Book: Possession

I know, I’ve already written about my love for this book. But I reread it, and my other review was months ago, and now my reasons for loving it are that much clearer.

I wonder how AS Byatt can sleep at night. It’s probably because of writing that she can. She knows so much, and has such a power over words, that she can write on almost any subject to the point that you really feel you are in the scene she is describing. In the last book I read by her, this was tedious, but I was grateful for it in Possession.

Basically, Possession is the story of two modern-day scholars who stumble on letters written by two previously unconnected Victorian poets. Letters and poems and journals describe the love affair, which entrances the modern day scholars. They immerse themselves in the affair as they follow it through its course. It’s a little like a literary Da Vinci Code, without any killers on the trail (although there are grave robbers, and what book is complete without them!)

I freely admit I skipped past most of the poetry. I wish I was more of a poetry buff, but I have to be in the right mood and in that sort of a book, I want to skip to the good stuff, find out what is happening to advance the plot. What poetry I did read gave me little insights to the story, but it wasn’t necessary. Just call me lazy!!

One of my favorite passages is near the end. In the story, the main male character Roland is reading. He has recently returned to his apartment from a long absence, and he is enjoying the silence of it. Byatt breaks in a little here, and talks about the experience of reading and how it brings intense pleasure. I like this passage that describes this process:

“It is possible for a writer to make, or remake at least, for a reader, the primary pleasures of eating, or drinking, or look on...Novels...do not habitually elaborate on the equally intense pleasure of reading. There are obvious reasons, the most obvious being the regressive nature of the pleasure, a mise-en-abime even, where words draw attention to the power and delight of words, and so ad infinitum, thus making the imagination experience something papery and dry, narcissistic and yet disagreeably distanced, without the immediacy of ...moisture or the scented garnet glow of good burgundy. And yet, natures such as Roland's are at their most alerts when reading is violently yet steadily alive."

"Think this: that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other...Now and then there are readings that make the hairs on the neck...stand on end and tremble, when every word burns and shines hard and clear and infinite and exact, like stones of fire, like points of stars in the dark...”

I love this book. I think I could recommend it anyone. The movie made a few years ago with Gweneth Paltrow is almost as good.

On learning to read…

I have always loved to read. I can remember in first or second grade taking a reading test and being moved up into a higher reading group the next day. It has always come so easy to me, I'm good at it, and it’s something I love to do.

So, imagine my dismay over the past month as I’ve tried to learn to read in a new way. This way does not come easy to me. I am continually trying to puzzle out the language, trying to put the letters together and, more importantly, get them right and have them make sense. It doesn’t make it any easier that I’ve never had the desire to learn to read like this. I’m not used to having to work at reading. I think I should be able to decide that I want to do it and have it down pat, like I remember it from when I was little.

But, despite its difficulty, despite my inability to remember what I’m “reading” at any given moment, I LOVE learning to read MUSIC.

Over the past month, my new-to-me-old piano has not sat idle. Thanks to a fabulous county library system, I found 3 different adult piano courses and one child one that got me playing right away. When one book doesn’t explain something, I get out another one and see if it makes more sense, or pull out the old “Complete Idiots Guide to Playing the Piano.” A good friend loaned me her basic piano playing course, and I’m almost done with it. I even got book that simplifies LDS hymns, and I’m trying those out. It’s so much fun, and gives me a creative outlet that is satisfying on a level that I’ve never had. I’ve danced to plenty of music, but I’ve never been the one making the music, until now.

I know I’m driving people crazy. I call people out of the blue to ask the dumbest questions. It makes me crazy that the notes on the bottom staff are off by one key, so I can’t use the same moniker to name the lines for the top staff as I can for the bottom. And the whole “no home row” thing? Totally threw me off. Granted, I knew from the get-go that there were far more keys than I had fingers, but it took 2 different people assuring me that no, you don’t always play the same key with the same finger, to get me to believe it (I hoped the book was just being anal).

So, while my adventures in learning to read early in my life haven’t helped me much in this new adventure, I am glad I’m puzzling out this new language. It’s kind of like joining a club late in life that everyone else joined years ago and either asked for a refund or paid for a lifetime membership. I hope I’m in the second group. I hope I can keep learning and growing in this new outlet.

I just know it has brought me so much joy! And who doesn’t need a little more joy in their life.

It happened…

I am in my basement, sweaty and hot from the treadmill, the earbuds from my mp3 hanging down the front of my shirt, the music reaching my ears in a sort of hollow, distant way. The computer hums, and my fingers type.

I am alone, in my house.

Alone.

I think I can count on one hand how many times in the past 6 years this has happened to me. There is always somewhere HERE, whether awake or asleep or any state in between. But right now, Ben is at a friends, Thomas isn’t home yet, and Shane is at work. All at once, I am exhilarated and slightly guilt-ridden. I love being a mom; I love having little ones playing in my house, calling my name to ask for a drink or a snack or help with a problem.

But I love my solitude, I love to have my own quiet time. It makes me feel so selfish that I crave alone time to read or sew or simply lay in my bed and find shapes in the texturing on my ceiling. And I don’t get this alone time much in my current life. I’m sure I will one day, but now, it’s so rare that it now feels forbidden and in a way selfish. And I know that in a moment, Thomas will race through the door and fling his backpack on the floor and want a drink and to tell me about his day, and I will be glad to see him.

But in the back of my mind, I will wish for a small second that I could have had one more moment to myself.

Wait…was that the door I just heard opening?????

9 Years & Running…

Today is me and Shane’s 9th wedding anniversary. I wonder where all the years have gone! It has been such an adventure. Here are a few highlights of the anniversaries we have spent together:

• The day before our first anniversary, we moved into our newly built home, where we still reside. What a great anniversary present that was! I think that committing to our 30-year mortgage that year was harder than committing to marriage! I love where we live, and have such great neighbors.
• Our second anniversary we went and stayed at the Hotel Monaco. It was the only time we have ever “gone away” to celebrate. What I remember most is that it was the day after President Bush was inaugurated, and that I was 8 weeks pregnant with Thomas, so I was fighting nausea the entire time. But it was fun!
• Most of our other anniversaries have been spent eating at Iggy’s and wandering around Barnes and Noble afterwards. The event that started this tradition was the year we tried to go to downtown Salt Lake and eat at PF Changs. It had a wait of 2 hours, so we tried Tucci’s, which was equally backed up. It took a couple more attempts to realize that we had unluckily stumbled upon one of the results of going out on the opening weekend of the Sundance Film Festival (maybe you’ve heard of it!). Since then, we have given up on going very far for anniversary celebrations, and so we stick to Jordan Landing.
• For all that we have been married 9 years, we have yet to order ANY pictures of our wedding. My dear mother-in-law broke down a few years ago and gave us one of the photos she had ordered, so we do at least have one picture of our wedding that is framed. It must run in my family, because I think I might have a sister who has yet to order any of hers (not naming names, though!)

And, sweet man that he is, Shane sent me roses at work. Nothing brings a smile to your face faster than flowers, right?

Happy Anniversary, Shaney. I am so glad we are doing this together.

Random thoughts on Grey's Anatomy & Faith

Okay, I want to update my blog today, but every sentence I write, I erase, because the words just aren’t flowing. But I’m as tired of looking at my review of Virgin in the Garden as I was of reading the actual book, so here is an attempt at blogging today.

Does anyone else agree with me that Grey’s Anatomy last night was one of the best episodes so far this year? I was bawling when the Healer was helping Dr. Bailey’s son. When she was talking to Chief Webber about how faith can’t heal people, I wanted to crawl into the TV and take her aside and tell her that it can. I love how Grey’s can touch your heart so wonderfully. I love how they can fill an episode with so many different variations of the same theme. Faith can heal, but it can’t fix everything (Dr. Bailey). We can find ourselves lost when we lose our faith (George and Cally). Having faith to move forward doesn’t always get you where you think it will (Derek with the house plans). Putting faith in your relationship doesn’t mean that everything is as it seems (Meredith’s relationship with Derek). And the leap of faith, trusting your instincts that something good can come of something new (Derek asking Rose to dinner). Our inability to acknowledge even to ourselves and certainly not to others that we have, or once had, faith (Alex). I loved each of these examples of faith, and how faith sometimes takes us where we are unwilling to go.

I have lived so many segments of my life where my outer life did not reflect my inner faith. Times when I had no desire to live what I felt to be right because it wasn’t fun or convenient or what my friends were doing at the time. Or times when I was unsure if being the person I wanted to be would work in my current life. I always held on to my faith; I questioned it, even railed against it, but I could never deny it completely. I can remember being so scared to admit to myself that I wanted to go back to actively practicing my faith. The steps were small, but steady. There are so many times and trials that I am so, so, SO glad I will never have to go back and repeat. But I think that faith carries us through those times. It may waver, but never dies.

So I wish I could say to Dr. Bailey that faith does heal us. It isn’t instantaneous or fun or painless. We come through it scarred, changed, different, but we do eventually get there. Those changes make us who we are, and make us stronger. Stepping in to that secret part of us that hopes, that holds our faith, is the hardest part.

Book: The Virgin in the Garden

I still don’t know why I convinced myself I should read this book. It sounded smart, maybe, or the fact it was written by AS Byatt may have swayed me.

It shouldn't have!

It took me six looooonnnnnnnngggggg weeks to read this book. The first 200 pages were filled with a lot of descriptions, some character development, and no pleasure. The second 200 had some action, but it was always stunted and filled with more writing about minutia than is fair for a novel written by the same author that gave us Possession.

Basically, the Potters are a really strange academic family with ties to the local boys school because Mr. Potter teaches there. Alexander, who is one of the teachers at said school, writes a play about Elizabeth I that gets made into a big local production. The oldest Potter daughter, Stephanie, falls in love with the locale curate and marries him. The younger daughter Fredrica is in love with Alexander and gets cast in his play. The Potter's son Marcus is a strange boy who makes friends with another strange teacher at the school, and they both end up in the loony bin (after 375 long pages).

I marveled at the knowledge that Byatt had to possess in order to write such a book. She can expound on any subject for pages and pages, but since it doesn’t advance the plot in any way, shape or form, what good does it do? In one lovely chapter, she used over 50 words to explain the look of a countertop. How special is that?

I made it a goal to finish this book on New Years Eve, which was accomplished at 3 am. I did this only to find that the book ends with a “cliffhanger” that forces you to ponder the giant task of reading books 2, 3 AND 4 in this series. I wasn’t tempted, even knowing that I had #2 sitting innocently in my library bag, where it has sat since I started Virgin.

I casually dropped both books in the library drop-off bin yesterday. So much for that series.

But, I dutifully finished it, and now I’m cozily 60+ pages into Possession, a Byatt work that I will savor. And I can guarantee it won’t take me close to 6 weeks to finish.

Here’s to a 2008 that is filled with much better reads than Virgin in the Garden!