Unwavering

I have been up to the blue, blue sky -

 beneath the arms of the trees -

and scrambled through the underbrush

 with never a "by your leave."

I have brushed past the tickling pines,

 and the prickly vines as well,

to descend once more,

to my own front door,

with a new passion to quell.

I am here again, in this home-that-will--not-be-called-so, but my heart does not use words to name things and so is not troubled with the restrictions of the English language. Before I left, two or three days ago now, I finished Forever Hero, another Sci-fi book. Don't worry, I won't open that discussion again, not today. I will instead talk in pictures, in hopes that you, too, will somehow feel the peace that has been all around me.

I went for a hike today "up a misty mountain," only there was no mist, only grass

and sky

And paths leading no where

Yet yielding treasures all the way

Just when I was feeling that no human foot had trod the ground I walked on (never mind it being in sight of my house) I was informed otherwise

              The sky was so open, and the air smelled so good, that coming back indoors was a little hard. But I made soup, and ate it with the delicious, thick, home made bread of one of my friend's grandfather.

I ate it (oh, so good!) and finished up The Tale of Two Cities. It was a bit of a chore to get through the first parts - so much metaphor and death - but the end made up for it. Knowing Sydney Carton made up for it. More people should know him, he's not talked of half enough for my liking. In fact, I don't think a single person has ever mentioned him to me out side of a book club. It's a real pity, for his is a story worth reading. It, along with some tender pieces of beef and carrot, have added another layer of warmth to my heart – another synonym, if you will, for Here.

Grounded

"It is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summit of the hills that surround it.... An unguided ramble into its recesses is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, torturous, and miry ways."                      --- Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Ubervilles


It takes a contrived sort of reasoning to decide to "write up" both The Good Earth and Tess of the D'Ubervilles in the same post. In one sense I had the same recaction to both of them: they were wells of sadness that dwelled deeper than my comprehension; they were filled with strange custoums and assumptions,  many of which I still cannot grasp; they were are also both about nature (in the environmental sense), but in almost completely opposite ways. In Pearl Buck's book nature is a constant, dependable source of life. In Thomas Hardy's book nature reflects what is going on inside the different chacters. It is not good or bad, or always the same, it's as Tess or Angels sees it. Comforting or cold, harsh or heartening – it all depends on what what's going on inside the character's mind.

          The Good Earth chronicled the life and fortune of one Wang Lung, a poor chinese peasant. It starts with his procuring of a wife from the kitchens of the great house and ends with his death as the wealthy owner of the same. Wang Lung is neither amazingly smart nor touchingly compassionate - he's just a normal guy. His experiences, most of them bad, repeatedly teach him that land is the most important thing. The most amazing character is probably O-lan, Wang's first wife, who grew up as a slave until Wang paid her dowry. O-lan does not do much talking, so it's hard for a reader to feel close to her, but she does an immense amount of work and is a clever housekeeper. The book offers very little to laugh at, but one of the amusing things that does occur comes from the brain of O-lan. When Wang Lung worries that his gangster uncle will eat them out of house and home, O-lan proposes that they drug him with opium, and so that's what they do. It's kind of bizarre to imagine opium being used to rid yourself of troublesome relatives.
         Anyway, the book is pretty sad, as I hinted above. Wang Lung has a hard life when he's young, is a bad husband when he gets rich, and has a horrible relationship with his three sons. I enjoyed learning about chinese culture, and the way that Pearl Buck hints at the cyclical nature of wealth was interesting, but after Wang stopped being poor I couldn't bring myself to care for the characters enough to wonder how the book would end.

                                      Tess of the D'Ubervilles took some strength of will to get through too. At first this was just because of Hardy's constant jabs at God. They were pretty subtle - or maybe I'm just dense - but nothing could hide his resentment when he made them, so that even though I didn't pick up on his object right away I could tell he was lambasting someone. And then there was his descriptions of Tess. I hope I'm not so jealous that I can't stand to read about a pretty girl, but come on. In order to defend her "innocence" Hardy felt the need to bring in proof of her overwhelming beauty every other page (as a side note, Tess' beauty is the element of fate that should warn you this is a tragedy in the greek sense). This was especially true when she was at the dairy and falling in love with Angel Clare (here high literature meets Buffy and shies away). Don't even get me started on Angel Clare, actually, don't get me started on Tess. The former was awful, but the latter was annoying. I didn't know what to make of her half the time. Sometimes I think I could hardly have made different choices than she did, but then I find myself scoffing at this notion. I'm sure someone else has already said this, but I'm glad that I have read so many sad and depressing novels so that if I'm ever in a bad situation I'll know exactly what not to do.
                 As fun as Tess is to complain about, and as painful as the plot was to read, I enjoyed reading most of it. The style was delicious, the scenery was beautiful, and the secondary characters were worth knowing. I particularly liked the dairyman "to whose mind it had apparently never occurred that milk was a good beverage." What really made the book worth it though was discussing it. I spent two weeks talking about it, and hearing other's opinions of it, and watching a movie adaptation, and so on. Some interesting things turned up, like the rocks that come to light when you plow I suppose. Like how, despite Hardy's prejudice against Christianity, Angels parents are both christians and kind, honest people. Or how about how Angel, regardless of his "progressive" and openly "pagan" outlook reacts so negatively to Tess' admission of the past. These things make you wonder what Hardy was thinking when he wrote this book. Or if he even knew what he was thinking at all. In the end I'd recommend it, but only if you have a group of people to talk it over with.



There, that's two books down. Now I'm going to enjoy the inch of snow that fell last night, and wallow in the peaceful emptiness of my last week of vacation. I hope you have peace to wallow in too,

Sincerely,
Ms. B.

Wow, I Haven't Written Since......

Would it be too lame to say it?

Anyway, here's my "literary" quote for the post:

"'Names,' she was saying. 'Where would we woodtrolls be without them? They tame the wild things of the deepwoods, and give us our own identity. Ne'er sip of a nameless soup, as the saying goes.'"                                          ------ Paul Stewart, Beyond the Deepwoods 

It seemed kind of relevant since last fall I studied the development of the novel which, interesting enough, outlined the rise of the individual. Naming was a big theme. The importance of what we associate our selves with stretches back even to Moll Flanders, where an ignorant little girl desires to be a gentlewoman. But enough of this, lets talk holidays.

Here is cheer, in the form of yarn:

Kindness, in the form of Fetching gloves, knitted by Theo:

And hospitality, in the form of food:

We had a big New Years party at our house (again) this year, and I decided to try Ms. Ree's Chesse Puffs. My mom inisits on calling them fondue bread. I thought I'd photo-log the process, but the kitchen was a bit of a mess, here are the pictures I did take:

If you're interested in making these (and you should, they're not only easy and delicious, they're also a nice change from candy canes) you might be interested to hear that when I doubled the recipe I neglected to double the butter. Bad llama. But seriously, the kitchen didn't explode, the cheese didn't curdle, and Ms. Ree did not hunt me down demanding that I strictly adhere to her fat content.

Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic.

After the Cheese puffs where in the frezzer my mom talked me into making carrot soup. Don't laugh, but my carrot soup recipe comes directly from the Samantha cookbook - except mom dosen't keep half and half on hand so I had to use heavy cream instead. I guess that was my karma for not doubling the butter.

Anyway, this was just a quick post to let everyone know I was still alive, and should be back tomorrow to review The Good Earth, which I finally finished yesterday. I'm also hoping review some of the books I was forced to read during the fall. I've realized that I'm really bad at talking about books. I either say too much ("Well, it was about this guy, a hobbit, who was forced into an adventure by a wizard, and, have you ever read Lord of the Rings? Okay, because it ties into that, and the man, his name is Bilbo, has all these adventures......) or I say too little (like "it was a good book" which means nothing).  Until tomorrow then, I remain,


Sincerely yours,
Ms. B




P.S. Just a follow up of the last post, I visited Pablo's scifi poll and realized that I had left science out of my equation. I still think scifi is mostly about society, but there has to be some kind of science in there too, right? So here's the big question, is Stargate science fiction?  What about the new Startrek movie?