A Daybookish Post for "Quick Takes" Friday

Outside my window... The weekday bustle (there is a tiny bit of bustle, I promise!) of a small town in Kansas.  My children are at their art/music class down the block; and I'm enjoying a cup of coffee in my favorite mom-and-pop coffeehouse, where-- years ago-- I wrote whole chapters of my dissertation, guzzled caffeine until my head swam, and (later) changed newborn diapers in the restroom.  It astonishes me to consider that we've already lived in this town for eleven years, so that its places carry a personal history.

Thinking about...  This provocative little quip from Middlemarch:  "And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it."

Listening to...  At the moment, coffeehouse noises and the proprieters' Christian pop music; but at home and in the car, it's been Les Miserables (Broadway, not book).

For the hundredth time, I wish that a soundtrack of the 25th Anniversary Concert were available-- Alfie Boe, Lea Salonga, Samantha Barks, and (yes) even that one Jonas brother did such a splendid job!  And sacrilegious as this might sound to many fans, I'm sure, the original Broadway version just doesn't cut it for me:  Too many songs, such as "Heart Full of Love" and the finale (with its reprise of "Bring Him Home"), seem curtailed by comparison with the more extended treatment of subsequent productions.  (This puzzles me.  Isn't it usually later versions that shorten the libretto?)

Anyway, I think I'll download Boe's version of "Bring Him Home,"which is heavenly.

Trying not to worry about...   My husband, who hasn't enjoyed his workplace for some time now.  He's been applying for other jobs; and he's hoping desperately for someone to contact him for an interview...  And then, he's also wondering what might happen if someone actually did!  (See Middlemarch quote above.)

On my kindle...  The Bone Church: A Novelby Victoria Dougherty.  While I haven't yet begun to read it, I understand it to be a Cold-War thriller set in midcentury Prague...  I found the author via an intriguing tweet that linked to her blog post "That Cursed Ruby Box," about a childhood encounter with her family's painful memories; and by the time I'd finished, I was hooked on her voice.  (Isn't Twitter incredible?)

On my nightstand...  Middlemarch  And maybe this time I'll actually finish it...!  So many talented people admire this novel that I wish I better appreciated it; but so far I've always stalled after reading only 60-70%.  Partly it's that watching Fred ruin himself over Rosamond becomes incredibly frustrating: While Dorothea is equally foolish, she at least strikes me as much more interesting of a character.  Fred seems more of an everyman-- and how depressing is that?

Planning for the week...  Four-year-old and I are near the end of the first Life of Fred volume ("Apples"), so we're likely to finish that and move on to the next.  Otherwise, I'm anticipating the usual round of library, art class, and library again.  And on hot days, they'll be an hour or so in the baby pool and sprinkler... Oh yes, and I'm trying to clear out the basement in a gradual way!  This means at least one trip to Goodwill in the days ahead.


Happy Friday, and thank you for visiting!  Please stop by This Ain't the Lyceum for more "Quick Takes."

Seven Romantic Quotes...

...from a few of my favorites!  (And can you tell that I really-- I mean really-- like Canva??)  Enjoy the weekend, and be sure to check out This Ain't the Lyceum for more Quick Takes.

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Falling for Monsieur Paul Emanuel (Villette, Charlotte Bronte)

Charlotte Bronte, Villette (1853)

What always strikes me in this novel-- one of my favorites!-- is that I'm led into Lucy Snowe's affection for a hero who's unlikely, if not absolutely unlikable.  A plain, short, middle-aged teacher at a school for girls in fictional Villette (Belgium), M. Paul Emanuel rages at his pupils and colleagues; takes everything personally; manipulates; and often shows an astonishing lack of consideration for others, as when he locks Lucy into a roach-infested attic for four hours on a hot summer day so that she can rescue his stage play from imminent disaster.  Not exactly endearing, right?

Oddly enough, wrong.  Under Bronte's influence, somehow I can't help but smile at his childish ego-- just as I find Mr. Rochester impossibly cute when he's being, well, impossible!  Something about the emotional transparency and self-centeredness of these men becomes so appealing once they betray a weakness for the heroine...  Plus, they spar so well with protagonists (like Lucy Snowe and Jane Eyre) who don't take their hot tempers and jealous antics at all seriously!  Lucy laughs at M. Paul before falling in love with him, and indeed-- like Jane-- indulges in a few mind-games of her own at his expense.  To Lucy, M. Paul isn't frightening or abrasive; his haranguing is "piquant" and "better than music."  He stimulates.

Belgian teacher Constantin Heger,
the basis for M. Paul's character

In Villette, too, there's the added pleasure of knowing that, unlike Rochester, Paul Emanuel isn't rich, isn't tall and "athletic," and doesn't have the dangerous allure of a repentant sinner.  (On the contrary, he's a pretty serious Catholic.)  In other words, Bronte doesn't have much conventionally "romantic" material to work with here-- yet she irresistibly draws me into her own enchantment with this character, a stand-in for the object of her own (unrequited) infatuation.

Falling for M. Paul feels so right because it affirms that one doesn't have to have looks, money, status, or even spot-on social skills in order to inspire an overwhelming passion.   Human?  Flawed?  Occasionally ridiculous?  Guys, you're still candidates for the role of romantic hero, as Heger found-- to his chagrin.

Seven reasons to read The Mysteries of Udolpho (Radcliffe) this Halloween

Image: Open Library Covers

Ann Ward Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
[Psst, it's free at Project Gutenberg]

Jane Austen mocked it in Northanger Abbey (1817)-- and I'll gleefully admit that this Gothic icon has drinking (or Halloween candy-eating) game potential!  Bottoms up each time heroine Emily St. Aubert (a) faints, (b) plays plaintive, melancholy music on her lute, or (c) composes a poem/song...  Or hey, just eat chocolate whenever the word "sublime" pops up in the text!  If you're in pursuit of a sort of 18th-century campiness, there's plenty of material here.

And you expected every bit of it, right?  ...However, I'm about to take the somewhat riskier step of asserting that-- swooniness aside-- this novel still works!  It spellbound me at age 16, and since then I've returned to it at least half a dozen times.  Here's what's to love:

1.  Page-turning qualities that obsessed Catherine Morland.  Despite some moralizing, Udolpho invites you to enter a dreamlike world of unearthly beauty that soon slides into nightmare.  There are slower spots, true-- but the atmosphere draws you in, the "mysteries" are suspenseful, and your mind will whirl with schemes for Emily's escape.  (Mine did, at least!)

2.  Romantic innocence.  Set in the Pyrenees, the first phase of Emily's romance with Valancourt is idyllic ("Oh, come on!  That would never happen")... Yet it's the sweetest fantasy: She's exploring a glorious landscape with her beloved father, all the while falling in love with a fellow traveler who shares all of her enthusiasms, and who-- blessedly-- loves her in return.

(Curl up on the couch and sigh.)

I like to linger a little in this epoch, because I know that it's soon to end.  And as the story progresses, I never fail to mourn its loss.

3.  First world problems, early-modern style.  It's fun to want to bang your head against the wall when Emily allows scruples (as we'd see them today) to thwart her happiness and endanger her life.

Simon Howden, freedigitalphotos.net

4.  Castle Udolpho is the last word in romantic terror.  Why is this door suddenly locked? Is someone-- or something-- concealed in the room next to mine?  Is that a ghost outside my window?  Does this secret passage ever end, and is it leading me through--shudder-- the catacombs?  Just trying to make sense of that apparently maze-like floor plan (where can she hide??) makes my heart race...

5.  Luminous bits of verse by Shakespeare, Thompson, Milton, and other poets ... They're well-chosen, enhance the atmosphere, and are definitely worth pausing to read (unlike "Emily's" compositions, which add little).

6.  This story extends beyond the supernatural drama.  What happens when two lovers meet after a year of widely divergent experiences?  We actually find out.

7.  Emily's character.  Many will disagree with me here, and understandably: At once impossibly beautiful, accomplished, and gentle, Emily embodies a cookie-cutter femininity prone to fainting fits, crying jags, and reliance on male rescuers.  True.

Yet she's far from weak.  No, I'm serious.... !  She stands up to her scheming aunt and evil step uncle; takes steps to secure her own freedom and financial independence; and refuses matrimony on any terms but her own.  Moreover, she has a strong sense of humor and empathy... While Emily falls short of our 21st-century standards of female agency, she nevertheless grows into a distinct presence on the page.  And it's fun to watch a stock character become a (stubborn, dignified, somewhat world-weary) person.


Have you read The Mysteries of Udolpho-- and if so, what did you think of it?  Would you call it a favorite?


Happy Friday!  Thanks for visiting, and be sure to check out Conversion Diary for more "Quick Takes."

Why Burney's Evelina Is a Guilty Pleasure-- Seven Reasons

Fanny Burney, Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, 1778 (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1909).

I couldn't care less about some major plot points-- Lord Belmont and Mr. MacCartney, for example; and I routinely skip the cruel pranks played upon Madame Duval.  So why do I return to Evelina, again and again?

1. It's filled with situation comedy.  On that horrific day at the park when you unwittingly linked arms with two prostitutes, did your aristocratic crush come strolling by?  What about the day when your middle-class cousins borrowed his carriage without asking?  And that night at the opera, when... Okay, okay, I get it!  Stopping.

2.  It offers the vicarious thrill of entering (18th-century) London society for the first time.  A first ball, trips to Vauxhall and Ranelagh, dining out, shopping and having hair done up elaborately, meeting various men (mostly outrageous narcissists), and falling in love with one good one-- exhilarating!

3.  It satirizes class-based behavior.  What must you do when you meet in the drawing room that rakish baron who insulted you in the alley?  (Rugsweep, of course.  This is a no-win situation.)  And if wealthy people have money to throw away, why shouldn't they bet it on a footrace between two lower-class old women?  Gentry are behaving badly with every turn of the page!  I'm so glad to be armed with heaps of natural delicacy...

4.  It justifies nitpicking the manners of annoying people.  Your snobbish companions discuss their foodie interests over dinner?  How vulgar!  This just proves that I was completely right about them!

5.  All men adore Evelina.  It's a problem.  And a fantasy.  Since dozens of lovestruck fools played no part in my youth, I rather enjoy watching the ingénue beat them off (or try to)...  Would it be terrible to need a chaperone at every moment?  YES!  Still, I'd like to borrow that innocent-yet-dangerous allure for a day.

6.  Basic communication would solve so many of Evelina's difficulties.  If only my life were that simple!  At times I want to shake her while shouting "JUST TALK TO HIM!"  But seriously, this frustration is fun:  It's kind of wonderful to feel that happiness is right there, waiting to be grasped.

7.  Gossiping acquaintances, haughty aristocrats, and vulgar, scheming relations are duly embarrassed at the end.  Although Evelina is undoubtedly more forgiving than I could manage to be!


[The "Quick Takes" linkup is hosted at Conversion Diary.]

Favorite Librivox voices

Audiobooks once seemed a little weird to me (uh, listening in the car, or while working out?  I'd miss something important!!!), but motherhood has made me a convert of sorts.  While that fear of "missing something" still makes me hesitate to tackle fresh material via audio, I find that listening to Jane Austen makes the dishes fly and the laundry fold itself.  All right, overstatement-- but you get the idea.

Librivox offers public domain audiobooks for free; and I hear that public libraries lend audio online, too, although mine would require me to download and install a separate application.

The catch to audiobooks, of course, is that you have to find a voice (as well as text) that will agree with you for hours on end.  Weeding through the samples can be frustrating... So far my favorite Librivox readers are Karen Savage and Elizabeth Klett-- each so clear and pleasant!-- who have recorded a great many comfort classics, such as Burnett's A Little Princess, Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series, Charlotte Bronte, and (oh yes!) Jane Austen.

What is your favorite source for audiobooks?  In your opinion, is an Audible membership worthwhile...?  I've considered it, although the price makes me balk.

Life Lessons from Betsy (Warrington Ray)

As a child, I loved Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy~Tacy series; and as an adult, I still return to it--particularly the last three books, Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World, and Betsy's Wedding-- for doses of comfort, optimism, and, yes, even wisdom.  To expand upon this last point, here are seven solid, healthy morals (so to speak) gleaned from Betsy Ray's adventures:

1.  Embrace the hide-and-seek of life.

"'I found myself out there,' Betsy had declared more than once. 

"Yes, but back at the University she had lost herself again.  Was life always like that?  she wondered. A game of hide and seek in which you only occasionally found the person you wanted to be?"  

(Betsy and the Great World, p. 16.)

Perhaps it's sad to say, but I still experience this feeling as a middle-aged mom!  Now and then for a moment I'm the parent I aimed to be, the wife I vowed to be, the scholar I'd planned to become.  Sometimes I'm even comfortable inhabiting my own character:  owning up to what I really enjoy, expressing (tactfully, I hope!) a controversial opinion, and admitting faults without flagellating myself.

But more often than not, I struggle to find my center.

There's a barrage of expectations to sort out; there's failure, and then recovery from failure; there are the endless practical details of life  ("Mama, have to go potty!").  At times I feel that I'm one person for my children, another for my grad school friends, quite another for my in-laws, etc., etc.  And then I run into myself and we have to get acquainted all over again.

Betsy gets this.

2. There is such a thing as the person you were meant to be.

Betsy is a writer, truly and inevitably.  It's a vocation.

Perhaps this isn't deep; and perhaps an identity shaped on "what I do" can seem inadequate today, when so many women work outside the home.  But, both in the time the series is set (c. 1900-1917) and the era of its writing (1955), there was daring in assigning vocation (beyond motherhood) to women; and even today, there is daring in the affirmation that each person has a unique call, something that they were meant to be and do.  (Darn it, we're just so used to options...!)

And Betsy has the guts to own it.  Early on, she calls herself a writer and adopts a writer's discipline.  Going abroad at age 21, she introduces herself as such-- despite being middle class, Midwestern, and about as avant-garde as Wisconsin cheese.  How many aspiring writers today hesitate to call themselves what they are, for fear that someone might think them overreaching-- or worse, trapped in an adolescent fantasy?

3.  The social whirl (and other nonessential busy-ness) distract and obscure that person.

When she's sad and depressed, Betsy-- much more extroverted than I-- tries to escape into her social calendar.   What she really needs, however, is to slow down, implement a schedule, and focus on what's important.  (In Betsy and Joe she does this at the Taggarts' farm; and in Betsy and the Great World, in Munich and Venice.)

4. On the other hand, the right relationships support you in living-- and growing-- as that person.

"'You want to be a writer.  You want that more than anything else in the world.' 

"'No,' Betsy interrupted.  'There's one thing I want more, Joe.  I want to be a good wife to you-- and a good mother to our children.' 

"Joe patted her cheek.  'We'll put it this way.  You are a writer. . . . '"  (Betsy's Wedding, p. 106). 

With Joe (also a writer), Tacy, Tib, Julia, and her parents, Betsy feels accepted and supported.  In the series' later books, these bedrock relationships help her to overcome distractions (such as the collegiate social life) and personal failures.

But I wish that a subsequent book had addressed the issue of uniting/balancing the identities of "writer" and "mom"!

5. A lot of people out there in the "Great World" are playing a part.

Mr. O'Farrell flirts with Betsy onboard ship, despite having a wife and children waiting at home; the baroness Helena von Wandersee suffers from poverty and the alcoholism of her father, and yet-- trapped by a noblewoman's role-- refuses to rub elbows with the middle class.

In a related, broader point:  appearance is no guide to reality.  The one American millionaire whom Betsy meets abroad is "so plain ordinary nice" that she has no clue (Betsy and the Great World, p. 344).

Her education in these truths is gentle, but effective.

  

6. Hard work, perseverance, and self-discipline make all the difference.

While Betsy has a flair for writing, the books make clear that hard work makes the writer.  She creates a schedule-- and sticks to it.  Her stories are rejected again and again, but she keeps them moving through the mail.  Moments of success are the culmination of many discouragements.

  

7. Prayer helps.  Really helps!

While the Betsy~Tacy series isn't overtly religious, at crucial moments Betsy (a Congregationalist turned Episcopalian) looks to God for clarity. I'm thinking particularly of the instance, in Betsy's Wedding, when she and Joe have their first major disagreement.  Amid the ongoing household tension, Betsy goes to church for the first time in months-- and there, she finds her answer.

True to theme, that answer consists in supporting Joe in being the best version of himself.  "If she needed him, or someone in her own family needed him, how would she like Joe not being Joe?  What would it be like, not to be sure, always, that Joe would do whatever he thought was right?"  Moreover, in realizing this "[s]he felt all right.  She felt like herself" (pp. 177-8).

I appreciate that Betsy~Tacy stops short of preaching; and I love that it affirms the action of grace.


Someday, I hope, my daughters and I will share these books-- but until then, I'll curl up and enjoy them during nap time, with a cup of the cafe au lait that Betsy learns to order ("Mitte, bitte") in Munich.


Happy Friday, everyone!! 

PS:  Be sure to check out Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes.

Audiobook: Colin Firth's reading of The End of the Affair (Greene)

Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (1951), narrated by Colin Firth (Audible, 2012)


I just had to purchase it.  The End of the Affair is one of my favorite novels-- and Colin Firth is, well, Mr. Darcy.

Worth the $20?  Most definitely.  It's even better than I'd hoped.... Firth so well conveys the intensity, the conflict within these characters!  And he does it subtly, without drawing attention to himself as the reader/actor:  I'm hearing, not Colin Firth (and not Mr. Darcy!), but the voices of Maurice and Sarah-- sometimes venomous; sometimes sad and weary; and occasionally-- luminously-- at peace.

My Cousin Rachel (du Maurier)

Daphne du Maurier, My Cousin Rachel

It's by the author of Rebecca-- and like Rebecca, its plot hinges on an enigmatic woman whom we "know" (if know we can) through the eyes of others.  Like Rebecca, too, it raises issues regarding the character of her spouse... And there's murder involved, possibly two murders.  Maybe.  It depends.

However, if by the end of Rebecca I knew exactly how to judge each character, My Cousin Rachel-- a complex, gripping, suspenseful narrative-- left me bewildered, shaken, mildly obsessed.  My mind went over and over it for days... Is Rachel-- formerly the Contessa Sangalletti-- evil, manipulative, and murderous; or merely manipulative; or innocent of all conscious design?  What to think of the two men (in many ways, the same man) who married her?  Is their narration trustworthy, and to what degree are they complicit in their own destruction?  Are they better or worse than she is?  Are they guilty?  And what of cultural difference?  ...Unlike Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel offers no "correct" perspective, but leaves us to draw our own conclusions.

If we can.  I'm still uncertain of mine!