Books currently read

I did a fair amount of reading over break. One of the things I like about train travel is the long uninterrupted periods of time, when you can sit and read. I often complete an entire book on a trip.

The main thing I read this trip was Christine Desdemaines-Hugon's "Stepping-Stones."

This is a description of several of the Paleolithic cave art in several caves in south-central France. Much of the book is description of the art - both "parietal art" (a term I did not previously know - it refers to the wall-paintings and other forms of immovable art) and "portable art" (things like spear-throwers and "batons" and other items that could be picked up and carried).

Desdemaines-Hugon does talk a bit about human evolution (though really, by the time "her" humans - the ones whose art she studies - made the scene, we were pretty much up to Homo sapiens, so the earlier forms were not as relevant to the work.)

Mainly, she is talking about Cro-Magnon man, with some references to the Neanderthals. (At the time the book was written - just earlier this year - it was still believed (and may still largely be believed) that there was no Neanderthal/ modern human crossbreeding. However, there's some recent DNA research that suggests in fact that there was. (The big news-story part of it was "Ozzy Osbourne has Neanderthal DNA!" Uh-huh.)

She points out that rather than being the brutish "cavemen" of legend, early humans were likely thoughtful and playful and they were artistic - they understood perspective and used it in some of their paintings. And they buried their dead rather tenderly, placing the body in a fetal position and often decorating it with beads and even, in some cases, providing food - whether for "the journey" of the deceased person, or as a propitiation to whatever their understanding of the Divine was, we won't ever know. But the fact that they buried their dead in that way suggests to me that they had some concept of the Divine and perhaps of an afterlife.

Desdemaines-Hugon makes a great effort not to ascribe too much motive to anything being described. (I'm not sure the right term for giving inappropriate "overinterpretation" is in anthropology; in ecology, if you attribute human motives to an animal, it's called anthropomorphism). But it's tantalizing to speculate.

A couple of things struck me: she notes that most of the caves do not seem to have been dwelling-places: there is far less "trash" than you would expect (at most, there are the paint-pots left behind, and perhaps a few spear-points, maybe as an offering of sorts). And in the caves that were not disturbed until modern anthropological methods came to the fore, one thing that was noticed was that many of them had relatively few foot-tracks in the sandy or clayey floors. (Yes, some of the caves have thousands-of-years-old foot tracks in them.)

Also, a lot of the paintings and symbols were placed in out-of-the-way areas, places that wouldn't normally be seen by someone just sitting by a fire in the cave. And a lot of the paintings would have taken some effort - lying on a scaffold or squeezed into a tiny area - to do, meaning that they weren't done "just" because they were easy and fun.

(And in some areas, there's evidence of outdoor dwellings - pits with places where stakes may have been placed to make a sort of yurt using animal hides).

Which makes me think that the caves must have had some spiritual significance to the people. That they didn't paint them "just" for art or "just" for fun. I wonder if the caves were seen as some sort of a womb image...there are at least a few "how people got here" stories around the world that involve people coming up from underground through a cave. And maybe the caves were seen as kind of a mother figure or something, and the art was a sign of respect or love or asking or thanking or any of the thousand reasons why people pray today. Maybe the paintings were done and never looked at again, maybe it was even taboo once a cave was "finished" to go back in and examine it again.

The "portable art" is also interesting. It seems to be what the author specialized on for her graduate and current research, and I wish she had spoken more about it. A lot of the objects have symbols on it, or very simplified, codified versions of animals (an eye, an ear, and a mane, to represent a horse, for example). And again, it makes me wonder: could this have been an early stab at some kind of symbolic/written language? I think from what I've read, cuneiform (slightly less than 5000 years ago) is the earliest verified writing, but there's some carving from about 8000 years ago in China that MAY be an earlier form. (Surely written language has multiple origins? It didn't start in one place and then spread?) And I wonder if a symbol-language would even be considered a form of writing.

It's sort of - I think "numinous" is almost but not quite the right word - to contemplate these people, who lived almost unimaginably long ago. 12,000 years ago - actually, towards the end of the time period Desdemaines-Hugon considers - that's even before the end of the last Ice Age. Christ was born some 2000 years ago. Even documents from 500 years ago can be hard to interpret.

Some places in the caves the people who painted them have left "negative handprints" - put their hands up against the side of the wall and blown pigment around them, so the negative space is the shape of their hand. Desdemaines-Hugon notes how tempting it is for a modern explorer to place their hand on the handprint, coming in as close contact as is possible with one of these long-ago people. (You can't, of course: any touching of the walls can lead to oil or perspiration being transferred and that could ultimately damage the paintings. And if one person does it, everyone touring the caves will want to, and the paintings would be worn off). In some places the handprints are of children - apparently in some of the caves, children were brought in to contribute to the paintings. (A community effort?)

It's a fascinating book and made me think about something I hadn't really thought much about before - I had heard of Lascaux and even seen some photographs of the paintings (or of the reconstructed "tourist" cave next door - the "real" Lascaux has been closed to preserve it). But there are lots of caves in France and Spain and even some in Germany and Hungary, where people were, as I said, almost unimaginably long ago (They were there when mammoths were still extant!)

There are a few omissions from the book. There aren't many maps (there's one at the front but it has relatively little detail; I would have liked to have seen something like a topographic section for each cave discussed.) And I would have liked more drawings/photos - there were a lot of things the author referred to but which were not pictured in the book. I don't know if the museum/owner of the object didn't permit it or what, but I would have liked more drawings or photos.

The purpose of the book seems to be, in part, to encourage people to travel to the caves that are still open and tour them, or failing that, go to the museums that have the portable art in them. I doubt that will ever happen for me (The caves especially; as intriguing as seeing the art might be, I'm not sure my claustrophobia would allow me to enter them). She does provide an extensive list (with phone numbers and URLs) of the sites in France that have contact information.

Wow, I can't believe my allergies this week. This has been almost like a cold. It finally let up a little this morning (great, just in time for me to start sorting the moldy old soil again). I had absolutely no energy last night - I knit a bit on the two pairs of "simple socks" but really had a hard time concentrating.

(And in case anyone's wondering: I told my chair about the student attempting to pick the lock and I am going to e-mail his departmental chair (he is from a different department) today. I don't want to get the guy in big big trouble over what was probably one of those "hey, look what I can do" Stupid Human Tricks, but I do think he might benefit from being talked to by someone scarier than I am)

So I'm going to talk a little about the other book I completed over Spring Break but never wrote about here. This was a book sent as a gift from a reader. It's really fascinating: "Women's work: the first 20,000 years" by Elizabeth Weyland Barber.

The book does talk some about ancient Greece and Egypt, but there's also lots of what you might call Proto-Indo-European stuff - that sort of dawn-of-civilization, we-still-don't-know-much-about-it-and-could-be-totally-wrong-after-all-look-at-what-Macauley-did-with-Motel-of-the-Mysteries stuff.

I find the really early stuff deeply interesting - it's partly the roots of who we are, but it's also so different. And yet, sometimes, it's possible to trace (or to try to trace, and recognize that the links are really tenuous) how some of those old beliefs and rituals came down to present day. One example is the idea of the "string skirt." Some of the early Venus statues were naked, except for a "skirt" of knotted string. And Bronze Age remains of a woman were found - again, she was (apparently) naked when laid to rest, save for a skirt of knotted string. Barber interprets these as fertility symbols: that a woman donned them when she had reached menarche but had not yet been "married off" (whatever form "marriage" took in those societies). Essentially, it was advertising: Hey, boys, I'm ready.

The thing is: some "recent" European folk costumes (particularly from places like Wallachia and Macedonia) feature heavily fringed aprons for the women. And Barber interprets that as a modern day survival of the old string skirt - maybe people would say that it meant something different now, or maybe the wearers of the dress wouldn't even be aware of the old meaning. But somehow, the thing survived, and was passed down, and maybe changed a bit in meaning over the years.

(This seems to be not-uncommon. From what I've read of some of the Morris dances in England, they are holdovers from old festivals in the spring - for the fertility of the earth - but now all the old ideas have been largely forgotten. And in Lark Rise to Candleford, they talk about the May Day festivities, which include carrying around a huge bouquet of flowers, with a china doll attached, called The Lady - and Flora Thompson speculates that The Lady was once (in earlier times) "Our Lady" (meaning Mary), and that she was a replacement of an earlier pagan goddess).

Barber also talks about the "hooked lonzenge" geometric figure that shows up again and again: it's another fertility symbol, or to put it politely, a "female" symbol (in that it resembles, very roughly, female genitalia).

(Fertility being much more important, I guess, to ancient societies than it is to ours. Or maybe we still have that stuff going around - all the subliminal sex in advertising - but we're just blind to it).

The book is mainly about spinning and weaving (knitting comes later,  and crochet comes MUCH later). One thing I found interesting were the different loom set-ups: in Egypt, they often used a flat loom that was low to the ground, where women would sit on the ground to weave. This worked because they could set it up in a courtyard and pretty well trust that it would not be rained upon. In wetter northern Europe, vertical looms were used (they were also apparently used in Greece), where the warp ran vertically and was held straight with clay weights (in some cases, it's only the weights that remain to attest that people wove in a particular habitation). She also notes that Penelope's fabled loom was probably more like a tapestry loom - weaving a tapestry, or pictured-cloth, is probably the only way she could have justified all the time it was taking (when she was ripping back at night, to avoid having to choose one of the "suitors," knowing her Odysseus would return).

One thing Barber notes is that doing an archaeology of things like spinning and weaving can be difficult. For one thing, fiber does not generally preserve well. For another, at least in earlier archeological days, some of the findings were discarded (loom weights can look like rather indistinct lumps of clay). One thing she used - which I found interesting, as I've taken some linguistics classes, back in my undergrad days - is using comparative linguistics to see how "old" words are for different spinning or weaving processes: are they similar across all Indo-European languages, suggesting a common origin (what biologists would call "homology"), or do they differ and represent a later development ("analogy"). Another thing she did - and this is the opener for the book - is that in some cases she (or other researchers she writes about) actually TRIED OUT the methods they were contemplating: trying to spin flax, for example, or, as in Barber's case, trying to weave a small piece of plaid cloth to match one fount in the Halstatt salt mines. And she talks of what she learned from that process.

And that seems to make a lot of sense to me: learning how people did something by trying to do it yourself. Seeing what mistakes you make (Barber mis-warped the loom; she used the weft pattern for the warp). Seeing if there is an "easier" way of getting to the desired end. And then, of course, the idea that you are kind of "feeling" what someone felt hundreds (or, in Barber's case, thousands) of years ago.

Actually, that's one reason why I knit and crochet and quilt: I've said it before. I like that idea of a connection with the past. (And also, I suppose, playing the piano could count too: how many people, over the past couple hundred years, have picked out Beethoven's "Ecossaise in G" as part of their instruction? How many young ladies in households played that to entertain themselves - or someone else?)

Anyway: it's a really interesting book. It's written in such a way that it moves fast, it kept me engaged in it. And it's full of interesting small facts about spinning, weaving, and ancient cultures. I really enjoyed it.

One of the books I read over break was Georges, by Alexandre Dumas ("pere," as they say...).

It was an interesting novel. I was mistaken about it in two ways: first, it was NOT set in the Caribbean. Rather, it was set on Mauritius - in some ways, a more exotic and certainly a more distant locale. Mauritius is known in the book (mostly) as Ile de France, the name it bore during French colonial times. (First the Dutch had it. Then the French. Then the British. The Dutch named it Mauritius and the British, when they took over, renamed it that).

Also, Georges, the hero of the piece, is not noticeably of African descent. Oh, when people on the island (which is in many ways like a small town) hear his last name (Munier), they know he is "the son of the mulatto*)

(*I don't even know if it's "OK" to use that word any more, or if it's considered derogatory. The translator of the novel uses it, though).

Georges is able to "pass" as European, though once people know his heritage, they assume things about him. This leads to a certain degree of bitterness on Georges' part. We first see him as a boy - during, in fact, the battle between the French colonial forces (and the "native" troops siding with them) and the English, who wish to (and ultimately do) take over the island. Georges is impressed by his father's bravery, and upset by the way one of the French colonialist planters treats him after the battle.

Georges' father (presumably, their mother is dead) sends him and his older brother Jacques away, to France, to be educated, and for their safety. While there, Georges works at developing a nearly super-human self- control...and has the one goal of returning home and "showing them," whatever form that may take.

Georges is an interesting novel in two senses: first, as a nineteenth-century commentary on race, slavery, and colonialism. And I learned something about Dumas that I did not know before: he had some African heritage. (one of his grandmothers - I believe it was - was Afro-Caribbean). Reading the novel, at one point, I thought, "This author has some rather progressive ideas for a 19th century French novelist." Well, apparently, Dumas' own treatment - or the way he saw others of his heritage being treated - factored in to that.

That's not to say his attitudes are totally "modern." He frequently refers to the slaves (Black Africans and also Muslims from South Asia) as "poor savages" and similar. And he does not seem to see too much wrong with the ownership of slaves (even Pierre Munier owns slaves), provided they are well-taken-care-of. And Jacques Munier has become a slave trader, though he doesn't "hunt" slaves; he rather buys them off of other tribes...reminding us that in some African countries in that day, slavery of captured enemies was a common thing. (And it still exists, though for different reasons, in the Sudan today).

Still, it's an interesting viewpoint, and I suppose in its day it was revolutionary that a man of mixed race could be the hero of a novel, and perhaps even more so that a Black African slave (Laiza) could be a man of great honor and courage.

Apparently, Dumas suffered some prejudice and rudeness as a result of his heritage. A quotation from him, in response to someone who insulted him about his background:

"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."

 Heh. I'm assuming he also accepted biological evolution by that statement, though technically "we came from monkeys" is not exactly correct.

But totally beside all of the commentary that one could make, it's a rollicking good story. It's exciting, and moving, and romantic (and not in the icky way). It's set in an exotic place - Dumas talks about some of the plants, and several times he mentions the tenrecs, which are pretty much unique to that area. The culture is somewhat exotic, too - with both Europeans and "Creoles" ("Creoles" here being people of European heritage, but born on the island) as well as the people of mixed race, the Lascars (a Muslim group from India), Chinese traders, and so on. You can imagine the heat and languidness of the summer days as you read the book.

It also has many of the elements of nineteenth-century novels that I love: there is a ball (though it's not as happy an occasion as it could be). There are characters finding their true loves. There are rides through the countryside. There's a dramatic rescue of a damsel in distress.

And then there are other events: there's a hurricane. And a slave uprising. And battles at sea.

The book moves very fast, it's an exciting story (or at least I found it to be so). It has a lot of plot twists, especially as the end of the book approaches. In fact, the book ends not how I expected it would end. (But it ended how I had HOPED it would end).

The version I read was the "new" translation (the Modern Library translation) by Tina Kovers. I am sure that the quality of the translation in part makes the quality of the experience for the reader who cannot (or, in my case, doesn't care to) read the novel in its original language. I do know back in high school I tried to read The Count of Monte Cristo and either I had a poor translation or wasn't mature enough to cope with a denser book, but I remember it as being very slow and very dry and giving up a few chapters in.

I'm thinking, now, though, that I might chase down other of Dumas' work and read it, particularly if I can find translations similar in quality to the translation of Georges.  (Perhaps the Modern Library editions - which I love anyway, because they are nicely made books and appeal to the book-snob side of me - would be a place to start). I think I would like to read The Three Musketeers first, simply because the story is most familiar, and it seems like it would be similar (perhaps) to Georges in degree of "romance" (in the sense of being a good story, with lots of plot twists....I know a "romance novel" means something very different from a "novel written during the Romantic Period" and I have to admit, while I like Romantic Period novels, my few tries at "romances" have left me uninterested).

A synopsis (warning: big big spoiler for the end of the novel) is available here.

And I do highly recommend Georges if you enjoy novels, particularly ones set in exotic locales and with lots of action.

Today is Veterans' Day. Huge thanks to all who served, wartime or peacetime, and my thoughts and prayers with the families of those who gave their lives serving. This year, it seems particularly somber, considering what happened last Thursday at Fort Hood.

I remember several years ago getting into a discussion with one of my classes - they were arguing whether this day was Memorial Day or Veterans' Day. I said it was Veterans' Day, and then said, "The eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month." Surprisingly (to me) no one in the class either knew (or remembered) hearing that before - that Veteran's Day (formerly known as Armistice Day) marked the official end of hostilities of World War I (formerly known as The War To End All Wars).

I suppose part of the fact that I know that is that I am old enough - and my forebears had their children late enough in life - that I had a grandfather who served in WWI (even if he never saw action - he was an experimental pilot in the earliest incarnation of the Army Air Corps, and actually did much of his training in Texas) and a grandmother who talked about a brother who had served (he had been in France and Belgium, in the infantry). And also having had really good history classes in school. (Mr. Haas, where ever you are now, I thank you for 8th grade American History). And being a history geek.

But I think it's important to know stuff like this, partly out of the sense of honoring those who went before, but also - for me, it's kind of like the liturgical year stuff at church - it gives me a sense that even though I may at times believe we are all hurtling towards our doom, there are still things that are constant and that can be held on to. It gives me a sense of stability, in an odd way.

****

I finished "The Victorian Internet" last night. I stand by my earlier comment that it is a better and more interesting book than "Jacquard's Web," for one thing, I think it is "tighter" - there are fewer pointless excursions onto other topics. I also like how Standage (the author, apparently he has also written for Wired magazine) draws parallels between the telegraph's impact on society and technology with the Internet's. The final chapter of the book - where he wraps it all up and brings things to the "present day," is particularly good.

All along he had been talking about how the telegraph connected places, made news travel faster - how it changed the expectation of what was "news" and what was "timely."

And I think now - again with the being older than the students I interact with - how I grew up in an era before 24 hour news channels on the television. How a "breaking news," where they broke into regular programming was a BIG deal (I remember learning of Reagan getting shot that way). It was reserved for things like heads of state dying or major tragedies. Now, some of the news channels use "Breaking News" alerts for really rather trivial things at times, and I admit I still have that old ghost of the "Oh no, what's happened now?" reaction come up every time I see one - and feel distinctly annoyed when it's, like, "Jon and Kate Gosselin have decided to split up" or some other thing that is not geo-politically meaningful). But now, when something happens, where do most of us go? The internet. One thing I remember as being striking about September 11, 2001, was how the sites bogged down, how I kept hitting "refresh" to see if there was any new information, and how so many of the sites were just unavailable. (Actually, a lot of the information came via a bulletin board I was a part of at that time.)

Standage also discusses how the telegraph led to people falling in love long distance (in some cases, the operators - at many locations, women were hired as telegraph operators as well as men). And there were apparently instances of "alienation of affection" that involved the telegraph. And there were swindles, just like there are on the Internet today.

He also discusses - and some of this went over my head a bit, being not all that clear on the technical details of connectivity - but apparently there are some remnants of old telegraph protocol, or some of the old limitations, that still exist (or existed, as of the time the book was written) in modem protocols.

Oh, and another thing: the "leet" vs. "n00b" division existed in the days of telegraphy:

"Highly skilled telegraphers in city offices would lose their temper when forced to deal with hopelessly inept operators in remote villages; the same phenomenon was widespread on the Internet when the masses first surged on-line in the early 1990s, unaware of customs and traditions that had held sway on the Internet for years, and capable of what, to experienced users, seemed unbelievable stupidity, gullibility, and impoliteness."

(Heh. I can imagine an old time telegraph operator cursing and saying, "Why must he key in all capital letters? Does he not know that is the equivalent of shouting?")

(Yes, yes, I know: there was no capital and lowercase in Morse Code. But it's the cleverest joke I can come up with)

I'm a little sad that the book is apparently OOP; it's really interesting. (Perhaps Standage is preparing an updated version). I learned a lot about telegraphy and it also made me think about our expectations as a culture on how fast information should move and how "free" it should be.

I finished reading Louise Dickinson Rich's "We Took to the Woods" the other night.

The first half of the book or so is mostly an account of how their lives worked, of things she had seen and done out in the woods (including giving birth to their son Rufus).

The second half (or so) is a series of chapters answering questions she knows people have about life in the woods -- "Don't you get bored?" "Aren't you afraid?" (Her answer to that last being, the biggest threat to you in the woods is yourself - inattention or over-daring caused far more injuries than wayward bears do)

The last chapter, though, raises a couple of interesting philosophical (if I may call them that) points that I think have broader application.

The first is, she observes, that no one asks her the question "Is it worth while?" However, she notes, she asks HERSELF that question occasionally, when the stove acts up, or it's midsummer and the ice is gone and she'd almost sell her soul for a glass of ice water, or her son Rufus returns from going to observe a lumber camp with a new store of dirty words he's happy to share. But then again, she notes, a lot of the time she doesn't even THINK of the question:

"It amounts to this. "Is it worth-while to live like this?" is a question I never ask myself under fair conditions. I ask it only when exasperation or discomfort or exhaustion pre-determine No as an answer...Happy people aren't given to soul-searching, I find. Revolt and reform, whether private or general, are always bred in misery and discontent..."

While I am not so sure about happy people never doing soul-searching, I do agree that it is at the times when I am most at the end of my rope that I find myself asking myself, "Why didn't I apply for that research post in Alaska?*" or "Why didn't I decide to go to library school instead and maybe wind up as a cataloguer who rarely has to deal with the Specialer Snowflakes of the world?"

(*there's actually more to it, which I am putting as an aside because I am going to use a rude word I normally NEVER use, but there is no other way to convey the joke I turned it into otherwise. It would have been measuring body temperatures of caribou. And I always assumed those were rectally taken...so I used to joke, occasionally, in grad school, as I was working on my doctorate (the caribou job would have come after my Master's) and teaching, and dealing with several very demanding students: "If I had gone to Alaska, I would have still been working with assholes, but at least not the kind that can talk back to you!" I still think that occasionally, when some of the Specialer Snowflakes I come into contact with get me down)

But I do think we have a predisposition to see the worst and assume the worst when we're already stretched to the limit. And when you're happy and engaged (she later talks about how she never even contemplates the concept of "worth-while" while attempting to land a large salmon, or while she is swimming, or while she gets to see deer drinking from a quiet forest pool.

I do know for myself, my "am I wasting my life at this?" questions tend to come up most in the semesters when I have a class containing several "difficult" personalities, or when research is going badly, or (as happened once) I got two different manuscripts rejected from two different journals in a single week.

And actually, I do think too much asking of "is it all worth-while?" or "Am I wasting my life at this?" - well, that way lies madness. Or at least deciding to watch Jerry Springer to convince yourself that AT LEAST you are better off than THOSE people.

****

A related point (really, it is) is when she speaks of freedom. She remarks that in the woods, she can be "herself," without feeling pressure to dress a certain way, or act a certain way. Money doesn't matter (well, above and beyond being able to buy necessities). Her identity is not based on all the foolish things that women's identities used to heavily be based on (and I suppose, in some circles, still are).

She describes it as "being free," but then notes (remember, she is writing in the middle of World War II):

"To define freedom, for which men and women and children are dying all over the world, in terms of indifference to clothes and social contacts and popular attitudes seems to trivial and irresponsible a thing to do that I am ashamed of it, as of a gross impertinence; but that is what living here adds up to, for me. I am free."

I have to admit, I enjoy some of that same freedom in academia. You can wear the same dang old sweatshirt you've worn for the past ten years and no one will say anything. You can disdain whatever is currently popular and it's just fine. You don't have to golf. (one of my brother's objections, to life in the corporate world: "You get a raise because you do good work but then you're expected to go out and spend it on a better set of golf clubs to impress your higher-ups with when you all go out golfing together." Needless to say, he didn't golf, and he didn't stay all that long in the corporate world)

She goes on:

"It adds up to more than that. All ordinary people like us, everywhere, are trying to find the same things. It makes no difference whether they are New Englanders or Texans or Malayans or Finns. They all want to be left alone to conduct their own private search for a personal peace, a reasonable security, a little love, a chance to attain happiness through achievement. It isn't much to want; but I never came anywhere near to getting most of those things until we took to the woods."

That's actually one of the better descriptions of "freedom" I've seen lately - being left alone to search for your own personal peace and a chance to attain happiness. Or at least, it's a definition that resonates with me.

I finished reading "The Tempest" last night. I enjoyed it very much (I know I have never seen it produced, but Prospero's summoning of the spirits towards the end is very familiar - I'm sure I've heard that recited somewhere). It still does not QUITE displace "Twelfth Night" as my favorite Shakespeare play, but it comes very close. (Perhaps seeing a production of it would change my opinion.)

I was casting about for what to read next. I had originally planned on reading "Hamlet," seeing as not very many weeks ago I saw a production of it on campus. But now I see by the calendar that today is St. Crispin's day...which tells me that perhaps Henry V should be the next one to read.

(I know very little of the play aside from the famous speech:

"This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...

)

So it seems apropos. Also, I think I am more in the mood right now to read of heroism and sacrifice* than I am to read of what is (essentially) a dysfunctional family with a broody, indecisive main character.

(*Yes, I know: one reading of the play is as an anti-war allegory. I'll make up my mind when I actually read it.)

(I'm sure there's a considerable body count in Henry V, but somehow it's different when someone "dies in battle" in a play, than when they're all sprawled dead because of family dysfunctionality (stabbed or poisoned or both) across the stage at the very end. Or at least I tend to think so.)

And once I finish the two "non fiction" works I am reading, I am going to begin reading that book I bought over my break, about the real-life storm that apparently inspired "The Tempest."

The two books are "The Victorian Internet," which is VERY good and is far more interestingly written than "Jacquard's Loom," and "We Took to the Woods," which is Louise Dickinson Rich's account of her family's WWII era stint living in a cabin in the Maine woods...I admit that running away to a cabin in the woods is a fantasy of mine, but I know intellectually that I would probably go mad were I that isolated (living in a cabin alone). Rich talks about the real risk of going "woods queer" - a sort of stir-craziness that comes from spending too much time alone and not getting Outside, "Outside" being the larger world of shops and towns. I do think I'd be at risk of going "woods queer" - I know if I spend even a couple days - like during a school break - by myself too much I tend to brood and focus inappropriately on small things (Rich cites an example in herself, where she became overly agitated by the loss of a particular pencil she favored). The other thing that would stay my hand from running off to the woods is what I might call the running-water issue. In the Rich's home, there was no running water: drinking water had to be hauled from a well, people bathed using water heated on the stove (I tried that in 2007 when my hot water heater went out; it's a rather unpleasant effort). And they used an outhouse.

That in itself is enough to keep me in town. I have commented here before that I don't camp. Part of that is I sleep badly away from my own bed, even if I am staying in a halfway-decent hotel. But sleeping in a sleeping bag, on the ground, surrounded by allergens and (as has always been the case the few times I tried camping) with a cold rock that shows up under my sleeping bag somewhere in the vicinity of the small of my back in the middle of the night. The other reason I don't like to camp is the bathroom issue. Unless I deliberately starve myself of fluids after 4 pm, I will have to get up at least once during the night. And if you're having to trot off to a pit toilet (or worse, a latrine you yourself had to dig), well...

I know, that sounds picky and excessively "soft" and that as an ecologist, I should not be bothered by the discomforts of camping. But I am. I prefer to sleep in a nice bed, with a toilet a few steps down the hall AND hot water in which to wash my face the next morning.

So anyway: cabin in the woods, nice thing to dream about, but most likely not ever going to happen.

I've decided to make this a short-office day. I teach but one class, and my office hours are over before that class. I do have to grab some soil (between downpours) for tomorrow afternoon's lab, but other than that, the only requirements on my time (well, other than 5 pm piano lesson) are self-imposed.

I can read journal articles just as well at home. Better, in fact, as I don't have a computer that's linked up to the Internet right in front of me tempting me to take breaks and surf.

****

I finished reading "Jacquard's Web" Sunday night. The second half of the book was not, I think, as interesting as the first. I don't know if that's because I already knew some of the history of "modern" computing (making it less novel to me) or if the author was less expert/less interested in that section.

That said, it's interesting, some of the 'vestigial organs' or 'suboptimal solutions' we see in modern computing that are remnants of the old card-feeding days. The author mentioned the 80 column limit of a DOS prompt box - that was the size limit of a card. And I know another one. On the "old" (non-menu-driven) versions of SAS (a stats program), you would write a program to do what data analysis and then the last line had to be "CARDS;" - a throwback to the punched-card days (Or so we were told. There were a lot of capricious things about the version of SAS I learned on. Heh. I remember there was some divide between proponents of SPSS and SAS in my graduate department. The (rather Severus Snape-like, now that I think of it) Stats prof was known to comment that "SPSS was written BY idiots, FOR idiots" but I knew at least one other person whose response to that (not to the prof's face) was that "SAS was written BY a**holes, FOR a**holes.")

I never actually used punched cards - they went out before my time - but I have worked with a mainframe stats package (the mainframe version of SPSS). Where you write the program for your analysis run, send it in, walk over to the computer center, pick up the big big stack of pale green and white striped paper, start reading through the output, find the place where you made a mistake in your program and it terminated early, and then cry or swear (depending on frame of mind), go back to the office, fix the error, re-run the program, go pick up the next big stack of paper, find the next error, lather, rinse, repeat.

It strikes me that the main characteristic for success in graduate school is not so much intelligence as it is a bulldog-like tenaciousness.

The author of Jacquard's Web did also talk about some of the early programming. I did not learn much programming (even though you could allegedly get "foreign language credit" for a programming language; by the time I went through, the requirement was down to one language and my French was more than sufficient to fulfill that.

So the only programming I remember is a tiny bit of BASIC that I learned in school and from noodling around on my family's TI-44A (I think that was the model). All I remember now is writing GOTO loops to print something rude on the screen multiple times. (Given the kind of kid I was, the "rudest" word I think I ever used was "fart." And I remember being doubled over with laughter at just how "bad" I was for making a program that repeated "fart" on the screen 50 times.)

****

I also finished the first Gervase Fen mystery. This is yet another Golden Age mystery series. Fen is an Oxford don.

I'm sorry to report, but I don't think I like Fen very much. He seems awfully vague, and yet at the same time bent on proving himself smarter than everyone else. And I think the author of the series "cheats" a bit given the "rules" of Golden Age Mysteries - he DOESN'T supply us with the information that Fen has; stuff is held back.

Oh, I'll try reading a later one - this was, after all, the first ("The Case of the Gilded Fly") and I would not have liked Albert Campion much if the first thing I read of him was "The Crime at Black Dudley."

But Fen seems to lack a lot of the appeal of most series detectives. And darn it, if I'm going to read a series of books featuring a certain character, there has to be some appeal to them.

Fen does not have the suavity and gentlemanliness of Inspector Alleyn. Nor does he have the amusing, upper-middle-class twit charm of Campion. He doesn't have the fussy propriety of Poirot. He doesn't even have the broody intelligence of Nero Wolfe.

(And upon re-reading some of the Wolfe stories, I've come to the conclusion that Archie would irritate me a bit after a while - I mean, if they were real people I interacted with in real life - but that I'd rather like Wolfe. And I like to fancy [does anyone else do things like this] that though Archie probably wouldn't have the slightest interest in me (my age, for one thing*, and the fact that I don't dance, and I think I'm probably not his "type" anyway), Wolfe just might, seeing as I am intelligent, not given to emotional outbursts even in difficult situations, AND I know the difference between "imply" and "infer." And that I'm not one of those tiresome women who "can't" eat certain things or "can't" enjoy them out of worry about her figure.)

(*It's odd and a little sad to realize that I am now "too old for" Archie Goodwin. I've been reading the novels since I was 18 or so.)

Yes, that's the extent of my crushes these days. Characters in novels that are so old that, were they real people, they'd be long-dead. (If I were a more histrionic sort, I'd insert a "**sob**" right there).

***

So, having finished a couple things I was working on (I'm still reading "The Tempest," I'm about halfway through it), I started reading "The Victorian Internet" last night.

It promises to be really interesting. (It's currently out of print for some reason. It is a ten-year-old book so maybe they're doing an update, I don't know. I found a used copy from Powell's.)

The central idea is that the "Information superhighway" (Do we still call it that?) is nothing really new; the telegraph in the Victorian era was a precursor. I don't have the exact quotation (the book is at home and I am at work), but the author notes in the introduction that the telegraph changed the way news was reported, caused people to fall in love long-distance, and also led to new types of crime.

So far I've read the first 30 pages or so, where the Standridge (the author) talks about the earliest form of telegraphy: an optical telegraph that was kind of like a semaphore system. It was a series of poles with movable arms, and the positions of the arms indicated what letter - they were controlled by pulleys.

I never knew this existed. Never. It amazes me how there is a lot of stuff in history that was never even mentioned when I learned it in school. And I had pretty good history classes. And I've read a lot of history. Apparently these telegraphs were used during the Napoleonic wars and such. And I never knew about them.

(None of the towers still exist; Standridge observes that the only memory of them is in several places being named "Telegraph Hill" after the location of the towers).

Oh, and another reason why I like buying used books: there was an inscription in this one. On one side of the flyleaf it said, "Nothing is really new!" and on the other "Happy Birthday, '99 style! Love, Mark and Carla."

****

Incidentally, I noticed while reading last night (I take my glasses off when I read in bed - in fact, I often take them off whenever I'm reading for an extended period of time - I didn't have the "short arms" issue - I could hold the book as close as I ever did and still read fine. So I wonder if it could be that my glasses prescription has changed, maybe in regards the astigmatism? My eye doctor once commented that my left eye had "gotten better," so apparently it is possible for one's eyes to become less bad. Maybe that's what's happening, I don't know.

I suppose my current glasses (which I have not changed in a number of years as my prescription has changed only minimally) might now be a bit strong as regards astigmatism, and that could be the problem.

Or I could pull my other leg.

I also finished reading "Twelfth Night" last night.

I think this is my favorite of the (five) Shakespeare plays I have read (in my life: I read three in high school, then "Julius Caesar" earlier this summer).

I do prefer the comedies to the histories/tragedies I have read. I think part of it is a general distaste for "stories where people die" (my love of detective novels notwithstanding). But mainly, in the comedies, Shakespeare's wordplay (puns, extended metaphors, saucy comparisons) comes to the fore, and that's really why I like Shakespeare's writing.

True, "Twelfth Night," is, as one character notes (in an early instance of "breaking the fourth wall") a rather unbelievable plot (I'm searching for the exact quote now...it was something along the lines of, "If I saw this acted out on stage, I'd laugh at it as being totally impossible...")

Ah, here it is: Act 3, scene 4, Fabian, after seeing Malvolio fall for the fake letter, and show up "in yellow stockings and cross-gartered*":

"If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."

The whole play is just fun. It comes out happily at the end for everyone (well, save for poor Malvolio, and at least he is released from the asylum). There are some enjoyable instances of wordplay, and a few Shakespeare-bawdy jokes (I may be a prude about some things, but those kind of bawdy jokes do make me laugh and appreciate them). And I feel smarter after having read it - I think it does make a person's brain work in good ways to read something like Shakespeare. And I find reading Shakespeare satisfying - because they are plays, they are shorter than the average novel I read, and so I can finish one in a matter of a few weeks rather than a few months.

I think I enjoyed "Twelfth Night" more also because the version of it I had was a Folger Library paperback - I think these were the versions we used in high school when we read Shakespeare - where the right-hand pages are the play, and the left-hand pages are a gloss with references - so you can immediately check an unfamiliar word (though I will say with some pride that most of the words they provided a gloss for, I either already knew or already had seen in the "alternate" usage as Shakespeare used them - like "wanton" meaning "changeable" as well as "unchaste"). And it's easy to pick up references that, as a modern person, you would not get - the reference to song lines in particular.

I'm sure my enjoyment of the play was enhanced by having seen a good version of it beforehand, so I could "hear" the proper inflections of certain words, and probably my catching the double-meaning words was perhaps because I had heard them on stage first.

But at any rate: I do like Twelfth Night. As I said, I think it's my favorite of the Shakespeare plays I have read.

I'm going to read "The Tempest" next; in fact, I'm going to take it with me on break. I have a Folger Library paperback of it as well. (As much as I may love the "atmosphere" of the little old 1890s hardbacks I have that once belonged to Charles Goulder, I have to say the Folger editions are definitely preferable to study from and to feel that you are actually learning about the play. In the older editions I'd have to flip to the back for the gloss, which was inconvenient, and also, it was less complete and did not have all of the allusions noted).

(*And it strikes me that a really wonderful "geeky" sock pattern could be made up based on that line: long socks (like knee socks) to be made of bright yellow yarn, with cables on them designed to capture the "cross gartering" effect. Or maybe welts on them to look like the garters. I don't know. The little woodcut showing "cross gartering" in my copy of the play is not sufficiently clear for me to exactly figure out what it looks like - if I even felt like designing a pattern for knee length socks - but I think it would be a clever idea. They could be called "Malvolio's stockings" or some such.)

Oh "hai,"*

I finished Julius Caesar the other night. Standard spoiler warning, but (a) I doubt there are few who don't know the story and (b) you don't read the play for its suspenseful outcome anyway.

So I'm going to give a few random scattered "beginner's mind" impressions on this. Understand, I know about as much about Shakespeare as I know about changing the oil in my car (I know how to do it in theory and could do it if I have to, but I prefer to leave it to the experts). So if I sound like an idiot or if I'm restating the eye-rollingly obvious, please forgive me. But these are things that struck me:

- Although the play is about him ("you're so vain, you probably think this play is about you"?), we see very little of Caesar. And we don't hear from him at all until Act II. So most of what our impression of him is from Brutus, Cassius, and others. (And that impression is not so good).

- The reason Cassius gives for why Caesar must die: "He is too ambitious." This is an interesting thought, living in a time and a place where overweening ambition is often seen as a GOOD thing, and not-being-ambitious (or even being somewhat modest) brands you as a bit of a loser. Considering the times when the play was written: Elizabeth I was, from what I remember from school history, quite ambitious (at least as far as keeping the throne and not sharing power overmuch was concerned). And wasn't there some question about who would succeed her, seeing as she was the "virgin queen"?

- I kind of knew about the civil war that took place in the vacuum of power after Caesar's death (though hadn't he sort of appointed Antony to be his heir?). But I wasn't prepared for the level of carnage and people running their own selves through.

- That's something very different between ancient Greece/Rome and modern Western society, no? The idea of suiciding when facing defeat or dishonor in some way. (Although Brutus, maybe it was partly in response to Cassius' death).

- I presume Act IV, Scene iii, is the origin of the (sadly, little-used now) interjection, "Great Caesar's Ghost!"

- I still find Cassius' motivation interesting: yes, he is essentially a republican at heart, but it seems to me that his envy of Caesar - and his feeling that Caesar is weak and unworthy - also play a role.

- Brutus seems more honorable (and perhaps less bright/conniving) than Cassius

- I wonder if the Pennsylvania/Ohio pizza chain "Noble Roman's" took its name from the description Antony gave Caesar of Cassius ("...he's not dangerous/He's a noble Roman and well given"). Yeah, I feel kind of ill-read for not realizing that before.

- I have to admit I was surprised at how sad I felt at the conclusion of the play. So many people died. (Oh, I knew the basic historical outline. But it is somehow different when it is characters you have been "hearing" speak for many pages.)

I think I need to read one of the comedies next before either re-reading King Lear or tackling Henry III.

(*it amuses me to use a LOLism in a discussion of Shakespeare).

The start of summer teaching coincided with the start of the summer heat.

It is going to take me a few days to adjust. Our heat index around 4 pm yesterday was 100*. My body does not like humidity.

I also had an evening meeting, for which food needed to be prepared. So I finished one of the half-blocks on the quilt but that was the extent of the craft-work for yesterday.


I did, however, finish reading "The Pickwick Papers." It took me much longer to read the last 40 or so pages than it might - I find that with books I am enjoying, I don't want them to end, so I drag out the reading longer.

I think "Pickwick Papers" has to be the most cheerful of Dickens' works (with the possible exception of the short story, "The Cricket on the Hearth") that I've read. Except for the unpleasant stay in debtor's prison on entirely trumped up charges, the book was mostly one long entertainment.

(And I will say - small spoiler here - but it may be the original "Marriage is breaking up that old gang of mine" story).

The book does change a bit in tone as it progresses - first, it starts off as the somewhat bumptious adventures of the four men (the most-likely-fifty-ish Messrs. Pickwick and Tupman, and the two younger men, Winkle and Snodgrass). Pickwick, while not exactly a fool, is a bit naive (and lovable for that). Tupman is somewhat of a ladykiller; Snodgrass a poet and sensitive soul; Winkle claims to be a sportsman but is a notoriously poor shot.

They travel about, getting into trouble (One of them very nearly has to fight a duel), visiting inns, seeing famous sights, shooting at partridge.

They meet up with the bootblack Sam Weller, who becomes Mr. Pickwick's valet (and who provides considerable comic relief, and is a "man of the world" in contrast to Pickwick's unworldliness). Weller speaks in a rather opaque dialect: I assume it is meant to be some variant of Cockney but I found myself reading bits of it aloud and not being able to get it to sound "right."

Eventually they fetch up at Dingley Dell, home of Mr. Wardle (and his marriageable daughters and their friends).

It is here that Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass begin to form their attachments.

And the story progresses - as Mr. Pickwick is incarcerated (for a claimed "breach of promise" to his housekeeper who apparently wanted to believe he was offering to marry her) - things happen, things change. Mr. Tupman is seen less and less, Mr. Winkle especially comes to the fore as he woos and eventually wins his Arabella.

Oh, there are still comic moments...but it is almost as if you can see Dickens growing and changing as he writes (I believe this was one of his earlier works?) and the book's tone becomes less picaresque and more serious.

Eventually, it all ends well enough (I suppose): Pickwick, deciding that as two of his young friends are now husbands, the Pickwick Club must be broken up and he decides no more to roam, but to settle in a quiet sort of retirement in a house he bought. (I rather wish the book had closed with the Pickwick club - in some shape or form - continuing and continuing their rambling adventures. But you can't always have what you want, and it was still a good book.)

I guess I promised at least a short summary/review of "The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw," the second book I read over break.

This book is the story of a dam project in Belize - the fight between government/industry forces, scientists, and advocates for nature.

One big thing I learned from the book is what Belize is like as a nation. I did not know much about it before. It is a Central American nation that defines itself as a Caribbean nation - if it could make itself an island in the Caribbean Sea, it would. Culturally it identifies far much with that region.

It is a former British colony, one that basically dropped off the crown jewels by attrition - in the early days it was a source of timber and other resources, and by the time those resources' value dwindled, Britain was willing to cut (most) ties. (There are still some; at the end of the book a Privy Council hearing plays an important role).

Like a lot of smaller nations, it seems pretty beset by corruption. (or maybe, "Like a lot of nations." Or maybe, pessimistically, "Like any other nation..." and the ones we think of as non-corrupt, we just don't see). Nepotism in government is fairly rampant.

It's also not exactly a wealthy nation; and the have vs. have-not divide is pretty steep.

Into this, comes an American woman - Sharon Mattola.

Now, I was not prepared to like Sharon, from the way she was described. Because I've dealt with some people like her - people who don't really have a lot of educational or research credentials, people who are not scientists (and proudly trumpet that fact), but who will take on the mantle of a Defender of Nature because they claim some mystic gnostic knowledge of how nature works that scientists have (so they argue) willingly blinded themselves to. It's kind of the New-Ager view. And as I said, I've worked with people who have that attitude - who are actively disdainful of what science have done, because it's more comfortable to keep their fuzzy gnostic beliefs and to claim some "received knowledge" from "communing with nature."

I know scientists can be arrogant - I know a number of arrogant scientists - but there's also a hearty arrogance that comes from this group - the belief that they somehow feel more deeply than other people, and because of those deep feelings, they have a deep knowledge that even someone who has studied and worked with a system for 40 years does not have.

Luckily, Sharon Mattola turned out to be the "other" kind of "non-credentialed" science-person: the person who actually HAS worked long and hard, who HAS put in the observations, who knows what a field scientist knows - and really, the only difference between them is a piece of paper listing formal coursework. (I've known a few people like that, as well). She's willing to enlist the help of experts; she knows when she doesn't know something. (That's my big issue with the first group I described; a lot of them are unwilling to admit ignorance - maybe even to themselves - and they wind up sort of blundering through things and sometimes do more harm than good).

Sharon has wound up in Belize after traveling about (literally; she left her husband by hopping a freight train). She has kind of inherited a research station, which she has turned into a zoo/rehabilitation center. Her mission, as she sees it, is to connect the people of Belize with their native fauna, both so they will be less inclined to randomly shoot (and sometimes eat) any animal they run across, and also to help instill pride in the nation.

Her personal love is a subspecies of the scarlet macaw which is apparently found only in Belize. A macaw whose nesting site is threatened by a planned dam development for hydroelectrics.

The majority of the book is given over to the fight against the dam.

Now, first, a disclaimer: the book presents mainly the anti-dam side. So there could be some bias involved. (Probably there is).

However, the dam is not just a bad idea on the grounds that it will drown a big part of a forest that is important not just to macaws, but to tapirs, monkeys, and other species. There was also apparently some hanky-panky in the geologic reports; when two independent and unconnected-to-the-dam-project geologists reviewed the cores and the maps, they concluded that the particular area was NOT a safe place for a dam because of seismic activity and unstable rock. There was also a lot of concern that the dam would not generate the level of electricity expected for the price expected - that the costs to the Belizean people would go up (in the postscript, the author noted they had).

There were not many other options for electricity in Belize - it has no coal or much in the way of other fossil fuels; wind power is not viable, and it seems solar is far too expensive. The Belize electrical company was buying power from Mexico but that was costly. (There was also an option to buy from Guatemala, but because of some political things in the past, that would never happen - Belize actually feels somewhat threatened by Guatemala).

So most of the book chronicles what might be seen as a quixotic fight against a foregone conclusion - the dam WOULD be built, no matter what. No matter the arguments made, no matter the legal fights.

(At one point it looked like they might succeed, but no, they did not).

Along the way, there are lots of maddening tales of governmental/industry (I lump the two because it seems they are lumped in this case) obfuscation, lying, and retaliation - at one point a dump was slated to be built next to Sharon's zoo, despite the fact that it would pollute a river many villagers used, because she had been fighting the dam. (Small victory - the geologists got the dump moved by pointing out the clay on the site was totally unsuitable).

I found myself getting frustrated and angry at a lot of points in the book. I know, abstractly, that governments do things that are stupid. That no solution to a problem is ever going to be optimal. But the way the people at the power company and in the government offices treated people who were asking questions, trying to get information - very frustrating.

I will admit my own tiny example of dealing with obfuscatory legislation and government/industry that lacks the will to do the "right" things - I've been on a committee that has been charged with trying to beautify the town where I live. I have nearly quit, twice (and have since decided that I will do "grassroots" stuff like going out and pickup up litter, but never again will I try to actually CHANGE things) because on both occasions we tried to draft up some very simple, and not very restrictive suggestions (like: if you are a business with a parking lot, you should have a trash can available in that lot to try to cut down litter. Or like: you cannot blacktop your ENTIRE property, you need a little green space), lawyers "were sent" to tell us that we were going to "hurt business" with what we were suggesting, and that we needed to take it off the table.

(And the litter continues to build up. It's really bad this spring).

So anyway. I can sympathize on a very banal level with Sharon Mattola and her compatriots. And I don't think I could do what they did, even in a big serious situation - it's too maddening and too heartbreaking when you lose. Which you nearly always do.

So while I continue to do the volunteer efforts - picking up trash, talking to schoolkids, doing the little band-aid sort of things - I find I just don't have the constitution to "fight the power" that some people do. Which may be why I found this book fairly agonizing to read.

I finished two books (both of them Directed Readings books - students chose them) over break.

The first is Roy Porter's huge "To the Benefit of Mankind." It is a history of medicine, literally starting with ancient Egypt and going (almost) to present-day. (I think Porter wrote it around 1998, and on the back cover he's identified as "the late Roy Porter" so the book is a few years old).

It's interesting. And once again, makes me grateful I live in an era of:

1. tetanus vaccine. You really, really do not want to contract tetanus.

2. polio vaccine. Ditto. Though I already kind of knew this, because some of my older female relatives had young children during the "polio summers" of the 40s and 50s and they talked about how fearful they were.

3. antibiotics. I actually might not be here today if it were not for antibiotics - I've had scarletina, I've had several bouts of strep, I've had multiple ear infections - any of which, had it been the 1800s, could have carried me off in childhood, but because we live in the times we do, I could go back to school in a couple days after taking the mold-derivatives known as antibiotics.

4. "Listerian" antiseptic measures. Seriously. Doctors didn't want to wash their hands in the past, because of a mixture of arrogance and the sense that it "made patients uncomfortable." And interestingly, one of the big pieces of evidence suggesting that microbes could be transferred on hands was the difference in maternal survival rates for mothers delivered by midwives vs. by "regular" doctors - survival was a lot higher for midwives because they weren't interacting with really sick patients (and also, I suspect, some midwives figured out the "clean hands, low infection" link on their own). Eventually the doctors came round to the suggestions that they clean their hands (and change their smocks) between patients.

5. Anesthesia. There's a harrowing passage written by the novelist Fanny Burney about having surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from her breast in the days before anesthesia. Also, a lot of surgeries that are life-saving now, were not possible before the days of anesthetic.

6. All the analgesics. Even aspirin was not widely used before the 1890s. I can't imagine dealing with migraines without something to dull the pain.

Another thing that Porter mentions, that strikes me as interesting, is the changing attitudes towards disease - in the very early times, it was seen as a punishment from God - either you or your parents had sinned. But as knowledge of disease became greater, as people began to realize the reality of contagion, ideas shifted, and in a way, illness became more "egalitarian" - a duchess was as likely as a pauper to be carried off by an infection; viral diseases struck fairly broad swaths of the population.

However, as we've conquered many infectious diseases, there does seem to be a swing back of the pendulum - the idea of "lifestyle medicine" and, even worse, the concept of the "cancer personality." The idea that maybe chronic diseases develop because of something the patient has done - or not done.

I'm not necessarily saying you should drink and smoke and all that - but I'm saying it seems terribly unfair to me to blame someone who gets cancer for having the "wrong attitude." Which I've actually seen some people do. And not only is it unfair, it's distinctly unhelpful. (And besides, of all the people I've seen who've contracted cancer, and just as much, all those I've seen beat it vs. not beat it - there is NO common personality trait I can see. So to "blame the victim" for their cancer is wrong and misguided and even kind of evil, in my mind).

But I do worry that "lifestyle medicine" will be the wave of the future- Porter writes of "bully[ing] people into health" and I think that's a thing that could happen - already we see it with the scare-stories about obesity or mothering behavior or diet or sleep patterns or WHATEVER. It's almost as if society is building up to be able to blame people for whatever goes wrong with their bodies - they ate too much, they ate the wrong things, they didn't sleep "right" - and so it's their "fault" they now have Type II Diabetes or cancer or congestive heart failure. And I suppose, in a dystopian future, it would be easier to write such people off, not provide them with care, because after all, "it's their fault."

Feh. I really don't want to live in a world where either every trip to the doctor for anything is accompanied with long lectures on food, sleep, exercise, and leisure habits, or, worse, to have some kind of a "card" where the foods I am "permitted" to buy for my body type and metabolism are recorded, and forget buying anything not on the "permitted" list.

But then again, I'm not sure I want the pendulum to swing back into a horror of unchecked infectious disease.

It's just, it seems that for many of us, we live in a time of unprecedented health - but instead of society being grateful for it, they look for new things to scare us about.

I'll talk about the other book - The Last Flight of the Red Macaw - later.

233 yards:



(Because I'm afraid I won't have time to knit up the last few, to show just how far one ball of Araucania goes. So I used the old "tailor's estimation" to measure off what remained - the distance from the fingertips of your outstretched arm to your nose (with your head turned slightly to the side) is about a yard. I use it to estimate amounts of quilt fabric when I can't remember if a piece is 2 1/2 or 3 yards in size.)

Here's a close up showing the neat little garter stitch detail:



I actually might have got the full 240 (well, + 240, if you want to strictly go by what the ball band says) yards if I hadn't messed up and knitted one of the rows I was supposed to purl.

But one thing I have learned about knitting, which is probably generally applicable to life, is that most problems have more than one fix - there is the long, involved, and immediately-obvious fix (ripping out the whole row back to the mistake and then fixing it), or, if you keep a cool head, a less-involved and more localized fix (knitting up to the mistake, then undoing each stitch in turn and remaking it as a purl stitch). So that's what I did.

I don't KNOW for sure that making an effort to fix mistakes in knitting by not ripping back whole rows (which I really hate and prefer to avoid if at all possible) has trained me to be more patient, to step back from a problem before charging in and doing the obvious thing, but I think maybe it has...I tend to be the person people in my department come to with computer/projector issues (well, before they call the computer guys) because perhaps 8 times out of 10, I can at least figure out a temporary fix. And it's really only because I stand back and listen to the symptoms and think before I push buttons - I really know very little about computers. But some of my colleagues are more impulsive than I, and they can thoroughly muck up a computer by trying five different things at once, while excoriating the machine for being a recalcitrant beast. (And of course, computers are thoroughly inanimate* and cursing does no good)

(*Well, not one of them has won the Turing test yet, that I've heard of).

So anyway. I'm just a bit nervous that maybe I should have been doing the alternate-balls-of-yarn thing because of the fact that a couple of the other balls of yarn are a lot darker (Araucania does not have dye lots). I think I'll try the alternate-every-couple-rows thing from here on out and hope it's not too noticeable.

****

I finished "The Artificial River" today. It's an interesting book but my impressions of it are somewhat diluted by the fact that I read it over the span of nearly a month, but in chunks separated by a long period of time.

One of the interesting things about the book is how it kind of chronicles the rise of the merchant-class along with the development of the canal. And how a lot of early businesspeople tried to argue that things that were good for their business were actually also good for the public weal, and that they weren't just trying to get ahead, but that they were also trying to benefit society.

Also, there was a lot of the same kind of jimmying and jockeying about tariffs (and the relief from same) that we saw last week in the "don't call it 'bailout,' call it 'rescue'" bill. La plus ça change...

Also, business owners were by and large a lot more paternalistic back then. Not sure if that's entirely a bad thing...it seems in some cases we've swung too far to the other extreme, where the business owners see people merely as cogs to be plugged into a machine, rather than as individuals.

(However, the canalboat owners, by and large, seemed to treat their drivers pretty badly - there were comparisons made between that laborer class in the North and slaves in the South, with the conclusion that with the exception of pay, and (technical) freedom of the Northern laborers, their lots were not all that different. And as a result - there are links between the Bethel Church movement - groups that were missionaries to the canal workers - and the abolitionist movement).

The book is well-written and it does talk about a chapter of American history I knew little about...we learned about the Canal Era but mainly in the aspect of it being doomed to fail because of the rise of the railroads, which were faster, didn't have to shut down in the winter, and were in some cases cheaper.

***

Well, I'm not sure how youth group is going to go tonight. I just got a call from my co-leader. One of her grandkids took a bad header on his scooter (like, had to go to the ER bad) and she's not even sure she'll be able to be there tonight (and she's transportation for most of the kids).

I don't know. I've not been having very many people. Part of this is that a couple of our "core group" moved away, a couple kids in the group are mixed up in a messy divorce where apparently neither parent feels "comfortable" taking their kids back to church (or maybe that's a euphemism for something else).

I remind myself that my behavior is the only person's behavior I have control over, but there's just a lot of sad crap going on in the lives of people around me - I know of two people going through rather ugly divorces (in one case, a "surprise! I don't want to be married any more!" divorce). And it does wear on a person.

I don't know; it seems like an awful lot of people around me seem to be being followed around by little black storm clouds.

Whoops, false alarm TChem, it wasn't your package.

It was, um, more sockyarn.

Yeah. I have been trying not to buy any more, but I heard about the Blue Faced Leicester sockyarn that Simply Sock Yarn had, and so I had to get a skein.

It's for science. (As - and apparently I am the only one who actually remembers this - Clyde Crashcup was known to say).

Because if I can't RAISE heirloom breeds, at least I can knit with them.

Anyway, that's not the main theme of the post. I'm going to do a quick run-down of recently completed books, to continue my Books Completed theme, so I can count them up at the end of the year and feel a little better about my "misspent time." (And all the hours of "House" and "Dirty Jobs" I watched).

First off is a fairly simple mystery story. I read this one on the way up to Winona, on the train. It's called "Death at Gallows Green" and is by "Robin Paige" (a pseudonym for the prolific Susan Wittig Albert and her husband, Bill).

This is from a series of historical mystery novels. I'm guessing that either she or her husband is a specialist in history because their novels (she also writes the Beatrix Potter series of mysteries) has lots of historical detail. It doesn't quite give the gripping, you-are-there feel of Bruce Alexander's "Sir John Fielding" series, but they are still pretty good books.

This was actually the second novel in the series. Kate Ardleigh (a young American woman who inherited her maiden aunts' British property, and, presumably, enough money to live on) is the main character. A secondary character is Sir Charles Sheridan. (Not to give too much away, but Kate and Charles apparently marry in a later book). Beatrix Potter also makes an appearance in this novel, as a woman visiting one of the sprawling country houses. Kate sort of befriends her.

The story itself is pretty good. A murder, a smuggling plot, and a missing child are involved, without giving too much away.

I have to admit I'm still not sure how I feel about fictional novels - especially mystery stories - that have "real" people written into them. If I had had a rather famous relative, say, my Great-Uncle Fritz, the opera singer, had been as famous as Caruso and someone decided to write him into a mystery...I think I might be just a trifle ANNOYED, at least if I had known Great-Uncle Fritz, and if the portrayal of him didn't seem accurate.

(And yes, I did actually have a Great-Uncle Fritz who was a German opera singer. I don't know much else about him other than that. He's one of the rather large cadre of relatives on my dad's side who never married or had children. [and you know, I kind of take some odd comfort in looking back over the family tree and seeing all these maiden aunts and bachelor uncles...I like knowing I'm not the only one in family history not to be paired off like a Noah's Ark animal])
****

I also finished "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." Fun, fairly light (even though I got MASSIVELY ticked off at that fraud, Lockhart. Grr. He got what he deserved.)

It's funny, I was so not into the series when it first came out - I read the first book and was all "meh, it's a series for children" and didn't want to read the rest. But then I saw the (excellent) movies and decided I wanted to read the novels as well.

There are some departures in this book from the movie - some because it would have made it too long, some that were probably too hard to film as written. So it's interesting to read the book.

Potter-world, I have to admit, is a world I kind of would like to inhabit. The idea of having magic to do the role of a lot of things we have technology for. (After all, what is the "Marauder's Map" but a form of Wizard GPS?). And things seem more stylish, somehow - it's almost a little bit like steampunk in that regard - some thought is put into the design of everyday objects, rather than stamping out some anonymous piece of plastic or metal that is exactly like all other six million made that day.

And I also think another reason I like Hogwarts? The faculty, even though some of them may not be much liked, are by and large respected. Some even inspire a certain fear. I have to admit it - some days I find my students a bit too "familiar," and I'd love to fix them with a McGonigal-like stare and get them to quiet down and put a bit of professional distance between themselves and me.

I just in general like "school stories." And apparently a lot of other do too, given the books' popularity.
****

I also finished that book on chestnuts - "The American Chestnut: the life, death, and rebirth of a perfect tree" by Susan Freinkel.

I didn't think quite as highly of the book as some of the reviewers did. At times I felt a bit like it skimmed the surface, and focused more on the personality conflicts between researchers (or the weirdness of the solo folks) than it did on the actual work they were doing. Still, it surprised me in places - I had always assumed the American chestnut was all-but-extinct and that people had largely given up on it (barring some kind of fantastic development in biotech). But there are quixotic scientists scattered across the country, who are looking for ways to save the trees. Some are interested in hybridizing the remaining stock with Chinese trees (which are closely related, but a species that is resistant to the blight). Others want to try to study the few remaining survivors - some of which have resisted the fungus. Still others look to biotech for a solution - either engineering in genes that will allow resistance, or cloning the few resistant individuals out there. And finally, there are those who are looking to "fight fire with fire" - there is a virus that seems to largely deactivate the fungus.

But in all cases, there is no one perfect solution. The virus only works on some fungal strains. Some of the hybrids don't do so well. Biotech is controversial and it can be very tricky to get it to work.

And there's controversy. A lot of the die-hard chestnut fans resist either hybrids or genetically-altered trees being sold as "American chestnuts" (I can see their position though I'm not sure I agree).

It does make me sad, though - to think of this tree, which was apparently such a big part of the Appalachian and Ozark forests 90 years ago, now almost totally gone - almost forgotten. I've never seen a chestnut tree in the wild. I've never eaten a "real" American chestnut (Supposedly they have a different flavor from the Italian or Asian chestnuts that are the ones you buy in the store).

And there is an interesting question, which Freinkel never really explicitly raises - how do you get people to care about something that was mostly lost long before they are born?

I don't know. And yet there are an awful lot of people who care about the chestnut. Granted, some of them had grandparents who remembered the trees. Or some came from Europe where the European trees persisted (again, a different but related species - however, some of the Italian populations are susceptible to the blight).

Freinkel DOES raise the question of "Is a restoration project ever as good as the orignal?" And she quotes some people who adamantly say NO, that restored landscape will never be as good as undisturbed native landscape, and who take a very discouraging tone.

And you know? As a person who has DONE restoration ecology, who is interested in restoration, that struck me. I mean, I think they have it a little wrong - they act as if the restorationists are claiming, "Oh, it's OK to destroy stuff - we can always make it new" or "restored habitat is just as good as the original."

I don't think (most) restoration ecologists ever even contemplate that. For most of us, I think I see it this way: think of the bombing of Dresden in WWII. I don't know enough about the situation to argue whether or not it had to happen, or whether it could have been prevented - but that is beside the point; it happened. Hundreds of historic buildings were destroyed - turned to rubble in two days. Many civilians died.

And the response afterwards could have been one of a number of things:

First, everyone left could have just thrown up their hands and said, "Look at the terrible things humans have done" and walked away and left the piles of rubble for the next several hundred years.

Or, they could have said, "We must plow this under and pretend it never happened. Put up new modern office blocks and apartments on the place. Pretend that Dresden never was."

Or, what they mostly did - look at the wreckage, shake their heads, and go "This is terrible. But we should try to put back at least some of what was lost." I don't think anyone believes that the opera house or the churches (or the synagogue that was rebuilt - which was not destroyed in the bombing itself but was earlier destroyed on "Kristallnacht" by the N*zis) is exactly the same as what it was before. But the effort was made to restore and reconcile.

And I tend to think that is what we should do in the natural world. Mourn what is lost, but not spend excessive time or energy on beating ourselves up for what our ancestors did (right or wrong). Instead, to channel that energy to trying to make things work again, trying to make things beautiful again. But I don't think we can ever claim that a restored forest or wetland is equivalent to one that remains in its native state.

And so, I think the handwringers who seem to suggest we should NEVER do restoration because it's at best a counterfeit of the "real" world can lead to more problems than they solve...should we leave the "jumbos" from strip mines, with their acid runoff and erosion, because they are better monuments to human greed and misunderstanding of the natural world that way? Or should we try to level them and deal with the acidity of the soil and plant trees and turn an eyesore into something that's not quite so bad.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm not really down with the concept of flagellating ourselves for the sins/ignorance of the past; that it's better to move on and do what we can to improve things that are messed up.

****


The last book I want to mention was The Spy who Came In from the Cold.
It's an interesting book - rather different from what I typically read. (Despite my once having claimed to "like spy stories," I think I based that assessment solely on a single John Buchan novel I read one rainy fall afternoon).

One thing that's a bit unsettling about the book is, up until the end, you don't know for sure who is going to break bad on whom. You don't know exactly what the alliances is, who is a double agent, that kind of thing.

And you know, I kind of liked that about the book. It made it seem realer, even though on several occasions I had to put the book down and read something lighter. (I found the "trial" that happened in East Germany particularly difficult to read. Especially when they were making Liz testify.)

BIG BIG SPOILER ALERT....be forewarned. Don't scroll down and read unless you've read the book or don't care about stuff being given away.


















Liz and Leamas die in the end. Trying to get into West Germany. It's not clear whether Mundt (who appeared to be trying to help them) sold them out, or if he just tried and failed.

I will openly admit I wanted a happy ending to the book. Even though I suppose there were very few happy endings to that sort of a thing during the Cold War.

I read several books over my break (well, this one I'm going to talk about here was a FINISHING rather than a complete read). I find that train travel - even in a more spacious compartment where you don't have a person next to you that you worry about poking with a needle, or a small child in the car with sticky hands who has to "see" what you are making - is more conducive to reading than knitting for me.

So I read. It's actually one of the few times when I have "enforced downtime" where I CAN'T be thinking about data analysis or tweaking the information for teaching or stuff like that (I don't travel with my laptop. I refuse to travel with my laptop. It's kind of like my refusal to keep my cell phone turned on at certain times; it's my forcibly saying to myself and the world at large that I need to disconnect. Besides, I hate lugging the laptop, comparatively small though it may be, with me. That room in my bag is better devoted to books, IMHO.)

So the first book I finished was "The American Senator" by Trollope. I've been reading on this off and on since 2005 I think - I'd stall out and then have to go back and re-read large chunks because I lost the thread of the story.

There will be some spoilers here, but I believe this book is obscure enough - and it's not like it's a mystery or suspense novel that you read solely for the outcome - that I don't think the spoilers will offend too many.

(But if you do plan to read it someday and don't want details of the last third or so of the book revealed, feel free to skip).

This is one of those hugacious Victorian-era novels, with about seven different plot threads and well over 30 characters. Like a lot of Trollope's books, the main themes seem to be the interaction between the different classes, behaving properly (or badly, in the case of a couple characters) in society, and, for women in particular, making a "good" marriage.

One thing I will say that makes me a bit sad about the whole Victorian period is that it seems a "good" marriage is not how we would define it (that is: a happy marriage where the two people are more or less equal partners who share their lives, their joys, and their sorrows; and by sharing them multiply the joys and divide the sorrows). Rather, a "good" marriage is one that is socially or financially advantageous.

Now, in a few cases (I will mention one later), there is the good fortune that it is a "love match," but particularly among the gentry, it seems the expectations were these:

Women: marry "well" - marry for wealth and "good" surname. Once married, produce children, or at least a male heir.

Men: Select a woman who is attractive but not dull, choose someone who will not do outrageous things and dishonor the family. If she has a fortune of her own you can combine with yours, all the better.

It is apparently OK for men to marry a bit below themselves but not for women.

At any rate - it seems a rather narrow and claustrophobic world.

(As I've said before - if I somehow got myself teleported to that world - well, at this point I'd be far too old to have "seasons" or to be considered marriageable - but were I teleported to that world AND restored to an age of 20 or so, I'd probably wind up throwing my lot in with the Bohemians or becoming a Beatrix Potter-esque figure, trying to wrest some independence in the world.)

Trollope himself doesn't seem too contented with the way things are. He describes Arabella Trefoil's life:

"...then she remembered her age*, her many seasons, the hard work of her toilet, those tedious, long and bitter quarrels with her mother, the ever-renewed trouble of her smiles, the hopelessness of her future should she smile in vain to the last, and the countless miseries of her endless visitings..."

(*It seems that she is about 26 or so when this passage took place.)

True, Arabella Trefoil is one of the more detestable characters in Trollope's novels (at least those I have read): she is a little minx; she drops one suitor for a long-shot at one with more money. She is unpleasant to her mother, manipulates her aunt, uncle, and cousin. And most of all - she lies outright about an offer of marriage that was allegedly made when no one was present to witness it, with the hopes of entrapping the wealthy man into marrying her to protect his reputation (fortunately he escapes).

In the end, the wealthy Lord manages to get out of the trap. However, Arabella (as Trollope says) no longer has any strings to her bow - the rejected suitor, the kindly and decent John Morton has died (apparently of some hereditary weakness).

So Arabella is left- after all those years of smiling and doing up her hair and doubtless spending time around people she hates. And because of her peculiar family situation (her parents are effectively separated - they hate each other, it seems - but of course divorce is far too scandalous), she and her mother are a sort of Flying Dutchman, traveling from friends' house to relatives' house, staying three weeks here, a month there, never having anywhere to truly feel at home.

(You know, she really is more to be pitied than censured, to quote an old, old song)

In the end, Arabella does survive. She manages to charm the young Mounser Green (the new Paragon of the Foreign Service, following John Morton's death). He actually proposes to her (I found myself doing a bit of the old horror-movie, "No! No! Don't open that door!" when he did). And she will apparently be bound for Patagonia as that is to be Green's station.

(Mounser Green is one of those fascinating minor characters. I doubt he shows up elsewhere in Trollope - The American Senator is one of those one-off novels, not part of the Palliser series or the ecclesiastical series set in Barsetshire)

There is another "despicable" character in the book - the titular character, the American Senator, Elias Gotobed (from the "western state of Mikewa"). Gotobed has no qualms about taking the hospitality of the gentry, but then proceeds to run down their lives, their pastimes, how their Church is run...in other words, he is that person you really don't want to be next to at the dinner table, because he has a great number of opinions and makes free with them, sometimes in rather boorish terms.

He does mellow a bit by the end of the book - in his "great lecture" (which he has been taking notes for, and commenting on, and making clear that "this incident will be duly remarked" all along - almost a bit like the t-shirt I saw, "Careful...you might end up in my novel") he does express some affection for Britain, and some support of its people - the gentry, even.

But it's hard to like him - he is such a prickly figure, and violates so many of what I consider the rules of being a good guest, that it is hard to feel he has redeemed himself much with his lecture.

And the last thread that needed to be tied up? Young Mary Masters, and her fate.

This was the girl - the only child of the attorney Masters and his first wife - who was being pressured to marry Larry Twentyman - a good man, but a man she did not love "in that way." She did, however, love Reginald Morton (the cousin of the unfortunate John Morton).

Reginald, though, has no thought towards marriage - he is nearly 40 and a long-time bachelor, and because of an old family quarrel (or rather because of a particular disagreeable old woman), he is not particularly welcome in the family home.

And yet, he loves Mary. He doesn't want to admit it to himself - just as she cannot admit to others that she loves him because she thinks it is futile, that she is too far below him, and that he will take some "grand lady" for his wife.

But then John Morton dies. And things change: Reginald is now the owner of all the land and property John Morton owned (as he is the closest living heir, and John really did not despise his cousin, despite the meddling grandmother). And now it is incumbent upon Reginald to take a wife, rather than to live solo among his books and thoughts. (That old "passing on the family name" bit - I suppose prior to John Morton's final illness it was assumed he would produce the heir).

And then one day Reginald and Mary are walking together. And it somehow comes out - that each loves the other, even though the other did not know! And "of course" they must be married. And the assumption is that they will be happy...seeing as it is an actual "love match" and not some calculated, coldly-planned, fusion of properties as so many marriages seemed to be.

The book was - especially in the middle third - not as sunny and entertaining as most Trollope novels. The Introduction (written by John Halperin) points out that this was a later work of Trollope's, when he had become somewhat dissatisfied and disenchanted. (Though I do think Halperin overstates Trollope's sympathy for the Senator and his supposed hatred of the gentry class; the Senator is too difficult to like for me to see that, and there are cases where the gentry come off as better than some of the working-class characters or the Senator himself). Still, it was interesting to read, both as a good story and as a way of contrasting Victorian mores with those of today. (And once again: thank goodness I do not live in those times. Thank goodness I live in a society where deciding not to marry is a viable option, even for an upper-middle-class woman. And thank goodness there is no such thing as "seasons" any more; I cannot imagine devoting so much of one's life from the age of 18 until whatever time when one is "safely" married to hair and clothing and smiling at the right places and dancing well and being able to make the sort of insipid conversation that was part of that whole thing.)

Incidentally, if you want to read the book (and you enjoy reading things off a computer screen) there is a free online version of it.

I've been doing a fair amount of what I consider "comfort" reading these past couple weeks. Part of it is that things have happened that get me down, and so reading "grown up" books almost feels like more of an effort than I can manage. And part of it is just the normal summer doldrums I feel. I don't like July or August much at all. It's too hot. It's too humid. It doesn't rain. Every day feels like a carbon copy of the next.

So, I retreated into what are generally thought of as "children's" books for a little while. And I read three different authors - two old, old favorites from childhood, the third a newer one (but surely one I would have liked as a child).

If I were writing this as a serious essay (and actually having to worry about things like organization), I'd probably title it, "Jack, Tove, and Joanne."

Jack is C.S. Lewis. (Given name was Clive Staples, but to all his friends he was Jack. My understanding is that he didn't like the name Clive much.)

Tove is Tove Jansson. (The author of the Moomin books, for those unfamiliar)

Joanne is J.K. Rowling. (Who, if you live under a rock, wrote an enormously popular seven-book series featuring a school for wizards.)

There are similarities and yet differences between the three books. The biggest similarity - I suppose - is that they are all set in a world not like our own. One thing I notice in kid's books are the differences in technology - a lot of the very famous stories, even those written and set in modern or semi-modern times, is a lack of high-technology anything.

And you know? I kind of like that. Think of the world of the Hobbits (to bring in another famous writer). While it is very low tech, it is comfortable. (I would suspect the hobbits worked out some kind of system of privies; I cannot imagine such a comfort loving creature using a hole at the bottom of the garden or even an outhouse). People get from place to place by walking, riding a horse, or perhaps using a wagon (or a boat, if there's a waterway).

Narnia is another pre-technological type of society; in many ways it's like Middle-Earth (though perhaps a bit more grand - at least as far as castles and cities and such are concerned - than the Shire). Again, people travel using ship or wagon or horse or foot. (Or Aslan's breath, as in the book I read most recently, but that's magic, and magic doesn't count as technology).

And in the world of the Moomins, even horses seem to be out (I suppose because horses are proud creatures and would not deign to carry a round little moomin on their backs). So they use ships or walking as the main mode of transportation.

Likewise, in the wizarding world created by Rowling, technology is different. In fact, many of the things we "muggles" have invented technological solutions for, wizards seem to use magic for instead. (The thought of that delights me). Yes, the Weasleys have a car - and old, turquoise-blue Ford Anglia - but that's only because Arthur Weasley is so interested in "muggle" technology. (And besides, he has enchanted the car - it is apparently, Tardis-like, much larger on the inside than it appears, and it can fly and go invisible). But it seems that the preferred modes of travel are train, or some kind of enchanted ship. Or a carriage drawn by flying horses. Or broom, I suppose, though it seems brooms are mostly used in Quidditch.

(Perhaps brooms take some of the place of horses in their world, seeing that Quidditch is a bit like polo in spots?)

Food preparation is different as well. It seems that big old "cookers" or open fires are the order of the day (depending on whether you're nominally in our world or in Narnia). And while not a great amount of attention is paid to the obtaining of food, at least the Moomins are shown picking apples and berries and drying food for leaner times. (I suppose in Rowling's world there are wizard groceries.)

Actually, food is fairly lovingly described in all the books - the feasts at Hogwarts ("Icy cold pumpkin juice"), the food provided in Narnia, whether it is feast or even food eaten along a journey, the meals Moominmamma prepares.

In a way, all three worlds could sort of intertwine...sort of bump up against each other and it wouldn't be too discordant, at least in terms of technology and food and other aspects.

One of the main differences that I seem to see is in rules and structure. In Narnia, there are very set rules. It is basically a chivalrous society...there are certain rules of combat, certain rules of how women must be treated. Breaking those rules brings shame upon the rule-breaker, and perhaps other punishment as well.

I know the Narnia books have their detractors - Philip Pullman being a famous one - but the books were a MAJOR part of my childhood. I love them. I understand that kind of rule-bound world. (And I admit, being a rule-follower myself, I find it somewhat comforting to read about a place where rules of courtesy or fairness are not broken...not so much because of retaliation but because breaking those rules is something you simply do not do). And I will observe...I suppose having a Christian faith and worldview does make the books more enjoyable and appealing, perhaps if you reject that world view you would not like them.

The Narnia book I read most recently is The Silver Chair. It was my favorite of the Narnia books as a child, mainly because I loved Puddleglum so much. I hadn't read it for years - probably not since I was 15 or so - and I pulled it off the shelf last week and re-read it.

It's interesting - when I was a kid, it seems I read these mainly for the story and "blipped" over a lot of the symbolism. Coming back to the book as an adult, I am struck by how much is in there - from the very beginning (Aslan telling a fearful Jill that the stream is "the only stream" and that the only way to get the water she so needs is to come to it - coming near to him in the process).

And again, near the end...and this is why as an adult I still love Puddleglum. The three (Puddleglum, Eustace Scrubb, and Jill Pole - a marshwiggle and two English children) have gone deep under the Earth to search for the missing Prince of Narnia. They find him, under a deep enchantment to a woman who turns out to be a witch.

She - and this is the scariest part of the book, and I remember finding it scary as a child - takes some kind of powder she throws on the fire (it gives of a sickly-sweet smell and seems to enchant them) and starts strumming a lute repetitively, and tries to convince them that the sun, and the "Overland" (Narnia), and Aslan are just stories that they have made up in the course of their play.

And Jill and Eustace have almost gone under, and Puddleglum is getting there.

But then, Puddleglum goes over the the fire and stamps it out with his bare foot (if you have not read the book - marshwiggles are strange creatures, like tall thin humans but with webbed, "cold blooded" feet and hands - in the drawings, they look rather like frog's feet). The pain clears his head and he says to the witch:

"One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we only have dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world all hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. That's why I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia...."

(Oh, and if you are totally unfamiliar with the books, I suppose it would help to know that Aslan is the Christ-figure in this world...he appears to the dwellers of Narnia in the form of a great lion.)

At any rate, I love that quote. It kind of sums up why Puddleglum is such a great character - despite being a wet blanket, despite being almost comically pessimistic, he is loyal and true and deep down knows what he stands for and is not afraid of risking his life to stand for it.

So Narnia has certain rules...but in a way they are more than rules, they are a structure that seems to be born into all true Narnians...there are certain things you do, and certain things you do not do, and that is just how it is.

On the other hand, Tove Jansson's "Finn Family Moomintroll" exists in a world where the rules are relatively few. And they are more flexible.

(I suppose this may reflect differences between Lewis and Jansson - Lewis was an Oxford don, had had military training, spent years in the British educational system, and Jansson was an artist, and the child of artists)

The land of the Moomins is far more Bohemian. People do things because they feel like it, they come and go at will, they drop what they are doing if they become tired of it.

The Moomin stories are, in some ways, more episodic - as if you could dip into the book at the start of any chapter and pick up the thread of what is happening.

The Moomin's adventures are mostly pleasant and sunny, and even some unpleasantness (such as being trapped on the island by a storm and being surrounded by the eerie Hattifatteners) is quickly forgotten (and Momminmamma usually has some sandwiches or something in her handbag to make conditions a bit better).

The creatures in Moominland - well, it's kind of hard to identify them to species sometimes. The Moomins - Moominpappa, Moominmamma, and Moomintroll, their son - are all the same species (in appearance, and the fact that they form a family). But the Snorks - we see the Snork Maiden, who is in love with Moomintroll, and her brother, the Snork, in this book - seem to be of the same species (they look the same as the Moomins; the Snork Maiden is only identifiable in pictures because she has a "fringe" of hair (bangs) and she usually wears a gold ankle bracelet.

Then there are the Hemulens, which are perhaps the most "adult" creatures - in that they can be bossy worriers and tend to be interested in such things as stamp collecting.

And there is Sniff, who looks a bit like a Chihuahua. And Snufkin, the wanderer, who is somewhat humanoid.

I suppose Jansson didn't set out to do a "Taxonomy of Moominland" and perhaps it's too much to concern oneself with "What species does that creature belong to" Because in some cases, there are even what appear to be cross-species marriages and odd hybridizations.

At any rate - the story is a story of one summer among the Moomins. One of the biggest happenings is the finding of the Hobgoblin's Hat, which will turn anything placed into it into something else (Moomintroll hides in it and is changed into completely another creature, to his dismay. Fortunately, the spell wears off).

The Hobgoblin is described as a creature (in the drawings he looks like an old-time magician, with his hat and cape, and he wears a long beard). He is originally presented as a somewhat frightening and uncanny creature who searches the universe for gemstones, riding on his magical black panther. He is searching for the "King's Ruby," which, unbeknownst to the Moomins, two strange little creatures (Thingummy and Bob) have in their possession.

Near the end of the book, that is revealed - and the Hobgoblin himself shows up.

And it turns out - and I think this is kind of nice for a children's book - that rather than being a horrible scary monster, he is a person who likes pancakes (the narrator notes something along the lines that someone who likes pancakes can not be so very scary). And he grants wishes. And he is merely sad that he cannot have the King's Ruby. (But even that problem is solved).

The book ends on a saddish note, or it seems a bit sad. Snufkin, who is probably Moomintroll's best friend, sets off for his annual period of wandering, leaving Moomintroll alone:

Moomintroll was left alone on the bridge. He watched Snufkin grow smaller and smaller, and at last disappear among the silver poplars and the plum trees. But after a while he heard the mouth-organ playing "All small beasts should have bows in their tails" and then he knew that his friend was happy. He waited while the music grew fainter and fainter, till at last it was quite quiet, and then he trotted back through the dewy garden.

Pardon me...I seem to have got a bit of dust in my eyes.

I don't know why but that passage makes me so much sadder as an adult than I remember it making me as a child when I read it. I suppose it's because I've experienced more loss. (And yes, Snufkin does come back the next spring).

The last of the books - which I'm not quite done with yet - is "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." While I think Rowling's prose is simpler, and perhaps not as beautifully written as either the Lewis or the Jansson, I do think the books are good, and I do think they will likely stand the test of time.

Because they are, just plain and simple, entertaining stories. The whole idea of the wizard world - nearly invisible beside our own - is a fascinating idea, even to an adult. (One of my favorite things about the books - and about the movies they are based on as well - are all of the little differences...the different types of candy, and how photographs are different, and the fact that a book of monsters can itself BE a monster...)

I also think the books appeal to kids BECAUSE Harry is mistreated by the Dursleys. How many of us, as children, imagined that our parents were actually imposters, that we were actually princesses or princes or some wonderful thing that was forced to live with this....family....for some kind of strange reason. And how many of us, after being sent to our rooms for some minor infraction, muttered through their tears, "They'll be sorry...." and imagine how our REAL parents would come and sweep us away. (And I think that's a pretty universal feeling; even I, with as happy a childhood as I had, sometimes imagined what it would be like to be in a different, "better" family. Usually only when I HAD been sent to my room for some reason, but still).

And another thing: Rowling has received (deservedly) a lot of credit for bringing "reluctant readers" to reading. (I've seen it among children of friends). She wrote good stories that got kids involved - and the way the stories were marketed, I have to admit (the midnight sales and all) helped, I think, to build up their mystique...almost like Dickens' serializations 100+ years ago. (There is a story of passengers returning from Britain, where the next installment of "The Old Curiosity Shop" was already out, being met on the docks in America with the question, "Does Little Nell live?" It's kind of nice to see people in this day and age get that kind of excitement about a book).

Another thing I like about the books are the names. Rowling is almost as good as Dickens about giving things and people evocative names....Gringott's Bank, Draco Malfoy, Albus Dumbledore....it helps enhance the "otherness" of the wizard-world. Hogwarts would not be nearly so interesting if its headmaster were named something like Tom Connolly or Henry Johnson.

So, even though I do, a lot of the time, read Big Complex Grown-Up books, I have to admit I still enjoy books that are generally branded as "Children's" books. (Though there is a quotation from C.S. Lewis, that I never can find, and never can remember exactly, but that says something about books being worth reading at 10 are still worth reading at 50, and maybe even more so.)