The Hobbit by J. R. Tolkien

Josh and I just finished reading The Hobbit together. Tonight we’re starting on Lord of the Rings. Perfect winter reading!

What can I say about The Hobbit that has not been said by wiser or more insightful people than I ?

Only my own individualized, fresh and sparkling take on a wonderful tale. 

Ha, ha.  I jest, yet it’s true that this post contains my own thoughts on why The Hobbit resonates with me.  I can’t presume why other people like it.  That in itself is an interesting topic for discussion:  why do very different people love the same book?  Is it for the same reasons or not?  Does a cerebral software engineer enjoy the Hobbit in the same way a right-brained musician enjoys it?

Being a right-brained musician married to a cerebral software engineer, I can only say that as much as we both love the same story, we like it for very different reasons.

Having said that, I am going to focus on why I like The Hobbit, even though I am not a fan of fantasy.

I like The Hobbit because I am a hobbit.  I like my little hobbit hole, filled with books and tea and coffee.  I like my old comfortable furniture for visiting with friends, reading, or watching old “Columbo” episodes with my cerebral computer wonk.

I don’t like evil.  I don’t like thinking about evil and I certainly would hate to leave the comforts of my hobbit hole to fight evil.

But sometimes that is exactly what we are called upon to do.  Sometimes the evil doesn’t take an obvious form like a troll or Orc.  

Sometimes it’s a really mean person who makes life hard at work.  Sometimes it’s your mother being diagnosed with stage three lung cancer.  Or being afflicted with our own chronic illness.    Or terrorism, or war or rumors of war.
We wish these things didn’t happen to us.

  I wish it need not have happened in my time, said Frodo.

So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

That quote is from Lord of the Rings and not The Hobbit and, while Frodo had his adventure thrust on him, Bilbo’s was  voluntary, even if he was reluctant at first.

It’s hard to leave our comfortable existence and venture out into the unknown on an adventure. 

But on the other hand, what were we made for?  Simply to exist and be comfortable?

Bilbo finds out that the Tookish part of him says, “No!”  This ultimately decides him.  So off he goes with Gandalf and a troop of dwarves whom he has never met and doesn’t particularly like (the feeling is mutual on the dwarves’ part) and goes off on an adventure with no guarantees of ever returning alive.

Why did he do it?  For his share of the treasure?  I doubt it.  The camaraderie?  Certainly not. Bilbo did not find the dwarves to be pleasant people and they had serious doubts about his usefulness.

The idea belonged to Gandalf the Wizard.  Why did he persuade the dwarves they needed Bilbo and why did he persuade Bilbo that he needed to accompany the dwarves?  For what purpose really?  For some Treasure? Understandably, Thorin was determined to gain the rightful property and possessions of his family, but how were they going to fight a dragon for it?

I believe that Tolkien tapped into a universal truth that there are greater powers at work in our lives than we see.  Because Bilbo or the dwarves could not have known it, but their adventure set off a chain of events that led ultimately to the defeat of a great and insidious evil.

As a Christian, that makes perfect sense to me.  I can only see threads not the entire tapestry, yet I know the tapestry is there and an unspeakably beautiful picture is being woven. 

That is why I love The Hobbit.  It’s a marvelous demonstration of the juxtaposition of small and large.  We as individuals with our tiny lives are nevertheless working towards something truly great.

As great as learning to love unloveable people.  Because Bilbo learned to love those hard-headed dwarves.  And they came to love him as well.  When Thorin finally repents and gives up his life for the greater good, Bilbo weeps like a child.  Every time I read that section, I find it hard not to cry myself.

And it’s a journey that requires hardship, even suffering.  One day my cozy hobbit hole may be taken away from me.  It’s happened to better men than I.  

I love Bilbo because as a Hobbit he so effectively exposes human nature.  Placed in a fantasy setting we can more clearly see our own reality. 

If there are any Hobbit lovers out there.  I would love to hear your own musings about the story.




J.R. Tolkien

Caravaggio: the Complete Works by Taschen and Beautiful Bookbindings: A Thousand Years of the Bookbinder’s Art by PJM Marks

I am combining a couple of book reviews because they are both about art and not very long. 

Caravaggio. The Complete Works by Sebastian Schütze

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Other reviewers have described Caravaggio’s dark side so I won’t bother to here. I will simply state what I loved about this book and I did love it.

Let’s start with the book itself. It is compact, only 7 by 6 inches long and wide, but a good two inches thick. It is a hard back with an enticing dust cover. The face of Judith (the charming lady who beheaded Holosfernes-but he did deserve it) is shown in detail. It is a solid, heavy book and it feels good to hold it. The pages are all glossy and, even though it is not coffee table size, Taschen has mde sure to give coffee table size detail to each and every painting as well as smaller versions of the complete painting. In short, this book is an absolute treat.

I did not know much about Caravaggio, although I did recognize some of the paintings. I came across him in an encyclopedia I was reading about the history of art. He entrigued me so I got this book plus a biography.

This book, while giving some background, deals more with the analysis of his works, who influenced him and whom he influenced.

A couple interesting facts: Caravaggio elevated the technique of chiaroscuro to an unprecedented level. Chiaroscuro is creating sharp contrasts between light and dark. His work influenced later artists like Rembrandt.

Another thing Caravaggio did was to create realistic paintings, much to the shock of his contemporary public. Traditionally, biblical figures were made to look unearthly, above the common man. Caravaggio painted them in contemporary dress looking like ordinary people.

His paintings are highly dramatic, sometimes sordid, such as the beheading of John, or David holding the head of Goliath, whose eyes look as though they were still fading from life. Other paintings are depictions of the martyrs and also Lazarus being raised.

The most powerful painting for me is his second rendition of Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul is on his back, his arms in the air as he tries to shield himself from the blinding light. He is lying next to his horse whom he has presumably just fallen off. He looks in danger of being trampled underfoot. I’d print the picture, but I’m not sure about copyright laws. However, you can google it and find it easily enough.

Caravaggio’s temperament got him into trouble, he got into brawls, killed a man in a duel, was in and out of trouble with the law, escaping severe punishment because of his patrons. Nevertheless, he died young due to a sudden illness.

After his death little was known about him. It seems as if a lot of his life was erased and biographies only came later. But Caravaggio is an artist worth getting to know, his work is absorbing and this book does it justice.



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Beautiful Bookbindings: A Thousand Years of the Bookbinder’s Art by P.J.M. Marks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


One of the most gorgeous books you will ever read. The illustrations are large, color and glossy. The quality of the paper perfect.

Basically the book traces books that were bound as an art form going back to before the printing press to present day artistically rendered book bindings.

It concisely explains the different materials involved, how different countries and cultures approached book binding as an art form, and what the different designs meant.

It has a chapter devoted to the influence of design and style and also a history of how the art originated and developed as well as who the book binders were.

If you were completely illiterate you would still love this book for the gorgeous photographs.




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The Way to Ilala: David Livingstone’s Pilgrimage by Frank Debenham; The Man Who Presumed by Byron Farwell

Saturday I got my Christmas decorations up. “One of these things is not like the other ones….” Can you find the “living ornament”?

I’m posting my reviews of Dr. Livingstone and Stanley back to back because I read the books concurrently, finished them on the same day and their biographies, even though written by different men, closely resemble each other.

the way to ilala by Frank Debenham

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was an incredible story. No fiction action\adventure story could compare to the real life adventures of Dr. Livingston and his explorations into the heart of Africa.

Dr. David Livingston was a British explorer and missionary who developed a strong heart for the tribes of Africa and made it his life’s work to bring them to the Gospel and end the deplorable slave trade that was still continuing throughout Africa at the hands of Arab slave traders and competing African tribes.

This sharply contrasts with the biographies of Sir Richard Burton who sided with the Arab slavers and embraced a “might makes right” philosophy and no record exists that he explored anything except for the magnifying of his own ego

Livingston outdid Burton and other explorers with his discoveries and maps of interior Africa. He was fascinated with the interior and spent his life creating maps of the unexplored parts of the Congo and Central Africa. He wanted to create highways and outposts for European civilization to permeate and end the barbaric practices of these isolated tribes who spent their lives warring, enslaving and eating each other.

Yes, eating each other. These tribes knew nothing but to fight each other. The winners enslaved the losing tribe. They sold men, women, and children to Arab slavers and kept the rest for themselves to use as slaves and also to eat.

There are frightening descriptions of Livingston and companions, walking through tribal villages and seeing human arms and legs lying about with gnaw marks made by human teeth.

Today it is fashionable to pour on the White Guilt, i.e. “white supremacist imperialist, exploiting and oppressing the poor African Tribal people.”

And there is no argument that England and Germany at the time were vying with each other to stake their claims in Africa because of the rich resources by which they hoped to enrich their countries.

But to pretend that the tribes of Africa were living sweet, peaceable lives until the Big Bad Europeans came is ignorant. If anything, the warring and cannibalism greatly diminished due to European influence, altruistic or not.

Frank Debenham wrote his biography and record of Livingston’s travels shortly after the missionary’s death, so he was able to record interviews with many European and tribal people who personally knew Livingston.

His book reads like an exciting adventure account and I found his book both informative and enjoyable.



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The Man Who Presumed: A Biography of Henry M. Stanley by Byron Farwell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Henry M. Stanley is primarily famous for discovering Dr. Livingston. Yet this biography shows that Stanley was a great explorer in his own right.

Born out of wedlock to a Welsh woman, Stanley (originally John Rowlands) was handed over to a school for unwanted children at the age of four. There he suffered physical abuse, deprivation and emotional neglect.

When his mother came to the school, when Rowlands was nine, someone pointed her out as his mother. 9 year old John asked, “What’s a mother?” He didn’t know people had them. His mother approached him with a little boy and girl in each hand. These were his brother and sister. His mother kept the brother and left the sister. He never saw his mother again.

At the age of fifteen after a severe beating, Rowlands lost it and beat up the school master who was whipping him. He then ran away from the school, joined a ship and sailed for America.

On the ship he found he was little more than a slave, so at New Orleans, he jumped ship and looked for work.

Walking through the streets he came upon a man sitting in front of his shop reading the paper. This was Henry Hope Stanley, a man who longed for children and a son of his own, but was never able to have any. Rowlands approached him and asked if he was “wanting a boy”, meaning someone to work in his shop.

Stanley was startled by the request and fulfilled it, both by hiring young John and adopting him as the son he always wanted. John Rowlands became Henry Morton Stanley.

Life was good and secure with his adopted father and mother, but then the Civil War broke out and he found himself fighting with the Confederate Army. At first he really didn’t know what any of it was about, but he soon did. He was then captured and imprisoned by the Union Army, but his heart came to side with the Union, so soon he was fighting on the Union side.

But he fled fighting and after work on Merchant ships took off for New York City. After the war, he became a reporter for the New York Herald. He traveled extensively across Europe and Asia, reporting on various current events, such as the Ottoman Empire and various political transitions and events.

Finally, the editor of the Herald sent Stanley to Africa to discover whether the great explorer, David Livingston was still alive. This Stanley did and eventually found him, leading to the famous, “Dr. Livingston, I presume.”

Stanley stayed with Livingston for three months and assisted him in mapping out parts of Africa. Afterward, Stanley left for England where he was feted and championed. He embarked on tours throughout Europe and North America, but meeting Livingston had altered him.

He believed in Livingston’s mission to “civilize” Africa and soon embarked on his own expeditions. His goal was to open up the interior of Africa with highways and townships in order to thwart the Arab slave trade, which he abhorred. He also wanted to civilize the African tribes and put an end to their constant warring, inter-tribal enslavement and, last but not least, cannibalism. He believed that the European culture based on Christian morals was the way to achieve this goal.

There are appalling descriptions in this book of the utter lack of human compassion or value of human life by the Central African tribes. I would describe it, but it isn’t for the faint of heart. I hope such atrocities no longer exist, although the Arab slave trade still exists today. Where’s the outrage over that, Social Justice Warriors?

He cooperated with both English and German governments, although he later regretted the German involvement after the atrocities committed by King Leopold to African natives.

He spent his life devoted to taking up Livingston’s cause and only returned to England when he became too ill to continue.

Stanley spent his final days, happily married (he met and married a wonderful woman when he was 49) and lived the next seventeen years with his wife on a house he and his wife built, adopted orphans and, even though chronically ill, lived happily until finally succumbing to the sicknesses he acquired in Africa, at the age of 66.

This, along with the Livingston biography are worthwhile reads for all history buffs and vicarious adventure seekers.



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Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon by M.C. Beaton

See my ‘Tiels, Roosevelt and Pearl, on the top shelf? They’re shredding books I hate. Instead of throwing them into the recycle bin, I give literary dreck their proper reward. It’s a lot cheaper than the parrot toys you buy at stores.

I discovered M.C. Beaton when Josh and I were painting our house to sell. You may not know this or even agree, but I discovered that painting walls is interminably boring. I had never been one for audiobooks, but my husband suggested I take advantage of our library’s electronic library to help the time go faster.

After some trial and error, I stumbled across the mysteries of M.C. Beaton. Beaton was a Scottish writer who died in 2018. She had to grow on me, but soon I listened to most of her Agatha Raisin mysteries and also her Hamish MacBeth series.

Agatha Raisin is a woman in her fifties who left a posh job in London in advertising to live a quiet life in the Cotswolds. She soon finds herself embroiled in murders in her own neighborhood, working conjointly with the police and ultimately decides to run her own private detective agency.

Her rough background growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in the northern industrial town Birmingham, is something she is desperate to hide. She loses her tough street accent, and acquires an upper class London one. She is also a horrible snob, but cannot hide her tough background when she gets angry, which is often. She is no delicate flower and her salty vocabulary and acerbic wit show it.

Before getting into the actual story line, I’ll say that what sells Beaton’s books (and makes painting walls ever so much more bearable) is the caustic, yet sharp, witty banter that flows between the characters. If you don’t care for the mysteries, which I do, I think they’re well developed, you can at least enjoy the dialogue.

And, of course, with any series, you develop a sort of attachment to the characters.

A couple of women have narrated the audio books, but my favorite is Penelope Leach. She has the perfect voice for not only Agatha, but for all, even the male characters.

So, the review:

There’s a murder (duh). It’s a teenage girl. Her body’s been dumped in a wooded area. Who is she, why was she murdered etc…as Agatha Raisin is attempting to uncover this mystery, someone else is murdered. It turns out that the two might be related, but how?

Then yet another murder. This time someone who was suspected of murdering the teenage girl.

As the story unfolds, all the answers get answered bit by bit, until all the pieces are put together. The ending is logical, but not predictable.

What I liked about this particular story is that Agatha is no longer the lone wolf or the wolf with a couple of sidekicks. Now she has an entire team investigating:

Harry, a young college bound man who is taking a gap year and needs something to occupy himself. He’s scruffy looking with wild hair and piercings everywhere, but turns out to be a deft investigator.

The same is true for Phil, a 76 year old man, living alone, never married, needs money and is a good photographer. Agatha hires him because the vicar’s wife, Mrs. Bloxby has guilted her into it. Phil ends up being of far greater value to her than she imagined.

Patrick is an ex-policeman, tough, enigmatic, working in the background, but gets a lot of valuable information behind the scenes.

Because the story bounced back and forth between the above characters as well as their relationship with Agatha, add the regulars, Sir Charles, Agatha’s titled friend, with whom she has a love/hate relationship with, and Roy Silvers, a former employee from London, and you get not only an interesting plot, but also engaging, interesting characters that only add flavor to the

A couple of my latest sent postcards:
 

Oops!  That’s not a postcard.  That’s Puddle saying “Toodles until next time.”

Roshomon and Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Another re-post from my old blog. I thought it would be fitting to post something uncanny on Halloween.

There seems to be two camps concerning Kindles.  Those that use them and those that wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole.  I must admit when they first came out I was appalled.  The thought of reading one of my glorious books on an electronic device was unthinkable.

Of course I’m conservative about everything.  I only wear clothes as they’re going out of style; they’re much cheaper that way, for one thing.  They’re no longer popular for another.  I hate belonging to a herd.  Maybe I’m arrogant.

But we were speaking of Kindles.  I had always brought my Kindle on overseas trips because it’s so much lighter than carrying a suitcase load of books.  There are also a lot of free downloads, which is nice.

Lately I’ve discovering a couple of other perks about my Kindle.  One, gratification is immediate.  I click on the buy link and voila!  The book is in my house.  Secondly,  I don’t have to worry about what condition it will be in we it arrives.  I have had a few bad experiences with that.  Some seller’s idea of “good” or “like new” condition do not match my own.

Finally, they are considerably cheaper.  I could have bought the complete British Pack of Mystery writers for about a hundred dollars.  Instead I got the complete set for $15.00 or .99 cents each.

Which is why I bought the following book for my Kindle.  It was only $1.99.  I got it immediately and wrote a review before it would have ever been delivered to my door.

I have 437 books on my Kindle.  I could travel around the world comfortably.  Just need to remember the outlet adapter.

Rashomon and Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Collection of short stories by the pre-war Japanese author, Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Akutagawa wrote around 150 short stories before he committed suicide in 1927.

The stories are creepy and eerie, but very well done. Perhaps they are even more beautiful in the original Japanese. Nevertheless, there is something dismal and Sartresque about them. Another descriptive word would be thought-provoking as each tale grapples with evil and the hopelessness of man.

Though the author is from the 20th century, the tales show an medieval, traditional Japan. Maybe Akutagawa saw that this way of life was on the verge of disappearing.

These perhaps were meant to be moral tales, hoping to provoke the readers into recognizing their own guilt and lack of compassion for their fellow man, much like the Indian writer and poet, Rabindranath Tagore.

The first one is probably the most interesting to me. In A Grove, is about a murder with no third person narrator, but several first person narrators. The entire story is through dialogue. Each gives their testimony as to what happened. As each new person gives their version of events, new information is added and enlightens the reader to the actual character of the previous witness. Finally, even the victim gives his testimony through a medium.

Spoiler:

Another dark yet provoking tale is Rashomon. A recently fired servant visits a place where unclaimed corpses are dumped. While there he discovers a old woman stealing the hair from the corpses to sell.

He is angry that someone would stoop to desecrating the dead, but the woman insists she must do so to survive. She then claims the dead woman whose hair she is stealing stole fish when she was alive, but she, too, did it only to survive. So is it evil when one is only doing what one is forced to do?

The servant answers her, that if that is the case, he is justified in stealing from her. So he violently takes her clothes from her body and runs off, leaving the old woman naked among the dead.

I think it is a point well taken. When one begins to justify evil, where is the line drawn? It’s just a matter of might making right.

The last story, The Dragon, is the most suspenseful. A priest, tired of being mocked and bullied by his community decides to play a practical joke. He sets up a sign next to a lake near his temple that at a certain date, a black dragon that resides at the bottom of the lake will rise to the heavens.

As more and more people read the sign, word gets around and increasing hordes of people from all over Japan start arriving to see the spectacle. The priest begins to feel uneasy. He meant it as a joke so he could laugh at his fellow villagers. Now what will happen when everyone is disappointed?

The ending is not predictable and rather beautiful.

There is an interesting movie called Roshomon made in 1950 by the director, Akira Kurosawa. It’s considered a horror/thriller.

Skinny Reviews: Cloak and Dagger; The Life of Sir Richard Burton by Thomas Wright; Sabine Baring-Gould: The Man Who Told a thousand Stories by Rebecca Tope

I am not getting my reviews out like I should. I’m reading a lot, but I seem to be sinking into a mire of multiple responsibilities. I’ve got a lot of rehearsals (I’m a professional musician for those who don’t know); I’m an artist and I’m trying to get my Christmas cards painted and in stores around town; and finally I’m in the final stages of getting my first book published. It’s a mystery and I need to find people willing to read and post an honest review on Amazon. Please contact me if you’re interested. I’ll be posting the first two chapters in the next week or so, which should allow people to decide whether they would like a copy of not.

So… as the blog title suggests I am going to give extremely brief reviews of the last few books I’ve read.

The Life of Sir Richard Burton by Thomas Wright

On Kindle I’ve just finished a biography of Sir Richard Burton by Thomas Wright. I found this biography to be far more readable and enjoyable than the last biography I read of Burton by Joseph Kennedy.

Wright wrote his biography in 1906 and contacted many people who personally knew Burton, including his wife.

A review on Amazon complained that this biography was heavily bowdlerized, but I didn’t find it so. Wright was honest about what a pervert Burton was without making it a slog to get through his life.

Burton’s philosophies were considered shocking in his day, something he reveled in. He was a eugenicist-he didn’t think poor people or “defective” people should be allowed to procreate. He believed that Islam and Mormonism had it right with polygamy. And he really, really loved every sordid, bizarre and deviant sexual practice that he came across.

Most of his books are written about this topic. Burton could speak about 17 languages and he used this skill to investigate the cultural practices of the Middle Eastern peoples as well as the African tribes he encountered. But only so far as how that had shocking sex.

And the greatest irony is that his writing is so boring. You’d think such a topic would sell itself, but no. Burton excelled at making every cultural encounter and geographical discovery tedious.

A good writer is Thomas Wright, because he could make an otherwise odious person a good read, thanks to his fluid writing skills.

I especially appreciated his meticulous comparison of Burton’s and John Payne’s. translations of 1001 Arabian Nights. Payne wrote his version earlier and Wright provides several excerpts from both versions to demonstrate how Burton took most of his version from Payne. Except he added so much more to ensure that his would be far less interesting and far more tedious to read than Payne’s.

Sabine Baring-Gould: The Man Who Told a Thousand Stories by Rebecca Tope

Gould might be known to some people as a hymn writer. He wrote the text to several hymns, the best known being Onward Christian Soldiers.

Baring-Gould was a clergyman, but also a researcher of the history of the British people. He collected many tales, largely supernatural from his native island and throughout Europe.

His book on Were Wolves is especially interesting and he has collections of the practices of witches, beliefs in ghosts and vampires as well. These are not merely collections of folk tales, but of the culture surrounding the belief in supernatural evil and the people who actually practiced witchcraft, and who believed they were Were Wolves and Vampires.

Tope, who happens to be related to Baring-Gould writes a well documented and informative biography of the clergyman’s life and work.

Cloak and Dagger and The Edmund Crispin Treasure, Volume 1.

Ok, these two books are really going to have skinny reviews: They are both collections of great murder mysteries and espionage stories. I loved them!

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

I love autumn. This is my first house with a fireplace. Last week, Josh took a plank of wood, stained it and attached it with supports over the fireplace. I love it! This is my favorite time of the year. Josh says that if you go into the bathroom and turn out the lights, look in the mirror and say “Pumpkin Spice Latte” three times, a white girl will appear in the reflection and tell you everything she loves about autumn. That’s me! Including pumpkin spice lattes!

Last Thursday our town had art walk and I exhibited my paintings and the latest cards. I didn’t sell any paintings this time, but I sold all my holiday cards.

However, the local Italian restaurant where my table was set up wants me to hang some of my paintings in his restaurant, so I’m happy about that.

I still have not written any new reviews, so once again I’m recycling an old review from my other blog.

I had to write a review of The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald because of the impact it had on my sons. At the time I read this book I had two sons: my biological son, Derek and my foster son Coleman. Coleman has since gone back to live with his mother but while he was here we had a ritual of reading the Bible, saying our prayers, and reading a book before going to bed.

At first I was reluctant to read such an “old fashioned Victorian” sort of book. I mean, a book like this cannot rate very high on the “cool” scale, right?

Wrong. My sixteen and twelve year old sons loved this book. Let me give a synopsis and then I’ll tell you why they enjoyed this book so much.

Princess Irene has been sent to live in a palace away from her father, the King. Why? Because underneath the ground in a mountain is a whole city of goblins who intend to kidnap the princess and force her to marry the Goblin King’s son. What Princess Irene’s father does not realize is that for many years the Goblins have been slowly tunneling toward the palace where the princess lives and plan to come up from the basement of the palace in order to snatch her.

Luckily for the princess she has some help. First of all, she has a grandmother who lives in a tower in the palace. To everyone but Irene this tower is deserted and decrepit. Only Irene can see her grandmother. Although not explicitly stated, it seems the grandmother is angel from heaven come to help and protect Irene.

And then there’s Curdie. Curdie is a boy, not much older than Irene, who works in the mines with his father. While the other miners are wary of the goblins, Curdie isn’t afraid at all. He knows that the goblins are cowards and retreat if anyone puts up a good fight. And rhymes. They hate poetry. So Curdie cheerfully works through the night. If goblins surface from underground, he fearlessly “fights and recites” back at them. Curdie turns out to be an invaluable friend to Princess Irene and ultimately protects her from the Goblin King.
Lest you think Princess Irene is a wilting wall flower with no personality of her own, she is a vibrantly, strong young girl who knows right from wrong and how to stand up for what she believes in.

But she is a girl and never has to prove her worth by acting like a guy. Unlike just about every movie out in Hollywood today where the female protagonists  prove their equality with men by emasculating them. Let’s be honest: today’s movie ‘heroines’ are basically men with female parts.

Curdie is very strong in who he is and isn’t afraid to fight goblins, or care for and protect Irene. But while Curdie is Irene’s hero, she is his heroine because she has many qualities that he benefits from as well, such as her strong sense of propriety and how to act based on those principals. She teaches him to trust in the unseen and follow her even when his practical mind says they’re going the wrong way. In point of fact, throughout the story Curdie and Irene take turns “saving” each other from danger but without Irene sacrificing her innocence or femininity.

My! How counter modern culture.

I was concerned that my teenage boys were going to roll their eyes at this Victorian depiction of nascent love. Wrong again.  They wanted to be Curdie. Boys aren’t inspired by movies that depict the women as smarter and stronger than they are. They want to be heroes.

Curdie and Princess Irene are still kids at the end of this book but MacDonald promises a sequel where they grow up and get married. My boys’ response?

“Let’s go buy the sequel!”

JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis both credit Macdonald’s The Princess and the Goblin and it’s sequel, ThePrincess and Curdie as the inspiration for their fantasy books. That’s reason enough to read them, but if you want your son to read how young boys use to “man up” back in the day, I suggest you read them The Princess and the Goblin.

I published this back in 2013. Derek and Coleman are both grown and gone. Coleman is living in Houston and Derek is in China. But I have good memories of those years and I hope they do, too.

West With the Night by Beryl Markham

West with the Night by Beryl Markham

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Beryl Markham led an extraordinary life. As a child she grew up in Africa on her father’s horse race farm. From him she learned to breed and race horses. She stayed in Africa after her father left for Peru and continued the business at the age of seventeen.

Later she became a pilot, an unusual occupation for anyone, much less a woman in the 1930s. She may be best known for flying solo non stop across the Atlantic to North America from England, even though her plane, due to fuel freezing crash landed.

While quite the elite bohemian in her youth, she eventually became poor and was living in Africa alone and obscure in her 80s.

She was rediscovered in the 1980s when George Gutekunst, a wealthy restaurateur, happened across some letters by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway wrote,

“Did you read Beryl Markham’s book, West with the Night? …She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade b–, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers … it really is a bloody wonderful book.”

Gutekunst got Markham’s book reissued. He discovered Markham in Kenya where she was still training thoroughbreds. The republishing of her book allowed her to end her years in relative comfort.

I got the above from online sources. The book, originally published in 1942, deals only with Markham’s life in Africa, horse training and flying.

I don’t know if I agree with Hemingway’s assessment of Markham’s writing, but the content of her book is certainly interesting.

We learn a lot about Africa, the bush, hunting, her relationship with the native Kenyans and her entanglements on more than one occasion, with wild lions.

She deftly describes her life so that one can see all that she saw in vivid terms.

She creates a graphic, if terrifying, even if it is vicarious experience for the reader as she describes the mechanics of the plane as well as her own feelings, as she flies. Especially when she flies across the Atlantic. Her courage is pretty amazing. What an unusual woman.

She had many friends then. She mentions no love affairs, although other sources say she had quite a few. She rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous and slept with more than a few of them.

I’d like to know how she became poor and unknown. What happened in her life where she seemed to have lost all her friends and lovers? Did she grow too old? Or as they died off, she became more reclusive?

I suppose a good biography will answer these questions.

If you enjoy non fiction adventure. I’d say this book is for you.



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That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

I have not gotten all my strength back since I got sick in August and it seems I am really sluggish in getting my reviews up. I’ve read a bunch of books, but haven’t reviewed them yet. So I am recycling a review from a couple of years ago. I hope you enjoy it.

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


When I first read That Hideous Strength, it was my least favorite of Lewis’ Science Fiction trilogy. Now I believe it is my favorite.

Evil forces have gathered for a showdown on Earth. We have seen some of this in the first two books but now the “bent” Eldil and their minions are showing their hand in hopes of destroying Earth.

It is insightful to see how much the evil Eldil hate mankind, because, of course, they hate mankind’s Maker.

They are a pragmatic sort, however, and tell whatever lies, power hungry, perverse men are willing to swallow to achieve that end.

Our story starts out with a young couple, Jane and Mark. Jane and Mark are a modern, progressive couple and they have no patience with old fashioned notions of women and men’s roles. Jane’s ambition is to finish her thesis and Mark’s ambition is to join the “inner ring” at the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments or N.I.C.E. for short.

This starts the trouble because Mark is invited to join N.I.C.E. He thinks. They certainly have invited him and have intimated that they want him, but for what? He cannot get a definite answer as to what his occupation would be or that he is even hired. When he demands clarity, he is warned that he will offend the director. Anxious to please, Mark subsides.

Meanwhile, Jane is having some very non progressive, non modern dreams. They are strange and disturbing and it seems they have something to do with an ancient man lying in a tomb.

All is not as it seems, to coin a phrase. It turns out the institute is not interested in Mark but want Jane. Her dreams will tell them the location of this mysterious man. Why do they want him? They believe he possesses power that will help them control the world.

At least that is what the men think. In reality, it is the Eldil who want the man to help them destroy the world. They play on certain men’s lust for power to achieve their ultimate goals.

Lewis creates a brilliant expose on human nature and our reality on a metaphysical level.

Each person is a type and Lewis reveals their nature by narrating their thoughts to the reader. We smile and sometimes laugh in acknowledgement because we recognize ourselves and others in the different characters. We also are filled with loathing as we recognize the perversity and arrogance that characterizes so many people in our world.

I especially appreciate his descriptions of the men at N.I.C.E. Each one wants something from the Eldil. One wants superior knowledge and scientific advancement; another seeks supernatural experiences, a third wants freedom to experiment on animals and humans for his personal increase in knowledge and biogenetic engineering. Not one cares how many people they expend to achieve their selfish goals and they see the Eldil as a means to their own ends without considering that they are actually meeting the Eldils’ ends.

In the end each of them find themselves, their person, individuality, and finally their soul, absorbed by the Eldil.

Dr. Ransom, the man who traveled to the planets in the first two books, is keeping a group of people safe from N.I.C.E in his house. These are the few that have not either capitulated to N.I.C.E.’s side or been jailed. Jane, at first unwillingly, then later most willingly joins them.

Ransom informs his small group that the scientists and professors at N.I.C.E. do not realize that the Eldil hate them as much as they hate everyone else and as soon as their usefulness is gone, these “intellectual” men will find themselves deserted and finally destroyed.

There are moments of real horror. The Head of the institute turns out to be exactly that; the decapitated head of a criminal who was executed in France. One scientist obsessed with creating life from dead men, like his own Frankenstein, has invented a method to infuse the head with saliva, blood, and oxygen. The Head then speaks and gives orders.

This is scary enough but worse revelations about the Head are around the corner and I won’t reveal anything else so as not to spoil it for the reader.

There are also turning points. This happens primarily in Jane and Mark who at first are against Ransom’s side and his group in that they dismiss them as antiquated and backwards in their “old fashioned” thinking about morals or believing in a Spiritual world. Both come around as they personally experience undeniable evil.

Mark’s conversion is the best part. He transforms from being a self-absorbed toady to seeing N.I.C.E. for what it really is and no longer fears rejection of the “inner circle” or losing his job. Once he becomes fearless, he stops thinking only of himself and the reader sees Mark become more fully a man, more fully human as though the character change fleshes him out to where previously he was merely a thin out line of a person.

I should point out that not all Eldil are evil. As we learn in the first book, Out of the Silent Planet, most Eldil are good. Only the ruling Eldil of planet Earth is “bent” as the good Eldil call it.

And we eventually learn that Earth is not completely deserted by good Eldil. They are also here on Earth. They have traveled from other planets to battle the evil Eldil, something the bent Eldil did not anticipate.

I find the whole story a perfect analogy to the battle going on Earth now between good and evil.

And, as with all of Lewis’ work. The reader is never deserted. We are reassured that good and the Author of good conquers evil. And again, we learn to love Lewis’ characters as much as Lewis obviously loved people and consequently made lovable reflections of humans in his stories. We love them because we see them around us.

Lewis once said of Nathaniel Hawthorne that “he shows the darkness in men without ever providing light to pierce that darkness” (I am paraphrasing because I wrote it down from memory).

Lewis succeeds in piercing the darkness with his light-suffused stories.



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Postcard. I sent it to someone in Russia.

Mere Christianity: A Biography by George M. Marsden

C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity: A Biography by George M. Marsden

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Cutting to the chase:

What I liked about the book:

I learned about the early years when Lewis was asked to create a series of talks for the BBC during WWII. I think Marsden does very well describing how the book came about. I also found his list of yay and nay-sayers to be interesting.

What I did not like:


After a while it feels as though the nay sayers get way too much credit and too much attention devoted to the sneering detraction of Lewis and all of his work, including Mere Christianity.

What I found most interesting as well as deplorable was that none of his detractors argued a single point Lewis made. Instead they settled for making unsubstantiated assertions that could be summed up as:

” C.S. Lewis is not a theologian. He is not a sophisticated thinker as we, the theologians, are. Therefore we are scornful of anything he has to say. He wants to drive the church back into the middle ages with his silly notions of Biblical inerrancy, the divinity of Jesus and all the other nonsense that requires one to take Scripture seriously. 20th century Christianity has moved way beyond that, no wonder it’s only backwards fundamentalists in America that read him and so forth…”

What they don’t seem to recognize is that their ilk is as old as the gospel. The writers of the Bible, Paul, James, John and Peter were already dealing with the same doubts and denials that today’s “sophisticated” aka liberal theologian believes.

Hence:

I liked the first half and not so much the rest.



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