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Friday, June 8, 2012

My Name is Hope...



Aside from the catchy titles, I have to admit: I'm drawn to books like these - written from a "faith perspective" in both cases - yet seriously grappling with all the messy irregularities of human experience  -  afflictions that weigh us down and leave us befuddled, exhausted, embittered. All your favorites here: pain, fear, death, separation, loss, grief, cruelty, neglect, abandonment, betrayal, alienation, anxiety, depression... Where is God in all of this? We can't stop ourselves from asking that question....Or at least, I can't.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins


I highly recommend this novel as a great "summer read." I began by thinking of it strictly as a plot-driven "who done it" about a lost diamond (complete with detectives, quick sand, thieves, opium users, etc.) - the narrative of which is told, re-told and sometimes re-constructed and re-directed by various interlocutors. But it is these shifting narrators, these eccentric and memorable voices whose personas have a way of resonating throughout the entire book. I refer of course to the inimitable: Gabriel Betteredge (the dutiful butler), Franklin Blake (the endearing chap and suitor), Sergeant Cuff (the logical, methodical detective),  Miss Drusilla Clack (the prim, pious and hilariously obtuse relative), Matthew Bruff (the no-nonsense lawyer),  Ezra Jennings (the hapless fellow with a far-fetched remedy), Doctor Candy (the forgetful one), Rosanna Spearman (the doomed servant), Limping Lucy (the woe-begotten misfit ) and last but not least, Rachel Verinder (the refreshingly self-assertive young lady).

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Edmund Burke - Prose Stylist



"When all the frauds, impostures, violences, rapines, burnings, murders, confiscations, compulsory paper currencies, and every description of tyranny and cruelty employed to bring about and to uphold this Revolution, have their natural effect, that is, to shock the moral sentiments of all virtuous and sober minds, the abettors of this philosophic system immediately strain their throats in a declamation against the old monarchical government of France. When they have rendered that deposed power sufficiently black, they then proceed in argument, as if all those who disapprove of their new abuses must of course be partisans of the old; that those who reprobate their crude and violent schemes of liberty ought do be treated as advocates for servitude. I admit that their necessities to compel them to this base and contemptible fraud. Nothing can reconcile men to their proceedings and projects, but the supposition that there is no third option between them and some tyranny as odious as can be furnished by the records of history, or by the invention of poets. This prattling of theirs hardly deserves the name of sophistry. It is nothing but plain impudence. Have these gentlemen never heard, in the whole circle of the worlds of theory and practice, of anything between the despotism the monarch and the despotism of the multitude? Have they never heard of a monarchy directed by laws, controlled and balanced by the great hereditary wealth and hereditary dignity of a nation; and both again controlled by a judicious check from the reason and feeling of the people at large, acting by a suitable and permanent organ? Is it then impossible that a man may be found, who, without criminal ill intention, or pitiable absurdity, shall prefer such a mixed and tempered government to either of the extremes; and who may repute that nation to be destitute of all wisdom and of all virtue, which, having in its choice to obtain such a government with ease, or rather to confirm it when actually possessed, thought proper to commit a thousand crimes, and to subject their country to a thousand evils, in order to avoid it? Is it then a truth so universally acknowledged, that a pure democracy is the only tolerable form into which human society can be thrown, that a man is not permitted to hesitate about its merits, without the suspicion of being a friend to tyranny, that is, of being a foe to mankind?" - from Reflections on the Revolution in France

Analytical Introverts

You're methodical and systematic in the way you think. You look for meaning in data and are able to break down complex problems into manageable pieces. You see things in terms of recommendations and conclusions and then seek data, concepts and rules to support them. You have a preference for focused, straightforward communication with few digressions. Although you may have learned to work successfully with others, you believe you do your best thinking by yourself. (...sort of intended as a footnote to my prior post on Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney - both analytical introverts.)