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the lazy hazy crazy days of summer!
Thanks to my friend Katie
for these perfect beach suggestions,
which also just so happen to fulfill
a couple of the requirements on my
~ Summer Reading List ~
16. about your favorite animal [or some other animal! right?]
The Little Gentleman by Philippa Pearce
"So, this time, Bet set off alone. The afternoon sun shone weakly, hardly warming her; raindrops from the long grass sprinkled her legs and fell into her sandals, but the air smelled fresh and sweet after the rain. A heron rose from the river ahead of her and sailed aloft on huge, leisurely wings. Her spirits rose and sailed with the bird. She did not hurry. She simply strolled toward the log as though the rest of the day belong to her, alone and free." (p. 21)
The Little Gentleman is just right for a day at the beach, a playful novel that can be read quickly, like a short story, containing some beautiful imagery, a little fiction, a little history, a little witchcraft, a lot of literary allusion.
I wish the cat, named Moon, played a greater — and more positive — role. On Bet's first outing to the magical reading log in the meadow, Moon goes along and purrs quietly while Bet reads to the unseen "Little Gentleman" who lives in the "Chthonic . . . underworld beneath the surface of the earth" (140). But the next thing you know, Moon is pouncing aggressively and having The Complete Poetic Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson in One Volume hurled in his direction as a weapon (42). Instead of making Moon a "fiercly intent" antagonist, Pearce might have cast him as a co - adventurer, merely curious, not scary (42, 151 - 53). Was the author afraid of cats?
This is one of Pearce’s later works (2004), not yet written during my own childhood but reminiscent of all the “inside a girl’s head” kind of stories that I loved in those days: a mole who can talk and live forever, who can read Tennyson and Darwin, and travel through time; a girl who spends all day in meadows and libraries, talks to animals, and travels through space!
The writing career of Philippa Pearce (1920 - 2006) spanned decades, but even her earlier works -- Tom's Midnight Garden (1958) and The Children of Charlecote (1968) were unknown to me until a few years ago. So glad I have discovered them at last!
The Little Gentleman, I saw this little creature
running around out on our back patio!
Was it the Week of the Mole?
Gerry has since informed me
that it was probably a vole, but I'll take it!
Furthermore, how about those GIANT raindrops?
Crazily, the sun was shining brightly when
suddenly it just started pouring simultaneously!
That seems to happen a lot here!
17. a mystery
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers
some background reading & a mini-series
One of the best things about our new location is hearing the hourly bells that ring out from the church across the street, every hour from 9am - 9pm, with a brief hymn concert included at 3pm every day; the Angelus at noon and 6pm; and another joyful clamor of bells at 5pm! Truly lovely!
Katie happened to call one day right at 3pm, so I carried the phone outside in order to share the bell concert with her. That's what inspired her to recommend this Peter Wimsey mystery, the "nine tailors" referring to nine loud strokes of the tenor bell [the traditional Death Knell].
Sun is shining!
Rain is pouring down!!
Bells are ringing out!!!
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As an added bonus, we are situated on a very ecumenical corner, directly across the street from St. Thomas Aquinas — (same name as West Lafayette for the campus affiliated Catholic Church!) and directly behind the Chabad Jewish Student House. If you go one long block in one direction, you reach the Wesley Foundation Complex; or one long block the other way, St. Mark's Lutheran, where Ellie might go for Pre-K.
ReplyDeleteOur favorite thing about this corner is hearing the hourly bells that ring out from St. Tom's, every hour from 9am - 9pm, with a brief hymn concert included at 3pm every day!
Blue Moles
ReplyDeleteby Sylvia Plath
1
They're out of the dark's ragbag, these two
Moles dead in the pebbled rut,
Shapeless as flung gloves, a few feet apart ---
Blue suede a dog or fox has chewed.
One, by himself, seemed pitiable enough,
Little victim unearthed by some large creature
From his orbit under the elm root.
The second carcass makes a duel of the affair:
Blind twins bitten by bad nature.
The sky's far dome is sane a clear.
Leaves, undoing their yellow caves
Between the road and the lake water,
Bare no sinister spaces. Already
The moles look neutral as the stones.
Their corkscrew noses, their white hands
Uplifted, stiffen in a family pose.
Difficult to imagine how fury struck ---
Dissolved now, smoke of an old war.
2
Nightly the battle-snouts start up
In the ear of the veteran, and again
I enter the soft pelt of the mole.
Light's death to them: they shrivel in it.
They move through their mute rooms while I sleep,
Palming the earth aside, grubbers
After the fat children of root and rock.
By day, only the topsoil heaves.
Down there one is alone.
Outsize hands prepare a path,
They go before: opening the veins,
Delving for the appendages
Of beetles, sweetbreads, shards -- to be eaten
Over and over. And still the heaven
Of final surfeit is just as far
From the door as ever. What happens between us
Happens in darkness, vanishes
Easy and often as each breath.
More About Moles
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