Fidget

… as in the movie, a 6-episode mini series. We thoroughly enjoyed it - and the book is totally amazing; I would recommend it. It’s not an easy book to read, but so rich in characters, language and deep thoughts. Seeing the movie reinforced the top-shelf quality of the book for me. BN and I read it aloud to each other last year, and it took a long time, sporadically reading it at bedtime (dozed off during a few chapters!) and in the car on vacation. But by the time we were done we felt so well acquainted with the many characters that the town (or is it a county?) of Middlemarch felt like home. It’s a sign of the quality of the characters that I truly hated one of them, Rosamond Vincy. She is pure evil. The final scene with her and Dorothea did not sufficiently endear me to her to change my mind that she was the most believably selfish person I have ever met. (I mean, read about.) In the movie they portrayed her as slightly more sympathetic. But still right on. Everyone else was well cast, too. I thought Dorothea just seemed a bit too old. She was perfect for the part but if she looked a bit younger that would have been better. Ladislaw was handsome in an exotic way, but you couldn’t read his expression so he didn’t quite live up to himself in the book. Lydgate grew on me - at first I thought he looked too boyish, no aristocratic features. But he did a wonderful job so I’ll forgive him his not-perfect-looks. Mary Garth - perfect. Caleb Garth - wonderful. Bulstrode - what a complex guy! He worked. And Mr Brooke was a perfect match, too. One thing I missed from the book, though of course they couldn’t fit it all into even 420 minutes - was the scene with Borthrop Trumbull auctioning off the antique fender. That might have been one of the funniest scenes I have ever read, especially in a classic novel. Maybe that’s why it was so funny - I was surprised to discover George Eliot had a silly streak.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I think it’s a basic human desire to be “on the inside,” to have secret knowledge, to belong to the group of people who are “in the know.” Isn’t that what tempted Eve back in the garden? Since the time of Christ, devotees of attaining secret knowlege have been referred to as Gnostics.

I felt a little manipulated, reading this book. Dan Brown is a very cunning author. As the codes, secrets, connections and riddles converge, they reveal concepts that I found very offensive, twisting the truth that my life is built upon. But, one of the main promoters of these ideas turns out to be the unexpected villain, so you are tricked into transferring your disgust onto him while the other “insiders” seem pretty much OK by comparison.

The fact of the matter is, you don’t have to join a secret society to get access to the way, the truth, and the life: “… since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19-20) No one group of people - whether intellectuals, governments, organized religion, secret societies - has a monopoly on the truth.

I also didn’t like how sex-saturated the book was, but not because I believe sex is dirty and sinful as Dan Brown accuses the Catholics of insisting. No… I believe God gave us sex as a gift, for men and women to enjoy in the context of marriage, as an earthly picture of the union we will eventually have with God in heaven. The church is intended as the Bride of Christ! (That’s the reason Jesus never got married – as the book explains, marriage was an integral part of the Jewish culture and a good Jewish man would always marry.)

“‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5:31-32

by William Goldman

I remember when I saw the movie for the first time, it was at a girls’ slumber party and I think we must have been in 4th or 5th grade. Me and another girl were so afraid of the R.O.U.S.’s that we had to run out of the room for that part.

So, it was fun to read the book. It’s definitely amusing, but it’s not art. There are a few “aw, sweet” moments. Lots of amusingly silly parts. A fair amount of cheese-factor. And parts get downright annoying, because Mr. Goldman is always piping up with rambling anecdotes about his real life, tinged with the fantasy of the supposed real author of the book, Morgenstern, and the supposed real location of the story, Florin. I mean I guess it kind of works as a foil for the fairy tale, but maybe he just does it a little too much. And the “introductory” material is a bit weird. Made me feel about Goldman as I would about someone that struck up a conversation with me in the airport and started telling me all these personal details about his life. Just a little “too much information,” or whatever. Oh, well. I’d say if you’re a fan of the movie, you’ll enjoy this book.

by Orson Scott Card

I knew this book was pretty good because my husband couldn’t put it down while he was reading it and he’s usually able to avoid most distractions during the school year.

Well, yeah, it’s a page turner! Great concept, excellent execution, and never a dull moment. Even if you don’t like sci-fi, you might like this. (And if you liked Harry Potter, you’ll love it.) It’s a very human book. Little Ender (he is astonishingly young) is pushed to his limits by the grown ups running his world, and you feel pushed right along with him. Frank Herbert frustrated me in Dune, sometimes things were so obvious (or it was obvious what he should have done to make it a better book! sorry, but that’s how I felt…) and other times I felt like a chapter had dropped out and I’d missed something important (the movie’s that way too!). Isaac Asimov frustrated me in Foundation, introducing new characters every few chapters and then forgetting to ever mention them again. But this book really works, really pulls you in, makes you feel that you know Ender like he knows himself.

One more thing: I swear, the technology is prophetic. None of the laptops or video games or internet concepts, complete with blogs, feel hokey. It feels like something someone would have written about this year, rather than the 70’s and 80’s. Way cool.

by Elizabeth Gaskell

I thought this book was skillfully written. I didn’t find it had the emotional depth of Anne Bronte’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall or the deeply believable characters of George Eliot’s Middlemarch; but it’s quality. It had a very contemporary feel, apparently Gaskell was ahead of her time.

Margaret, a proud and stunning beauty, but with a loving heart, is dealt one blow of fate after another, until the only one she has left to turn to is the one who loved her against his will from the moment they met. Along the way her love and strength of character effect lasting change in all who know her.

I liked the strong plot elements of the industrial milling town; so many of the 19th century novels I’ve read are just about the interpersonal workings of upper-middle-class society.

There are interesting triads of characters to think about: the 3 mothers: Mrs Shaw, Mrs Hale, and Mrs Thornton. The 3 father-figures: Hale, Higgins, and Bell. The 3 men: Mr Lennox, Thornton, Frederick. The 3 young women, Edith - spoiled, self-centered, adored. Betsy - a victim of child labor. And of course Margaret, trying fill the role of middle-woman between father and mother, rich and poor, workers and philosophers, the spiritual and the worldly.

by Betty Smith

I found this book really enjoyable. As you may suppose, it’s about a girl growing up in Brooklyn, during the early 1900’s. It’s semi-autobiographical, since the author grew up in the same area around the same time, in a poor family just like Francie in the story. Smith has a way of letting you just see how it must have been, how they had to pinch every penny just to scrape by. There are moments of beauty and passages of sorrow; lots of humor and some terrifying scenes. The characters are memorable and their relationships complex. I’m such a fast reader that I usually expect “fun” engrossing books to speed by way too fast. But this one, while very easy to get into, is a sizeable story and I found it lasted a good long time. It has a richness to it, but without any fluff. You’ll like it.

by Anne Bronte

Now I have read a work by each of the Bronte sisters. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre has been one of my top favorites ever since I read it years ago. I recently read Wuthering Heights by Emily and found it quite compelling but too dark and disturbing to truly enjoy it. The Tenant is a real gem. I think the thing I like most about it is the depth and believability of the characters. They are intense, passionate, but not idealistic or overly sentimental. You feel that if you lived in their time and place, you’d know them just the way they are presented in the book.

I have been thinking off and on recently about female characters written by male authors and vice versa. I find myself analyzing how well an author presents a character, and then I start to doubt my conclusions because of the sex of the author. I may think a male character is believable and empathetic, but is that just because he was written by a woman? Or, I feel I can’t say a female character is really written “truly” because I can’t help remembering her male author. But, who am I to judge? Just because I am a woman doesn’t mean I understand all womanhood. I think some of my intellect may be somewhat masculine in nature.

Maybe some authors simply excell at writing characters in a way that transcends gender. George Eliot (who was a woman named Mary Ann Evans) and Leo Tolstoy are my favorite examples of this. Their people move me. (In Eliot’s case, the male characters might resonate with me even more than the female ones.) Tolstoy astonished me with his broad range of characterization that was utterly convincing throughout the epic War and Peace. I wonder if I was able to read books with the author unknown to me if I could figure out whether they were written by a man or a woman?

I was leading up a point with all this: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is written partly from the first-person narrative perspective of a young gentleman farmer in the Hall’s vicinity, as if he is writing a story in a letter to a friend much later in his life. A large portion, however, is “excerpted” from the diary and letters of the mysterious woman living at the Hall. So, we get to know Gilbert as he presents himself and then as he learns of Helen we are right there with him, or rather with her, as she lives out her early years. I could really relate to Gilbert’s suspense and excitement as he was reading the diary - I could barely put it down!

The book is compelling for another reason - I think it shares this somewhat with the other Brontes’ books, but is the most direct in its quality of “this could be your life.” There are such brutally honest examinations of human nature, thought processes, and how people impact each other. It can be chilling at times - too close for comfort! But, Wildfell Hall is a redemptive story, and gives us hope that people can rise above suffering and vice. (I can’t say the same for Wuthering Heights with Catherine and Heathcliff.)

I’d say, read it. Soon.

I decided to begin with the Crusty Cob recipe on page 20 of Paul Hollywood’s 100 Great Breads. It’s the first page of Basic Breads, which seemed like a good place to start, and all I have is 1 smallish loaf pan – pyrex – so I figured I’d do a baking-sheet recipe first thing and save myself any worry about the pan being too small, the wrong shape (if I decided to go with the 8×8…) or trying one of the pan recipes on a baking sheet (what if it puddles out and ruins the oven?!). Yep, I’m a worrier when it comes to these experiments.

Providentially, I was reading blogs this morning and Smitten Kitchen’s Tips of the Day for today and yesterday were about yeast and bread baking. There was a link to her Eight Tips for Less Intimidating Bread. This took such a load off my mind! I was really uncertain about the whole “punching down the dough” thing, since Paul didn’t say anything about that but I’ve always heard it’s a big step and that you’re supposed to do it when the dough has “doubled in volume.” But how can you tell? Well, SK cleared that up: just gently deflating it is the thing to do.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself… I measured my flour. I put the salt on one side of the mound and the yeast (active dry, dissolved in water as directed on the packet) on the other side, and attempted to not let them touch as cautioned by Mr. Hollywood – apparently the salt will kill the yeast. Though how you are supposed to mix things together without having them touch eventually is beyond me. Some of the yeast liquid ran over into the salt. Oops.

I “softened” the butter in the microwave but I didn’t want it to melt, so just for 10 seconds… I think it might have been a little cold in the middle. So hopefully the butter isn’t in several big lumps or only worked through 1/2 of the dough! I wonder if maybe it wouldn’t matter to just pour it in melted? Other recipes use oil, which is a liquid. And you want the dough to be warm so it will rise. Also it’s totally freezing today. “Highs in the Lows” as we like to say.

I poured in the water in a few stages and stirred with a silicone spatula. (There’s nothing creepier to me than scraping dough off of a wooden spoon. Eeegh.) Once it was sticking together well I used my hands and mixed it a bit more.

I wanted to do my kneading on the table rather than the counter, since the counter is a bit high and I thought it would be an awkward angle for my arms. I have these heavy plastic placemats from IKEA so I floured up one of those and used it to knead on the table. Both Paul and Smitten advised against adding too much flour during the kneading, so I tried to use the bare minimum. The placemat worked out kind of nice because the dough stuck to it some but I could turn the whole mat before folding over the dough for the next knead. Neat!

I kneaded for 10 minutes which was PH’s recommendation for beginners. I washed out and oiled my big blue bowl (it’s a wonderful Big Blue Bread Bowl) and put my dough ball in there and covered it with a clean dishtowl, orange for contrast. Paul says you don’t have to cover it but I don’t want dust or anything settling on the dough while it sits there for two hours! My apartment is not the most dust-free place. I gently and lovingly placed my dough bowl in the warmest several cubic feet of air in the place: on top of the refrigerator. That’s the only place that really ever gets what you could call warm. We like to keep the thermostat at 61-ish – gasp – but the way our ceiling heat seems to work the upper 1/3 of the rooms get too hot if it’s higher than that. So we’ll see. The dough did grow a lot during those two hours, and I poked it as instructed by SK and all seemed well. Yay!

I lined my baking sheet with parchment paper – fancy unbleached silicone-coated – with no cornmeal, contrary to what Smitten seemed to suggest, because that just seemed like a pain in the neck. Wasn’t in my recipe anyway. I formed my dough into a nice ball (thanks again to SK for the detailed tips!) and placed it on the siliconed-pan. I put the dishtowel back over it and put it back in its little warm zone for another hour. My feet are freezing but heck, the dough is cozy. If this loaf turns out good I won’t have an excuse to turn up the heat on bread-baking days. Though I guess if, like today, it’s also bill-paying day, I won’t let myself make excuses for using any more expensive kilowatt hours than I have to!

I moved the oven rack lower… because PH says that “the longer a loaf takes to color or bake, the drier it will be.” I don’t want the top of the loaf to get dry while it’s waiting for the bottom to bake all the way through. Also, the Crusty Cob recipe has a little anecdote saying that “this bread, which dates back to medieval times, was known as one of the oven bottoms, as this was invariably where it was baked.” So we’ll see how that goes.

One last tricky step – slashing the top. I think you are supposed to do each cut all in one slash, but I couldn’t help sawing a little.

In the little beauty goes!

… Later …

Well, it came out great! We had fresh bread and cream-of-carrot soup for dinner. It was lovely. I baked the bread for 30 minutes, exactly as the recipe said, “or until golden brown” and sure enough it was golden brown after a half hour. And it was done all the way through, but not too done. The only thing is it’s a bit salty. I thought a tablespoon was kind of a lot. Maybe next time I’ll do 2 tsp instead. But I’m very pleased, since this is my first time. And the recipe was great - I followed it to the letter, something I rarely do, but it payed off here. I’m excited to try Hollywood’s other bread recipes and work my way up to expert.

Note: this post was made possible by my darling sister SS, who gifted me the cookbooks this Christmas.

by CS Lewis

Just when I thought I’d had Lewis all figured out.

It’s kind of surprising how a Christian writer can re-tell a classic pagan myth (Cupid and Psyche) and still have it be so… pagan.

In some stories, the “twist” or irony is that you have this really ugly or socially despised character who is the one who is the most selfless and loving… not so here… our heroine Orual seems a little bit like one of the ghosts in the Great Divorce; (except her time and place is not modern England but pre-Christian Europe.) She thinks of her feelings and actions toward her young sister Psyche as virtuous and righteous, but she has a lot to learn about that simple but endlessly complex concept known as Love.

The tone and setting of this book feel really different from typical Lewis; but according to his usual skill he leads the reader into deep, surprising intellectual territory along a deceptively simple story “path.”

I would recommend it - note I’d rate this PG-13 for sensuality and some disturbing “images” !

I’ve been on quite a Hogwarts kick for awhile - I just got done reading through all the books. What fun! I think it took me about 12 weeks. If you haven’t read ‘em, I’d recommend the series for an absorbing, time-wasting, nail-biting good time. I laughed a lot and even had a good cry or two. (And don’t read the rest of this post because I’m talkin’ spoilers in it!)

I think one of J K Rowling’s strengths in the books is how convincing the wizarding world is. You quickly come to feel that you’ve become a student at Hogwarts and find yourself wishing you could visit Diagon Alley in person. The movies have helped with this feeling - I’d seen all 5 that are out before starting the books (though I’d read Book One years ago, after seeing the first movie.) Having images from the film to assist my imagination was fun. That’s also why I wanted to read the books - the movies left me mostly really confused so I wanted to read all the details and subplots for myself and get it all figured out. The books are so long and complex that I think the movie makers sometimes have to just count on people having read the books to follow the plot and catch the details.

There are also some really great characters - I absolutely adore Hagrid’s little domestic tendencies (he cooks, knits, gardens, and cossets his pets. He’s a regular Martha Stewart… ok, maybe not) and emotional meltdowns. He’s so tenderhearted. Rita Skeeter is so infuriating… and Snape! Where do I start. I think his movie self helps his book self be more believable and… dare I say endearing? (Alan Rickman rocks!) I (mostly) always knew he hadn’t gone back to the dark side. I think Rowling made a lot of great choices in things like having the Weasleys be Harry’s surrogate family. They’re great… giving us a glimpse of the normal wizard family life that Harry never had. One thing I never thought worked was the whole Sirius thing. I think Rowling never gave them time to bond, and then S was killed and it was sad but only because Harry’d only known him for 2 years, and never spent any significant time with him, really. That was troubling. I also disapproved of killing off Fred during the climax. He’s a twin!! you just can’t do that. Wouldn’t Percy have been a better choice? He comes back to the good side, and nobly dies for the cause. ‘Course, that’s what I was expecting so maybe JKR thought it would be too predictable.

She managed to bring things to a somewhat resolved ending in book 7, quite tastefully too. I wish there would have been more than just one chapter about “what happened after.” Also I think there were a few too many near-death episodes for Harry, Ron and Hermione in book 7. It just started to get wearying. Unlike the first six, they spend very little time at Hogwarts in year 7 and I think the book suffered a little from that lack of stable context for the action. One moment they’re in Godric’s Hollow and then next they’re inside Gringotts, escaping by the skin of their teeth, again. And again. I guess I should have expected it, since Voldemort attacked in chapter 4! Things don’t calm down much after that. Whew. That’s gonna be a heck of a movie… too many action scenes already!