Summer Reading

 

Each of these books could easily warrant their own entire post where I could gush about them in an abundance of words. Instead, you might want to read each of them yourself. In fact, I encourage that. Interestingly, 3 out of 4 here are re-reads for me. I believe the best books are worth reading multiple times.

1. Phantastes by George MacDonald
I have been re-reading this book (for the ?th time?) along with the Rabbit Room, as they post questions and discussion video each week. It does not take much for me to pick up MacDonald - someone just has to mention it and I will go grab it to read again. Especially this book, which baptized the imagination of C.S. Lewis whilst he was still a young atheist. This fantasy book cause him to see beyond the film of the familiar, entering fairyland by way of Anodos (the hero), who is a young man who is lost not only in fairyland but also in himself. We learn with Anodos that in order to grow we have to go through the darkness and make mistakes as we go. He carries an innocence with him, which sometimes falls into the youthful pride of thinking he knows it all. That carries him into trouble, but when he finally gets it, he has grown into the man he was made to be, which is the beauty of the story.

This book has so much depth that I had missed in my previous readings that is coming out more now, and aided by the discussion videos at the Rabbit Room. My appreciation for MacDonald has hit an even deeper level.

2. Dune by Frank Herbert
I don't know if you are excited for the movie coming out, but it is one I am excited to see, and that is a rare thing for me to say about movies. I am the advocate who says the book is always better, and I stand by that notion. The movie does look amazing from what I have seen in the trailer and some interviews. I just had to re-read this one as we get closer to the movie release. 

Dune is a fantasy sci-fi novel published in 1965. It follows the house of Atreides and their move to the planet Arrakis, or Dune. Politically, there is a lot of  turmoil and scheming (mostly revolving around the spice, only harvested on Dune). Paul, the young hero, must learn how to be a leader and recognize he has faults as a human. Environmentally, Dune is a planet of total desert where water is a precious resource - not one drop is wasted. Tears are seen as gifts because tears are precious water. Mystically, a complex created set of beliefs and mysticism span different religions, which parallels a theme of the use and misuse of power. Much of this follows an ancient belief system, contrasting the very futuristic time in which Dune takes place.
"I must not fear - fear is the mind killer" runs the course of the book. It is a perfect epic story for summer. 

3. Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers
Classic whodunit mystery of who killed the painter and how was the murder done? Sure, there are many books with this kind of premise, but in the hands of Dorothy, it is always one step above all others, intellectually and complexity. Lord Peter is so fun to follow around and his manservant, Bunter, is an absolute delight to read. I often forget I am reading about a murder, their banter is so good. 

I sometimes get lost in the details being thrown at me in these mysteries. Lord Peter interviews this suspect, then that one, and another one. Soon, you wonder how he can keep track of all the people involved, the timetables of the trains they took, where the bikes were left, what time that suspect drove around that curve in the road. I just hang on and let the mystery take me, and it always takes me into wonder and enjoyment as I try to solve the case. I catch glimpses of details that show up later, and congratulate myself that I was detecting correctly. Then, I am taken for a loop as my weak theory is wrong, until Lord Peter clears it up in the end with a really fun re-play of the entire murder sequence.

4. Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle
I read this book so many years ago, it was time for a re-read, and thanks to my friend Emily for gifting me the book a little while ago, as it caused me to pick it up again. This book is the musings of L'Engle on being creative and a Christian. She often would get asked about how to be a Christian artist. This is her answer to that question - a whole book. It pulls on much of the threads that C.S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers wrote about regarding good work, good writing. There is so much bad art out there labelled as "Christian". It is better to do really excellent work, which does not have to say Jesus in every paragraph. A good writer can say deeply Christian things in a story without mentioning God at all.  Her words have always encouraged me to create with the imaginative tug into the deeper, even if critiqued that it is not what will "sell" in the market.

Coffee and Keats

 

It really is a good idea to start a morning with coffee and Keats. I have been reading through this book of  selected poems of John Keats (1814 - 1820) and so enjoy the progression of his development as a poet. They are placed in chronological order from when he was  ages 20 - 25, and as I read more and more, I see the skill of language used and marvel at the beauty of his imagery. The improvement is remarkable. He had a way with words - his imagination was immense and so ahead of his own life, which sadly ended at age 25.

This poem in particular, titled as "When I have fears that I may cease to be" was actually written in a letter to a friend, as he was sharing his fear of dying (long before he became ill) before his ability to write all that he needed/wanted/desired to write. His creative energies were just growing into who he was made to be. He had decided not to continue his studies of medicine (on the journey to becoming a doctor) but turned to devote his life to writing poetry.

In this short poem, he embodies the fears of all of us who create - that we will not have enough time to create all that we were meant to create. He does it so beautifully, in this sonnet that he models after Shakespeare's sonnets. 

When I have fears that I may cease to be

   Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,

   Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;

When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,

   Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

   Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

   That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

   Of unreflecting love—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats' best poems are written after he scribbled this poem in a letter. And he produced a lot of poetry in the time before his death. As I read this, as a writer, I feel the same pang of time, knowing that there is so much I need to write. It is not just a passing fancy - oh I hope to write some more one day - it is a deeply rooted purpose in life. I agree with Charlotte Brontë in what she wrote in her journal - "I must write". 

I love how Keats phrases the cloudy symbols above as his inspiration and then never having the ability to trace their shadows with the magic hand of chance. For what is the work of a sub-creator but to take that deep searching for beauty through experimenting with words in the most thoughtful manner?

And oh, how my pen has so much more to glean from my teeming brain. I love that image of the gleaning of the brain, just getting the bits and clips takes time and practice. Just as this collection of poems shows me, in my very long appreciation of Keats, that his poetry grew and improved over time. I read two of his longest poems, Endymion (1817), and then read his later poem Hyperion (1819), and there is a significant difference in the flow and imagery of these poems that makes the latter the better poem by far. That's why the idea of gleaning is so perfect, as a reminder that any skill or talent that we work on is done not in vain. Every little bit that we give to our talent to share with the world might have meaning and purpose well beyond our own time.

Time Present and Time Past

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

- T.S. Eliot, "The Four Quartets"

Time is a funny thing, is it not? It distorts our memories - sometimes it feels to us that time is speeding by so quickly, whilst other times it feels that time is creeping just barely. Like holding infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour, to borrow from William Blake. Sometimes it feels like something happened yesterday, when it was actually 10 years ago that it took place. We are stuck in a sort of time tunnel. We are not actually able to slow it down or speed it up, unless we move away from the fixedness of our planet earth. I won't go into that, but it is fascinating to consider that time is not the same everywhere in our galaxy and universe, but for us it remains linear.

But something simple like a very quick stop at the grassy foot of my old college chapel one morning sets my mind to wondering back into memory of my years past on this campus. Day in day out, walking these paths under the low-ceilinged esplanades to class and into the buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I appreciated my time in college when I was living on campus. I am a lifetime student in my heart. I loved exploring the buildings and getting to know their history, and I loved learning in the classrooms. 

I was a very studious student, foregoing many social activities to study. Immediately after college I had a little regret not being more social, but now I don't. Because that is not who I am. I really am that studious girl who always has been and always will be happiest whilst wrapped in between pages of good books, and preferably surrounded by books as well. I behold the time I have and seek out that which I do not know, to acquire wisdom through the eyes and words of others. There is simply too much wonderful in our world to learn, read, and ponder.

The campus of cement blocks shaped into buildings with odd alcoves and layers, completed with triangular edges somehow feel like they grow out of the ground, which was Wright's intention. I loved anytime I had a reason to go into the Annie Pfeifer Chapel, pictured here on a gleaming hot morning. It always holds a peaceful stillness held softly in the light streaming in from the tall steeple rising (like a bicycle rack as students used to say). There is comfort in familiar shapes used in utmost creative ways. It somehow holds together time present and time past.

A Poetical Gathering

 

I am just a fly on the wall in the house of painter Robert Haydon in 1817, on that December 28 evening in London when he invited the writers Charles Lamb, William Wordsworth, and John Keats for dinner. What if we somehow could have a recording of the conversation of that dinner? Wouldn't that be something? In our current time, it's nothing to record a meeting with the click of a button. But in 1817? Only what is left behind in letters and journals lives on for us to ponder now.

Haydon was at that time working on the grand painting "Christ's Entry", a piece which he worked on for years, inserting the faces of Wordsworth, Keats, and Lamb, among other historical figures like Newton and Voltaire in the crowd on the side of Christ entering Jerusalem on the donkey. This invitation to dinner was partly to see the progress of the painting that each of these poets were part of. 

You cannot bring up Wordsworth and Keats without also making the connections of the friendships of Coleridge and Shelley, among other poets and writers in London at the time. The first and second generations of the Romantics mingle here, a period in English history that produced some of the most beautiful poetry and thoughts on nature. As a counter to the purely rational reductive Enlightenment period of thought, the Romantics did not look to science but to nature and beauty to find truth. 

In reading this encounter and about the intertwining of their creative lives, I am reminded that there is a real importance of collaboration in the sense of sharing one's work with others, but it does open up the door to receiving critique. Sometimes critique will come through other opinions - Wordsworth did not have the warmest regard for Keats's poem "Endymion" that he was invited to read from on a different evening as an unfinished work. When Keats finished reading a passage, everyone looked to the elder Wordsworth for praise of the younger Keats and he coolly remarked, "A very pretty piece of Paganism." 

Hopefully more often it is praise and encouragement that comes to us through creative friendships. Though it is a very difficult thing to open up one's heart to reveal creative work. When you create something, it is heart and soul that is put into the work, and the aim is work that looks toward a perfected skill. It is always a process of progress and improvement. In just a two year time period from this 1817 dinner, Keats for example will reach his epoch talent, writing poems that are absolute treasures. We study them today as masterpieces (his splendid Odes for example). It is an encouraging thought that in Keats's time he was not fully appreciated. Of course he sadly died of consumption at age 25 and I wonder if he would have seen any of such deserving praise for his work if he had lived longer.

Oh the wondering! Well, it's been an enjoyable evening dropping into a creative-filled dinner discussion. Until next time.