New Template -- In Case You Didn't Notice

I decided to update my template, and I found this great template download (or upload?) at Ourblogtemplates.com. They specialize in Blogger templates, so that was helpful.

It's a bit of a work in progress still, though. In uploading the new template, I had to sacrifice several of my old widgets, including most of the links. I did try to hang onto them, but it just wasn't going to work. And I don't know enough about HTML to figure out how to make it work. So, I let them go for the sake of the new template.

Blog and Reading Resolutions -- 2009

And I'm finally getting around to this.

I had every intention of posting my 2009 blog and reading resolutions yesterday, but life got in the way a couple evenings ago. We had a massive power outage that took out the whole island of Oahu (for about 11 hours -- ugh), during which I basically nominated myself for a Darwin Award. I lit a large candle in a glass jar and then had the not-so-brilliant idea of relocating the candle to the sink area so I could wash the dishes. Alas, the light from the candle wasn't enough to remind me that I'd left the dishwasher door open, and I went flying over it -- with lit candle in hand -- landing on the shards of the glass jar, which shattered around the same time that it (and I) hit the ground. The glass sliced my hand open, so I spent most of yesterday trying to keep it from bleeding, while attempting various household tasks with one hand. Incidentally, it is indeed possible to do laundry, wash (or finish...) dishes, shower, and make meals with only one hand.

But on to the resolutions.

As a quick intro, instead of a book list with a certain number of books, I'm going for more general goals with a few specific books.

Reading Resolutions -- 2009

Read essays. I'll be participating the essay reading challenge from Carrie at Books and Movies. I think that this is a great idea and will give me a chance to flex an entirely different set of reading muscles. Currently, I have the following books of essays in mind:

--What Is Literature?, by Jean-Paul Sartre
--Abolishing Christianity, by Jonathan Swift (Swift was quite a brilliant satirist, so I thought I'd give this one a try)
--All Art is Propaganda, by George Orwell et al.
--Essays Presented to Charles Williams (includes essays by Dorothy Sayers, Owen Barfield, and others)
--Tolkien and Shakespeare, ed. Janet Brennan Croft
--Understanding Lord of the Rings, eds. Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs

Read from my home library. Apparently, there's a similar reading challenge floating around the Realm of Blog, and I actually stumbled upon it a couple of days after I made this very decision. I'm not officially joining the challenge, but I'll be joining it in spirit. I have a variety of books in my home library that I've yet to read, and it occurred to me that it wouldn't hurt to save myself some money this year by reading what I already own. Some of the books I have in mind:

--John Adams, by David McCullough
--Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcy (my mom sent this to me 3-4 years ago, and I've yet to crack it open)
--Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak
Miscellaneous poetry (since I have a ton of it)

Read from the Cambridge ASNC list. I'm in the process of working on this list, and I didn't get as far as I'd like to get during the fall semester, so I'm going to work harder in the New Year. These are the books I'm hoping to complete:

--Anglo-Saxon England, by F.M. Stenton
--Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, trans. S. Keynes and M. Lapidge
--Bede: Ecclesiastical History of the English People
--The Viking Achievement, by P. Foote and D.M. Wilson
--The Vikings, by J. Graham-Campbell and D. Kidd
--A History of the Vikings, by G. Jones
--The Norse Atlantic Saga, by G. Jones
--Chronicles of the Vikings, by R.I. Page
--Wales in the Early Middle Ages, by W. Davies
--Civitas to Kingdom, by K.R. Dark
--The Welsh Kings, by K. Maund
--The Vikings in Brittany, by N.S. Price
--Picts, Gaels and Scots, by S.M. Foster

Read for Great Books tutorial.This is both inevitable and enjoyable. My students will be reading, and so will I. Thus far, this appears to be what we'll read:

--On the Incarnation
--Inferno
--Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
--Canterbury Tales
--The Prince
--Faerie Queen
--Uncle Tom's Cabin
--A Doll's House
--Heart of Darkness
--The Grapes of Wrath
--The Great Gatsby
--Night
--A Man for All Seasons
--To Kill a Mockingbird

If nothing else, this year should provide some variety in my reading. I always like variety.

Blog Resolutions -- 2009

As for other blogging, I also hope to continue (or rather return to) blogging about saints, poetry, art, music, etc., since I really enjoy that but just got caught up in the freelance writing and ran out of time for it.

Additionally, my sister and I, simultaneously but independently of one another, developed an interest in fashion over the last year and decided to start a fashion blog (separate from this one, of course) -- fashionedforward.blogspot.com -- so I'll be doing some fashion writing as well. (We haven't posted anything yet, but the link is good. And she did add a picture of my favorite model in the header, so that's even better. And, no, I'm not trying to be a poet :)

All in all, this should be an interesting year. Upcoming life transitions aside, I'm looking forward to 2009.

Blog Award Nomination -- Kreativ Blogger

(I've been meaning to do this for several days now, but I wanted to take some time to think through my own nominations for others before posting.)

Anyway, Carrie at Books at Movies has nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger award, and I wanted to recognize this in my blog. Carrie has nominated me for Deepest Book Reviews, and I'm very honored by this -- thank you so much, Carrie! The purpose of the award is to recognize values that are important to us and that we appreciate in others. Below I have listed six values that are important to me, as well as six qualities that I dislike.

I'm also passing out six nominations of my own for my fellow bloggers -- those are below the list of good and bad qualities.

The Good Six:
Integrity
Courage
Generosity
A sense of humor
Gentleness
Love

The Bad Six:
Manipulative behavior
Self-righteousness
Cruelty
Dishonesty
Unnecessary complaining
Inability to respect the opinions of others (most obnoxious in an election year...)

These are the friends that I'm sharing this with:

Most Versatile, Best Networking: Carrie at Books and Movies -- Yes, I'm reciprocating, but I always enjoy Carrie's posts. She has a wonderful variety of material that she blogs about, and her posts inspire me to keep things interesting on my own blog. Additionally, Carrie is an amazing networker and has great links to other blogs that I would never have known about.

Most Thought-Provoking, Most Encouraging: Carrie at Reading to Know is a long-time friend of mine (we have literally known each other since childhood), and she's responsible for getting me into blogging to begin with. Her posts force me to consider my Christian beliefs more deeply, and her friendly encouragement keeps me motivated to blog and to challenge myself as a reader.

Most Thorough: Sarah at Library Hospital has some of the most thorough and well-written reviews that I've read. I found her link through Carrie (Reading to Know), and I'm so grateful for having discovered her blog.

Most Original: Sky at Peace, Love, and Books is another long-time friend, and I'm incredibly grateful that blogging has allowed me to keep in touch with her and to read her always-refreshing thoughts on books.

For the nominees who want to pass on the love:
Mention the blog that gave it to you.
Comment on her blog to let her know you have posted the award.
Share 6 values that are important to you.
Share 6 things you do not support.
Share the love with six other wonderful blogging friends.

Fall Reading Challenge Results

I participated in the "Fall Into Reading 2008" challenge from Callapidder Days with a personal challenge of 19 books. I suspect that my goal was too lofty, but if nothing else it got me reading fairly consistently. This was my original list:

The Brothers Karamazov
Kristin Lavransdatter
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
Comstock Lode
Leepike Ridge
Middlemarch
A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Chosen
The Odyssey
The Aeneid
Republic of Plato
Moby Dick
Walden
Origin of Species
Das Kapital
Great Expectations
Call of the Wild

And here are my results, with the reviews linked:

--The Brothers Karamazov (no review -- didn't feel like it :)
--Moby Dick
--The Odyssey
--The Call of the Wild
--Walden
--The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
--Comstock Lode
--Origin of Species
--Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath
--Republic of Plato
--Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife
--Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross
--Great Expectations

Books I read that were not on the original list:

--Mystery and Manners
--The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America
--Survival of the Prettiest

So, 16 books. And not all of them from the original list. But that doesn't seem to be completely terrible. I had every intention of reading Middlemarch, but after finishing Kristin Lavransdatter and considering the possibility of yet another 1,000-page book, I felt like crying. That seemed to me like a good sign to let it go.

All in all, I'm pleased. And I should have my reading plans for the New Year up soon.

Blog Type

Well, this is interesting. I found a link today that offers a Myers-Briggs style analysis of blogs, and this was the result for my own blog:

INTP - The Thinkers

The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.***

Apparently, I come across as arrogant, impatient, and insensitive in my writing style. Well, I guess I'll fit right into academia, won't I? (But I do apologize if this is really the case. I have no such intentions.)

By the way, I posted several weeks ago that my own Myers-Briggs reading is INFJ. If you'd like to test your blog's type, just click on this link (or the one above -- same link).

***Note: There was a originally a typo in the text when I copied and pasted it, but I cleaned it up. So, it's not a perfect copy-and-paste job. But there was no reason to leave a typo in there.

Book Review: Survival of the Prettiest, by Nancy Etcoff

To work hard, as I've worked, to accomplish anything, and then have some yo-yo come up and say, "Take off those dark glasses and let's have a look at those blue eyes" is really discouraging. -- Paul Newman

As the image indicates, Survival of the Prettiest is subtitled "The Science of Beauty," and that suggests quite clearly just what author Nancy Etcoff is attempting to examine. She begins by pointing out that while most people tend to believe (or at least claim they believe) that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," that might not necessarily be true. Etcoff uses a variety of evidence to prove that there really is a science to beauty and that there are some people who, simply put, are just beautiful and will probably be considered beautiful by everyone else. Supermodels are supermodels for a reason. Yes, it seems rather unfair. But, no, it's not entirely random. That being said...

I wish I could say that I have a simple one-sentence summary to describe Etcoff's findings, but it's a little trickier than that. This is a scholarly examination of a scientific topic, but it's also a somewhat unscholarly approach. By "unscholarly," though, I don't mean to be critical or to disparage Etcoff's writing. In all fairness, I don't think there's any completely tangible way to discuss a topic like beauty, and while Etcoff does present very solid evidence that the combination of certain physical features is regarded as beautiful in every culture, she doesn't really come to a clear conclusion. And perhaps that's because her clear conclusion would have to read something like, "Well, it looks like there are some people who will always be considered beautiful and some who won't. Too bad, so sad." Considering that this woman is a practicing psychologist with highly respected academic training, I'm not even slightly surprised that she doesn't say this. In fact, she chooses to end her book by talking about George Eliot, a woman who was renowned for not being beautiful, and then she quotes Henry James, who met Eliot and then wrote about her that she was an extraordinarily unattractive woman, but then:

Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes, steals forth and charms the mind, sothat you end as I ended, in falling in love with her.

This is actually something that I wish Etcoff would have spent more time describing: that in some cases, personality and character can go a long way toward defining beauty. There are people I have seen and met who, at first glance, appear to be beautiful, but once their character becomes clearer they no longer seem beautiful. And I can never see that beauty again. I would also suggest that character can etch qualities on a person's face that can make or break beauty: a beautiful person of ugly character can gradually grow less beautiful because of the ugliness that begins seeping out. But I suppose this wasn't really Etcoff's purpose, so she didn't pursue it very far. And perhaps it's more of a topic for philosophers than for psychologists.

There were a few things about Etcoff's book that bothered me, and I'll mention them quickly. One, she basically assumes the accuracy of evolution, so she makes some far-ranging claims that our ancestors developed certain beautiful features to ensure the continuation of the human race. (This doesn't explain, of course, why there are still ugly people around, but...whatever.) Also, she does at times make some very broad arguments that assume things she doesn't always explain in full. For a scientific study, this is a potential problem. At the same time, had she explained every detail in full, her book would have been much longer and considerably more tedious. As it is, I came away with a fresh appreciation for the science of beauty and for the fact that there just might be certain people who are and will always be beautiful. Given that this seems to be her primary goal in the book, she seems to have accomplished it.

I do recommend this book for anyone who wants a fresh and unique read. This is a little off the beaten path, so to speak, but it was a great book for me to read at the end of the year when I'm otherwise exhausted by more, well, exhaustive books. And it really does make the reader think about beauty, how we define it, and how we react to it.

Question for review readers: How do you define beauty? In your opinion, who is beautiful, and why?

Year of publication: 1999
Number of pages: 325

Book Review: The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt

When I began reading this book last week, I realized that I seemed to be the only person in my immediate circle who hadn't read it yet. Even my husband has read it. (And trust me, that's saying something.) So, this review might be a big snore to everyone who has already discovered the evils of a dumbed-down society via Ms Iserbyt's writing. But it was new to me, so I hope that it will be new to someone else.

Ultimately, the purpose of this book is fairly simple: to show, through exhaustive research and the quotation of vast resources, that the "powers that be" (for lack of a better expression) have deliberately inculcated the American school system with material and programs especially designed to derive certain behavioral results. Outcome-based education and other such abysmal plans are ultimately the product of behavioral scientists who, filled with dreams of utopia, believed (and still believe, I suppose) that they can reprogram the average American school child to respond to stimuli and thus permanently alter his actions and his future. If these children can be taught, or should I say "programed," to accept that certain things are highly deleterious -- like religion, patriotism, and so forth -- then they will always respond negatively to them, thus removing the distinctions that divide mankind and allowing the human race to join hands and sing "Kumbaya" in an expression of world peace and one-world government. Okay, I'm being a little facetious here, but apparently the idiots who came up with this nonsense didn't take a good look at history to see that ideas like this have never worked. Not once. Not anywhere. Of course, these particular behaviorists also believe that they can program original sin out of man -- or at least the recognition that such a thing does or can exist -- and achieve their results. I'm sure we can all look at the highly successful institution that is the American public school system to see how this is working. (In case anyone is wondering, I am being sarcastic and more than a little smarmy.)

And yet, I suppose it is working. I'm fairly certain we're never going to see the world peace that they're hoping for, but we certainly have a heavily propaganized American school child who is increasingly devoid of critical thinking skills and who has little concept of real right and wrong, except from what the school has trained him to recognize as such (i.e., diversity is "right," and intolerance is "wrong"). And I'm also pretty sure that we're moving headlong in the direction of a one-world government -- although, as I indicated above, it would behoove those who are touting it to take a good look at history to examine the outcomes of similar experiments in previous eras. Uh, Rome, anyone? The Holy Roman Empire? A unified world will never exist except under the lordship of Christ. People might try to make it work, but it simply can't and won't. Too bad these educators are trying to get rid of that pesky concept of original sin, because it explains so much.

This book is definitely fascinating and eye opening, especially as regards the role of behavioral science in private schools and homeschooling. (Even these are not immune from its influences.) It is not, however, for the faint of heart. The chapters are divided by decade, and each chapter begins with a summary of the decade, followed by a chrological list of direct quotes from books, pamphlets, government documents, etc. that indicate how these ideas developed and were put in place. It's fascinating. And undeniably tedious. I appreciate Ms Iserbyt's scholarship, but it is all a little overwhelming, especially as you reach the last couple of chapters and realize that things have only gotten worse and will only continue to get worse. This book left me thoughtful, angry, eager to take action, and also a bit depressed. But it's worth the read, because while the truth might indeed hurt at times, it's more liberating than living in ignorance.

Because I aim to please, I should mention that the book can actually be read online here. Just click on the link to the PDF, and it will pull the book right up. If your library doesn't have a copy, I definitely recommend reading it online, because the book costs around $40 from online book sellers. As valuable as the information is, I can't recommend that someone buy the book when the author has made it available for free online. Also, don't be scared off by the number of pages. Yes, it is 738 pages. But the primary information within is contained within the first 458 pages, and the rest is largely appendices. Great for research or extra resources. Not necessary to read.

Big recommendation from me, because the material is so pertinent, and more people need to know about just what the public school system is up to and how incredibly deep the problem goes. This simply is not a matter of changing the curriculum or making small improvements. This is a matter of a massive overhaul, and it might take decades. But I guess the first step is reading the book and understanding how all of it happened to begin with.

Year of publication: 1999
Number of pages: 738

Poetry Study: Putting on Some Pound

I'm currently reading a book an the concept of beauty, and this poem (as well as the accompanying quote) were discussed within it. I thought I'd make Ezra Pound my featured poet this week.

"In a Station at the Metro"

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Yes, this is the entire poem. So, those of you out there who tend to dislike poetry can memorize this one and still claim to have memorized a poem by a great twentieth-century poet.

This was Pound's comment on how he arrived at these particular two lines:

Three years ago in Paris I got out of a Métro train at La Concorde, and saw suddenly a beautiful face, and then another and another, and then a beautiful child's face, and then another beautiful woman, and I tried all day to find words for what this had meant to me, and I could not find any words that seemed to me worthy or as lovely as that sudden emotion...In a poem of this sort one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itself or darts into a thing inward and subjective.

I would personally argue that the poem itself seems more than a little meaningless without Pound's commentary, but I think it works very well when placed in the context of his experience.

Essay Reading Challenge for 2009

Carrie at Books and Movies has posted an Essay Reading Challenge for 2009, and I've decided to participate. I've actually been thinking about reading through a number of essays by C.S. Lewis, as well as some academic essays that I need to catch up on, so this falls right in line with the reading goals I've been putting together for next year.

A Few Things...

I really haven't been intending to ignore my blog lately. But I have a number of things going on that are monopolizing my time and energy, and I've decided to go with the bare minimum in terms of blog. More specifically, I was commissioned to do some freelance writing -- in this case, writing a standardized test -- so after spending a good portion of the day staring at the computer screen and composing test questions, I just don't have what it takes to string many more coherent sentences together.

But I'm in the process of thinking about blog resolutions for the upcoming year, and I hope to post something within the next week or so.

Book Review: Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

It was with forebodings of boredom and an overall distaste for Victorian literature that I finally got around to Great Expecations. This is one of those books that, technically speaking, I should have read years ago. But when I was completing my high school courses, my mom assigned A Tale of Two Cities to me, and I apparently developed such an intense abhorrence of Dickens that she didn't bother with assigning me any more. And from that point, I've considered Dickens to be the bane of my literary existence, and with the exception of Bleak House earlier this year -- which I begrudgingly admit to having appreciated, but assumed it to be an anomaly -- I've stayed away from this particular author.

But I had to read Great Expectations. My student was (or still is) reading it. I did assign the book, after all. And since it's a classic, I figured I couldn't get away with Cliffs Notes alone. I didn't really have time to read it, however, so I downloaded the audiobook from my library. And now...*sigh*...I get to eat my words.

I really loved this book. The plot is fascinating and complex; the characters are perfectly developed; and there is no hint of that dreaded "domestic goddess" that I'm now beginning to believe is solely an inhabitant of A Tale of Two Cities, since I've yet to encounter her in either Bleak House or Great Expectations. My apologies to Dickens if I generalized unwisely in my youth: Lucie Manette made such a negative impact on me that I assumed her type was a feature in all the books by Dickens, and I've feared running into her ever since. But she isn't anywhere in Great Expectations. In fact, the primary female characters in this book -- while slightly stereotypical as the miserable spinster or the man-eating feminist -- are nevertheless refreshing in comparison to Lucie Manette. They have color and personality. There is absolutely no one who, upon first discovering the horror that is Miss Havisham and her ghostly home, can forget this particular character. And Estella, while slightly flat in comparison to Miss Havisham, is still a force to be reckoned with and makes for a character who would be fun to analyze from a literary perspective.

Now, for the plot, which is probably well known to all, but I'll still blaze through it. The story centers around Philip Pirrip, or Pip, who narrates the storyline and takes the reader through the various adventures in his life. He is born into a working class family and loses his parents quite young, so that he is raised ("by hand") in the home of his much older sister and her husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery. The book opens with a very young Pip's encounter with an escaped convict named Abel Magwitch who demands help from Pip (as the boy does not realize the man is an escaped convict) and instills in Pip a lifelong fear of the incident. Some time later, Pip is summoned to the home of a wealthy local woman, the infamous Miss Havisham, to play with her adopted daughter Estella. Pip, though formerly happy in his quiet life and contented in the expectations he had to follow in Joe's profession, develops a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with the working class life and aspires to be a gentleman. Part of his motivation, it should be noted, is due to his adoration of Estella and his hope of marrying her some day. But Pip's dreams all seem to be just that -- dreams -- until a little twist of fate comes along.

A lawyer, Mr Jaggers, arrives unannounced one day to tell Pip that he has been noted for his "great expectations" and that an anonymous benefactor has decided to educate and train Pip up to be a gentleman. Pip immediately assumes that Miss Havisham is behind this, but as he isn't to ask any questions about his benefactor, he simply tucks his belief away, along with his assumption that if Miss Havisham is doing this for him she must have hopes of his marrying Estella. Pip leaves his home in the village to move to London, where he will continue his education. While there, he gains much in the way of knowledge and friendship with the people around him. But he also gains a knowledge of human nature that proves to be very distasteful to him. For one, he begins to realize that Miss Havisham has never intended for him to marry Estella but has instead raised up her adopted daughter to seduce and then destroy men (as a payback for the man who broke her heart). So, Pip's love for Estella will never be requited, because Estella is incapable of loving anyone but herself. Then, on one fateful evening Pip learns the truth about his benefactor, a piece of information that shatters all of his great expectations and ruins any real chance he had of becoming a wealthy gentleman. In case there are some who haven't read the book, I won't give this part away; suffice it to say, Pip becomes a sadder, if more mature, person afterwards, and the book closes with a somewhat ambiguous quality to it.

Now, for the other part of my review. As I mentioned above, I didn't actually read the book. I listened to it on audiobook. And I can't tell you how glad I am that I did. I can't even say for sure that I would have enjoyed it as much by just reading it. This is the version I listened to, and it was exceptional. Michael Page is vibrant and fascinating. This may have be an audiobook that spans about eighteen hours, but I could listen to it all over again, just to hear Page do the different voices and narrate that amazing prose from Dickens. If you're not up for reading the book, I strongly recommend getting this particular version of the audiobook. Page makes Dickens very accessible and downright fun in places, and he honestly made me realize that I could actually enjoy Dickens. (Shock. Horror. Gasps of astonishment.)

So, if you haven't read it, read it. Or listen to it. This is a gem of a book and a true classic.

Year of publication: 1860-1861
Number of pages: 540 pages

Book Review: Kristin Lavransdatter -- The Cross, by Sigrid Undset

Note: This review is of the third and final section of Kristin Lavransdatter.

To me, the final section of Kristin Lavransdatter is probably the most disjointed in terms of the variety of events that occur and the overall flow of the story being told; but it's also one of the most interesting. For starters, there's a lot that happens. Kristin and her family are now working the farm at Jorungaard, and her sons are starting to grow up. Perhaps more significantly, Kristin and Erlend are starting to grow apart somewhat. Erlend has become all too aware of his failings as a husband and a father, a problem that is only further exacerbated by the fact that he simply is not a farmer and has no skill in farming. Kristin, on the other hand, grew up at Jorundgaard and knows exactly what is required to run a successful farm. Perhaps without intending it, she belittles Erlend for his lack of skill and for his inability to adapt to the family's new situation.

Unfortunately, things do not improve between them, and in one extremely misguided moment Kristin tells Erlend that he is not fit to take her father's place as head of the farm. Erlend seems to have had about all he can take and promptly heads off to the one small estate left to the family to live alone. After some time, Kristin finally swallows her pride and goes to see Erlend, the result of which visit is an eighth son. This is probably one of my least favorite moments in the story. Kristin has been pregnant so often by this point that after her seventh son is born, she begins to yearn for the feeling of a child growing within her. After her visit to Erlend, she seems far more excited about the fact that she will have another baby than she is about the improved relationship with her husband. So obsessed does she become about this child that she ignores Erlend's request for her to stay with him and returns to Jorundgaard under the assumption that Erlend will have to return now that she is pregnant again. Erlend does not. And Kristin has the baby and subsequently loses the baby a few months later. Her husband still does not return, although it's difficult to fault him entirely since both seem to be suffering from a severe case of miscommunication: Erlend believes that Kristin isn't interested in staying with him, and Kristin believes that Erlend should be obligated to return to Jorundgaard. At last, Erlend is forced to return when Kristin is accused of infidelity (since by all appearances, she got pregnant when her husband wasn't around). Erlend returns just in time to insist on Kristin's honor but then is tragically wounded in a fight and dies shortly after. It all happens rather quickly.

From this point on, the story seems to wander a bit as Kristin tries to find her place as a widow. Her two older sons decide to join a monastery (the younger of the two is more or less blind and unsuitable for life as a warrior or even as a husband in that society, and his elder brother decides to stay by his side). The third son takes over the farm and gets married a few years later. His wife is a hard-working woman, eager to make the farm profitable, and Kristin decides that she is unwilling to live in a home that is really no longer hers. She ultimately decides to leave Jorundgaard and join a convent near that of her two sons. While in the convent, the Black Plague strikes Norway, and Kristin commits herself to nursing the ill. Ultimately (and to be honest, not surprisingly) she becomes ill herself, and the book closes with her death. The end of a long and very complicated life.

As far as an overall recommendation, I have to say that I liked the book, and I do recommend it as a whole. But I should point out that by the time I reached the end of it I realized that I didn't like Kristin. She's a difficult character in many ways. While she was fresh and fascinating in her youth, she became pigheaded and contrary in her adulthood -- very unfortunate qualities that, while realistic, can make for a character who is slow to change or to recognize the need for personal improvement. So, as a word of warning, at the end of the day you are reading Kristin Lavransdatter for the quality of the book itself: great writing, unique characters, extremely complex story development. To me, at least, you are not reading it because you're going to like Kristin Lavransdatter the character. And that may or may not be a good thing.

***The image at the top is (from what I could find) of a statue of Kristin Lavransdatter that was erected in Norway in honor of the character and of Undset's immense achievement in writing the book. Undset received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928 for Kristin Lavransdatter.

Book Review: Kristin Lavransdatter -- The Wife, by Sigrid Undset

Note: This is my continuing review of Kristin Lavransdatter, with the second part reviewed below.

I have to admit that while I more or less zipped right through Book 1 of Kristin Lavransdatter, I had to drag myself through Book 2. I'm not entirely sure why. This should have been a fascinating continuation of Book 1 with Kristin and Erlend finally married and starting out their life together, just as they've always dreamed. But it seemed to stall out about mid-way into the book and just never really picked up. Part of the problem, I think, is the fact that history keeps repeating itself in so many different ways for Kristin. For one, she gives birth to seven sons in rapid succession (and by "rapid," I mean one every eleven to twelve months or so -- see the image above for some idea of the toll it took on her). I started losing track after the fifth son was born, and even Undset couldn't work up much interest once she got around to describing the seventh. But in addition to this Kristin manages to get herself mired in a pattern of behavior that defines the next few decades of her life. This is probably what left me struggling the most with this particular section of her saga.

No sooner does Kristin marry Erlend than she begins to develop a deeply rooted resentment toward him. I'm not quite sure what causes this, and I don't know that Undset is completely clear -- which actually seems very realistic to me, since human emotions are rarely the result of a single cause. Initially, Kristin makes the mistake of not telling Erlend that she is already pregnant when she marries him. So, when he finds out, and his eldest son arrives much earlier than he would have hoped, he's a bit...peeved, shall we say. But Erlend isn't one to hold a grudge, so he moves on quickly and tries to enjoy this new stage of his life. But Kristin seems to transfer all of her love from Erlend to her son Naakve, and she is easily angered with Erlend that he doesn't seem to love or dote on his son as much as she does. The same goes with the other sons who are born so quickly: Kristin is a devoted if slightly overprotective mother, and Erlend is a good if not always fully attentive father. Kristin resents this. Additionally, Kristin realizes that however well meaning Erlend may be, he has a tendency towards being foolhardy with his estate, and this bothers her, fostering more resentment. In one very tragic event, Erlend defies the king and is stripped of his property, leaving the family with only Kristin's inherited property to their name. While Kristin is happy that her husband does not lose his life as a result of his bad decisions, she also builds up yet more resentment against him that festers inside her over the years and makes her downright miserable when she is around him. If I were to add one more observation to this, Kristin seems to be one of those women who fails to recognize her husband for who he is and resents him for not being who she wants him to be. Yes, Kristin loves Erlend, but her love gets too twisted up with her expectation that Erlend will be someone other than who he is. Rather than love her husband unconditionally and build him up in the process, she picks away at him over time and very nearly destroys her relationship with him and her sons as well.

This, I think, is what bothered me the most throughout Book 2. Kristin just doesn't change. She becomes more and more holy in her attention to her faith, but that holy mindset rapidly becomes holier-than-thou as she covers herself in outward devotion and holds onto very sinful thoughts and behavior. Granted, Erlend isn't perfect by any means, but he's at least willing to acknowledge that he's a sinner and makes mistakes. Kristin, on the other hand, never can acknowledge that she's wrong about anything with regard to Erlend or parenting. Frankly, it gets old.

Fortunately, Book 2 isn't the end of the story, and I have completed Book 3, so I'll try to blog about that as soon as possible. The story does improve in the final book, but I have to offer the warning that Book 2 is just one of those reads that demands heavy infusions of caffeine. It's worth it to get to the end of the book, but it's kind of painful in the process.

Book Review: Plato's Republic, translated by Benjamin Jowett

Another student read. And apparently, another book that I've already read (and even made notes in...), but it made so little of an impression on me the first time that a second reading was inevitably necessary and also very edifying.

I'm in an extremely lazy mood right now, but I still need to blog about this book, so I'm going to take the path of least resistance. Below is the introductory statement from Wikipedia:

The Republic (Greek: Πολιτεία / Politeía, meaning "political system;" Latin: Res Publica, meaning "public business" or literally "public thing") is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, written in approximately 380 BC. It is one of the most influential works of philosophy and political theory, and arguably Plato's best known work. In it, Socrates and various other Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and whether the just man is happier than the unjust man by constructing an imaginary city ruled by philosopher-kings. The dialogue also discusses the nature of the philosopher, Plato's Theory of Forms, the conflict between philosophy and poetry, and the immortality of the soul.

This, in a nutshell, is it. Despite its age and the somewhat abstract nature of the subject matter, I actually found this to be an extremely interesting read. My student also enjoyed it and made a special note of telling me that she enjoyed it far more than the Histories of Herodotus -- which I confess that I didn't expect. But there is something very fascinating about the arguments contained in The Republic.

As mentioned in the quoted portion, the book is written in the "Socratic dialogue" form, which essentially means that Plato is recording a conversation between Socrates and several other people. As an example, this is a conversation contained within Book 2, with Socrates starting out the conversation and the character of Adeimantus responding:

Then in the larger [that is, the State being larger than the individual] the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propse therefore that we inquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them.

That, he said, is an excellent proposal.

And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also.

I dare say.

When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered.

Yes, far more easily.

But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said: for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore.

I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and I am anxious that you should proceed...

It seems a little strange at first, but it ultimately works and makes for a surprisingly simple read. Using the dialogue format, Socrates builds on his ideas until the reader has no choice but to arrive at the same conclusions that he does. This doesn't mean, of course, that the reader will necessarily agree with every conclusion that Socrates reaches: indeed, many of Socrates' ideas are very radical, and I found a few of them to be utterly ludicrous. What it does mean, though, is that his conclusions make perfect sense in light of the arguments that he has built up along the way. Having read this, many of the arguments for traditional classical education (which I espouse to a degree, if not to extreme) make much more sense, because Socrates demonstrates how to educate little by little -- asking questions, using logic, and building from one idea to the next until a statement of argument is reached.

So, after a second (and much more thorough...) read I can offer a better-informed recommendation. I realize that many people aren't going to want to dive into a book like this, but I do recommend it, because it's an enlightening read and is far easier than it might seem. I read the Barnes and Noble version (I know, I know -- not the most scholarly edition, but I have to hand it to Barnes and Noble for making the classics available to people for a reasonable price), and the translation is very accessible.

Year of publication: Uh...380 BC? / 2004 for the BN edition
Number of pages: 409 (incl. endnotes)