Fall Reading Update

Well, I just reviewed my list with reference to what I've read so far, and I've managed to get through eight of the nineteen books on the list (with Kristin Lavransdatter counting as three books; I also finished The Brothers Karamazov, but I don't feel like reviewing it in depth: long, boring, convoluted -- that's good enough). Not bad, I guess. But I'll have parents in town next week, so I won't be reading much. And I'm going to Kauai! Woo-hoo!!!

So, I can take a week off from reading.

Book Review: Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin

Given the way that Origin of Species and the ideology that it propounds have influenced the vast majority of modern biologists, I expected to be at least a little impressed. In preparing to read this book, I anticipated that Darwin would have strong arguments that would give me plenty of food for thought -- not that I have even the slighest doubts about my belief in Creation and my rejection of evolutionary biology -- but because I like a mental challenge, and I like being forced to consider my own beliefs more deeply in view of contradictory positions.

Darwin disappointed me. In a big way. I am utterly and completely mystified that any serious scientist has taken his views, well, seriously. My student who is also reading Origin of Species managed to take apart and lay waste to Darwin's theories so quickly and effectively that I had to wonder if evolutionary biologists have actually read the book. The flaws are glaring; the lack of solid proof is obvious (even Darwin admits it); the theories are weak at best and preposterous at worst. Were Darwin's arguments in Origin of Species to be the basis of a court case, they would be tossed out as highly circumstantial evidence. I'll give Darwin some credit for making a few fascinating points: he performs what I can only describe as a connect-the-dots exercise in order to arrive at his theory of natural selection by presenting his beliefs about how various species arrived at their current state. The problem, however, is that just because he connects the dots doesn't mean he's produced the right picture. And he freely admits that his thesis has problems and that he can't prove any of it. Basically, he wants the reader to accept his theories because the alternative is to accept a theory about a Creator and a divinely inspired Creation.

Well, this reader is happy to go against the anything-but-God trend and accept a Creator and His divinely-inspired Creation. This reader is also happy to recommend that others skip this book altogether. I didn't even read it properly. Thank goodness for LibriVox; I just downloaded the files and listened to it while doing other tasks. I'm actually convinced that the most interesting part of Origin of Species was the array of narrators from LibriVox. There was narrator who sounded suspiciously like Peter Lorre, an Englishman who could have been a contestant in that radio program My Word! (unfortunately, there was no punchline to make the reading interesting), an enthusiastic Canadian, and Chip from Tampa, Florida (seriously, check out Chip's website; what a cool guy). At this point, the only thing I can recommend about my experience with Origin of Species is LibriVox. But find a better book than this one.

Saint Calendar: Alodia

22 October

Sister of Saint Nunilo. Muslim father and a Christian mother, she was raised Christian. When her father died, her mother married another Muslim man who persecuted the girls, imprisoned them, and turned them over to die during the persecution of Abdur Rahman II. Martyr.

Born in Huesca, Spain.

Beheaded at Huesca in 851.

Name meaning: great force; great power; great courage; free land.

Patronage
--child abuse victims
--martyrs
--people ridiculed for their piety
--runaways
--unmarried lay-women

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Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

Poetry Study: Ancient Irish Hymn

"Be Thou My Vision"

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

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Some details from CyberHymnal:

Words: At­trib­ut­ed to Dal­lan For­gaill, 8th Cen­tu­ry (Rob tu mo bhoile, a Com­di cri­de); trans­lat­ed from an­cient Ir­ish to Eng­lish by Ma­ry E. Byrne, in “Eriú,” Jour­nal of the School of Ir­ish Learn­ing, 1905, and versed by Eleanor H. Hull, 1912, alt.

Music: Slane, of Ir­ish folk or­i­gin. Slane Hill is about ten miles from Ta­ra in Coun­ty Meath. It was on Slane Hill around 433 AD that St. Pat­rick de­fied a roy­al edict by light­ing can­dles on East­er Eve. High King Lo­gaire of Ta­ra had de­creed that no one could light a fire be­fore Lo­gaire be­gan the pa­gan spring fes­ti­val by light­ing a fire on Ta­ra Hill. Lo­gaire was so im­pressed by Pat­rick’s de­vo­tion that, de­spite his de­fi­ance (or per­haps be­cause of it­), he let him con­tin­ue his mis­sion­ary work. The rest is his­to­ry.

A link to the hymn in Irish.

Note from me: This is my favorite hymn, so I thought I'd post the words. They have never failed to move me long before I knew it was an ancient Irish hymn! :)

Book Review: Comstock Lode, by Louis L'Amour

Very quick review. Comstock Lode is classic Louis L'Amour. If you like the Western genre in general, and Louis L'Amour in particular, you'll love this. If you're like me, and you just don't understand the appeal of Westerns, you probably won't enjoy this book. (And if you're looking for a L'Amour book that doesn't fit the typical model, go with something like Last of the Breed. Much more interesting.) L'Amour was a writer of some imagination but limited technique. His characters tend to be well-intentioned but flat, and the storylines are always fairly predictable -- at least in the books that I've read. The hero tends to be a lone man and something of a maverick, a man who doesn't make friends easily and who has always made his own way. The heroine tends to be a plucky young woman who can handle her own -- kudos to L'Amour for avoiding the fainting female stereotype -- but in some cases, as in Comstock Lode, she seems to be inserted into the story for the sake of having a romantic interest and sometimes even as an afterthought. I know that there are those who will disagree with my vigorously, but this is how it read to me.

For the most part, I enjoy genre writing (given my own love of mysteries), but there is just nothing about Westerns or about the writing of Louis L'Amour that I find appealing. My apologies to all of his fans.

Apparently, This Is Me

I've taken several different versions of this test over the last few years, and I've gotten the same results every time. I guess it's safe to say that as far as Myers-Briggs goes, this is me. (Or is it I...?)

INFJ

I - Introversion preferred to Extraversion
N - iNtuition preferred to Sensing
F - Feeling preferred to Thinking
J - Judging preferred to Perceiving

INFJs are conscientious and value-driven. They seek meaning in relationships, ideas, and events, with an eye toward better understanding themselves and others. Using their intuitive skills, they develop a clear vision, which they then execute decisively to better the lives of others. Like their INTJ counterparts, INFJs regard problems as opportunities to design and implement creative solutions.

INFJs are quiet, private individuals who prefer to exercise their influence behind the scenes. Although very independent, INFJs are intensely interested in the well-being of others. INFJs prefer one-on-one relationships to large groups. Sensitive and complex, they are adept at understanding complicated issues and driven to resolve differences in a cooperative and creative manner.

Accounting for 1–3% of the population, INFJs have a rich, vivid inner life, which they may be reluctant to share with those around them. Nevertheless, they are congenial in their interactions with others. Generally well-liked by their peers, they may often be considered close friends and confidants by most other types. They are perceptive of the emotions of others and themselves easily hurt, though they may not reveal this except to their closest companions. Guarded in expressing their own feelings, especially to new people, they tend to establish close relationships slowly.

INFJs tend to be sensitive, quiet leaders with a great depth of personality. They are intricately and deeply woven, mysterious, and highly complex, sometimes puzzling even to themselves. They have an orderly view toward the world, but are internally arranged in a complex way that only they could understand. Abstract in communicating, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. With a natural affinity for art, INFJs tend to be creative and easily inspired. Yet they may also do well in the sciences, aided by their intuition.

From Wikipedia

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I don't know why I'm posting this except that it kind of fascinated me. I'm not really sure if it describes me well, although I had to laugh when I read that this is the rarest personality type. Go figure. I get to be the oddball. I like where it says on another site, "Life is not necessarily easy for the INFJ..." No kidding.

Here are some links for the test you can take:

HumanMetrics
Personality Test Center

Some more info on this type.

Book Review: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, by Louise Murphy

I'm a little on the fence about this one, largely because I don't quite know how to approach a recommendation. I'm left with the choice between commending the author for a creative and fascinating twist on a traditional story and criticizing the author for what was (for me, at least) the use of distastefully graphic details in certain places.

There is no question that Louise Murphy's idea for this book was excellent: she started with a fairy tale and made it into a feasible story set in Poland at the end of World War II. Two Jewish children, known only as Hansel and Gretel (assumed names to protect their heritage), are more or less abandoned in the forests of Poland because their father and stepmother believe that they will have a better chance of surviving on their own. In Murphy's story, the father is a kind but slightly impractical man, and his wife is bitterly pragmatic but certainly not cruel. She encourages that the children go on their own, not because she hates them, but because she knows that the four of them together stand no chance of getting past the Nazis. In this way, Murphy takes a simplistic idea -- father, angry stepmother, and two children abandoned -- and gives it a realistic twist, while also explaining the various and complex motives that people have for their actions.

Forced to survive alone, the children stumble upon the cottage of a Gypsy woman named Magda who lives on the outskirts of a tiny Polish village as something of an outcast. Magda is considered a witch by the locals, but they also rely on her for her medical knowledge. Her Gypsy background is kept quiet (although everyone knows about it), because the Nazis are quick to deport Gypsies as well as Jews. She decides to take the children in, giving them new papers and a history, and she tells everyone that her niece and nephew have come to visit her. Meanwhile, the children's father and stepmother manage to connect themselves to a group of Russian rebels who are picking off Nazis as they go and waiting for the Russians to push the German soldiers out of Russia and back through Poland.

Back in the village, Magda faces a variety of challenges with the children, not the least of which is the arrival of a German SS officer who has been sent to locate and take back with him all children who appear to have an "Aryan" background. Unfortunately, the little girl Gretel fits this description perfectly (I rather love that Murphy includes this little detail: the Jewish girl is everything that the Germans want in an Aryan child), but fate steps in and provides an escape for Gretel -- quite tragically, it turns out. She goes into the forest alone early one winter morning to enjoy the "wonderland" of snow and ice, and she is set upon and raped by two men.

This is where my criticism of the story comes in. I'll accept that authors use very tragic circumstances for the storylines, and I won't fault Murphy for including this one. What bothers me is that Murphy saw the need to explain the rape in graphic detail. I. Didn't. Need. To. Read. That. I would have been properly horrified and saddened by the aftermath scene of an innocent little girl who is now broken and violated. As far as I'm concerned, that's more than enough to indicate the tragedy that has occurred. But apparently Murphy didn't think so, and I've struggled with her reasons for including this scene. I just don't think it contributed anything to the storyline itself except excessive and unnecessary detail. I have a feeling that Murphy was trying to provide as authentic a description of the cruelties of life for these people as she could. (I'll certainly say that I came away from the book with a new appreciation for what the Polish people -- Jew, Gypsy, and otherwise -- suffered during the Holocaust.) But the entire scene was just too much for me. I wish I could say that I saw it coming and that I could have turned the page and read past it, but unfortunately it creeps up on the reader very quickly. One second Gretel wonders who the men are, and the next second she is being assaulted. Truly horrific. I don't need to read things like this to be aware that they happen and to be appalled by them. Others might think differently, but that's my own perspective on this issue.

I'm sorry to say that this isn't the only moment of unnecessary detail in the story, although this is by far the most graphic. There are a few other places where I felt as though Murphy got carried away with her need to provide a clear image of the Holocaust and lost sight of the main story. At the end of the day, this is a new take on the story of Hansel and Gretel, and Murphy should have stuck closely to that.

I'm going to recommend this book, because I think it's fresh and interesting in its approach, and I think it offers an important look at the end of the Holocaust and the struggles that all of the Polish people faced in surviving. At the same time, be forewarned that there are some distasteful moments of detail in this story. (If you want to avoid the scene noted above, skip the chapter entitled "Ice Storm.")

Year of publication: 2003
Number of pages: 297

Poetry Study: Only Burns...

"Address to a Haggis"
Robert Burns

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’a grace
As lang’s my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o’need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin’, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an’ strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi’ perfect sconner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckles as wither’d rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ blody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll mak it whissle;
An’ legs an’ arms, an’ hands will sned,
Like taps o’ trissle.

Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer
Gie her a haggis!

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Okay, this one isn't the easiest poem to get through. For one, there's the dialect. (Sonsie? Sconner? Trissle? Jaups?) And then there's the fact that Burns is addressing...haggis. For those not familiar with this delightful dish, here's a picture:

Yummmm...

You could spend all day talking about the various possibilities for what this looks like. Suffice it to say, haggis is composed of the insides of the sheep, cooked together with some spices and then stuffed into the sheep's stomach and boiled. Yes, please.

Anyway, I think Burns is having some fun here, so I'll leave it at that. For a little help with the vernacular, here's a Scots dictionary.

Art Study: Musical Instruments

Popular at nineteenth century Indian courts, this bowed lute borrows features of other Indian stringed instruments, such as the body shape of the sarangi and the frets and neck of the sitar. There are four melody strings and fifteen sympathetic strings that sound when the instrument is played to accompany popular religious song. The peacock is the vehicle of Sarasvatî, the goddess of music, and it appears in Indian poetry as a metaphor for courtship.

19th century. (Wood, parchment, metal, feathers.)

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Text and details derived from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Saint Calendar: Justina of Padua

07 October

Young woman who took private vows of chastity and devotion to God. Martyr in the persecutions of Diocletian. Some mideaval documents describe her as a disciple of Saint Peter the Apostle, but that's impossible. She is sometimes depicted in art as a nun, but never was, and some artists may have confused her with Saint Scholastica.

Martyred c.304.

Patronage
--Padua, Italy

Representation
--young woman setting a cross on the head of the devil while holding a lily in her hand
--young woman with a crown, palm, and sword
--young woman with a palm, book, and a sword in her breast
--young woman with a unicorn, symbolizing virginity, and palm
--young woman with both breasts pierced by one sword
--young woman with Saint Prosdocimus
--young woman with Saint Scholastica

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Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

Book Review: Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

Because of the time required to acquire a copy of Walden in print, I decided to avail myself of our library's electronic resources and listen to it via audiobook. This offered me the opportunity to take notes (as well as take a few minutes to do some Pilates) as I listened to the narrator. About three-quarters of the way through the book, I decided that I was sick of Walden and scribbled "completely arbitrary tripe" in my notebook. (I did listen to the rest of it, but I'm afraid it was only out of one ear, as I couldn't bear much more of Thoreau's sanctimonious drivel.) This will, no doubt, give you some indication of how my review will proceed.

I really wanted to like Walden. I was familiar with Thoreau's premise, and I thought that it would be a fascinating book. In theory, it should be: Thoreau decides to take a year and live "in the wild," so to speak, building himself a cabin and living entirely off the land in order to return to a simple life and thereby prove to other members of his community that simplicity is fully rewarding and that they are striving in vain for material goods and the accumulation of wealth. The premise is not the problem; Thoreau is. I hadn't made it through the Epilogue before I decided that he was, for lack of a better expression, one seriously pompous windbag.

In the early pages of the book, he admits that he is only thirty years old, but he then proceeds to make all kinds of general claims about the ideal life and accusations toward those who live what he might deem a less than ideal life. His sense of self-importance extends to his comment early in the book that he has never heard a single word of wisdom from his elders and that apparently they have nothing to offer but bunk. I'll admit that a part of my problem might be the tone in which the book is written and which reflects a common writing style of the day. But Thoreau manages to infuse it with such arrogance as to make his telling of his experience almost unbearable. I would be open to hearing of Thoreau's experiences and his advice about pursuing simplicity in life if he were humble about it. He is not. And therein lies my complaint about the book.

So, having said all of that, I'm going to offer a strange sort of recommendation for this book. I actually think that people should read it, not because it is all that enjoyable but because it is an expression of a time and reflects a growing change in the American psyche. This change has nothing to do with Thoreau's actual ideas about a quiet life but about his personal tone and attitude of throwing off all restraints and yes, all accountability, and looking inwardly for moral decisions. And no matter how much Thoreau tries to claim that he is relying on the laws of nature (which is risky enough), he is relying on himself and ultimately makes himself a kind of omnipotent deity. Unfortunately, we still see that same attitude among Americans today.

Poetry Study: Learning from Spiders

"The Noiseless Patient Spider"
Walt Whitman

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

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I'm not generally a fan of Whitman, but I like the way that Whitman compares the spider's work to the searching and yearning of the human soul. The repetition of words seems mimics the repetition of the spider's actions and the sense that the act of seeking never quite ends.

Saint Calendar: Edward James and Romanos the Melodist

01 October

Edward James

Raised Protestant. Educated at Saint John's College, Oxford. Converted to Catholicism. Seminarian at Rheims and Rome. Ordained in 1583. Returned to England to spread the faith. Imprisoned four and a half years with Blessed Ralph Crockett. Executed for the crime of being a priest.

Died as a result of being hanged, drawn, and quartered in 1588 at Chichester, England.

Romanos the Melodist

Convert to Orthodox Christianity from Judaism. Deacon, serving at the Church of the Resurection at Beirut, Lebanon, and at Constantinople. Wrote hundreds of hymns in simple language, appealing to the hearts of the faithful. Of the thousand or so that he wrote, only 60 to 80 survive - but they are still sung today.

Died c.556 of natural causes.

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Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

Book Review: The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

I've never been a big fan of animal stories. Even as a child, I rarely enjoyed stories that featured hapless but adorable animals as the main characters, and in speaking roles. I'll make an exception for some books, because I remember liking the poky puppy and Babar. For the most part, however, there has always something less-than-believable about stories in which the animals are almost human in their characteristics; I prefer for animals to be animals and for humans to be humans.

As I read The Call of the Wild, I decided that it somehow manages to bridge the two qualities. I think that London is genuinely trying to get into the mind of a dog and to present readers not so much with an anthropomorphic canine but with a dog who thinks in a way that is more complex than humans realize. His main character Buck is a very intelligent dog, and London's story about his experiences is interesting enough to keep the reader going for around 100 pages. London takes us into Buck's brain, so to speak, and tries to help us see what motivates him to respond the way that he does. Buck begins in sunny California, the pampered pet of a wealthy judge, until he is stolen away and sold off as a working dog for gold miners in the Alaskan/Yukon wilderness. From that point on, Buck's story becomes one of adaptation and survival, with some very strong evolutionary arguments along the way. Throughout the story, London more or less argues that Buck makes it because he is strong and because he learns how to conform to his new life and develop the skills he needs. What's more, Buck discovers very quickly that the world of which he becomes a part is -- quite literally -- a dog-eat-dog world and that he has to be willing to fight and kill other dogs in order to stay alive.

At the same time, there is the slightest hint of retrogression in the story that might be largely a matter of perspective. (In other words, that's how I saw it, but that might not be how everyone sees it.) As Buck acclimates to his wilderness surroundings, he increasingly hears the "call of the wild" and begins to become more and more of a wild dog, eventually discarding domestication altogether to join pack of wolves. On the one hand, London seems to see this as a positive point because Buck has returned to nature, if you will, and has acquired the strength and skills that nature gave to dogs for survival. On the other hand, Buck runs the risk of becoming a monster. He's a particularly strong dog, much bigger and stronger than the wolves, and London shows that he's truly a strategist in how he learns to hunt. With a sharp mind and a body full of brute strength, Buck could easily become a serious danger. Granted, London takes care to show that Buck only attacks the humans who endanger him (and he is loyal to those who are kind to him), and he only attacks the animals that he needs for food. But my personal opinion at the end of the story was that domestication isn't such a bad thing and that the call of the wild seems to be a call of autonomy and lack of accountability.

That being said, this is a fascinating story and deserves to be and to remain a classic. It's brief -- only 100 pages, as I noted above -- and it has plenty of room for further thought and discussion. Despite the mixed messages, I found it very enjoyable, and the writing alone is worth the time. London seems to have been a writer of detail, and he is at his best when he focuses in on a moment or a description.

So, two thumbs up for The Call of the Wild. Just be prepared for a story that raises more questions than it answers.

Year of publication: 1903
Number of pages: 100