Recently I had the pleasure of watching Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale in the movie theater. It was an absolute gift to visually stroll about upstairs and down along side those wonderful characters who have grown so dear to us the past 15 years. “Lest we worry about too many changes, Julian Fellowes’s script is stuffed with comforting constants: Lady Mary will be indiscreet, Carson the butler will be scandalized, Lord Grantham will find something to be huffy about and the family will face financial ruin” (New York Times). I can’t think of a better week than this one to escape from headlines and our diminishing democracy, even though I must admit more than an escape is needed. It isn’t even shocking to see such stalwart allegiance to the 2nd Amendment in contrast to the broad dismissal of the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution as we become a country that fears a jester’s words more than a lunatic’s firearm. There is no push by this administration to reduce gun violence, only the swift sword curtailing free speech. LBJ was a different guardian of the White House when he shared, “It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists. You have given the gift of laughter to our people. May we never grow too somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate the humor in our lives.” Our would-be-king-president reacts differently, by silencing all who don’t echo his mountain of lies. Perhaps, just for today, for your mental health or for a little chuckle, treat yourself to Downton Abbey’s “yummy photography, stunning set pieces and Lady Mary trying on as many fabulous frocks as possible“(New York Times). Of course I hope you read my decade old post first.
Tag Archives: Books
What are you reading?
What are you reading? seems to be a go-to question among friends and colleagues and family, especially in the summer months when we allow for such rewarding but hard to find time for endeavors. During July and August school children sign up for reading programs, beach novels get traded sand and all between besties, and adults of all degrees become literary critics with ease pronouncing and denouncing across their social media platforms. I too enjoyed a few novels in between the relentless weekly New Yorker. Whatever you are feeling today, joy over Taylor & Travis, excitement about Alcaraz’s buzz and level of excellence, or despair over the latest school shooting, marking over 430 such massacres of children since Columbine, fright over the walk-out of science and medical experts from the C.D.C., terror over Putin’s control of the current US President, anger towards the cowardly GOP dismantling voting rights, citizen rights, or anything that would require a conversation, horror over the wars still raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, in any case you just might find a way out of going crazy by reading a novel. Yes, fiction to start. But history and memoir and art and poetry and on and on through the whole myriad of genres will all guide you through the darkest of days and longest of nights.
Novels, lakes and bikes
The return to school is a steep climb, but thankfully is one that I have learned to traverse with more surety through the years. Still, the ascent is formative. The piles of novels an English teacher needs to have at her disposal is a big one, and in most cases, there are often several piles due to teaching several courses. Most are, of course, old favorites by this point in my career, but I read them again. Rereading, I love how lines hit me anew. How different images stand for something I just lived through. How the makeup of the class veers into a whole new vein of thought than previously.
Books were very important to my father, and I was reminded of that this week when my brother sent me a list of titles my father recommended to him. I recalled most of the list he handed me. Anything by Jane Austen, he wrote. Both Emily and Charlotte Bronte he insisted. Everything Dickens. He adored George Eliot and reminded me that was a pseudonym for Mary Ann Evans. You must read the Russians, start with Tolstoy. And yes, of course Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. He included Sigrid Undset’s epic work Kristin Lavransdatter. I read everything while pregnant and nursing, which lasted seemingly for a decade. These days I nudge my students up the same laborious hill of classics, offering historic context with all the excitement I can muster. Making readers these days is more formidable than summiting Everest but perhaps equally rewarding to those who make it there.
Nine Cent Girl 