The Amplified Bible

I've been reading the gospel of Matthew, Ch. 10, and completely enjoying the wisdom I find there. I'm realizing that, at the age of 71, I may be on the verge of discovering, for the first time, the vast intelligence of the Bible. 

Prince Otto, by Robert Louis Stevenson

I finished the book last week, and I am very happy I didn't give up on it. Slowly but surely, the story evolved into a subtle, sensitive, and touching tale. The absolutely beautiful imagery helped, for sure, but  it's obvious, too, that Stevenson put in some quality time in planning the understated and interesting twists and turns in the story. It turned out to be a tale about a husband and wife who discovered they were living artificial lives, and decided to completely remake themselves. 

Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson

A spectacular opening to Chapter 3 ... perfectly lovely writing:


"The Prince was early abroad: in the time of the first chorus of birds, of the pure and quiet air, of the slanting sunlight and the mile-long shadows. To one who had passed a miserable night, the freshness of that hour was tonic and reviving; to steal a march upon his slumbering fellows, to be the Adam of the coming day, composed and fortified his spirits; and the Prince, breathing deep and pausing as he went, walked in the wet fields beside his shadow, and was glad. A trellised path led down into the valley of the brook, and he turned to follow it. The stream was a break-neck, boiling Highland river. Hard by the farm, it leaped a little precipice in a thick grey-mare’s tail of twisted filaments, and then lay and worked and bubbled in a lynn. Into the middle of this quaking pool a rock protruded, shelving to a cape; and thither Otto scrambled and sat down to ponder. Soon the sun struck through the screen of branches and thin early leaves that made a hanging bower above the fall; and the golden lights and flitting shadows fell upon and marbled the surface of that so seething pot; and rays plunged deep among the turning waters; and a spark, as bright as a diamond, lit upon the swaying eddy. It began to grow warm where Otto lingered, warm and heady; the lights swam, weaving their maze across the shaken pool; on the impending rock, reflections danced like butterflies; and the air was fanned by the waterfall as by a swinging curtain. Otto, who was weary with tossing and beset with horrid phantoms of remorse and jealousy, instantly fell dead in love with that sun-chequered, echoing corner. Holding his feet, he stared out of a drowsy trance, wondering, admiring, musing, losing his way among uncertain thoughts. There is nothing that so apes the external bearing of free will as that unconscious bustle, obscurely following liquid laws, with which a river contends among obstructions. It seems the very play of man and destiny, and as Otto pored on these recurrent changes, he grew, by equal steps, the sleepier and the more profound. Eddy and Prince were alike jostled in their purpose, alike anchored by intangible influences in one corner of the world. Eddy and Prince were alike useless, starkly useless, in the cosmology of men. Eddy and Prince — Prince and Eddy."

Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson

"And perhaps, if all the kings in Europe were to confine themselves to innocent amusement, the subjects would be the better off.’

Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson

 From a book I started this morning, here's a charming phrase in a description of the modest country dwelling of Killian Gottesheim ...

"... and down in one corner the comfortable promise of a wine barrel".

The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson (conclusion)

Here is the beautiful end of a touchingly powerful and beautiful novel. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it -- a book that I always thought was intended for boys, but I see now was written for feeling and thinking readers of any age.  

"In the chancel they found Dick waiting, attended by a few young men; and there were he and Joan united. When they came forth again, happy and yet serious, into the frosty air and sunlight, the long files of the army were already winding forward up the road; already the Duke of Gloucester's banner was unfolded and began to move from before the abbey in a clump of spears; and behind it, girt by steel-clad knights, the bold, black-hearted, and ambitious hunchback moved on towards his brief kingdom and his lasting infamy. But the wedding party turned upon the other side, and sat down, with sober merriment, to breakfast. The father cellarer attended on their wants, and sat with them at table. Hamley, all jealousy forgotten, began to ply the nowise loth Alicia with courtship. And there, amid the sounding of tuckets and the clash of armoured soldiery and horses continually moving forth, Dick and Joan sat side by side, tenderly held hands, and looked, with ever growing affection, in each other's eyes. Thenceforth the dust and blood of that unruly epoch passed them by. They dwelt apart from alarms in the green forest where their love began."

The Black Arrow (Book V, Ch. 4, "The Sack of Shoreby")

In spite of Stevenson’s detailed and gory description of the battle scenes (very realistic descriptions, it would seem), I am thoroughly enjoying this part of the book. He is truly a master writer and storyteller. WIth his polished use of imagery, he brings me right into the heart of the story, but his development of characters is even more amazing. Now, nearing the end of the story, the protagonist, Dick Shelton, has had a major epiphany about the monstrous nature of war. He has seen the tragic effects of his theft of Captain Alblaster’s ship, and thus he has caught a glimpse of how hideous war can be. 

The Black Arrow

"Meanwhile Gloucester dismounted from his horse and came forward to inspect the post. His face was as pale as linen; but his eyes shone in his head like some strange jewel, and his voice, when he spoke, was hoarse and broken with the exultation of battle and success."

Stevenson, Robert Louis (2012-07-22). The Black Arrow : A Tale of the Two Roses (illustrated) (Kindle Locations 2568-2569).  . Kindle Edition.

The Black Arrow,by Robert Louis Stevenson

"The sun was now well up, shining with a frosty brightness out of a yellow halo, and right over against the luminary, Shoreby, a field of snowy roofs and ruddy gables, was rolling up its columns of morning smoke."Such beautiful imagery!

"The Black Arrow"

“He leaned against a tree, streaming with blood and water, bruised, wounded, alone, and unarmed.”

Here Stevenson uses a string of past participles to make a strong "loose" sentence.

"The Black Arrow"

“... though he could still see the torches moving to and fro along its battlements.”
--- The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson

I love the simple but clear imagery here. He does this SO well.

"The Black Arrow", by Robert Louis Stevenson

I've been enjoying this book for the last week or so, taking special pleasure in Stevenson's wonderfully surprising uses of imagery. He truly loves to give readers clear and colorful pictures, often involving surprising juxtapositions -- flowers next to dead bodies, butterflies hovering over a sleeping forester.  He also has a keen ear for the music of words. His sentences often flow like songs.

"The Faerie Queene" by Edmund Spenser

Book 3, Canto 3,  tells the story of Britomart's visit with Merlin, in which he tells the future history of Britain's kings. Again, the music of the poetry is magnificent. 

"The Faerie Queene" by Edmund Spenser

I've been re-reading Book 3, Canto 2, about how Britomart fell in love with a handsome soldier she saw in a magic mirror made by Merlin. It's a wonderful story, written in Spenser's most musical rhythms, and one of the best aspects of it is the loving friendship shown between Britomart and her nurse, Glauce. In mesmerizing cadences, Spenser spins a mystical tale for the reader -- a tale I could re-read again and again.

"Middlemarch" by George Eliot

After finishing -- and loving -- Howards End, Delycia and I have started on this wonderful novel, which I have read more than a few times. So far, we love the careful characterization. Eliot has clearly established each character as a distinct and unique person, making us dislike a few and love and admire a few. Mr. Casaubon, of course, is a character whom no reader has ever liked, and the author does a wonderful job of bringing his unsavory qualities into a strong light. On the other hand, we love Mr. Brooke, a stumbling, bumbling, winsome, unpredictable, and always kindly gentleman. We look forward to following Mr. Brooke as the story unfolds, perhaps admiring him more and more, and perhaps -- lucky us -- uncovering the secret of his charm, so that we might borrow some of it for ourselves. (I've always felt that reading great books makes us better people.)

"Howards End" by E. M. Forster

More on Howards End from J. B. Beer (Lecturer at the University of Manchester):

   "The wisp of hay which Mrs Wilcox holds participates in a stream of symbolism that runs through the entire novel. She is first seen by Helen with her hands full of hay; and when Margaret begins to take her place, later, she also picks up the habit of playing with grass -- at one point leaving a trail of it across the hall. The novel ends with a great hay harvest.

   "Mr Wilcox and his children, on the other hand, are allergic to hay, and have to shut themselves away from it. Their allergy reflects a psychical limitation. Hay-fever, in fact, seems to correspond to the 'peevishness' of earlier novels -- Margaret's brother Tibby, who also suffers from it, is described as losing some of his peevishness when he goes to Oxford. 

   "That the symbolism as a whole is deliberate is confirmed by a brief comment on Mrs Wilcox: 'Clever talk alarmed her, and withered her delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart of a motor-car, all jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower." 

"Howards End" by E. M. Forster

Over the least few days, Delycia and I read some commentaries on the novel which enlightened us as to some of the more subtle beauties in the book. In "Forster's Howards End" (Explicator 42.1, 1983), Neil Heims  makes the interesting point that Forster was using some lines from Shelley's "Adonais" to develop one of the major themes in the novel -- the contrast between the "white radiance" of the eternal All, and the mundane everyday affairs of people like the Wilcoxes. Also, J.B. Beer, in a book devoted entirely to Forster's novels, discusses some of the underlying symbolism in the book. It was very helpful to read what others have thought of this interesting but often puzzling book. 

"Howards End" by E. M. Forster

     After reading it aloud to each other for probably at least two months, just a few pages each day, Delycia and I finished the book yesterday, and I think we were both impressed -- perhaps even overwhelmed -- by the power of the ending. I don't mean that it was a surprise ending, something shocking and maybe gimmicky -- just an ending that powerfully pushed the book up from being an interesting story to the level of good -- even great -- literature. As we said to each other while sitting on the porch-swing after reading the final paragraph, the book has depth, something lacking in the great majority of merely "good" or "interesting" novels. Howards End, you might say, is like an ocean. The storyline moves fairly quietly along the surface, while vast currents of feelings and ideas swirl underneath. What's fascinating -- and I've seen this phenomenon in many of the great novels I've read -- is that the depth of the book didn't fully reveal itself until the final chapters -- actually the final pages. Forster's novel turned out to be a massive iceberg, with only the tip showing until the immense complexity and profundity of it all rose to the surface in the last chapters and pages.
    This brings to mind something I've always suspected -- that reading a book out loud, and collaboratively, with one or more fellow readers, can bring out the beauty of the book far more fully than reading silently by yourself. Delycia and I read the sentences aloud and slowly, with as much feeling as possible, and that in itself helped the force of the story come forth. However, we also paused whenever we felt it necessary -- to discuss a sentence, look up a word, highlight something, or notice again a theme we had seen earlier. You might say we strolled through the book instead of rushing through it. We weren't as interested in what happened, as in why and how it happened, and how interestingly and beautifully it was described. We got to know this book really well. To use the "depth" analogy, we dove into the book, page after page, and swam in its depths, and thus refreshed ourselves.

     Now, happily, we are going to spend a few days going back through the book, examining our many highlighted sentences, looking again for themes we noticed earlier, and reading scholarly commentaries on the book. After a true reading adventure, it's important to take a few days to look back upon -- and truly savor -- the experience.

"Howards End" by E. M. Forster

Some strange things have happened in the last few chapters -- so strange that both Delycia and I are questioning the plausibility of the story.  Somehow, it hardly seems plausible that  that, just by chance, Margaret's fiancé had an affair with Jacky Bast 10 years ago. It sort of threw both of us, I think, off track for a bit, wondering whether the book was breaking away from being a truly smooth and sincere story. I think what may happen to me is what has often happened with previous great books -- that gradually the beauty of the book will appear, as if a mist slowly rises and a spectacular city is seen. We shall see ...

"Howards End" by E.M. Forster

Howards End (from the film)

In Chapter 25, Margaret decides that she would like to live at Oniton, one of her future husband's many properties, even though he apparently has no use for the place. Also in this chapter, on the way to Oniton, one of the cars hits a cat, and all the cars stop and order the women to get into one care and drive off. Margaret, however, screams for them to stop, and finally jumps out of the car and injures herself. Forster writes this about what she was feeling afterwards: "[These men] had no part with the earth and its emotions. They were dust, and a stink, and cosmopolitan chatter, and the girl whose cat had been killed had lived more deeply than they."
 

"Howards End" by E.M. Forster

For the past six weeks or so, Delycia and I have been reading Howards End for a few minutes each morning, and very slowly but surely I'm beginning to understand and appreciate what Forster was trying to do in this book. I have found it to be confusing at times, often losing track of who this character is and what that character wants, but gradually the good structure of the novel is revealing itself. Just yesterday, in fact, we realized that "proportion" is an often repeated idea in the book. Since we are reading it on my Kindle, we were able to quickly search the book for the word "proportion", and it came up dozens of times, the first back on p. 17. (We're on p. 170 now.) Here is a quote from p. 70, Mrs Wilcox speaking:
     "Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged—well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in—to live by proportion. Don't BEGIN with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed ... "

"The Warden" by Anthony Trollope

I loved reading this book! How nice it is to discover a wonderful author in my 70th year -- a writer who, in some ways, seems as good as Dickens to me. Trollope's writing is so unadorned and humble, so non-showy and unostentatious, and yet he tells a terrific story. The ending of this book was simple and yet uplifting, and I can't wait to start the next one in the series, titled Barchester Towers.

"The Warden" by Anthony Trollope

I loved Chapter 17, "A Long Day in London", a touching and powerful description of the old warden wandering around London all day, waiting for his late-night appointment with the Attorney General, Mr. Abraham Haphazard. It's a strangely strong chapter - -strangely, because nothing big or special happens, just a lonely and worried man biding his time as the hours pass, but strong because Trollope somehow captures the depth and forcefulness of the warden's feelings, the kind that all of us have at certain times.

"The Warden", by Anthony Trollope

I am enjoying the combination of civility and seriousness I see in this book -- the mixture of mannerly, dignified writing and genuine sensitivity to the problems all people encounter. I just finished Ch. 14, a wickedly sharp satire on the British press at the time of the writing (late 19th century), and I particularly enjoyed, as usual in this book, the perfectly well-balanced sentences. Trollope obviously took pleasure in constructing sentences as carefully as a skilled carpenter constructs a beautiful house.

The story is growing more and more serious, ominous, and yet uplifting. It seems as thought the warden, the gentle Mr. Harding, is destined to be disgraced and ostracized, and yet something tells me that the might of goodness will get the upper hand.

We shall see ...

"The Warden", by Anthony Trollope

There seems to be a stirring of suspicion that the will of Mr. Hiram is not being honored precisely. Mr. John Bold is starting to investigate whether the warden of the hospital for elderly poor men is taking too much of the inheritance for himself, but Mr. Bunce, one of the residents of the hospital, is opposed to Bold's efforts. Here is a wonderful description of Bunce:


"He was one on whose large frame many years, for he was over eighty, had made small havoc;--he was still an upright, burly, handsome figure, with an open, ponderous brow, round which clung a few, though very few, thin gray locks. The coarse black gown of the hospital, the breeches, and buckled shoes became him well; and as he sat with his hands folded on his staff, and his chin resting on his hands, he was such a listener as most musicians would be glad to welcome."

I love the idea that his 80+ years had made only "small havoc" on his life.

"The Warden", by Anthony Trollope

The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser

     Lately  I've been reading Book 3 of Spenser's classic poem, and I've enjoyed some of the cantos immensely. There's the usual elegance of his verbal music, some of the most graceful rhythms in all of English literature. I especially enjoyed this passage in a description of Venus taking care of Adonis as he slept:
Where him to sleepe she gently would persuade, 
Or bathe him in a fountaine by some couert glade. 
And whilst he slept, she ouer him would spred 
Her mantle, colour’d like the starry skies, 
And her soft arme lay vndemeath his hed, 
And with ambrosiall kisses bathe his eyes.
     In a way, Spenser's rhythms are fairly simple -- mostly alliteration with a strict adherence to iambic pentameter -- but in that simplicity he manages to create music of great beauty.

Scenes of Clerical Life, by George Eliot

I finally finished "Scenes of Clerical Life" yesterday evening -- ending with the beautiful story of "Janet's Repentance". I so much admire the artistry of Eliot in laying out a very complicated tale as if she were simply sitting by the hearth and telling it to us in her own words. The story of Janet is, like all of Eliot's works, utterly inspiring to me. It ends with some sentences about the nature of peace and acceptance that both the Buddha and Jesus would have enjoyed.

Sarah Orne Jewett and George Eliot

Yesterday I continued reading Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Life, with its graceful, artistic writing, and I also read a short story Sarah Orne Jewett, "A Winter Courtship" -- a brief, beautiful, and utterly honest tale of two elderly widowed travelers who decide, in the midst of a day's trip from one town to another in Maine in the late 1800's, to marry each other.

Scenes of Clerical Life, by George Eliot

This is a wonderful collection of stories. I just finished "Mr. Gilfil's Love Story" and was deeply touched by the lovely sentences and the smoothly described emotions of the story. If it had been a longer story, in novel form, it might be considered one of her finest writings. I especially loved Eliot's use of dialect when the various characters, especially the simple country folk, are speaking.

Conrad and Milton

Lately Ive been thoroughly enjoying rereading Paradise Lost and a bit of Joseph Conrad. This morning, a foggy, silent Sunday, I read some lines from the end of Book 2 in Milton's epic, and then finished Conrad's "The Secret Sharer". It was a time of utter serenity for me, sitting in the "great room" before the glowing fire and reading these words written with such music and wisdom. I said to myself, once again, that I could easily spend the rest of my life reading and rereading, over and over, the works of a few great writers -- Milton, Conrad, Shakespeare, Dickens, Wordsworth. In fact, I may just do that -- and they would be joyous, fulfilling years, for sure.

Baghavad Gita

On my new iPad, I've been going over some of the Baghavad Gita today, just getting back in touch with it's simple and so meaningful message. As editor Stephen Mitchell points out, the message of the Gita is utterly straightforward: Let go of attachment to the outcome of your actions. It seems to say that if we follow that simple instruction, our lives will be free of troubles. 

FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL by George Eliot

This is a WONDERFUL book -- as are all of George Eliot's. The last few days' reading has been a joy for me. Now I remember why I tend to read only the great classic authors -- because the write with a rare beauty and power. I'm now on Chapter 40 and rolling along, loving all the characters as the plot draws near to the end.

"Felix Holt, the Radical"

I had another excellent hour or so with this fine novel. Her characters, with their different dialects, are utterly realistic and charming, and of course the wisdom in the book is ever-present, almost page after page. Here is an especially wonderful quote: "So our lives glide on: the river ends we don't know where, and the sea begins, and then there is no more jumping ashore."

Sarah Orne Jewett and George Eliot

After spending the last month or so reading James Fenimore Cooper's The Deerslayer (a good read but definitely nowhere near a classic), I was pleased to go back to two of the finest authors who ever wrote -- Sarah Orne Jewett and George Eliot. I read a touching and beautiful story by Jewett about Irish immigrants to America, and went back to Eliot's Daniel Deronda to enjoy more of Eliot's wise and graceful sentences. She's one of the absolute best -- right up there with Shakespeare, Milton, and Dickens.