Books piling up on my desk, and a house beginning to smell of yellow lab.

I expected to have plenty of time for writing, and to be fair I must realize that distraction during the holiday season is to be expected, but man, right now it is hard to get anything done. Hardest to get done is any quality writing, or any writing at all, for that matter. Other things keep crowding the writing out.

I surely am glad I didn't try to participate in NaNoWriMo this November. I've been reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, among other things, and like Orson Scott Card, she makes the act of writing fiction seem possible. On the other hand, who has time to stare at a computer screen for an hour waiting for the words to come? At this time in my life I do not, but I have to remind myself that I have other priorities chosen for me by our amazing, sovereign God. 

This week I'm reading books about marriage (Love Busters by Willard Harley, Jr., The Language of Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs), I'm trying to type up a recommended resources list for my Sunday School Teacher (who is also my brother-in-law), and I'm trying to handle the vast array of detritus that accumulates the day you not only move you're formerly outside-dog into the house, but also erect the Christmas tree and pull out every decoration you can find. On top of that I picked out an intense book for my spiritual reading (Desiring God by John Piper). I've done this to myself. You know that metaphor people like to use that describes drowning? I just had a vivid mental image of myself holding my nose under water and trying not to breathe. I can almost imagine the burning sensation about the nostrils, based on memories from the swimming pool where we spent so many days during my childhood summers. But there isn't an item on my list that I haven't chosen. Well, at least there isn't a book or administrative task on my list I haven't chosen.

You can always see my book list, what I'm reading, in the right hand column of my blog. This list changes often because I've obviously prioritize reading as a constant in the midst of whatever else is going on.

I am a studier. It's clear. I may not pursue degrees, but I will always pursue study. This article, I find, has helped me reconcile myself, or at least helped me to see the course I should pursue in terms of school.  Yesterday I was at the church surrounded by books and Tim (my associate pastor and worship director), passing by, asked me if I was studying Systematic Theology. Well, I would never dream of going to seminary, but thanks to many influences, including the aforementioned article, I know now I can study these things that interest me to my hearts content. Though classes are great (and I really, really like taking them), they are not absolutely necessary.

So there you have it.

The Attributes of God by Arthur Pink

This morning I wrote a review of The Attributes of God by Arthur W. Pink. I used to be able to publish reviews directly from Goodreads, but it seems that they have made some changes to the way they do things over there, and I haven't figured out how to work it. So here I am, cutting and pasting. Enjoy.

I think this is a very good book, though not without its problems. What it does it does rather well. Pink's intention is to present the excellent attributes of God, and he emphasizes those ways in which God is so far above us in His person, in His goodness, in His wrath. I do think that it presents rather a one-sided picture of God's relations with mankind. At the same time he takes great pains to correct some misconceptions, for instance, our tendency to believe that God owes us something by virtue of the fact that He created us. This is a very human way of thinking, and I think Pink's intention is to liberate us from it.

The book comes off as harsh, probably because Pink takes what he believes to be a very objective view of man, by which term I mean all persons created in God's likeness, both male and female. He describes and examines God's wrath, which is certainly a necessary exercise as we tend to misunderstand what it means to fear the Lord. We just want to respect Him, or think of Him as our pal, instead of granting Him the fear that is His due. On the other hand, God has always dealt very gently with mankind, if you'll take the time to think about that a bit. I feel like Pink errs to some extent in his emphasis on God's eternal punishment of evil-doers, mostly in the satisfaction he derives from such. Though these are very different books, I feel that I have benefited from having read *Reflections on the Psalms* by C.S. Lewis so recently before embarking on this book.


I liked this paragraph from the chapter titled "The Love of God" enough to post it on facebook:

Here then is abundant cause for trust and patience under Divine affliction. Christ was beloved of the Father, yet He was not exempted from poverty, disgrace, and persecution. He hungered and thirsted. Thus, it was not incompatible with God's love for Christ when He permitted men to spit upon and smite Him. Then let no Christian call into question God's love when he is brought under painful afflictions and trials. God did not enrich Christ on earth with temporal prosperity, for 'He had not where to lay His head.' But He did give Him the Spirit 'without measure' (John 3:34). Learn then that spiritual blessings are the principal gifts of Divine love. How blessed to know that when the world hates us, God loves us! (81)

This helps me to think about the difficulties I have often had with faith. I took some time a while back to make some notes about the way I think about trusting God, but I never finished them. I find it easy to trust God in the sense that I know He is good, He is trustworthy, He has blessed those who have trusted in Him with every spiritual blessing. I have a hard time trusting that the sources of my stress will necessarily be removed. "Christ was beloved of the Father, yet He was not exempted from poverty, disgrace, and persecution." Even if we aren't facing imminent disgrace, persecution, and who's to say we aren't, there are things I have to trust God for that are not guaranteed. On the other hand, there are things I can trust God for that are guaranteed, even if they aren't the "things" that seem desirable to me at any given moment, if you know what I mean. More on that at some later date, I hope.

Pink's book is a valuable resource, to be read prayerfully, and with much thanksgiving, but read it with the understanding that he has not presented the entire story of how God has interacted with mankind. This book is about God more than it is about us. And of course the Christian life is meant to be more about God than it is about us.

Don't worship Pink or Pink's representation of God. Worship God. Use Pink's book as a tool to help you develop the proper awe that inspires worship.

A Morning for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is coming. It's almost here. Two quotations for which I am thankful, that have lodged themselves in my brain so recently:

...seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

I Peter 1:3-4

I felt like God gave this verse to me in the midst of a miserable Bible study I was doing. It was miserable for me, but out of it came this verse, so it was totally worth it. And I believe I have shared this one before, but it is such a blessing:

"Say not you cannot gladden, elevate, and set free; that you have nothing of the grace of influence; that all you have to give is at the most only common bread and water. Give yourself to your Lord for the service of men with what you have. Cannot He change water into wine? Cannot He make stammering words to be instinct [imbued, filled, charged] with saving power? Cannot He change trembling efforts to help into deeds of strength? Cannot He still, as of old, enable you in all your personal poverty 'to make many rich?' God has need of thee for the service of thy fellow men. He has a work for thee to do. To find out what it is, and then to do it, is at once thy supremist duty and thy highest wisdom. 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it'" (Canon George Body, b. 1840, and quoted as written in Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot)

I was reading I Corinthians this morning, and it was almost a random choice that set me to reading it. Looking back over this that I typed up last night, I see the connection between the two. Paul says, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void (1:17)," and he was writing this to people who were greatly impressed by clever speech, people who loved to attend orations. If anything, I am encouraged by this because of the difficulty I have in explaining these things to people who don't already understand. God can use even stammerings, and faulty conversation, to show His glory through the gospel.

From my notebook this morning, on I Corinthians, chapter 1:

It seems that Paul was writing here to people who were very impressed by intellectual abilities (what Paul calls wisdom), and physical prowess. Corinth was one of the major cities of ancient Greece, remember. But Paul tells them that God doesn't operate according to these things. Instead He uses foolish things to confound the wise (27). Paul preaches the cross of Christ, which is "foolishness to those who are perishing (18)." So God gives intellectual ability to whomsoever He chooses, but it's almost a consolation prize, because it isn't what He uses to spread the gospel, and not only that, it is a block to receiving the gospel. I think of two wise men: Daniel, who was faithful; Solomon, who was not. One thing I've noticed lately is that intellectual ability is not guaranteed, but the cross of Christ is. There are diseases and injuries that can destroy brain function, but since salvation is not up to us, it cannot be stolen away. Too, our intellects are not what makes us an effective witness for Christ.

And I am thankful for this.

Material things are great, and I am thankful for them. Having a useful brain that does (at least some of) the things I want it to do is great, and I am thankful for that too. Spiritual things, that come from God alone, these far outweigh them all.

Embarrassment at the Grocery Store: What it Really Means

This isn't a terribly Thanksgiving-ish blog post, but I thought I'd just go ahead and post it anyway. It is the fruit of my very first dedicated morning writing session, which happened last week.

I find I like to be thought well of. I feel terribly embarrassed if I do something I think makes me look stupid. Physical embarrassments don't bother me. Intellectual or commonsensical embarrassments do. That's why going to the grocery store can be such a chore. Tuesday night I told my husband it is an exercise in humiliation. I feel like such a ditz when I'm in the grocery store.

On Tuesday night I bought a gallon of milk in addition to those items purchased with WIC vouchers. First she asked me if I wanted to pay for the milk, which is protocol, but still rather embarrassing. When she told me the price, $4.35, for some reason I got it in my head that when I gave her a five dollar bill and the necessary coins that would be it. Consequently I was surprised when she handed me back a dollar. I looked at that dollar confusedly for a moment, which prompted the cashier to ask me if anything was wrong. I explained, using far more words that were necessary, and I imagine the cashier didn't notice that I was bothered, but I was. I don't always notice my own feelings until many moments later, at which time they sink in very painfully. This is part of what I mean when I say it is difficult being a person like me.

I came home. I complained to Michael. I wondered aloud why it was God has to humble me like this on almost a daily basis. A few moments later I started singing the chorus of a song, which struck me as truthful only after I had repeated it a time or two. “I'm a stranger in this la-and/ Won't You take me by the hand/ I can hear that distant band/ but I'm still a stranger in this land.” It turns out my pain in the grocery store isn't about humbling. It's a reminder that, while God has made me with the roots of all the attributes and character traits He means for me to have, I never ought to get too comfortable here. If I were always comfortable and self-actualized (whatever that means) I might become complacent; I might forget how very much I need God as my comforter and sustainer. Don Chaffer's song goes on to say, “And all I've got to do-oo/ is to believe on You-oo/ then every struggle seems worthwhile/ I can see the promise of Your smile...”

Yes, I'll say it again. Those Don and Lori Chaffer/Waterdeep songs mean a lot to me. I had to take a moment to go online and look up those lyrics, which pulled me briefly out of the writing-process. Now I'm struggling a bit to get back into it.

I used to think I didn't embarrass easily, but I do. I really, really do. It's only that I don't get embarrassed by the same things others are embarrassed by. I am embarrassed my my habit of misinterpretation, which wouldn't be a big deal if I weren't committed to care in interpretation. I most often have trouble interpreting visual information. When Michael and I watch a movie together, particularly one in which the characters all have Western European accents, I often am able to explain dialog to my husband, but he has to explain anything that is only shown on-screen. If it is spoken, I'll usually get it. If it is only shown, I'll usually miss it. This catches me by surprise every time, and I have to ask him over and over again what just happened. He is very tolerant of me in this. I am also surprised by the fact that, while Michael does not tend to remember names, he is very good with faces. He'll recognize an actor that we've seen in other productions, and I'll wind up checking on IMDB (Internet Movie Database, one of my favorite and most visited websites) to find out he is right.

Other things that embarrass me. Standing ovations at concerts or plays. Clapping in church. It doesn't matter who is doing the clapping, or for whom, I always feel a guilty smile coming over my face, as though I were the one on stage. Even though everyone around me is doing it, still I resist. I almost always stop clapping before everyone else does, unless I am really, really pleased, as when we went to see Gillian Welch at the Work-Play.

Joy on a Gloomy Day

I wrote this a month ago, on a gloomy day, the same day in fact when I wrote this, the day I found the Kay Arthur and the Sarte. I had my voice recorder with me that day, and part of the following is what I recorded. Then yesterday was again a gloomy day, even if the light turned golden come late morning:

I'm walking out of the library. I just found a book called Logic for Philosophers, which may or may not meet my needs for a logic text. I see a guy sitting on a bench with a backpack, and I think he's reading a book. I didn't look carefully enough to tell. I see two other guys testing out a sprinkler system belonging to the library and just seeing those people out there makes me smile, makes me think that the world out there is a wonderful place.

We watched Doctor Who: Gridlock Tuesday night. The episode takes place in this world where people get on the highway and travel for the rest of their lives and they're never heard from again. The world is full of pollution. The sky is hidden from view, nothing to see but the roof of this tube over-head. People get high on emotions that they buy in the form of stickers that they place on their necks. There is no outside. There is only smog. There is no taking a walk. The only way to travel six miles is to get in your car and drive and it's going to take you twelve years.

This New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New York (and that may not even be enough news), the setting for “Gridlock”, is an imaginary world, but here we live in a world where we can go outside any time we want. The sky is beautiful even on a cloudy day like today. There are puffy, cotton-puff clouds in the sky as I drive my car. It's beautiful. The sprinklers made me smile because I had to walk around them not to get wet and that made me happy. There is so much joy to be had in these tiny little things: the fact that I walked into the library book store today and found books that I wanted; the fact that I had my little tape-recorder with me to record my amusement over being wet by sidewalk sprinklers; the fact that people sit on little benches, and sometimes they even still read books, the fact that even though I walk alone, I can share the joke with you.

I'm up; I'm reading; I'm writing; It's marvelous

For now I'll pretend we've been in communication all this time. If I find the time I'll get you blog readers caught up later.

I think that Michael and I made a very good decision last night, all at my husband's instigation. I've observed recently that my most productive working times are certainly in the morning, but only the first hour or hour and a half of any given morning has been free to me. I'm struggling with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) now that the time on the clock has shifted, which means my afternoons are good for very little. This makes it hard to read theory, hard to write, hard to do much of anything other than sulk, and of course sulking is no good.

At five o' clock this morning, instead of sleeping in, my husband took over. We had some time before the children woke to work on Bible study and devotional reading. This has been my habit for a while now, but historically the children demanded attention very early, occasionally as early as 5:30. This morning, when my almost-three-year-old awoke at 6:00, Michael took care of him. He told me that I had until 9:00 to work on whatever it was I needed to work on.

It occurred to me to want this several months ago, this aggregate of four hours in the morning to work on my brain-stuff, my unpaid self-employment, before my husband would start his working day at nine. At the time I did not really consider such a thing possible.

This morning I made the beds with five-year-old Parker, which is a practically a miracle in itself, and then returned to my office, my study, the laundry room, whatever you'd like to call it, to spend an entire hour reading a difficult French literary theorist. I still don't understand Lukács per se, but for once I got to read him during one of my brain's more active and alert times. And now I have this hour in which to force myself to write. The distractions are still there, but they are minimized. If I am right, this simple schedule change could revolutionize my day.

A friend of mine often talks about limiting obstacles to success. Working in the morning, and allowing my husband to start his working day at what is still a reasonable hour, will go a long way toward limiting those obstacles I've been facing every day. That is our intention in this change, anyway. Only time will tell of it's success.

I've also been doing some different things with the children recently. There will be plenty of time to talk about that later.

For weeks Michael and I have been talking about purposefully setting aside a certain amount of time for writing so that writing will happen more often than not. For weeks I've found the task of sitting down to the computer without allowing myself to do other things to be impossible. But now it's morning. I can sit at the computer and force myself to write in the morning. Knowing that this necessary work is behind me, I hope will stimulate me to use those times so full of family responsibilities more wisely.

I admit to you I harbor hopes that this will combat my SAD more effectively than candles and warm socks ever could. Of course that remains to be seen.

I know better than to pin all my hopes on a single idea. I know that the excitement of beginning often dissipates once routine sets in, and sometimes routine gets irretrievably disrupted. This disruption often turns out to be for the better, but the truth of this rarely reveals itself immediately. I feel like every day is another experience in having God humble me. But for now I am excited because this is the first time in many weeks that I've sat down at the computer and expressed myself in any media other than the brevity of facebook. And the day that begins today is more hopeful than those that have begun otherwise in recent weeks.

I am going to have to find a different time to walk the dog, though.

A Poem, A Poem, A Wonderful Poem about Language: English More Specifically

Last week sometime I was going through my inbox making changes due to Gmail's helpful new design. There were plenty of starred messages I had once intended to revisit, but never had. It took a while for me to get things into manageable order, but in the process I found an email my brother sent me months ago. His email contained a link to a poem that I immediately fell in love with, having a rudimentary passion for languages, as I do, and the ways in which they are spoken.

To see the poem, click here.

I read the entire thing right way, out-loud, and am surprised I didn't draw the comments of my family. There were, in fact, several words I had never seen before, and my pronunciation has adjusted slightly as I have read the poem out-loud daily since I found it (except that I forgot to read it yesterday). Give it a try. I think it is fun.

Note the poem has not been properly attributed. If you'll do a google search you'll find more information. Pronunciations, of course, vary depending largely on where you live. You're better of seeing the poem as it is being read, or reading it out-loud yourself.

Don't Psychoanalyze Me: Another Fragment

This one written this week. I used the same name as before because I couldn't imagine another one that wouldn't feel trite to me. I had been considering participating in National Novel Writing Month, which is why I began working on this. Note that I haven't worked it; this is just what came out. Compared with what I wrote months ago and posted earlier this week, it seems to be more of the same.

I can't actually imagine writing a novel, coming up with characters, naming them, researching things I know nothing about. How did Walker Percy do it? How does Buechner? How does anyone?

Not this anyone.

She ran down a corridor that seemed never ending. Never ending. Never ending. Rending. Past the soda machines. Past the closed doors with their glazed-in openings. Yes, the corridor seemed never ending, but so did the running. Her memory of her running had no beginning, and it seemed quite possible at the moment that it wouldn't end. Running toward something? Or away?

True that the corridor branched off in other directions at times. For some reason the turnings seemed ominous and she couldn't remember having taken any of them.

Running and Running and Running. Never foot-sore. Ever fleet.

“I've been reading too much symbolist crap,” she said out loud. And that was it. There was nothing after that. Not even a transition.

Waking. Walking. Not even out of breath. Outdoors. Sunshine. Sidewalks. No running.

Min's life was quite conventional, in fact. There was the waking every morning, both suddenly and early. The stumbling to the coffee pot, pouring a cup in the dark, using the light from the microwave to insure she wouldn't spill. Not even feeling her way as she walked silently through the dark. At least Min hoped her steps were silent. There was no way to be sure. Getting dressed. Walking the dog. A quick breakfast and then to work. The evenings were practically the same, only in reverse.

It seemed like there might be an element of haunting going on, though she wasn't sure what it was that gave her that little chill at an unexpected moment—an undisclosed moment almost, as she had a very hard time finding a way to frame it. Was it before or after the wine was poured, or somewhere in between? Was it in the second between turning the tap at the sink and the water rushing out?

A Fragment of a Story About Min

I don't have the discipline or the imaginative scope to write fiction. The best I can do is drift along with the thoughts that occur to me in the space of ten or so minutes. Yesterday I tried it. The results were directionless, but I hope they were at least interesting.

Here's a fragment of fiction I tried many months ago, with introductory rambling. My brother, David, provided the name:

If I were to write a story about a character named Min, what sort of story would it be? Is Min male or female? Where does she live? Does that even matter?

My imagination is too underdeveloped for me to know how to do this.

She made pancakes one morning, but she couldn't find the syrup. She was out of butter too, so she had to eat them dry. But the coffee was hot and black.

In the corner of the room sat an angry pile of abandoned art supplies. She had used her entire paper ration in the space of two weeks, and though she was unsatisfied with her drawings, she had yet to make the decision to throw them away. The ideas had refused to come. The lines, though often converging at the appropriate angles, refused to represent either her thought, or her view of the abandoned meeting house across the street.

She longed for the meeting house across the street, with a longing that made no sense at all. She thought, how sad that the space had been left empty for so long. There should have been someone there to care for it, someone to fill the rooms with lamplight by night, someone to trim the hedges, repair the wall, sweep away the cobwebs, bring it to life, fill the halls with voices of spirit and joy, but there was none of that now. Hadn't been for some time.

At least there was light in her little room, and she had windows. Windows to watch from, windows through which to see. The windows were what made her life possible. Without light from the sun by day and the moon by night, she might just curl up into a ball and never try again. The light called her out of sadness. It called her out of gloom. But what it wouldn't do, and never could, was restore to her what had once been lost.

He was watching her. She knew it. Waiting to see what she would do. Would she reject the gift that he had left her? Would she ever remember to ask him what it was for? She had such a hard time remembering, remembering to ask him that question. Sometimes it was there, right at the tip of her tongue, but then she would swallow it, embarrassed. She thought somehow to know without asking. She thought perhaps that for once he would refuse to do his duty by her, maybe just this once, she would fall and he wouldn't catch her. Maybe just this once, if she stayed very, very still, he would forget about her, let her plunge. Maybe just this one time she would lose his grace, and she would finally get what she had coming to her. The earth had bewildered her, until now she preferred his judgment to his love.

I thought about her that day, as I tried again to understand myself. Why would she prefer his judgment to his love? Did she think his judgment would be easier to bear? Did she think that judgment was better because it gave her a measure of control? I thought of her as nothing but a dream I'd dreamed myself. I had never been quite sure if she were real. And maybe that was her problem too. She couldn't figure out whether she were real either. That might explain why the drawings never worked.

Whatever the truth of the matter might be, it was time for me to go about my business.

How to Calculate a 15% Tip

I remember the day I learned how to calculate a fifteen percent tip. I was having lunch at the 15th Street Diner in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with my mom, when I overheard a woman at another table explaining it to her teenage daughter. First calculate ten percent, she said. Ten percent is easy. It sounds complicated when I say that all you have to do is move the decimal point back a space, but you can probably make that calculation without hardly trying. Then you divide the ten percent in half to get five percent, and add the two together. However she explained it was very clear and simple, and I'm afraid my explanation isn't nearly so.

Here's an example: Say you spent $32.82 on your meal, and you're on a tight budget so you only want to leave a fifteen percent tip. 10% of $32.82 is $3.28. Half of that 10% is $1.64. Add the two together ($3.28+$1.64) and you wind up with $4.92. $4.92 equals 15% of your total food bill. If you're dining with my husband you're going to tip more than that. To quote My Blue Heaven, "I don't believe in tipping; I believe in over-tipping," though what we do can hardly be referred to as over-tipping. My brother, who has worked in food service for a time, suggests a $3.00 minimum tip.

Once you know how to calculate 15%, 20% becomes easy.

Thoughts on God and us

Sometimes I only want to tell you everything I did today. Sometimes I don't want to expose myself to criticism. Sometimes I'd rather not talk about it. Sometimes I cannot shut up. I learned a useful prayer from reading Elizabeth Elliot, useful when you need to pray but don't know what to pray, useful for praying for anyone, in any situation.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.

This has become part of my prayer today and every day:

Have mercy on us, Oh Lord, have mercy. You know the secrets of our form, how weak we are, both how much we can endure and how little. The mysteries of our human existence are no mystery to you. Be gentle with us, Lord, we beg you, but at the same time make us more aware of your limitless grace.

I appreciate that we are never useless tools in the hand of a mighty God. I liked this quotation, very much, as shared by Elisabeth Elliot in Keep a Quiet Heart:

Say not you cannot gladden, elevate, and set free; that you have nothing of the grace of influence; that all you have to give is at the most only common bread and water. Give yourself to your Lord for the service of men with what you have. Cannot He change water into wine? Cannot He make stammering words to be instinct [inbued, filled, charged] with saving power? Cannot He change trembling efforts to help into deeds of strength? Cannot He still, as of old, enable you in all your personal poverty 'to make of many rich?' God has need of thee for the service of thy fellow men. He has a work for thee to do. To find out what it is, and then to do it, is at once thy supremeist duty and thy highest wisdom. 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.'" (Canon George Body, b. 1840, exactly as quoted by Elisabeth Elliot.)

I quote it here because in my prayers right now I have nothing but stammering words. When I meet with my friends to discuss what seem like important things I have nothing but stammering words. When the Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door I have nothing but stammering words. Have mercy on us, Oh Lord, have mercy.

Shakespearean Intrigue, and a Place Where Some Very Bad Ideas Can Come From

I am not a Shakespeare scholar. Heck, I'm not even much of a Shakespeare fan. I usually come back from a Shakespeare performance (I've seen a few) knowing that I was supposed to enjoy it, but didn't. I spend the majority of the play wishing it would be over soon. Sorry. The best, most entertaining production I ever saw was A Midsummer Night's Dream performed by teenagers. I hated the movie.

I'm not incapable of enjoying Shakespeare, but I prefer the bard in small doses. On the other hand, I did spend many hours last summer watching the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC's) Playing Shakespeare, facilitated by John Barton. I enjoyed Stage Beauty and the Shakespearean parts of My Own Private Idaho. I think Much Ado About Nothing, and the musical, Love's Labour's Lost, were delightful movies. I like the Zeffirelli Hamlet starring Mel Gibson, the Baz Luhrman Romeo + Juliet. I watched the David Tennant Hamlet over the summer, but didn't enjoy it in spite of the awesomely charismatic and compelling (not to mention very good-looking) David Tennant. I like the Shakespeare episode of Doctor Who (ep. 3.2, “The Shakespeare Code”). I did think it was cool when Brick started quoting him in a recent episode of “The Middle.”

Anyway, all that is to say that I have had exposure to the bard, but I don't love him. I was, on the other hand, intrigued when I started seeing advertisements for the upcoming movie, Anonymous, on goodreads.com. The byline is “Was Shakespeare A Fraud?” When I watched the trailer online I thought the idea was hardly revolutionary, but when I read this article, published in The New York Times, I realized that all I know about the controversy surrounding Shakespeare's identity was gleaned from the pages of another work of fiction, Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next Series. I learned from Thursday herself that some scholar's argue Shakespeare's oeuvre was written by Christopher Marlowe. This just goes to show how influential even fictional media can be, which is part of Stephen Marche's point. The general public does in fact believe a lot of what it sees. Sometimes the things it sees are a matter of responsible scholarship. Sometimes they are not.

I like this line from Marche's article: “Along with a right-wing antielitism, an unthinking left-wing open-mindedness and relativism have also given lunatic ideas soil to grow in.” I am not smart enough to draw any conclusions from that statement, but I am storing it away for consideration at a later date.

Poetry, Philosophy, Buechner: Have I No Restraint?

If I have any sort of an addiction, it's to books and television. Richard Foster, I believe, would induce me to kill my addictions by purging my world of accumulated books, a notion I fiercely resist, thus proving his point. Television? I don't know what he'd tell me about television. Considering he is a Quaker, I can make a good guess. When I started thinking about the two things that mastered me today, Richard Foster's name came into my mind because he writes about the discipline of simplicity in his book, Celebration of Discipline, which my husband and I read together with our friend Damon last year.

Another trip to the library today, and I came home with even more books. I kept the two Stephen Hawking's from last week, as well as Physics of the Impossible and the Surprised by Oxford memoir. Again, I don't have time to read them, won't get to them this borrowing session, will probably renew them, but I couldn't give them up just yet. Odd since they sit in a bag in the corner of my dining room day-in and day-out. I made two mistakes this afternoon. I glanced at new non-fiction books shelf, and I set foot in the Friends of the Library Bookstore.

On the new non-fiction books shelf, and yes that is books, plural, on purpose:


The cover of Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past by Simon Reynolds caught my eye. I picked it up. I put it down again. I picked it up; I put it down again. I thought about that book all the way out the door and to the car. I totally want to read a book about pop culture's addiction to its own past. I also liked the feel of the paper cover and the way the back matter was formatted. Nope. Didn't find out anything about the book while it was in my hands. I only know that it will be coming home with me at some future date. For reasons I can't fully explain, I have a bit of an obsession with pop culture. Maybe it's an anthropological interest; maybe I just like to be entertained. I think it's some sort of combination of the two, probably going back to my urge to understand this world we live in, this world I'm not entirely comfortable with. Some of it is the best and safest way I know to engage.

Next to Retromania on the shelf I saw a book with an oddly familiar cover. I look at it now and see only the slightest similarity to James K.A. Smith's Who's Afraid of Postmodernism, but the name Derrida does occur on the cover. And there's a strong vertical and horizontal element in the design. The book is Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy by Anais Spitzer, from the Philosophy, Aesthetics and Cultural Theory series published by continuum books. So both books are from a series. They have that much in common, right? I like the feel of the book. I like the cover. I like the fact that the book is brand new. Beyond that I'm basically a pretender. The word "Philosophy" draws me in. I've made this same complaint before. Just because I want to read a book, doesn't mean I'm equipped to read or understand it. And I'll have you know that reading and understanding can be two separate events.

As soon as I arrived a the library this afternoon, I noted that the book store was open and wanted to go in, but I held myself back long enough to get the DVDs my children had asked for. I was afraid this would happen. I was afraid that even though I was looking for a particular book they were unlikely to have I'd probably spend money on more books I don't have room to store.

I purchased three books, and looked at more:

The Life of Graham Greene Volume I: 1904-1939 by Norman Sherry. I adore Graham Greene as a writer, and I wonder how many volumes there are in this series. Maybe only three? Of course the inside flap of the book doesn't say. I am slightly alarmed by the blurb on the cover in which Margaret Atwood claims Greene's times are described "in Proustian detail." How much detail could Sherry possibly go into?

Poetry: An Introduction by John Strachan and Richard Terry. Just this morning I was lamenting the fact that I didn't know or remember any of the poetical conventions. I remember what an iamb is, I think, but not what is it's opposite. This book claims to help students understand the technical details of poetry that tend to trip them up, in a way that is accessible, with plenty of examples from existing poetry. It's definitely academic, but it also looks like it will be both interesting and useful. I hope to pick up a copy of Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse by John Hollander some day.

And then I found Son of Laughter: A Novel by Frederick Buechner. I read a bit of it tonight and it was wonderful. It tells the story of Jacob the patriarch, with Jacob himself as narrator. The part I read described Laban's trickery as sort of an after-thought, an action he didn't mean to make until he made it. It told of Jacob's own machinations to cheat God, who he refers to as the Fear, out of his victory. It was vivid in the matter of only a few pages...

...and I think: This is why I can't be an academic. Because I want to read what I want to read, and it isn't all on one unified subject, and it won't wait until I'm finished studying whatever it is I think I want to study.

So what do you say to that?

Motivism and the differences in Motives

I'd been reading Wayne Booth's Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent over the last couple of weeks, and though I haven't been able to continue reading past the first chapter, that first chapter sparked a line of thought.

According to Wayne Booth we have fallen prey to a modernist dogma known as motivism. From what I've understood, motivism means an underlying and ardent belief that statements of motivation, or reasons given, are always a rationalization constructed to mask an underlying motive. A couple of days ago I was reminded of an example from television.

There's an episode of Friends where the friends set out to prove that Phoebe's altruism is actually based on purely selfish motives. She is kind to people only because there's a payoff: she gets to feel good about herself.

I don't remember the outcome. I don't care a bunch about what happens on Friends, if only because it was such a popular television show when I was in college. Wayne Booth seems to say that this modern dogma is specious. It is wrong to claim that a person's stated motives could not possibly be their actual motives. It is an assumption that may be true under some circumstances, but that cannot be accurately applied to every situation.

I had a conversation about this with Michael just a few nights ago. We were talking briefly about a friend of mine named, who I'll call Vickrum (another Friends reference), who told me, back when Michael and I were contemplating marriage, that I wasn't ready to get married because I didn't know who I was or what I wanted yet. I immediately qualified this statement to Michael by saying that of course that wasn't the real reason he objected to our engagement. The act of making that statement stopped me short.

Now it's true that Vickrum had a second reason for objecting to the engagement. It's true that Vickrum had a stake in my remaining unattached, but that does not mean that the reason he gave for objecting to the engagement wasn't a real reason. There were at least two levels of coexistent reasoning going on. On the one hand if I were to marry Michael, I would no longer be available toVickrum . On the other hand, Vickrum was correct that I didn't really know who I was or what I wanted. This not knowing could be a liability in marriage, and marriage would put a definite spin on the answer, might possibly even remove the question entirely.

Theory of the Novel: A Continuation from 9/28/11

One morning, as I was sitting at my dining room table and the children were otherwise engaged, I started making notes about the paper I would write, this paper concerning the theory of the novel. I was thinking about the paper in two respects, working out some method that would allow me to get the job done, and working out some ideas about the novel genre, ideas that had already begun to dominate my thinking on the subject.

Having read McKeon's general introduction to Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach and introductory notes to the first section, I take you back in time to the hand-written notes I made that morning. Note: I'm giving you access to my mind as I set about the beginnings of the project.

I don't know whether hand-writing my notes here in my notebook will serve me better, or typing away into my computer. I expect it will be a combination of the two. Right now Parker has co-opted my computer access, so pen and paper are all I've got (and Susan Bell's The Artful Edit indicates, this may be a good thing). I wonder if I will be able to work outside to some extent and how I need to plan my schedule. If I'm going to write a seminar paper for Fred, I'm going to have to dedicate a reasonable amount of time to it, balancing the work with my other obligations. What is a seminar paper, anyway?

• What is a seminar paper? And how do I, as serious as I am, avoid “monumentalizing” it?

I looked up “What is a seminar paper” on google, and this guy's webpage seemed to give the most useful response. I don't expect to have to use the little trick he recommends near the end.

What do I know, or believe, about the novel here and now, today, without re-reading a bunch of theory about it? This is something Fred tried to do with us in class the very first day, but I didn't feel that I knew any more at the end than I did at the beginning. McKeon does something similar at the beginning of his anthology.

• What are my premises or claims?

• Novels are usually, maybe not always(?), narrative, which means they have a plot, even if only a very basic or concealed one, they are told, and they are told from a particular point-of-view.
  
• Usually they are fictional which means they are imaginative, but imaginative in what way? Because even non-fiction can engage the author's and the reader's imagination.
  
• It is a more intimate form than those that preceded it in that it deals with the doings of individuals, and invades, in a sense, their private lives, often even their private thoughts. The novel form, then, probably originates in modernism when the importance of the individual first (first?) came to prominance. How and why was the pre-modern world different, and how and why did this change? Something to do with the enlightenment? Need to think a bit about the time-line. It all comes down to philosophy, doesn't it? What is philosophy? It is anthropology which is the study of man, right? Philosophy has to do with common experience per Adler, my absent reading-tutor. What do first order questions and second order questions have to do, if anything, with the emergence of the novel? But I am getting off track. Or am I?
  
• The novel privileges the author's voice, doesn't it? Privileges individual modes of expression? Or is this contested ground? Maybe it privileges narrative voice more than the author's. These don't have to be the same thing. And it may be that the privileging of the voice is a relatively late development. Certainly the novel does not privilege narrative voice as much as does certain forms of modernist and contemporary poetry.
  
• Postmodernism, which James J.A. Smith claims is actually pre-modern, is, or can be, extremely narrative in that it recognizes the narrative nature of perception. Does this have any bearing on, or reveal anything about, the emergence of the novel in the modern era? How has postmodern philosophy changed the novel from its origins?
  
• The novel is a modernist phenomena.
  
• The novel is more likely to be a popular narrative form. (More likely than what?) It is generally accessible to the masses, and does not necessarily imply an author's mastery of narrative technique.
  
• Are there any non-narrative novels? Can there be a novel without a plot? I think of Orson Scott Card's M.I.C.E. Quotient. The melieu story, the idea story, the character story, and the event story. Would these categories be applicable to novels as well? This gets into a question of ways in which the novel may be categorized. I was just reading an excerpt from Marthe Robert that touches on categorization, and the limitations of trying to categorize a novel based on plot elements.

There's got to be more, but those are my initial thoughts. I notice I have asked a lot of questions, and the reality is most of my premises are actually questions. As I was writing, a few notes from my reading of the McKeon introduction popped into my mind. And as I typed the same notes later the same thing happened with items from The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism, edited by Joseph Childers and Gary Hentzi. They're gone now. I hope that I can reclaim them later, maybe after my shower if the children don't need me too badly.

And of course on this day in October I look back on it and know that the children indeed needed me too badly to get back to those notes. I was pleased that day, in fact, with how much I was able to get down in such a small amount of time. It felt like a good beginning. Pathways of thought were already opening up. Where will those pathways lead?