Classic Catholic Converts by Fr. Charles P. Connor

This one wasn't on the official shelf. It just snuck into the line-up. In the room where I sit when I say my morning prayers there is a nice comfy chair with an overflowing bookcase on the left. Most of these books have something to do with the faith, and I almost always have one that I am reading for about 10 minutes every morning. So, when I finished the last one, I just reached over and pulled out this one.

I didn't have a lot of hope for Classic Catholic Converts because I went through a period when I read probably a hundred conversion stories, and after a while I decided to move on. And besides that, I already know a fair amount about the five on the cover. But, there it was on the shelf, and I had to at least give it a try. I don't know how it got there, really.  It's brand new. It doesn't have any kind of price tag from a store, and I know I didn't order it from Amazon.

The first morning, I read the first chapter about St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. It was pretty much what I expected. The second morning, I read the second chapter about the Oxford Movement, and that was pretty interesting because I don't know a lot about it except for Blessed John Henry Newman. The third morning, there was a chapter on Blessed John Henry Newman, and I read that and went on to the next one about St. Rose Hawthorne, and then I brought it upstairs and just kept reading it.

The thing that I had noticed about this book is that it isn't about the conversion process. Fr. Connor writes a bit about where the person came from, writes a very brief passage about their converting--sometimes a short as, "He converted to Catholicism at the age of  X," and then tells what they did after their conversion. That is what makes this book different. It's not the conversion that is the main point of the stories. It's what they did with it. We barely get a glimpse into the hearts and minds of these people as they are drawn into the Church. The one exception is Malcolm Muggeridge, and the passage about his first intimation that the faith might be true is really lovely.

There are 17 chapters in the book, each about 10 pages long, and a few of the chapters are about more than one person, for example, the chapter about the Oxford Movement. There is also a chapter about the converts of Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Obviously, Fr. Connor doesn't go into any great detail, but it's a good introduction to the men and women he writes about. One section I really like was in the chapter about Dorothy Day where he was telling about Cardinal John O'Connor's involvement in her canonization process.

Unfortunately, like almost every book I have read so far, it has made me want to read about six other books. I would like to read more about Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, and I would like to know something more about Léon Bloy.

It's a good book, but it's not a keeper. I am going to give this book away sometime soon. I you would like it, let me know.

AMDG

Have You Anything to Declare by Maurice Baring

My first introduction to Maurice Baring was in a book called Literary Converts by Joseph Pearce which was sent to me by my friend Paul. The book is about men and women who converted to the Catholic faith during the Catholic Intellectual Revival of the early 20th century. I remember thinking at the time that I would like to read something by Baring, but not why, and so I was very glad when Paul also sent me Have You Anything to Declare? I was so excited that I read about three pages and then put it on the shelf for something like nine years.

The book begins with a description of a dream. 

I dreamed once that, like Clarence, I had "pass'd the melancholy flood, with that grim Ferryman that poets write of", and that, when we reached the other side, there was a Customs House and an official who had inscribed in golden letters on his cap Chemins de fer de l'Enfer, who said to me, "Have you anything to declare?"

I want to pause here for a minute to note that in the first sentence Baring expects us to know who Clarence is (I knew it was the Duke of Clarence and from Shakespeare and figured it must be Richard III, so I passed.), that the "grim Ferryman" was Charon (That's pretty easy.), and how to translate that French (I'm sure I knew at some point that chemins de fer was a train, but I couldn't remember. Hell, I recognized.) At any rate, this gives you some idea of what might be ahead.

The Customs House official from the Trains of Hell wasn't interested in objects that Baring was bringing along, but in literary gleanings that he had brought with him through his life: both things he had written down, and things he had committed to memory. On awakening, Baring decided that it would be a good thing to make this declaration. The result is a sort of commonplace book that begins with Homer, and proceeds to authors who were contemporaries of Baring, closing with several passages on death, ultimately:  

Et à l’heure de ma mort soyez le refuge de mon âme étonnée et recevez-la dans sein de votre miséricorde.

Which translated (although he doesn't translate it) is:

And at the hour of my death be the refuge of my astonished soul and receive it into the midst of Thy mercy.

This, though Baring doesn't cite it, is St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

So that you can see how the book is laid out (You can see this better if you click once on the picture):

Sometimes a comment from Baring

The quote in the original language

Sometimes a translation which may be Baring's, because he was a translator, or may be from someone else

Perhaps a closing comment from Baring or someone else

This is the general layout of the pages. Many are this short, and some are shorter, for instance, the last page contains only the two French lines quoted above. Sometimes the whole page will be filled and very occasionally part of the next page also.

The quotes contained in the book may be in Greek, Latin, Italian, French, German, Russian, or even English. There may be other languages that I have forgotten. Some are translated; others are not. If I am remembering correctly he always translates the Greek, Latin, and Russian, and seldom the French. Sometimes I would try to work out the French, but other times, I just passed on to the next thing.

The first section from Homer pretty much left me cold. I'm not sure why this is because I like Homer, but it has been a good while since I read it and perhaps I just couldn't connect with the disembodied fragments. I couldn't help thinking that at another time, I might enjoy this section more. 

As we moved on to other Greeks and Romans, it got a bit better, and about the time we got to George Eliot I was hooked. There are three pages about George Eliot. Apparently, she had gone out of style in 1937 when Baring was writing, but he liked her very much. He also wrote here about George Meredith, who was also out of fashion. If you have read Elizabeth Goudge you may remember that her characters love Meredith.

Pretty soon after this, I was reading the book a with highlighter and sticky flags close at hand as you can see from the picture above. I had originally planned to get rid of the book, but now I plan to keep it, flags attached.

Baring talks about the 20th century rediscovery of Trollope, but he isn't sure that Trollope is much read because:

I only know that whenever I have asked for a volume of Trollope at the London Library, I have never failed to get it, except once or twice when I have been told the book was being read by Mr. Belloc, and he has told me that the only time that he has failed to get a Trollope from the London Library is when the book has been in my hands. 

Baring was a friend of Belloc and Chesterton. I read somewhere that there was a portrait of the three of them in the National Portrait Gallery. While looking for this portrait, which is very nice, I found a similar photograph that I liked even better.

One thing I learned from Baring is that there was an author, one John Oliver Hobbes (a pen-name. Her real name was Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie), about whose work he says:

It carries on the panorama of English country and county life which was begun by Miss Austen and carried on until the end of the 'seventies by Anthony Trollope. 

Baring thinks she will be rediscovered and that people will be surprised at her wit. From The Sinner's Comedy on the death of one of the characters:

He did not speak again until just before he died, when he kissed his wife's hand with a singular tenderness, and called her Elizabeth. She had been christened Augusta Frederica, but then, as the doctors explained, dying men often make mistakes.

I have found that some of John Oliver Hobbes's novels are available on Google books and am looking forward to investigating them sooner or later.

A few quotes. 

There are some lovely descriptions of nature in the book, but when I go looking for them I find that most of them are in French. Here is one from Robert Louis Stevenson in The Ebb-Tide that is not. It reminds me of something I once saw.

There was little or no morning bank. A brightening came in the east; then a wash of some ineffable, faint nameless hue between crimson and silver; and then coals of fire. These glimmered a while on the sea-line, and seemed to brighten and darken and spread out, and still the night and stars reigned undisturbed; it was as though a spark should catch and glow and creep along the foot of some heavy and almost incombustible wall-hanging; and the room itself be scarce menaced. Yet a little after, and the whole east glowed with gold and scarlet, and the hollow of heaven was filled with daylight.

I find that most of the quotes that I have marked have to do with the Church. I didn't do this on purpose. It just happened.

Here is one from Is Life Worth Living? by William Hurrell Mallock that brings to mind a conversation I am trying to have with someone, and which is difficult for the very reason Mallock is discussing.

. . . and the explanation or the account of anything is always far more intricate than the apprehension of the thing itself. Not only does the intricacy of Catholicism described blind them to the simplicity of Catholicism experienced, but they confuse with the points of faith not only the scientific accounts of them which theologians give, but the mere rules of discipline and pious opinions.

And from Fr. Vincent McNabb

Into the great Temple of Truth, the Church of God, there are two gates--the gate of wisdom and the gate of beauty. I am inclined to think that the narrow gate is the gate of wisdom, and the wide gate, through which millions pass, is the gate of beauty. The Catholic Church has these portals ever open. She welcomes from time to time the few philosophers and thinkers who crucify themselves by thought, but she welcomes unceasingly the countless numbers who come for her colour, for her song, for her smile--as they go afield for the warmth and light of the spring sun. I believe the way of beauty is the wiser as well as the wider way. It is God's own most perfect thoroughfare--God's way to Himself.

At the end of almost every book review, I find myself wanting to say something like, "I would recommend this book to anyone who likes this sort of thing." And it is true. Sifting through page after page of quotes, especially when some of them are in languages one does not understand, will not be everybody's cup of tea, but I found it delightful.

AMDG

P. S. I have an extra copy of the book, and if you would like it, especially if you live 

        close to me, I would be glad to give it to you. 

Home: a Short History of an Idea by Witold Rybczynski

When I was teaching my youngest daughter, someone in my homeschool support group told me that World Magazine had a publication for children that was something like Weekly Reader, so I subscribed to both the adult and children's publications. I remember liking the magazine, but not much about it except that it had great book reviews, and one of the books they reviewed was Home by Witold Rybczynski. So, I picked it up when I saw it at a book sale, and have started it three or four times over the past 20 years or so. I don't really know why I never finished it before, because I always thought it was interesting. I guess life just intervened--or maybe there was a novel I really wanted to read.

Rybczynski says on his website that he . . .

. . . studied architecture at McGill University in Montreal, where he also taught for twenty years. He is Emeritus Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. Rybczynski has designed and built houses as a registered architect, as well as doing practical experiments in low-cost housing, which took him to Mexico, Nigeria, India, the Philippines, and China. He has written for the Atlantic, New Yorker, New York Review of Books, and the New York Times, and has been architecture critic for Saturday Night, Wigwag, and Slate. From 2004 to 2012 he served on the U. S. Commission of Fine Arts.

I've always wondered how to pronounce his name, so I decided to see if I could find out on a YouTube video. In the first two videos, the person who introduced Rybczynski muffed his name, but in the third, I heard Rib-chin-ski, and lo and behold, that is what he says on the webpage. First name is pronounced Vee-told, by the way.

He has written (I believe) eighteen books, most of which deal with architecture, cities, furniture, and technology; and how they affect our lives both negatively and positively. There's a list here. At this point, I would like to read all of them, but I only have one on my shelf, The Most Beautiful House in the World, which tells the story of the building of his own house, and many rabbit trails that he followed in the process.

St. Jerome in his Study, Albrecht Dürer, 1514

In Home Rybczynski tells how houses developed from the very public halls of the Middle Ages where family, servants, and apprentices lived, worked, ate, and slept in the same large room, to the sort of living conditions that we expect in our homes today. The unifying theme of the book is comfort, a word which was unknown in its present-day sense until Sir Walter Scott used it in the 18th century. Rybczynski says that before this there was no word that means what we mean by comfort, because the concept was not present in the minds of people who lived in earlier times.

Interior with a Woman Playing the Virginals, Emanuel de Witte, 1660

In his discussion of this development of the concept of home as opposed to house, Rybczynski includes the size, number and placement of rooms; and the types and placement of furniture; and how the change in the outward environment reflects the change in familial relationships, and vice versa. He shows how these changes spring from and lead to more intimacy, more privacy, and more comfort.

One of the most interesting parts of the book to me is the section on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Until this time, there had been many changes in architectural style, and furnishing, but very few technological advances. This was due in part to the number of servants, even in middle class homes, who took care of all the inconvenient things, but it was also due to the fact that houses were built and furnished under the auspices of two groups of people: architects, who were more interested in the outside of the home and the way it looked, and upholsterers, who later came to be called interior designers, and who were contractors who took care of all the furniture and decoration of the inside. There just wasn't anyone in charge of making the house more convenient or comfortable.

A couple of things happened to bring about change. One was that there were fewer people--women mostly--who were willing to work as servants, and another was that women started writing books about house design. One of the most influential of these women was Christine Frederick, who believed in smaller, and servantless homes, and another was Catherine E. Beecher, the sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe. These women wrote about ways to make keeping house simpler. They designed kitchens that would work. They wanted furnaces in the basement and no fireplaces that had to be cleaned every day. They wanted electricity. Things started to change.

In chapter eight we learn about The Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs en Industriels Modernes, a world exhibition in Paris in which, ". . . . nearly two hundred buildings covered a seventy-five acre site . . . ." The name of the exhibit was the origin of the term Art Deco, and it was at this exposition that the style was introduced to the public. One pavilion that was not highly thought of was designed by Charles-Edouard and Pierre Jeanneret. Charles-Edouard was known as Le Corbusier, one of the first of the modern architects. You can see some of buildings here. 

Rybczynski describes the pavilion.

Visitors to the pavilion would have found the interior as bare and unfinished as the exterior. There were no ornaments, no draperies, no wallpaper. There was no mantelpiece to display the family photographs, no paneling in the study. There was no polished wood, let alone lapis lazuli. The color scheme was stark: predominantly white walls contrasted with a blue ceiling; one wall of the living room was painted brown; the storage cabinets that served as room dividers were painted bright yellow. The effect was distinctly unhomey, and was heightened by the staircase, which was made out of steel pipes and looked as if it had been plucked directly from a ship's boiler room.

While the pavilion did not attract much attention at the exposition, between the wars the minimalist fashion gained more traction. Rybczynski gives a few reasons for this. One was the stock market crash which left people without the means to spend money on decoration. The other was political. Neo-classicism was preferred by both Hitler and Mussolini. The new stripped-down style acquired an almost moral imperative. Modern German architects who came to the United States to escape the Nazis, became very influential in the architectural world. The ordinary American wasn't that impressed, Rybczynski says.

Buildings in the stripped-down style were grudgingly accepted on the assumption that they were "functional" and "efficient." . . . Although the architectural profession and its supporters extolled the moral virtues of the New Spirit, to the man on the street it was just another unpleasant, but inevitable by-product of modern life, like traffic jams or plastic forks.

 Here are a couple of examples of the furniture of the New Spirit.

The Hardoy Butterfly Chair designed by Jorge Ferrari Hardoy

Still on the market from a blue plush one at $40 up to a leather original for a couple of thousand.

The Wassily Chair designed by Marcel Breuer. You can still get these, too.

I saw an original for $33,000, and the high quality new ones run in the thousands,

but don't worry, you can get on from Walmart for $221.06.

Think how useful they would be during Lent.

Rybczynski pushes back against this New Spirit style because of its retreat from the comfortable and intimate. You can't really imagine snuggling into these chairs with a cup of coffee and good book, or a congenial conversation around the fire. His objections aren't just with the look of things, but with the way they affect the way we relate to one another, and the way we live. 

There was one thing about the book that really frustrated me, and that was the lack of pictures. The only illustrations are pictures at the beginning of each chapter, two of them are above. We have all this talk about different types of architecture, and woodwork, and furniture, etc., and no pictures. I found myself constantly reaching for my Kindle Fire to look them up. Pity the poor reader who bought the book in 1986 when there was no such thing as a search engine. Maybe this was because it was Rybczynski's first book and the publisher didn't want to pay for illustrations.

I really enjoyed this book. I guess that's obvious. I'm looking forward to reading more of Rybczynski's work.

AMDG

The Shelf

I have filled a shelf with books that I am going to read. I won't necessarily read them in this order, and I might replace some of them with other books of the same size. I just want to be able to see my progress.

AMDG

A Thousand Summers by Garson Kanin

I know I must have picked up A Thousand Summers at a library sale, but I have no idea why or when. I recognized the name Garson Kanin as one I'd seen before, but I couldn't even remember who he was until I looked him up while reading the book, and saw that he was the writer and/or director of many romantic comedies in the 30s and 40s, many of which I have seen more than once.

When I read the first few pages of the book, I thought, "Nah," but a little further in I found that the characters have an interest in Japan, an interest which I share, so I thought I would see where the story went. Then, I was pretty bored with where it went, and was just going to say, "No reason to read this," but I thought the last third of the book got better, so I thought I'd write a bit.

The story is told from the point of view of a man, Freeman Osborn, who is living in a retirement home and remembering his life with Sheila Van Anda, the love of his life. One of my favorite passages in the book is the one where we first meet the aging Freeman.

. . . Remembering all this, the old man began to cry.

His porch-mate, who had been rocking in the chair beside him, rose discreetly and shuffled away to the other side of the long porch. This is the established protocol at the Falmouth Sunset House on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The privacy of misery is respected, and it has long been understood, by guests and attendants alike, that there is nothing, in any case, to be done. They know that old people weep at many things . . .

Here it has been learned that they cannot be comforted. They cry themselves out, as they did when they were infants and cried for more innocent reasons.

The book begins, however, on the day that Sheila walks into Freeman's Pharmacy in Martha's Vineyard asking if he can remove a speck from her eye. Apparently at that time, pharmacies functioned as a sort of minor medical clinic. He is overwhelmed by her beauty, and her closeness while he is taking care of her eye. Then she leaves, and he realizes he is terribly distraught because he doesn't know her name.

A few days later when her eye is better, she comes back, and they immediately kiss (See, this is the beginning of my not liking the book.), and then she tells him that she came back to see his collection of Japanese kokeshi dolls. They then discover that they are both lovers of Japanese culture: Sheila because she lived in Japan when her husband was stationed there after the war, and Freeman because he has read everything he can find about Japan, and has even bought a piece of property that looks like a Japanese landscape, and is planning to build an authentic Japanese house there. No one else knows that he has this property, not even his wife. So despite the fact that they are married, they immediately begin to plan their life together, and how they will live in the Japanese house. (I'm not thrilled about this.)

A great part of the rest of the book is about their secretly meeting in one place or another. There is, occasionally, some dialogue that sounds like it is straight out of a screwball movie, which isn't surprising since Kanin made plenty of those. I'm not crazy about it in movies, but it really doesn't work here. So, why am I writing this?

Big Spoiler Alert

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When Freeman and Sheila, after many years, about 20 I think, are finally about to dump their spouses and build their house, Sheila has to go on a trip that has something to do with her husband's prominent position, and she has a heart attack and dies on the ship. Freeman is devastated, of course, but this is where the book begins to get better. 

As Freeman ages, his character begins to grow. He isn't just the guy having an adulterous affair anymore. He is still thinking of Sheila all the time, but he is also thinking of others, too. It is as though he has lived his whole life focused on one thing and now he is turning outward. He develops a wonderful relationship with his daughter and her husband, and their three children. He does one very noble thing which I don't want to mention here. He makes some unlikely friends. In the whole of his life, he doesn't seem to have had friends.

Eventually, he begins to get a bit disoriented--not too much at first--but he finally reaches the point where he tells his daughter that it's time for her to take over his affairs, and he moves to the retirement home. I think that Kanin has some real insight into the mind of someone who is still fairly capable, but whose memories and sense of time are becoming more and more muddled, and who can no longer do the things they once excelled at. I'm experiencing a bit of that myself. I have to confess I was a bit jealous when he just turned everything over to someone else.

I wouldn't really recommend this book, but on the other hand, if you happen to be staying in someone else's house and it's there and there isn't much else to read, you might get some enjoyment out of it.

A couple of side notes:

When Sheila said she had been in Japan before the war, I assumed it was World War II, but then came the day that they were excited about Lindbergh making a transatlantic flight. I completely changed the images that I had in my mind.

I don't know why there is a moth on the front of the book. I don't remember there being on in the book, but every time I look at that book cover it makes me think of Silence of the Lambs.

AMDG

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

I suppose everyone knows a little something about Robinson Crusoe. If we haven't read the book (which I hadn't), we have seen movies or TV shows, or cartoons about his adventures on a desert island. He has been portrayed by many actors from Dan O'Herlihy (lately of Twin Peaks fame) to Pierce Brosnan, and boy, does that Brosnan version look cheesy.

What's more, Robinson Crusoe has many heirs. While we were watching the new Netflix verison of Lost in Space with our grandson the other night, I realized that it was an offspring of Defoe's classic. The Swiss Family Robinson was inspired by Robinson Crusoe, and the the original Lost in Space was an updated version of The Swiss Family Robinson.

I have always enjoyed stories about people who were in difficult situations and had to be really resourceful and innovative (I never wanted to BE one of those people.), so I looked forward to seeing how Crusoe coped, but a little background first for anyone who knows as little about the book as I did.

Robinson Crusoe is a young man seeking adventure.

Being the third son of the family, and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, a far as house-education and a country free school generally goes, and designed me for the law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propension of nature tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me. 

After his father pleads with him to stay at home and live the middle life (neither too high, or too low, but comfortable) for several pages (too many pages), the younger Crusoe meets someone who can get him passage on a ship and he leaves without even saying good-bye to his family.

Within a week of sailing, they come into a terrible storm. In the midst of the storm Crusoe believes that he is being punished for his rash decision, and says he will go home if he only survives, but in a calm lull, he forgets his resolution. Later, the storm worsens so that even the captain believes that there is no hope. Thankfully, they are close to shore, and after a great struggle, they are rescued shortly before the ship founders.

Having weathered one storm, Crusoe almost immediately finds another ship and begins a venture as a trader. On this voyage, they are attacked by Moors. Crusoe is captured and made the slave of the captain. Eventually he escapes in a boat with a young boy named Xury. After more trials they land in Brazil, where Crusoe settles and after a while becomes part owner of a plantation, which begins to thrive. At this point, a group of planters have secretly planned to send a ship to Guinea to purchase slaves, and ask him to be supercargo on the ship, and not having learned a thing from his former adventures, Crusoe agrees to go, and we know what happens next.

By now you are probably thinking I've told you the whole story, but no, we are only about 50 pages into a 400 page book. Crusoe still has 28+ years to live on his island, alone for the great majority of that time. Luckily for him, and he seems to be very lucky for someone who is so unlucky, he is able to rescue a good many things from the ship before it sinks, and there is food to be found on the island, so his circumstances aren't quite a bad as they seem, though bad enough.

One of the most difficult obstacles for Crusoe to overcome, maybe the most difficult, is fear. Fear of some natural disaster, or wild beasts, or wild men. Until his arrival on the island, he hasn't thought much about God, but now he finds that it is only with the help of God that he can survive, and he begins a sincere life of faith, praying and reading the Bible every day. I was surprised at how important his faith is to the book.

Crusoe's companion, Friday, does not appear until fairly late in the book. They have a complex relationship, and I keep comparing it in my mind with the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg, the South Sea Islander, in Moby Dick. While Crusoe and Friday have a deep trust, and love for one another, Crusoe is always the master, Friday calls him Master, and Friday is his slave; whereas, the relationship of Ishmael and Queequeg is a relationship of equals. Crusoe converts Friday to Christianity, and I can't complain about that (especially since part of his religion entails eating people), but Ishmael accepts Queequeg for who he is.

I wondered if perhaps at some point Crusoe would realize that his great disaster happened when he was on the way to purchase slaves, and that he would repent for that, but, no, he has slaves until the very end. Wrong as that is, it isn't at all surprising for the time in which the book was written.

Sometimes the book is very repetitive and chronologically confused, but aside from that, it is a great read. The further I got into the book, the more engaged I was.

The book jacket of the Oxford Pocket Classics edition says that Robinson Crusoe was based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, who was marooned on the island of Juan Fernández. Selkirk was a very different man than Crusoe and he was only marooned for four years and four months, and for a very different reason; however, there are many resemblances to his life in the story. You can read more about Selkirk (Selcraig) in this Smithsonian article written by one of his brother's descendants, Bruce Selcraig.

It is also thought that Friday was modeled after a Moskito Indian who survived on this same island alone for a year.

Statue of Alexander Selkirk at the site of his original house
on Main Street, Lower Largo Fife, Scotland

AMDG

What I'm Reading Now

Peony by Pearl S. Buck

Until I looked up a list of Pearl S. Buck's novels previous to writing this post, I had no idea how many novels she wrote. I count 42 on Wikipedia, of which I have read maybe four or five. She is probably best known for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Good Earth, which was the best-selling fiction book in the United States in 1931 and 1932.  (Once again, I paraphrase Wikipedia.)

I read The Good Earth and enjoyed it a good many years ago, I have no idea how long, and so I have occasionally picked up Mrs. Buck's novels at book sales. Mrs. Buck, having grown up in China, includes a great deal of cultural, and historical information, which I like, and her characters are complex and well-drawn. I think that my favorite is Letter from Peking, which has some of the loveliest passages I've ever read--or heard--I think I listened to the book on tape. Her novels remind me quite a lot of those of Rumer Godden, another westerner who grew up in the East, although while Ms. Godden's novels are usually written from the perspective of white women living in Asia, Mrs. Buck's have an eastern perspective.

Peony is the story of a bondmaid who works for a Jewish-Chinese family. I found this fascinating. I had no idea that there was a Jewish community in China. The novel takes place in the 1850s in Kaifeng, where the father, Ezra, is a wealthy trader. He is half Chinese-half Jewish and would probably have become lax in the practice of his faith had he not married a very religious and determined woman. Madame Ezra loves her Jewish faith, longs for the day that she can return to the home of her people, and is a great supporter of the the synagogue and the Rabbi.

Throughout the novel, we see how the tension between the Jewish and Chinese philosophies weighs on Ezra and his son, David. We also see how all but a few faithful Jews have been assimilated into the Chinese culture around them. The beautiful, deteriorating synagogue, and an aging rabbi are images of a way of life that is gradually disappearing.

Peony was bought when she was very young to wait on David, the son of the family. They grow up as brother and sister, but gradually Peony realizes that her love for David is changing into something deeper. David, oblivious to this change in Peony, is torn between his determination to marry the rabbi's daughter (his mother's choice), and remain steadfast in his faith; or to marry the beautiful young daughter of a Chinese business associate of his father, which will draw him deeper into the Chinese way of life.

Although we are allowed to see into the thoughts of all the characters, it is through Peony's eyes that we mainly view the narrative. Peony is firmly Chinese in outlook. She finds the Jewish customs and attitudes sad and difficult in contrast to the Chinese emphasis on pleasure and happiness. As the story progresses, we see Peony grow and change in surprising ways. As a bondmaid, she has definite limits on her hopes and dreams, but she finds way within these limits to become indispensable to the family, and develop into a mature and wise woman.

As my copy of Peony went out the door with my copy of Prairyerth, there are things that I would like to quote, that I can't quote. I won't make that mistake again. While I was looking around the internet trying to refresh my memory about some details I could not recall, I found that my friend, Gretchen, has also written about Peony on her beautiful blog, Gladsome Lights. I have not yet read her blogpost, not wanting to be tempted to plagiarize, but I'm sure that it is better than this one, so if you have any interest in finding out more about the book, you can read her post here. That's what I'm going to do now.

AMDG

PrairyErth:A Deep Map by William Least Heat-Moon

My first introduction to William Least Heat-Moon was about 35 years ago when I read his first book,Blue Highways, which tells the story of his trip around the perimeter of the continental United States on the highways that were marked in blue on the map, in other words, not the interstate. I don't really remember a lot of details of his trip, but I remember that the book was enjoyable, and so, I suppose, when I saw PrairyErth on a library sale table a long time ago, I thought it might be worth a dollar or two. So, I took it home and put in on a shelf and it has traveled around my shelves ever since without ever being opened until last month.


In contrast to a 13,000 mile journey around the United States (or a 13 mile journey around the bookshelves in my house), PrairyErth takes place in one county. Chase County, Kansas is by some measurement I don't remember, in the exact center of the continental United States. Heat-Moon spent several months--maybe a couple of years--staying in, studying about, and walking this county to produce his "deep map." The map is deep in the sense that he examines the county from many different perspectives including: myth; natural history; political history; the personal lives of residents, both current and past by, means of interviews and courthouse records.  He divides the county into 12 quadrangles, each section of the book concentrating on one quadrangle.

This is a map of the county found in PrairyErth. As you can see, there is not a lot of detail. Heat-Moon divides the map into four horizontal and three vertical sections to find his twelve quadrangles, and writes about them beginning in the northeast quadrangle from top to bottom, and right to left (like Asian pictographs). 

Each section begins with a map of the quadrangle that resembles the one above and has a bit more detail, but not much. Then, there are several pages from his common place book with quotes from a variety of people, some of whom you will recognize, including: Wendell Berry, Ovid, Victor Hugo, Henry David Thoreau, and many political and historical figures. Next come several chapters about various things: the flora and fauna of the area; the people who lived there in the past and the people who live there now; the geological structures; and usually--maybe always--a chapter about his personal experience walking through the quadrangle. 

In every section there is a chapter called On the Town and I'm pretty sure they all center around Cottonwood Falls, the county seat of Chase County. I say pretty sure because I've already given the book away--not much foresight there--and so I can't check. These are about a variety of things. My favorite is the one about the feminist college professor who came back home to Chase County for a while, and opened a diner on the main street of the town, and found out in the process that men were more than opponents.

For the most part I really enjoyed the book. My favorite chapters were about the people of Chase County like the five remaining residents of Saffordville, which floods fairly often, who just move upstairs until the flood is over, or the couple that was taken up by a tornado--twice--and lived to tell the tale. There are two running stories in the book: one about a murder and the subsequent trial of the suspected killer, and another about the life and career of Samuel Newitt Wood, Quaker, abolitionist, member of the Kanas House and Senate, and probably the most influential person in the history of Chase County.

What annoyed me about the book was Heat-Moon's fairly frequent disparagement of European culture as compared to Native American culture. It is pretty much European bad-Native American-good. I don't really want to say much about this other than I am sure that there is plenty of both blame and praise to be found to go around in both cultures, and the one-sided, and it seemed to me sometimes unfair commentary was a bit irksome. Nevertheless, this wouldn't keep me from recommending the book to anyone who might be interested in this comprehensive account of the center of our nation.

AMDG