April 12, 2006

• Wednesday in Review

  It’s Wednesday, our lightest day of school. Perhaps, rather, I should say “our alternate day of school” as we have a full day of piano lessons, co-op, and work, but it is just not the same as the other four days of the week.

  The run of sun has ended with an overcast day, heavy with the threat of rain.  I don’t mind.  It makes me want to stay inside and do work instead of being outside playing.  And, believe me, I certainly have a lot of work to do inside! 

  I found it funny that everyone congratulated Nathan on his shooting, but few people mentioned TGD and the biggest award he’s ever gotten.  Nathan said that TGD should have put it on his own Xanga, and then it would have been more obvious.

  We are kicking around the idea of buying a pool, but it is so much money for a nice above ground that I don’t know if it is worth the expense. We could use that money in so many other ways or even just save it.  I’ve been praying for wisdom, but I think I need to have wisdom to know what God is telling me and what I’m just thinking on my own!

  I thought I’d review the two books I most recently read. The first is Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer.  I picked this book up on the recommendation of my Book-A-Day calendar.  It’s not a book about yoga; rather, it is a collection of travel essays by a 40-something guy who is quite unlike me.  If Dave Barry were a drifter who took drugs, had paranoia, and read a lot of Auden, he would probably write like this fellow.  Technically, the theme of the book is that Dyer was looking for a sense of home.  He travels to all sorts of interesting places, strange places, and comments on them and himself and his relations to others.  Do I recommend this book? Not really.

  The
  second is The Man Who Loved Jane Austen by Sally Smith O’Rourke.
  (Do not confuse it with the novel of the same name by Ray Smith!)  This is
  an interesting take on the imagined background of Pride and Prejudice. 

  The novel begins as our heroine, Eliza Knight, an artist, and her passionless
  accountant boyfriend, Jerry, peruse a used furniture store. Eliza finds an
  antique vanity table, falls in love with it, and purchases it (against the
  advice of the money-practical Jerry).

  The next morning, while in conversation with her cat, Wickham, Eliza notices
  that the panel backing to the mirror is pulling away.  When she
  investigates, two letters fall out. One is addressed to Jane Austen, and the
  other–an unopened one–is addressed to F. Darcy. 

  Shocked but wise enough not to open the unsealed letter and thereby ruin the
  value of the document, Eliza decides to research on the internet to see if
  Darcy was a real person.  Of course, with over a million Austen cites on
  the net, she is daunted. She chooses one and posts a question, “Was
  Fitzwilliam Darcy real?” 

  Strangely enough, a man has been watching and waiting for such a question for
  the last three years, and he quickly replies.  The kicker is that his name
  is Fitzwilliam Darcy, and he is a horse breeder at Pemberly Farms in
  Virginia.  Eliza dismisses him as a lunatic and goes on with life. 

  The novel moves along–the letters are authenticated as real, she meets the
  current Mr. Darcy (who is just as Austen described him in the original book),
  and they mysteries of these letters and of Darcy’s identity are revealed. 
  Of course, in order to believe this mystery, you also have to believe in time
  travel, but anything is possible in fiction, right?

  The novel was an entertaining read, by no means excellent. (Although the
  scene where she cleans the vanity table had me cringing–what would the Keano
  brothers of Antique Roadshow be saying! AHH!) There seemed to be some character
  confusion as the woman who wants to marry Darcy is described as a tall,
  beautiful blonde sometimes, and then she’s described as looking like a vampire
  in her yellow dress.  There isn’t any major swearing that I recall. Alcohol
  is drunk, and some secondary characters do get drunk.  There are no sex
  scenes, but Eliza’s relationship with Jerry is clearly stated, and some other
  relations are mentioned in passing. 
  
  

  I
  liked the character of Darcy in this book, and Eliza was likeable as well. Some
  of the other characters seemed more like page filler than like full-blown
  characters. Even Jane Austen herself didn’t strike me as amazing.

  If you expect a lighthearted romance, you won’t be disappointed. If your expect Austen’s characterizations or writing style, you will be. I don’t think I’d rush right out and spend the money on this book, but if you
  want me to loan it to you, I’d be glad to do so.

  • 11:57 am
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