Innside Nantucket, by Frank Gilbreth

My neighbor helpfully informed me the other day that Frank Gilbreth (the co-author of Cheaper by the Dozen) wrote several other books as well. I trekked to our local library, and discovered one of the best books I have read in a long time. This hilarious and down-to-earth book tells the story of a young couple (and a baby) who decide to risk all and fulfill their dream of running an inn on Nantucket Island. The book is told from the story of the wife, who recounts honestly the shock of marrying into the Gilbreth Family (can you imagine being married to the youngest of 12 kids, all of whom believe that advice should be given always regardless of circumstance?), spending a honeymoon on Nantucket (her idea of a vacation was a comfy B&B on the mainland), and the trials of the sometimes downright odd guests who came to stay during the first season of the Anchor Inn. My favorite was the story of the older lady who wanted her morning egg boiled for exactly 3 minutes, and who banged on the floor whenever the baby whimpered. The Gilbreth's solution was to borrow a large, smelly, utterly disreputable dog (owned by Gilbreth in-laws, of course:). Read this book and laugh hysterically, as I did.

Bridehead Revisited

Warning: In the interests of literary discussion, I plan to give away the plot and ending to this novel.

Delving for the first time into the work of Evelyn Waugh, I found Brideshead Revisited (1945) to be witty, subtle, and surprisingly Christian. Waugh paints a just and sometimes brutal picture of the sweeping changes that two world wars brought to the cultured and aristocratic families of England. His main character, Captian Charles Ryder, tells the story of his coming to Oxford College, his meeting with Sebastian Flyte, with whom he formed a close friendship, and his subsequent introduction to the Flyte family and their ancestral residence, Brideshead. Ryder eventually falls in love for the first time, and has an affair with Sebastian's married sister, Julia. Their love is doomed, however, and Julia ends the matter when she realizes that she can no longer live in sin with Ryder. The story ends as Ryder returns to Brideshead as a Captain during WWII, billetted at the home with his company of soldiers.
I found the influence of Catholicism in this novel intriguing. I suspect it to be somewhat autobiographical of Waugh's own life. Near the beginning of the novel, Waugh states the belief that God may let a sinner roam to the ends of the earth, but will call him back with 'a twitch upon the thread' (a quote from the inimitable G. K. Chesterton. Furthermore, I find that Waugh intended the book to be about the'operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters.' The entire Flyte family is Catholic in name, but the novel focuses on the Catholicism of three characters: Sebastian, Julia, and Ryder. Sebastian is led into a life of alcoholism by insurmountable family intrigues, and drifts through many empty years until he is taken in by a monastery in North Africa. He becomes a low-level apprentice, avidly fulfilling his duties but never quite mastering his alcoholism. One is reminded of the sinner in the temple who beats his breast and cries for mercy. Julia, on the other hand, is believed to be an agnostic. She marries young into a loveless marriage, then finally finds love later in life with Ryder. When her father (an avowed athiest) comes home to Brideshead to die, Julia finds herself urging her father to allow the ceremony of Extreme Unction. Just before his death, her father signals his repentance, and dies under the protection of the Catholic church. Because of these events, Julia realizes that she does believe after all, which ends the relationship with Ryder.
Ryder remained a mystery to me until the end of the book. He is talented, famous, wealthy, and has found meaning only in his love for the lovely Julia. When she is lost, I expected the book to end in despair and cynicism. It doesn't. When Ryder finds himself at Brideshead once again, his reaction is one of gentle humor at the incongruous situation. Ryder saw the culture of British aristocracy fall apart in the years before the war. Just before WWII breaks out, he loses the only woman he has ever truly loved. And it seems as if he knows that he had to be brought to this point in order to know God. He is a man who has lost everything, but has gained the knowledge of God, and found this better than all else. He can chuckle at the fact that he ended up at Brideshead in the end. He knows now why he met the family. All the strange turnings of fate, the trials, etc. have ended in him finally seeing the One behind it all. And he is content.
Have I read this book wrong? Perhaps. I hope not. I would welcome comments. I look forward to reading more of this author's work.

On a funnier note...

This incident made me realize just how much the world has changed with the invention of the computer. I recently bought an exercise bike at the local thrift store. When I asked for a piece of rope with which to tie the trunk shut, I was handed a mouse cord, with mouse attached.

New Job!

This past week I interviewed and was offered a new job as a dental assistant. I will be working for a new dentist downtown, a fellow Christain. I'm looking forward to getting back to dental assisting, which I have frankly missed, and also to being able to walk to work. No more adventurous snow driving! And, best of both worlds, I can move my tutoring job to Fridays. I would miss my two students otherwise...
It's rather strange having a husband back in school. I find myself checking out lots of books to read in the evenings, because I know he will likely be reading or writing a paper. NSA has added some great books to their courses, so I am also trying to catch up on the reading myself. I have a feeling this blog will soon turn into a running book review.

Missionary Talk

Last night I went to a talk given by an NSA graduate who has spent the last year working in Eastern Europe and South Africa. Nicole de Martimprey shared many amazing stories about her work with children in an orphanage near Pretoria, South Africa. Check out her blog here

Madeleine L'Engle

Years ago my grandma gave me a copy of The Wind in the Door, which I still have but have never read. Books, like friends, seem to have their own time, and I've learned to wait until a book calls me. Recently, I decided to read up on this author, who is often quoted or mentioned in other books I dip into. I read A Circle of Quiet, which is an open journal of the summer happenings at Crosswicks, the summer home of her family. Crosswicks is described as a farmhouse of 'charming confusion', and I found that I had to agree. Imagine an older couple, with years of memories and friends from the theater world (the husband is Hugh Franklin), add three children with assorted grandchildren, pets, neighbors who drop in, and you get a sense of the glorious chaos this book chronicles. Its seems that the family tradition is to name at least one daughter Madeleine, and so L'Engle is called Grandmadeleine by her grandchildren. This breaks down a bit when L'Engle's mother comes to live with them, and the two year old finally christens her Gracchi, which seems to stick.
Why do I like this author? She is a writer in the sense that she wrestles with the 'isness' of things: time, the stars, why older memories are stronger than more recent ones, etc. She truly wants to know, and she narrates her quest for understanding. The book reads like a simply account of a summer, but in reality is a journal of her throught processes, her gradual understanding of new ideas. She intersperses all of this with short sketches, reminisces of previous years, family stories, etc. It gives me a glimpse into a life that I don't think I could ever get by simply talking to her. Is this voyeurism? I hope not. And anyway, its not the typical 'scenes' that term usually applies to. This is simply a curiousity to know about the experiences of others, to know if they felt the same way that I have. What it feels like to give birth, for instance, or how to handle a son who may have cancer. How she felt when her actor/husband was on tour for several months at a time, or what it was like to graduate from college and start her own life.
A Circle of Quiet intrigued me, and I requested more books. The Summer of the Great-Grandmother tells the story of her mother living with them, and her gradual decline and death. It reminisces of the early years of her parent's marriage, when they were fearless world travelers, chased by bandits down the Yangtze River ( really!). It is a courageous sharing of the joys and pain of watching parents grow old.
Two-Part Invention is the story of how she and her husband met, their courtship, and the many years of their marriage. As her husband is dying of cancer, L'Engle tells of the birth of their children, the story of how they came to adopt their second daughter, and the adventures of running a small grocery store in a tiny town in Connecticut. She writes with honesty about the wrench of the first year or two of marriage, as they both discovered that the person they had married was different than they thought (how true that is!:), of their joys and misunderstandings, gradually learning to understand each other more. Knowing that Bach is one of L'Engle's favorite composers, I thought this book was brilliantly named.
Having discovered so much of her life, I found reading L'Engle's fiction (Certain Women, A Live Coal in the Sea) rather odd. I knew exactly who a certain character was based on, or why she put in a certain passage. Perhaps other writers base their stories so much on their own experiences. But in some ways it was like reading a different version of her own life. I also discovered, sadly, that she is a universalist and has succumbed to the 'modern' view of God: Interpreting the OT in terms of God rising from a tribal deity to the god of a large nation (and only because of this becoming the most important god), etc. And since she believes that no one is ever sent to hell, at least eternally, her villians ceased to be villians. The tension leaves the story in a way that most disappointing. She reduces God to a deity that she can understand, and He becomes impotent, damp, and uninteresting. Instead of majesty and glory, it conjures up a picture of seemingly random events in a book and an author standing beside them, wringing her hands and muttering that surely God couldn't do that! We must change the story.
While I can recommend the Crosswicks Journals Series ( A Two-Part Invention, Summer of the Great-Grandmother, and A Circle of Quiet), I can't recommend her fiction ( at least not yet). Perhaps I'll go back to The Wind in the Door, and find that it's time has come.