wolf. . . For it is through deeds that the war will be won, through our kindness and devotion and courage that we make the better world for which we long. So is is with heaven... By our deeds here on earth, in this world so far from the one we long for, we make heaven possible. We not only live in the hope of heaven, but, by each doing our bit, we bring in to pass."

My spiritual book this month was A Right to Be Merry by Mother Mary Francis, which I read again for book club. (2010 was the last time: http://backbayview.blogspot.com/2010/07/postcard-from-road.html)I love this little joyful description of cloistered life and the remarks on simplicity, which reminded me yet again of the importance of making do with less and the freedom of having fewer choices and a regular routine/habit/rule and the discipline of loving the irritable.  I wonder how many young girls now form such a deep love of Christ that they would consider cloistered life as a way of unifying faith and life?  Or am I projecting my own active charism, which in fact many young contemplatives still are discerning such a call?

The book is a great read for Advent, which we are marking with our same Advent traditions of lighting the wreath, opening the calendar, and pinning up a few Jesse tree items, but most of our Christmas stuff is still in boxes because of unexpected company this past weekend. Last night was the community's Christmas parade with the tree lighting on our main street after Santa's sleigh went by. Some of the kids were in the parade, but it was too dark to get good photos.

From A Right to Be Merry:

 "Laudate, pueri Praise the Lord, ye children!"

"Virginity is not only a giving, but a receiving" : a fruitful, obedient, noble surrender.

An interesting part on education: "Education worthy of the name is built on integration and correlation of knowledge. It has nothing at all to do with the ability to spout facts like a geyser. Real educations brings to flower the seeds of intelligence in the human mind. Intelligence is quite independent of education, it is true,,, but education is a cultivation of the intelligence; and the blossoms it produces are just as fragrant in the cloister as anywhere else, and just as necessary.  ...

"A cloistered nun who has been trained to relate one science to another will ordinarily be quicker to relate the unfolding mysterious of the spiritual life one to another, and also to recognize the superb paradox on which the interior life is built and in which all mysteries discover their integrity: Humility is exaltation, effacement is enrichment, death is life, and all the other facets of the one splendrous truth which is Love. - cultivated mind cuts through the clutter"

"The greatest grace that a man can have under heaven is to know how to live well with those among whom he dwells. - Br. Giles 

A Trappist wrote to Mother:  "When you are convinced there is no fault or sin, no matter how terrible, of which you are not capable, you will just have begun to understand humility." .. St Clare: "For anger and worry hinder charity in themselves as well as in others." 

Mother writes about the mortification of common life - paying attention to details of job - not selfish feelings, "for one may be more enfeebled by a passing indisposition than another by a grave and prolonged illness"  ... "Gertrude von le Fort wisely observed that we love one another across an abyss." -Everyone has secret pains- there is value in the effort to subdue those pains

"To anyone who thinks that the Gospel cannot be taken quite literally today, I can only borrow St. Andrew's words: 'Come and see!' Wild and sweet our Gospel rule of life may be, wild as the world considers voluntary penance, and sweet as the love of the Man in the Gospel" from Margery Kempe.

"All his life long, a man is walking steadily toward the gate of eternity, so he can never truly make an exit ... The joy of the enclosed contemplative life is stout-fibred and enduring precisely because its roots reach down deep into the rich soil of willing suffering. The choir doors are the binding on the diary of each nun's soul" 

And finally: "See what a small, poor, hidden Lord He is Who lay  unknown in Bethlehem, but held the whole world in His beating human heart. This is our season."  

Last month's book club read was Love and Salt: A Spiritual Friendship in Letters, by Jessica Messman Griffith and Amy Andrews, another good one I think I mentioned already, although our conversation at book club wasn't too in depth about the book. I enjoyed the exploration of Amy's conversion, her struggle with faith and complacency, and Jessica's experience with grief and presence. We were a small group last month, and not everyone had finished the book, and I had read it in the summer, so it wasn't fresh in my mind.  I do remember their letters seeming a bit overwrought at the beginning, but after the both have babies, they seem more grounded, less concerned with self and more concerned with the world and others. What a gift to have a friend with whom to share this thoughts and to be so matched in interests and spiritual inquiry and study!

Some good quotes: Jessica quotes C. S. Lewis: - "How can one be a Christian and remain properly depressed? There is always the threat of resurrection"
and St. Teresa of Avila: "the important thing is not to think much but to love much; and do that which best stirs you to love" Interior Castle.
and The Lord of the Rings : love what you are fitted to love - "you must start somewhere and have some roots"
and Middlemarch  about the fear of living "quiet lives, in unvisited tombs"

Meanwhile, Amy quotes Wendell Berry: "Religious faith begins with the discovery that there is no evidence"
and Steve Martin: "The  young are always beautiful"
and Marilyn Robinson: "Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations"
and finally Teilhard de Chardin "I am afraid of the future, too heavy with mystery and too wholly new, toward which time is driving me."

So many words, ideas, and reflections go unnoted.  Were we able to time travel and relive the small details that color our daily lives, would we do better about appreciating them?

Another reading review

In honor of the feast of Blessed James Duckett on April 19, here is a review of the little bit I’ve been reading lately. (another link to an interesting bit of Catholic trivia.)

Almost five months into the year and my reading has been slight, other than class material and a couple books for book club.  Can I blame Anna Karenina? Class? Training for a marathon? Life? So much for reading 40 books in the year before I turn 40.  Unless I count kids’ books.  Maybe it will be 40 books in the year after I turn 40… So much for that list of “Things” too.

I’ve picked up a few books that looked interesting at our very small library. Have I mentioned that our library uses a card catalog?  There are no fines for late books, because all of the books are donated. So if you lose a book, you just donate another book. I love this system. We have only lost one book, Ralph S. Mouse, because our carpool friends took it home thinking it was theirs and they ended up losing it. I donated a handful of easy chapter books, since the library already had a couple of other copies of RSM. 

I was angry a couple months ago when the library’s funding was cut and the employees terminated. A new organization now runs the library and they began at once to inventory the books and move toward a computer system. I’m glad we’ll be gone before this process is finished. Fines are imminent.

In addition to replacing the librarians, they also began removing books that hadn’t been checked out in 5 years. I was sorry to see boxes of old sturdily bound library books being boxed up. I checked out a few to save their spines. I asked if I could have some, but I have to go through the DOD department that deals with discards.  Our neighbors have found some good deals from this system – washers and dryers, shelving, kayaks. All owned by the military and sold for pennies. At least they don’t go to the landfill. But I couldn’t find the books.

Many of the books we check out are newer releases that are supplied to the library through a grant program. The McNaughton foundation sends new books to the library and eventually they get shipped back. So they are library books on loan to the library.

One of these is The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner. I had wanted to read it since I heard about it on NPR a couple of years ago.  Weiner is a correspondent for NPR and travels frequently abroad.  He also is an avid self-help book reader and amateur student of what makes people happy. After writing this book I guess he is a professional student of happiness.

I owe this one to the return box.  But first notes:

Weiner comments that we often speak of happiness as a place: paradise, land of contentment, searching for happiness, finding our bliss, the Blessed Isles. We think of happiness as someplace “out there,” although self help gurus all counsel us to seek within.  Sometimes we need to look outward, he points out, and quotes Henry Miller, “One’s destination is never a place but a way of seeing things.”

Studies have been done on happiness levels in different places, so Weiner sets off to tour some of these. The catch is that there is not one answer to what makes people happy, and the places Weiner visits all have very different versions of happiness. Aristotle believed a virtuous life made people happy and Epicurus believed it was pleasure. The places featured here fall someplace in between.

Weiner records some research findings: married people are happier than single, people with and without children report the same levels of happiness, Republicans are happier than Democrats, religious people are happier than nonreligious, those with a college degree are happier than those without, but advanced degree holders are not as happy as those with a bachelors’ degree. Women and men are equally happy. Busy people are happier than idle people. Wealthy people are slightly more happy than poor people. Healthy people are happier than unhealthy people. Or does their happiness make them healthy? Causal relationships can be deceiving. Most of the happy countries are happy for different reasons and sometimes surprising reasons: they are homogenous, secular, have income gaps, and have high suicide rates.  Sometimes the possibility of unhappiness makes people happier

Here's a summary of the happy countries Weiner visits and a brief list of things that make them happy:

The Netherlands – tolerance, research, marijuana, coffee

Switzerland – trust, order, regularity (boredom), clean toilets, proximity to nature’s grandeur

Bhutan – has a happiness policy: improving “Gross National Happiness.” Difficult for foreigners to visit. Religious/superstitious/spirituality, tranquil like Shangri-la. A wise man tells him that happiness is relational – depends on our relationships with others.  Weiner’s revelation after talking to locals: if he dies, “I would not have done anything differently.”

Qatar – wealth. But no culture or history. A new world full of luxury but little landscape. (recommended book by Rebecca Solnit “A Field Guild to Getting Lost.”) But they do have a connection to family – happiness comes from connections to others. Danger of being walled off in a world of air-conditioned spaces. We often crave something that doesn’t make us happy to possess. The author feels he is addicted to sadness.

Iceland – relationships, willingness to fail and start again so there’s not a lot of envy, cooperation is mandatory in cold climates, love of liquor, art, language. Happiness and sadness coexist here.

Moldova – This is the unhappiest country in the world, a former soviet block country, with no native culture or language to speak of. Income is low, food is bad, identity is lost.

Thailand – Represents a lack of worry, an unquestioning happiness. Permissive in a different way from the Dutch culture: more like a fact of life.Quotes Yi-Fu Tuan “Happy people have no reason to think; they live rather than question living.” I could incorporate some of this attitude into my life. If I thought lest about school issues my heart would be lighter. “mai pen lai” = “never mind, get on with life.” Thai smiles are authentic.

Great Britain – gets featured for a reality show about people in the town of Slough trying to get happier and then spread the cheer with the rest of the town. The people actually became happier after doing social projects and balancing their work life and randomly dancing. They also visit a grave yard to confront death and learn to vacuum with love and care. The participants in the show are supposed to plant seeds of happiness which as of yet, have not bloomed, but happiness, as Nathaniel Hawthorne is quoted as saying, is like a butterfly alighting unbidden. Robertson Davies says this: “If you are not happy, you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.”

Weiner mentions several people who are culturally one nationality but find themselves more at home in a different one. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t be happier in England. I like reserved people, bookish humor, cottage gardens, pragmatism, bad teeth.

India – acceptance of contradiction: poor/rich, chaos/peace, foul odors/ perfume, beauty and ugliness all coexist without irony. Weiner visits the ashram of a contemporary guru. and although he questions the guru-worship, he does leave feeling more peaceful after initially being unhappy about no caffeine rule. The lesson again is that love is more important than making yourself happy, a commitment to service can bring happiness. Have no expectations. Accept imperfections. More platitudes.

America – “happiness is home.” After all his travels to happy places, Weiner is happy to be home. He tries living in Miami, but doesn’t like it there. America is 23^rd on happiness list. We are losing our connections to community (See Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone). We are wealthy but waste our money on toys.But if you want to live in a happy place in America, try Asheville, NC, - Beautiful nature, kind people, good food…

In the Epilogue Weiner meets a bartender names Happy. The secret to being Happy: Be yourself. Keep on smiling. More than one path.  Happiness is sometimes beside the point. 

“The good life . . . cannot be mere indulgence. It must contain a measure of grit and truth,” says Yi –Fu Tuan. Sometimes in our desire to find happiness we forget about truth and beauty.  

Weiner's work is interesting, but impersonal. What I feel myself is that happiness is harder to find when you're looking for it.  And after all our moves, I can honestly say that we have been happy everywhere we have lived. Each place we seem to love more.  I'd say happiness doesn't seem to have much to do with physical location, but everything to do with the location of your heart.

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With the kids I read A Wrinkle in Time. It had been so many years, I remembered very little – images of the soup with the mother in the lab, the blobbish brain of IT, the supergeniousness of Charles Wallace, and the return in the vegetable garden were bits that were familiar, but the rest of the book was like reading anew.  My neighbor and her daughter, along with one of her friends, and my daughter and I have our own little version of Mother-Daughter book club, and this was the first book.  We talked a little about the theme of free will vs. perfect happiness, but the girls were mostly interested in the possibility of time travel and whether or not Calvin and Meg should have a romance. It’s been a lot of fun to listen to the girls talk together. Now we’re reading an abridged version of Journey to the Center of the Earth, which isn’t as much fun since it’s abridged. I keep meaning to dig out the full book since I have never read it, to compare.

The other book I finished is Exiles by Ron Hansen. I like Hansen’s books, but this one didn't stir up any stronger emotion. A fictional biography about Gerard Manley Hopkins writing “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” Exiles was a quiet book, but hearkens back to Mariette in Ecstasy. Hansen tells each nun’s backstory, as well as Hopkins’ struggles and eventual death. The narrative of the death of the five German nuns on the Deutschland in 1875 is a bit morbid, but told dispassionately, unlike Hopkins’ own poem, which is hard to read. I still haven’t finished the other Hopkins book I picked up –  Mortal Beauty, God’s Grace, a Vintage Spiritual Classic collection of Hopkins’ poems and spiritual writings.  I haven’t yet finished all the poems, nor started on his spiritual writings – I’ve just finished the biographical remarks by Brad Leithauser. Hopkins’ life was marked by struggle with inner conflict. He felt he must suppress his desire to write, and yet he felt ill when he did so.  Still, he managed to create poems that outlive his friend’s, the former British Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges.  His originality and vision in poems like “Spring and Fall” and “Pied Beauty” may have confused his superiors, but his future audience has loved them. (Some of whom, were they to read his more explicitly religious poems, would be thoroughly put off.)

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I’d like to blame my inattentive reading to class planning, but I didn’t add many new works to the syllabus. In fact, I cut several things, although I replaced “Fences” with “The Glass Menagerie” because that’s the piece that the University was performing. The class enjoyed Tennessee Williams’ work, but I think “Fences” went over better because it has a happy ending. My class has been complaining about all the death in the stories we read. I try  to balance it out, but so much literature is produced by sorrow.

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Perhaps if we were reading more Victorian literature – I have to admit that more of my reading time has been lost to television than ever before.  My neighbor loaned me her copy of the BBC’s productions of three Elizabeth Gaskell works: North and South, Wives and Daughters, and Cranford (a mashup of 3 novels).  Can I tell you how much I love them? Lovely costumes, lovely sets, lovely voices.  The older boys even liked watching North and South with me. These period dramas have the best dialogue and love scenes. And although they may be marked by death and sorrows, they almost always end with a marriage. Ah, romance!

Now I must put away movies and books and get on with sorting, purging, and planning. We have a move coming up in about a month.