Overdue Books Update
January 8, 2007
Since Mama Squirrel was able to be so humble as to admit her floundering with this challenge, I feel that I, too, must 'fess up.
I can say that I joyously finished Northanger Abbey after dragging it out for over a month. Heavens! I was thoroughly glad to be done with this book. I love Jane Austen, but this book has to be her one awful book. I felt like I was at our local shopping mall frustrated from making any progress by a walking wall of young teenage girls ahead of me. Yes, a walking wall. You know what I am talking about. When the group ahead of you or, even worse, coming towards you all walk side-by-side causing you to either stroll slowly behind them or play chicken to see who will move out of the way first when headed toward you. Did I ever tell you how much I hate shopping malls? Anyway, back to our story.
The entire first half of Northanger Abbey is precisely like walking behind a gaggle of young teenage girls who appear to be of very little brain and have very little supervision. They spend their time talking about clothes, boys, silly books and more boys. They are parading around the mall, er, dancing hall giggling to themselves and continually passing by the young man working at the sporting goods store while pretending not to notice him.
Catherine, the "heroine" of this book, while being quite naive is a good sort of girl. She never seems to develop into anything more than that, though. The character that caught my interest was that of John Thorpe. If I could have reached through the pages and turned him into a possum, I would have. He would then have been just as vile a creature, but of no consequence to Catherine or me, for that matter. I am not sure if he upset me more or if Catherine's naivete around him annoyed me more. Needless to say, I don't particularly like to spend half a book being increasingly annoyed by a character.
The second half of the book was spent at Northanger Abbey. There we find Catherine in a chapter of one of her own Gothic novels. I thought maybe things would get interesting there at the Abbey, but the only thing that got interesting was Catherine's wild imagination. It was so obvious that her imaginings had no basis in reality that it was as if the novel had been padded with fluff that further impeded me from finishing it.
When the book finally came to its tidy ending, all I can say is that I was much relieved. And, after having been to Bath and Northanger Abbey for much of the novel, Catherine's home was a much more cozy place to be. I could actually feel the warmth of the home with very little in the way of description of it. I'm glad it ended there. I felt entirely exhausted from the trip.
The second book I read was Christian Modesty and the Public Undressing of America by Jeff Pollard. This was a quick read and I was glad for it after trudging through my first book. The book's premise is that the bathing suit industry has led us all into a state of comfort with being nearly naked in public. As someone who strives to dress modestly, I have to say that I could not really argue with anything that was stated in this book. I do wish that it had been fleshed out a bit more. (Pun only partially not intended.) Having said that, though, I do believe the author accomplished what he set out to do. It is a scripturally sound book that examines the bathing suit industry's impact on our culture and seeks to examine what Christian modesty truly is while realizing that it does go beyond mere apparel. I will be reading The Beauty of Modesty: Cultivating Virtue in the Face of a Vulgar Culture by David J. Vaughan soon and hope that it will give me a little more to satisfy my appetite for this subject matter.
So, I have two books down and have started on my third, My Antonia by Willa Cather. So far, it has caught my interest. Let's hope it continues to do so. I believe I have until the end of the month to finish two and a half more books. I will do my best.
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Comments:
Tee hee--about comparing the halls at Bath to a mall. I did like that book, mostly because she was poking such awful fun (to use your metaphor) at the kind of reading that the mallflowers were getting from the chain bookstores.
Posted by: Mama Squirrel at January 8, 2007 11:28 AM
At least Miss Austen warns us at the beginning that Catherine isn't a deep, thoughtful character: "No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine...."
Posted by: Katie at January 8, 2007 5:34 PM
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