Literary Birthdays: Robert Louis Stevenson, November 13, 1850

This morning the sweet girl and I celebrated Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday with muffins and poetry reading. In a wonderful "coincidence," we just happened to be reading a book of his poems this month (before I remembered that November was his birth month).

Next perhaps to some hymn writers and the apostle John, Robert Louis Stevenson was probably the first poetic voice to speak to my heart. I shared his poems early with my daughter, and have continued to share them as she grows. She loves his work too.

There are so many repeated images and themes in his poetry that I love: dreams; rain; birds; ships at sea. I love that he is such a liminal poet. He seems to walk boundaries -- day/night, dark/light, sun/shadow, childhood/adulthood, waking/sleeping -- with the gracefulness of a tightrope walker.

We read a brief biography of him this morning, from the Robert Louis Stevenson volume in the "Poetry for Young People" series. A few of the facts we gleaned:

He came from a long line of lighthouse builders; he built poems.

He was ill during much of his childhood and spent a lot of time in bed; his weak lungs often meant he'd spend long nights coughing and longing for the dawn. Small wonder he explored the things he did.

His lungs never did get better. He ended up living in Samoa in his later years, searching for warm climates where he could breathe more easily. He died there of tuberculosis at the incredibly young age of 44. On his gravestone are etched these words, which he himself penned:

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;
Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.


The Scottish Stevenson as painted by Sargent

Dragon PR

Earlier this week I finished Michelle Knudsen's The Dragon of Trelian (my full review at the link). For any of you scratching your heads and trying to come up with why the author's name sounds familiar, yes, she's the author of Library Lion, one of my seven year old's favorite picture books of all time (and it's pretty high on her dad's and my lists too). I picked the book up because it was penned by Knudsen -- I love her story-telling, and I'm always curious to know how someone known for good crafting in one genre tackles another. The answer here is: well, and quite creatively. It's a solid mid-grade fantasy.

Of course, it got me to thinking about dragons again. They do keep popping up. Remember this post from a few months back, when I found myself musing about the different ways in which dragons were presented in Tolkien and Rowling? Since then I've read three more dragon tales: this one, Rosemary Sutcliff's The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup, and a re-read of Margaret Hodges' picture book version of St. George and the Dragon.

It does seem as though dragons are getting a major make-over in fantasy literature today. While the more traditional tales (either older stories, or ones based on older stories, like Hodges') keep dragons in traditional roles, the newer tales, while maintaining many of the things we love about dragons -- their fierceness, scaliness, and fire-breathing capabilities -- have softened their image considerably. I keep thinking of those "soft lenses" that get used on Hollywood starlets, the ones that made their features look slightly blurred and dreamy and a bit more beautiful than they might look in harsher light.

The title dragon in Knudsen's story gets this softer treatment. His name is Jakl and he's an orphan. A young princess named Meglynne finds him, adopts him and cares for him, and ends up sharing a strange, mystical connection with him (think Vulcan mind link, only cross-species).

That seems to be part of the new package: it seems like lots of people have secretly wanted dragons for pets/companions, and these days those kinds of stories abound. I know this isn't a precisely new element to dragon stories (Kenneth Grahame and Ruth Stiles come to mind, as earlier representatives) but it does seem to be making a comeback. I suspect that may be due almost entirely to Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper who gave Norbert his own teddy bear...

The other recurring elements I'm seeing in this trend: viewing dragons as somehow misunderstood or mistreated, and seeing them ultimately fight on the "right" side. Part of the fun in Trelian is seeing the dragon fight with and for the princess. Indeed, there's a heart-stopping moment where you realize, once the major battle against the baddies has been won, that the dragon might be brought down by unobservant good guys who just aren't used to seeing a dragon fighting to protect the castle and its inhabitants. My favorite line in the whole book, uttered by the magician Serek: "The dragon is, ah, on our side."

Almost makes you wish you could steal an imaginative page from a dragon PR agent. I suspect it would read something like this. "Baby, the days of type-casting are so over! I know you're tired of breathing fire and looking like a bad guy, but you don't have to limit yourself to those kinds of scenes. Remember Norbert! Remember Jakl! Be subversive! Hold out for the ground-breaking roles!"

Everybody's a Critic: The "New" Winnie the Pooh

I finally picked up my library hold shelf copy of Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, the authorized "sequel" to A.A. Milne's original Pooh classics. I've only read the introduction and the first story, but so far am cautiously optimistic. David Benedictus mostly seems to "get" Milne's voice and rhythm, and the illustrations by Mark Burgess gently mimic E.H. Shepard's original illustrations. They're also colored with lovely, light washes of color.

I know my friend Erin, Pooh devotee extraordinaire, enjoyed it, but I hear it's not getting very good reviews overall. When my husband picked the book up at the library, the librarian basically told him to tell me not to get my hopes up because the early reviews have been dreadful.

The sweet girl was curious about the book, so I explained to her that this author and artist have been given permission by the people who own the rights to the original Pooh stories, to write and draw more stories like them. I tried to explain the notion of similar styles, and I explained how long ago the original Pooh books were written because I wasn't sure she realized just how old they were (we do love them!).

When she was getting ready for her bath this evening she paused to look at the cover of the book, then said, in a rather disapproving voice, "Why is Piglet's sweater green?"

"What?" I asked, having (I must confess) not noticed this detail of the cover art.

"Why is Piglet's sweater green? It should be pink." And then she added, in a resigned tone, "Maybe the man who drew the new pictures for this new book just didn't know what color Piglet's sweater should be."

I guess everyone's a critic, even my seven year old. That Pooh bar is set pretty high!

The Cost of a Lighted World

A few years ago I jotted down this story from the book Aquachurch by Leonard Sweet:

"As a child in the 1950s, I heard a story at a holiness revival meeting in New York. It seems a certain missionary, home on leave, was shopping for a globe of the world to take back to her mission station. The clerk showed her a reasonably priced globe and another one with a light bulb inside. 'This is nicer,' the clerk said, pointing to the illuminated globe, 'but of course, a lighted world costs more.'

What has lighting our world cost you lately?"

I thought of that story yesterday evening when the sweet girl called me into her room after dinner. The early darkness (courtesy of daylight savings) means she is getting more dark-evening playtime after dinner, and she's taken full advantage of it the past few nights. She dresses in dance skirt and shoes, pulls the shades, douses every light in her room, brings out flashlights, and then hits the play button on the CD player. Her favorite right now is Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and she'll dance away to it, beaming her flashlights around to make spotlights. (If anyone on the hill happens to be watching the windows of our building, they probably think we're signaling some urgent message...)

But last night she came running out her room, insisting I come back and see something neat. Her inflatable globe -- not the globe on a stand we bought from mission-going friends at their recent yard sale -- would light up if she positioned her flashlight on one of the light blue ocean areas. The light wouldn't shine through the darker colored plastic of the continents, but when she pushed her little flashlight against one of the oceans, the entire world did indeed light up.

It sounds so simple, a little plastic globe lit by a flashlight, but can I tell you something? It was breathtaking. We both just stood there in awe, looking at that brightly lit sphere in the midst of her dark room. It was a bit of magic, a small, softly glowing planet seeming to hover in the dark but familiar space of her room. There was something fragile and lovely about it, like a Christmas ornament. We slowly turned it, letting it revolve as the music played. Beauty discovered. Beauty shared. I realized later that it was one of those moments that I think will stand out indelibly in my mind in years to come, as I look back on my little girl's growing up years.

Hours later, I thought of the Sweet quote. I've always liked it, not only because it's a terrific illustration ("that'll preach," as one of my seminary profs used to say) but because that final question seems so challenging. "What has lighting our world cost you lately?" helps me to think about my actions, whether or not what I'm doing or not doing helps to shed some light in dark places. And sometimes, yes, light-filled actions are costly.

But that night I found myself thinking of something different. In one sense, a lighted world costs a great deal. In another sense, for we children of God it's utterly free, a gift, the kind of gift you're not at all expecting, like when your seven year old runs toward you, her face eager and alight, to tell you she wants to show you something beautiful.

Because we don't light the world, do we? At least not in the sense that God does. God, the one who said "let there be light," the one who himself is called "the light," the one who shined light on the people who had walked in great darkness, he is the one who truly bears light to this dark world. He is the one who promised his people, when they were languishing in despairing darkness, that he would not leave them there, that he would come and rescue them, even if it cost him everything.

And it did. So in a very deep sense, you can truly say that a lighted world costs everything. It cost Jesus everything. And yet, as grateful receivers of that light that illumines our hearts, we know it is also utterly and beautifully free.

I know, of course, that we too are called to be lights, to not hide our lamps under a bushel, to let our lights so shine before others that God is glorified and so those who see our lesser lights find themselves looking to the source of light and life we reflect. Small wonder we creatures of this world love the moon, that "lesser light to rule the night," because in a deep sense, we relate to a waxing and waning satellite that has no true light of its own but can only reflect the greater light. Of course, it is still the moon's task to shine. And so it is our's. But we need to be in the right position to do so, our face turned towards the source of all radiance.

Oh Lord, make us radiant. Make your face to shine upon us so that we reflect your glory. Help us remember that you have lit the world at great, dear cost. Help us to take your light (like a small flashlight in the hand of an eager child) into those corners and heart spaces where your light has not been fully comprehended, into places where the darkness battles bitterly to try to take back ground. Help us, Lord, to do battle with courage, and not to cede an inch to the dark. For this world is so beautiful when it's fully lit by your love.

Thankful Monday

Another Monday zipping by, and I've not had time to post my gratitude list. Right now I'm especially thankful for:

11. Time this past weekend to cook, bake and clean. Now if I could only wiggle some writing time in there!

12. The fact that my seven year old truly enjoys (yes, ENJOYS!) scrubbing the bathtub. Cleaning the bathroom has always been my least favorite chore, and it's so much more fun with an enthusiastic little girl right beside me, chipping in and marveling over the fun of scrubbing sponges and soap.

13. That we have not yet succumbed to illness. There are a lot of germs floating around out there, seemingly everywhere we turn. Neither D nor I has been getting the sleep we need, and we've all battled some congestion/sore throats, but not one of us has really fallen badly ill.

14. For the opportunity to reconnect with a couple of old friends this week via Facebook. I know FB can be a bit of a mixed blessing, but sometimes it's a real gift.

15. For the Lord's continued provision for our family. We're able to pay the bills this month again, always a "thank you." And thanks to extra work projects and some timely gifts from loving friends and ministry partners, we've been able to buy groceries for the past few weeks without resorting to credit and without huge levels of anxiety in the grocery store. I can't tell you how good that feels. Even better, the delight of relaxing and being able to give a bit more ourselves.

For All the Saints, Who From Their Labor Rest

I so love this hymn.

You can hear it here, with a full choir and organ.

The text is by William How, the glorious music by Ralph Vaughn Williams (whose music I've listened to for much of this day). God's gift of music through Ralph Vaughn Williams is yet one more reason I am thankful for the Anglican tradition.

O blest communion, fellowship divine!/We feebly struggle/they in glory shine/all are one in Thee/for all are Thine./Alleluia! Alleluia!


A blessed All Saints Day to you!

The Continuing Adventures of Betsy, Tacy and Tib

Although I thought the sweet girl was relating most to Tib in our recent read-aloud of Maud Hart Lovelace's first two Betsy-Tacy books, she has recently declared herself Betsy. She's named two of her dolls Tacy and Tib, and this afternoon they've been very busy. In fact, everywhere I turn, that trio is up to something!

Today's adventures....Betsy, Tacy and Tib have played with Lego's, given each other fun hairstyles, and gone to dancing class. That would be the sweet girl's darkened room, with music playing and a big flashlight to use as a spotlight.

Although I cracked up over the idea of Betsy, Tacy and Tib (those playmates of the late 1890s) playing with Lego's, it did dawn on me that they would probably have loved them if they'd been invented back then. Tib's brother Hobbie would have too. In fact, one could almost imagine Hobbie growing up to invent them. Think about what great fun they had building a playhouse with the wood in the Mueller's basement!

I must confess that seeing the sweet girl so enthusiastically making up stories for the terrific trio makes me wish that she had a) sisters; b) nearby cousins, both in age and geography; or c) neighbors with bookworm kids.

But I will count my blessings that she is blessed with a lovely, vivid imagination!

I wonder if we could start a girl's book group?

Fully 5/6 An Authentic Janeite

True confession: though I've loved Jane Austen's work for a decade, and spoke and written of my love for her work far and wide, I've never really felt like a fully authentic Janeite.

Yes, I've read all six of her published novels. No, I've not read all her letters (though I have read some) and I've not read her "juvenalia" or her unfinished novel Sanditon. That last is a purposeful decision...I found myself feeling so sad that I had no more Austen novels to read, I just didn't want to read the very last one yet, even if it's incomplete.

When I say I've read all six of her novels, here's the caveat: four of them I have read repeatedly. They've turned into almost annual re-reads for me. I especially love reading Jane in autumn and winter, and these four novels have become real delights in my life. Ordering them into a list of favorites would be difficult, since I love them all and they've each probably been "my favorite" at one time or another. If forced to choose, I will probably order them this way: Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility.

Okay, my secret is out. I do not regularly re-read either Northanger Abbey or Mansfield Park. How to justify this? Well, Northanger Abbey was the first Austen book I read after Pride and Prejudice, about a decade ago. I liked it, but I don't think I had yet fully learned to appreciate her work. I do think that Austen is an acquired taste. The complexity of her prose (especially dialogue) and the surprisingly and sometimes subtly humorous tone (which I'd never been prepared for) take a while to fully fall into. Or at least they did me. Once I fell, I fell completely, but I think it was a book or so past Northanger. In the meantime, I'd seen the A&E 1995 mini-series version of P&P, which I credit with training my ear to be able to "hear" Austen as I read the words on the page.

And I have no good reason for not returning to Mansfield Park. I know many people swear that it's the best of all her work, but the one time I read it, it somehow struck me as different in tone than the others. (Duh...different how? I don't yet know.) The characters didn't grab me by the scruff of the neck and demand to be remembered (or even ask me to dance).

I've read bits and pieces about both novels over the years, but I've not allowed myself to watch any film adaptations of either, not wanting to be prejudiced before I read them again. And I've not actually returned to reading either book again...until this past week.

This week I decided to re-read Northanger Abbey. I figured what better week to read Gothic satire than the week leading up to Halloween? But I confess I felt nervous as I took the book off my shelf. It felt too smooth, the binding too uncreased, the pages too new to be one of my beloved Austen books. And what if...perish the thought...my reading experience remained the same as the first time and I still didn't "fall into it completely"?

Silly me. If Jane is an acquired taste, then I have so long ago acquired it that reading her now feels like second nature. I should have realized that I've spent so much time with Jane in the intervening years that I would recognize her voice as soon as I began reading. I should have known that one can never really have the same reading experience twice, because wherever one is today is not where one was ten years ago (or five, or one, or possibly even last month).

So I picked it up and began: "No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine."

And oh, I fell! I fell!

What a delicious novel! Its pointed satire, witty dialogue, delightfully and sometimes painfully naive young heroine, hysterical send-ups of gothic literature (no wonder Bronte tut-tutted over Jane), and sometimes just downright snarky humor had me chuckling as I turned pages. And turned pages quickly, as I discovered, much to my joy, that reading it after the passage of so many years made it almost feel like a "new" Austen book, one I couldn't put down. Henry Tilney is a marvelous hero: funny and snarky himself at times, but almost unfailingly kind to Catherine and (thankfully) stable. And the looked-for-and-expected cad, John Thorpe, is not quite the devilish cad of later Austen novels -- he's mostly just a colossal bore who talks endlessly of the superiority of his horse and curricle (think of a contemporary man who drones on about his car, or for you Lovelace fans -- think Phil Brandish and his amazing red auto). The mis-communications between Thorpe and Catherine were enough to make me laugh into my pillow.

What a delight to re-read Northanger Abbey and love it so. I now consider myself almost completely an authentic Janeite, or at least 5/6 of one. Next up, sometime this autumn or winter, a re-read of Mansfield Park!