Book Review: Rural Free

Rural Free: A Farmwife's Almanac of Country Living by Rachel Peden
Quarry Books, 2009 (originally published 1961); 382 pages

Rachel Peden lived much of her adult life on a farm outside Bloomington, Indiana. For 30 years she wrote a column on farm life, "The Hoosier Farm Wife Says," for the Indianapolis Star. Her column became so popular with readers that what began as a weekly column ran four times a week by the end of Peden's career. One reader was so enamored with the column that she convinced her son, an editor at Knopf, to offer Peden a book deal. Rural Free is the first of Peden's three books on farm life.

Taken from material previously published in her column, Rural Free documents in short essays a year of farm living--the ups and downs, the weather, the animals, the lifestyle, and all that farmers faced in the rapidly changing mid-twentieth century. Peden also captures brilliantly a sense of place, not just a rural place, but a place in Indiana. She writes of wild blackberries and mushrooms and local history and the first spring rains and winter snows in a way that will delight anyone who loves nature. Her writing is poetic and lyrical and elegantly describes the beauty of farm life without glossing over its hardships. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves nature writing, farm writing, or Midwestern writing. Well, actually, I recommend this book to anyone who loves good writing.

Book Review: Shades of Milk and Honey

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Tom Doherty Associates, 2010 (first edition); 304 pages

If you’ve read much Austen or Heyer, you’ve come across most of the plot of this book before, so I’ll leave off any detailed description of that quarter. But the similarity to other books doesn’t really detract from the entertainment value of this book.

If I had to guess, I’d say this book is set during the Regency era. It’s mostly true to historical facts, with the exception of glamour, which is magic that is used to create illusion. Glamour is used to decorate houses, to create works of art, and to generally make things appear different than how they really are. Using glamour to deceive others for one’s own benefit is frowned upon, however. Using glamour to improve one’s looks is viewed just as using makeup was in the past: deceptive and unnatural. There’s also the issue of using glamour to beautify oneself with the purpose of getting a husband; when the day comes that one cannot keep up the illusion, how will he feel to know that his beautiful wife isn’t what he thought?

My only real criticism of Shades of Milk and Honey (besides the fact that I have no idea what the title means), is that the ending covers too much ground too quickly and then ends abruptly. It really doesn’t fit with the graceful flow of the rest of the novel.

Spring in the Backyard

It's finally starting to look like spring, barring the occasional late snow-shower like we had last week. The yard is a carpet of violets, the magnolia at the corner of the house is actually almost past its prime, and the house is filled with vases of daffodils.

There are three Mallard ducks, two males and a female, who come to our bird feeder every evening to eat the seed that the other birds drop. The outdoor cat watches them from a distance, and they watch him with sidelong glances. The ducks pretend to be nonchalant, while the cat crouches low to the ground and pretends to be invisible. Each knows the other is there and each pretends not to care.

The squirrels look thin and drawn compared to their wintertime chubbiness. They like the bird seed too. We had raccoons at the bird feeder during the winter, but they haven't been around lately. There was a possum the other day, though, looking mean and tough. He didn't stay too long.

We've been out in the back part of the property every day, checking for wild mushrooms and tame asparagus. Both pop up, expected and yet unexpectedly. It's likely been too dry yet for the mushrooms (after all of winter's snow, "too dry" seems like a joke, but mushrooms are finicky), but the asparagus should appear any day now. At least we know where to look for it, on the north border of the garden, in a neat row planted over 20 years ago when we first moved here. The mushrooms could be anywhere, hiding under remnants of dried fall leaves or new spring grass.

A Re-Launch, of Sorts

So I've been neglecting my blog. Again. I'm just not terribly good at making myself write stuff down. I have plenty to say, but not so much time.

Anyway, here are some projects I'm working on at the moment that will likely turn into blog posts:

I'm trying to read 100 books this year (and I'm behind)

I'm starting up my reading of Calvin's Institutes again

I'm looking for an apartment

I'm organizing my bookmarked recipes

I'm planning some art projects

And other stuff that I'm blanking on at the moment

I'm off work tomorrow and planning a reading day, so expect to see some book reviews in the near future.

Give praise with the rasp and sizzle of crickets, katydids, and cicadas,
Give praise with the hum of bees,
Give praise with the little peepers who live near water.
When they fill the marsh with a shimmer of bell-like cries
We know that the winter is over.

~Anne Porter

Book Review: Across the Great Barrier

Across the Great Barrier by Patricia C. Wrede
Scholastic Press, 2011 (first edition); 339 pages

Across the Great Barrier is the second book in the Frontier Magic series, and I think it's better than the first book, Thirteenth Child. The pacing is better--Wrede isn't trying to cover years of Eff's life in 300 pages. Anyhow, this is the story of Eff, who lives on the edge of the frontier in an alternate-history United States. In a world where birth order affects one's magical abilities, Eff is a thirteenth child, which is supposed to be terribly unlucky. But she's also a twin and her twin brother is the seventh son of a seventh son, both of which are very, very good. In Across the Great Barrier, Eff travels into the wilderness beyond the Great Barrier to study the aftereffects of the bug swarms from the first book. She encounters all sorts of magical creatures and continues her study of magic.

I really enjoy this series, although I still want more information. This is an alternate-history world where the American Civil War took place in the 1820s, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were powerful magicians, and no expedition has successfully made it over land to the Pacific Ocean and back. I really want some in-depth historical analysis, which totally isn't the point of the books.

Book Review: Freckles

Freckles by Gene Stratton-Porter
Indiana University Press, 1986 (originally published 1904); 352 pages

Freckles, an Irish-American orphan from Chicago, shows up at a lumber camp near the Limberlost Swamp, looking for work. Although he is missing one of his hands, the Boss believes that Freckles is suitable for a guard for 2000 acres of forest that the lumbermen can't get to yet. Some of the trees on this land are worth thousands as veneer, and an ex-lumberman wants to steal them as a way of getting back at the Boss, who fired him. Over the course of a year as the Limberlost Guard, Freckles finds love, family, and becomes something of an amateur naturalist with the help of the Bird Woman.

I always enjoy Gene Stratton-Porter novels, even if they are sentimental and somewhat ridiculous, and Freckles is no exception. It's a sweet book, but fortunately, not too sweet.

Book Review: The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Watermill Press, 1987 (originally published 1911); 278 pages

It seems that Frances Hodgson Burnett liked to write about English orphans from India. When Mary Lenox's parents die from cholera, she is sent to live with her uncle in Yorkshire. While there, she decides to look for the garden that her uncle ordered sealed up after her aunt's death in the garden.

I read The Secret Garden as a child, but it wasn't a favorite back then and it's not a favorite now. There wasn't really anything technically wrong with it; I just didn't like it. I did, however, like the Yorkshire setting. My ancestors were from Yorkshire (well, the ones that weren't Irish or German), about 50 miles southeast of Misselthwaite Manor, and I liked the glimpse into the landscapes they would have seen and how they would have talked before they immigrated to the United States.

Book Review: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Mud Puddle Books, 2006 (originally published 1920); 222 pages

I'm reading or rereading all of Agatha Christie's works in publication order this year (and the next year and however long it takes me). Here's my first entry on that subject.

My first book of 2014 is also Agatha Christie's first novel and the first of the Hercule Poirot series. Arthur Hastings, home on convalescence after being injured during World War I* is invited to an old friend's country home, Styles Manor. Shortly after Hastings' arrival at the house, his friend's stepmother is murdered. Providentially, another old friend of Hastings', famous detective Hercule Poirot, happens to be living in the village because the stepmother provided the money for some Belgians to immigrate to England to escape wartime Belgium. Because he can't resist a crime and because he is grateful to the stepmother, Poirot agrees to solve the murder.

This really isn't a terrible mystery, but compared to other Christie works, it's not her best. The plot is much "looser" than is typical of a Christie novel--everyone is accused of the crime at least once, Poirot is much too cryptic (I don't try to solve mysteries as I read, and even I was getting frustrated with the way he kept suppressing the clues), and the middle part of the book meanders too much while the ending is too rushed. Also, Hastings is unsurpassedly stupid. Poirot and Hastings have a sort of Holmes-and-Watson relationship, but Watson was never quite this frustrating.

*I wonder if Christie actually wrote this during World War I, since her next novel, The Secret Adversary is set in the post-war era but this one is not.

Book Review: The Little White Horse

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Puffin Books, 2001 (originally published 1946); 238 pages

This is an absolutely delightful book--I loved the descriptions of the food and the scenery in particular. I really do wish I had read this as a child; I know I would have loved it even more then.

In The Little White Horse, Goudge tells the story of Maria Merryweather, an orphan who must leave London to live with her great-uncle at his country estate of Moonacre. Because of centuries-old feud, Moonacre is not the peaceful place it once was, and it is up to Maria to set everything to rights.

The Little White Horse was made into a movie, The Secret of Moonacre, which is entertaining, although not nearly as good as the book. The costuming is fabulous, though.

You know you're a reader when...

You see a Half Price Books truck out on the road and you immediately wonder what it would take to hijack it.

Has it really been *that* long?!?!?

Or, my poor, neglected blog! How I lament thee!

I didn't exactly mean to quit writing. I just got really, really busy. I spent most of my summer at work, covering for everybody else's vacations, which meant far more hours than usual (and a far bigger paycheck--yay!), but didn't leave a lot of time for everything or anything else. But now things have evened out a little, so I'm going to try to get back to regular posts on here.

Today I went to the grocery store and bought ALL THE VEGETABLES!!!!! Not really, but that's kind of what it feels like. My plan is to make a big old salad, add in a bunch of veggies, some herbs--dill is my most favorite ever!--and make some kind of vinaigrette. I'm also roasting chickpeas and caramelizing some bacon for the salad. (I'm roasting/caramelizing beets as well, but not for the salad. Just because I love beets.)

I also bought the ingredients for this pasta. I got the recipe from Bon Appetit, and it could very well be my favorite food ever. I love pasta anyway, and I love leeks, and bacon, and cream sauce, and so what's not to like here? This time around, though, I'm adding roasted grape tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh parsley, and mushrooms cooked in a bit of white wine (a mixture of Gewürztraminer and Vinho Verde, because that's what I've got in my freezer; also, I had to type "Gewurz..." whatever into Google five different ways before Google even knew what I wanted). This is for tomorrow, and work lunches after, because this pasta is much better after it sits overnight.

Just for the record:

Food Purchased Today:

• cucumbers
• parsley
• frisee
• lemons
• dill
• beets
• radishes
• green onions
• leeks
• chickpeas
• avocados
• radicchio
• grape tomatoes
• sugar snap peas
• white button mushrooms
• bell peppers

Recipes Used/Consulted:

• Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
• Brown Sugar-Glazed Bacon
• Roasted Beets
• Crunchy Spiced Chickpeas
• Hard-Boiled Eggs (because I can never remember how long to let them sit after boiling)
• Creamy Pappardelle with Leeks and Bacon

Young Marrieds vs. Old Unmarrieds

Lately I've read several blog posts and editorials devoted to marriage, specifically the benefits or whys and wherefores of marrying young. (The Common Room, The Atlantic, Life in a Shoe, Stephen Miller, and more I can't find at the moment) They've been interesting, honestly, and speaking as someone who's wanted to be married ever since I was a little girl, I'm kind of surprised that willfully deferring marriage has become enough of a "thing" that people feel a need to write about it. (Clearly I need to get out more.)

However, I'm here today with a different take on the issue. I am a woman, 26 years old, trying to get a career off the ground in a brutal job market. I don't know if I'm still "young," but I'm not married or engaged or dating or interested in someone. Nor have I ever been any of the above. Heck, I don't even have any male friends at the moment. (I said I need to get out more.) Anyhow, my piece today could be called Reasons Why People Should Stop Fretting about the Marriage Age of Others.

1. Believe me, we know we're not married and we know we're not getting any younger.

Nuff said.

2. All people are not unmarried for the same reasons.

Apparently some of us are so selfish and misguided that we avoid such a wonderful thing as marriage (and children) so that we can have a career or nice stuff or a villa in Tuscany. (Why else would so many people write on this subject?) Others put off marriage out of a nebulous sense of unreadiness, ignoring the fact that no one is ever 100% ready to get married. Still others are waiting for Mr./Miss Perfect Prince(ss) Charming, and we just won't admit that he/she is a figment of our imagination that no real person could ever hope to match. But some of us wanted to be married 10... 20... 50 years ago. We want it desperately to this day. We pray for a spouse like Hannah prayed for a son. For whatever reason that has nothing to do with our self-centeredness or poor decisions we haven't gotten married and here we are. Personally, being a wife (and hopefully mother) is my dream job, as in "drop everything, move around the world, and give up all kinds of perks" dream job. I'm only starting a career because somebody's got to pay the bills, and it's not going to be the cat.

3. Not everyone meets someone at the same life stage.

I expected I'd meet my husband in college. I mean, it happens all the time, right? During those four years, I met a lot of people. Most of them, although adults in age, were still "boys." The few men I met were already married or in a deep relationship heading toward marriage. I don't want to marry a boy, so I didn't date in college. My senior year, my brother started his freshman year at the same university. His first day on campus, before classes had even started, he met a girl and said to himself, "I want to marry her." He'd just met her five minutes previous! Anyhow, they dated for four years, married at the age of 22, and recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary. In the same time span, I finished college, finished grad school, and still haven't met anyone.

4. Thinking that other people think we should have been married already amplifies the (admittedly irrational) doubts and worries we already dwell on too much.

It goes something like this: So if I'm not married, it must not be God's will for me to be married. Is that His will for now or for always? If I'm never going to get married, why can't He just tell me so I can stop praying for a husband and wasting both our time? Maybe I just need to pray harder. Does my lack of a husband really have anything to do with God, or am I just not pretty enough? Maybe I need to change my personality or something. Should I act dumber and less independent? Pretend I like sports but not books when it's really the other way 'round? But I like me the way I am, so why can't a guy? I just need to pray more and have more faith. God will provide... unless He doesn't.

So my proposal is that instead of focusing on how old people are when they get married, we should encourage young people (and everyone else) to seek the will of God and to trust that God's plans are for the best, even when we don't get what we want. Because if people are truly striving to live according to God's will for their lives, then every last one of them will get married at exactly the right age for them. For some people, that means marriage at 19, for others, marriage at 50, and for others, never marrying. And that's okay.

Postscript: In all actuality, I do believe there are benefits to marrying young. (See cited posts/articles for some of the reasons.) But to go around saying that people need to quit delaying marriage (with the implied, "just go get hitched already," as if it's that easy) assumes a lot.

Calvin's Institutes, Chapter Five

The Knowledge of God Conspicuous in the Creation, and Continual Government of the World

Section One

• The whole of the universe speaks to the existence and glory of God

Section Two

• Anyone with a liberal education can see even more clearly the proof of God through science and medicine

Section Three

• Man himself is quite an example of God’s power, wisdom, and goodness
• We know God is our creator because of the gifts He gives us—no one would follow God willingly if he did not know already the goodness of God’s love

Section Four

• Although our bodies and our talents are a testament to God, men become proud in themselves rather than worshipful of God
• They use their God-given abilities to suppress God; they use the excellence of creation as proof that it came to be through chance or nature

Section Five

• [Calvin assigns the functions of our brain, intellect, and memory to the soul, not the body. Was this common at the time?]
• The creation becomes, to many, either god or its own creator. Nature is a work of God, not god itself

Section Six

• The power of God in nature is visible to Christians and non-Christians; it is this power that leads us to other of God’s attributes, as only a self-existent and eternal being could cause the existence of all other things
• We can also see that God is good because of how He sustains and preserves His creation, and this ought to be enough to cause us to love Him

Section Seven

• God’s perfection is also evident in His other works (besides creation/nature)
• As He conducts the affairs of men, He dispenses justice and mercy perfectly
• Although evil may flourish, and good suffer, God will always dispense justice in His own good time
• When God punishes one sin, it is evidence that He hates all sin [How/Why?]

Section Eight

• What men call luck is actually the providence of God
• So many are blind to the wonders of God, but that does not mean that God does not show His power

Section Nine

• We don’t need complicated arguments to prove God; there is proof enough all around us

Section Ten

• From what we see of God now, we can assume that there is more to know of Him in the future (Heaven), because not all goodness is rewarded on this earth, and not all sin punished [I’m not sure this argument works. Maybe this is a random and arbitrary universe.]

Section Eleven

• Although the manifestations of God are obvious, people are so stupid that they don’t see them

Section Twelve

• Nearly everyone has substituted their own conception of God for the real God

Section Thirteen

• Man cannot invent correct religion
• God has to bear witness to His own truth, since who’s going to follow a religion because tradition says so?

Section Fourteen

• Creation shows the glory of God, but does not show us the path to Him
• We need faith through “internal revelation” [the Holy Spirit] to be able to see beyond creation – we cannot do it with our own intelligence
• Creation does not lead to faith, but does make us without excuse [cites Acts 17:27, but if creation tells us that God exists, but doesn’t impart knowledge of Christ, how can mere knowledge that there is a God make us without excuse for knowledge of Jesus? It’s possible that after we become aware of God, we should seek how best to know Him and through His word find Christ – but how do we be sure that we have the correct God (obviously the Holy Spirit, but what if we don’t have Him?)?]
• God bestows so many kindnesses upon us all, yet so many continue to live according to their own ways

Section Fifteen

• We cannot know God using our intellectual capabilities, but because the problem is within us, we cannot make excuses
• We cannot plead ignorance, despite our stupidity, because nature shouts of God
• Most people see nature but still don’t get it
• People see nature, get a vague idea of God, and go off to create idols

Quotes from the Chapter

“What shall we say but that man bears about with him a stamp of immortality which can never be effaced? But how is it possible for man to be divine, and yet not acknowledge his Creator? Shall we, by means of a power of judging implanted in our breast, distinguish between justice and injustice, and yet there be no judge in heaven? Shall some remains of intelligence continue with us in sleep, and yet no God keep watch in heaven? Shall we be deemed the inventors of so many arts and useful properties that God may be defrauded of his praise, though experience tells us plainly enough, that whatever we possess is dispensed to us in unequal measures by another hand?”

“Let each of us, therefore, in contemplating his own nature, remember that there is one God who governs all natures, and, in governing, wishes us to have respect to himself, to make him the object of our faith, worship, and adoration. Nothing, indeed, can be more preposterous than to enjoy those noble endowments which bespeak the divine presence within us, and to neglect him who, of his own good pleasure, bestows them upon us. In regard to his power, how glorious the manifestations by which he urges us to the contemplation of himself;”

“[…] how richly does he supply us with the means of contemplating his mercy when, as frequently happens, he continues to visit miserable sinners with unwearied kindness, until he subdues their depravity and woos them back with more than a parent’s fondness?”

“And here we must observe again that the knowledge of God which we are invited to cultivate is not that which, resting satisfied with empty speculation, only flutters in the brain, but a knowledge which will prove substantial and fruitful wherever it is duly perceived, and rooted in the heart. The Lord is manifested by his perfections. When we feel their power within us, and are conscious of their benefits, the knowledge must impress us much more vividly than if we merely imagined a God whose presence we never felt.

"It therefore becomes us also diligently to prosecute that investigation of God which so enraptures the soul […]”

Book Review: The Shield of Achilles

The Shield of Achilles by W. H. Auden
Random House, 1955 (first edition); 84 pages

I love W. H. Auden.

And that is all.

(No, really, I could get into why he wrote these poems (some in response to the rise of the modern state and others for Good Friday), and the symbolism, and so on and so forth, but really, he just has an amazing way with words and you should read some Auden. Preferably today.)

Book Review: The Beekeeper's Apprentice

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King
Picador, n.d. (originally published 1994); 346 pages

The first book in a series, The Beekeeper's Apprentice documents how Anglo-American Jewish orphan Mary Russell came to be the apprentice (and later partner) of the ostensibly retired Sherlock Holmes.

I've been a Sherlock Holmes fan for a very long time, and when I ran out of Holmes canon, I naturally moved on to Holmesiana. Of what I've read (which really isn't much), Laurie R. King has done the best job at recreating Holmes. Beekeeper's Apprentice is a great book, not just because it is about Sherlock Holmes, but because it's a good mystery with a great female protagonist as well. I highly recommend the Mary Russell series to everybody (seriously, just ask my friends, since I hound them until they read it), although the first ten are better than the later books.

Sunday Word Study: alexipharmic

alexipharmic: (uh-lek-suh-far-mik) (noun) an antidote to poison

< Ancient Greek alexein "to ward off" + pharmakon "drug"

Book Review: The Cat of Bubastes

The Cat of Bubastes: A Tale of Ancient Egypt by G. A. Henty
Preston Speed Publications, 1998 (originally published 1889); 339 pages

I'm continuing my reread of childhood favorites (dangerous move, that) with a Henty novel. George Alfred Henty wrote children's historical fiction in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and his books are now somewhat popular in the homeschooling community (which is why I read them as a child). Personally, I thought some books were far superior to others, and The Cat of Bubastes was one that I loved.

This is the story of Amuba, Prince of the Rebu, who is captured in war by the Egyptians and made the slave of the high priest of Osiris. The priest is a kind man, and Amuba becomes a companion to the priest's son. The first half of the book moves slowly, introducing the main characters and describing various aspects of Egyptian culture. The story picks up when the priest's son accidentally kills a cat that is intended to become the sacred cat of Bubastes. The high priest is killed, and his son and Amuba, along with the high priest's daughter and Hebrew servant must flee Egypt. They decided to return to the home of the Rebu and to try to establish Amuba as king. Crazy adventures follow, including a rather forced and out-of-place cameo by Moses, who is still living as an Egyptian prince at the time of the story.

I can see why I loved this book as a child--it has high adventure and lots of big, old-fashioned words. (I was such a nerdy child.) But as an adult, I also see some flaws. I think Henty made up the Rebu people, as I haven't been able to find any reference to them, at least not on the internet. According to Henty, the Rebu live on the west coast of the Caspian Sea, which would place them in modern-day Iran, Azerbaijan, or Russia. The book speaks of Persians, but makes it clear that the Rebu are not Persian. Did the Egyptians conquer as far northeast of their own land as the Caspian Sea? I'm not sure that they did, but I'm no expert in Egyptian history, either.

Another problem I have with the book pertains to religion. Several of the characters come to the conclusion that there is one true God, but that He can be worshipped through the Egyptian gods, because each of these gods represents an attribute of the true God. If this is the case, then why did God prohibit idol worship throughout the Old Testament?

Finally, the Moses character says that he is called "Moses" because that name was found pinned to his basket when the princess found him floating down the Nile. According to the Bible, Moses is so-named because he was drawn out of the water. Historical and biblical accuracy is important, Mr. Henty.

Sunday Word Study: quiddity

(Sorry this is a day late. It didn't seem to want to post correctly.)

quiddity: the essential quality of a thing; a trifling distinction, quibble

< Middle French quiddité < Late Latin quidditas < Latin quid "what" + -itas "-ness"

Book Review: The Inheritance

The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott
Dutton Books, 1997 (first edition; posthumous); 188 pages

I first read The Inheritance in 1997 or 1998, when I was about twelve. I loved it--forbidden love, secret inheritance, unknown heirs, and conniving rivals. If you're a pre-teen girl, what's not to like? Since I'm currently trying to read through my personal library (not every book, just the unread and the unrated, plus anything that catches my eye), I thought I'd reread this one.

It's not a terrible book. You can tell that Alcott had talent, even at 17. However, it's not a great book, either. The plot is so simplistic that I can't provide too much of a summary without revealing everything, and it's very melodramatic. The characters are mostly too good to live and the bad guys aren't really bad.

Assuming you're not a pre-teen girl, an Alcott scholar, or an Alcott completest, you can probably skip this one.