I've Read It Both Ways: Differences in English Usage From Country to Country

“…It [a shape-shifting alien…it makes sense in context] has amazing mimetic abilities. In one month it learned to speak English perfectly and to become well acquainted with British customs. That is no easy feat, Bunny. There are thousands of Frenchmen and Americans who have been here for some time who have not yet comprehended the British language, temperament, or customs. And these are human beings, though there are, of course, some Englishmen who are uncertain about this.”

           

The Problem of the Sore Bridge—Among Others

By Philip José Farmer [full disclosure: an American writing a pastiche of British author E.W. Hornung's Raffles short stories] (writing as Harry Manders)* 

Communication as a form of connecting and understanding other people fascinates me. It’s probably an underlying influence on my interest in the written word. Spoken words are interesting, too, but they’re transient. They fly into oblivion almost as soon as they escape the mouth. Even if words happen to be recorded in a video or audio format, it requires rewinding and replaying to review the words intensively.

Written words, on the other hand, stay put. One can stare at them, dissecting, defining, rearranging, until the writer’s intended meaning is pretty well grasped. This orderly method of communication may be why, in many ways, I prefer writing to speaking. I can be methodical and take my time with written words where one wrong curve of the tongue may distort the pronunciation of a word (basically a verbal typo), potentially affecting the meaning in the process.

Practical Christianity: Traveling on Business

The main reason I wanted to discuss William Wilberforce’s 1797 essay, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes was the following passage, which I found both intriguing and comforting:

Practical Christianity: A Work in Progress

Among the (many) excuses people have for not exploring Christianity, there are two that are polar opposites, yet equally effective at keeping God at arm’s length:

1.      “Christians are perfect, and I’m simply not good enough.”

2.      “Christians are hypocrites. They pretend to be all goody-goody, but turn out to be just as bad as the rest of us.”

While William Wilberforce’s A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes is an essay aimed at exposing the hypocrisy mentioned in point 2, he does manage to address these two claims: 

Practical Christianity: Rational Affection

One thing that struck me while reading William Wilberforce’s A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes was how logical, almost scientific, his language and arguments were. He uses a lot of logical analogies to illustrate his points. He points to astronomy and the natural world, and even mentions Isaac Newton at one point. He also references historical, political, and international events to trace a pattern of human nature and behavior, thus laying a groundwork for his theses. 

He uses a phrase that I thought was interesting “rational affection.” We don’t often think of affection—an emotion—as “rational.” We don’t expect to be able to logically figure out who we’ll fall in love with, or to explain with a pros-con spreadsheet why you are friends with a specific person. Yet when it comes to our love of God, Wilberforce treats it as a rational act. Our loving God is not on our own initiative—we’re not doing Him any favors. Rather, our loving God is a natural, logical reaction of gratitude for Christ’s salvation, of appreciation of all the blessings He gives us, of acknowledging who God is, and of awe in how great and truly different He is from us. 

Practical Christianity: The Trap of Good Deeds

In his essay, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes, William Wilberforce explains that one trap for “nominal Christians” (and even those believers that are otherwise strong in their faith) is the problem of works. True righteousness has nothing to do with what we have done, and everything to do with what Christ has already done. “But they rather conceive of Christianity as opening the door of mercy,” but once a Christian has stepped through that door the rest is “up to them.” 

Practical Christianity: The Purpose of Imagination

The things we care about are often the things in the closest proximity. William Wilberforce uses the example of feeling more keenly the tragedy of an accident on the street just outside, than the tragedy of thousands of people being slaughtered on the other side of the world.

And the things that are in closest proximity to us do not even have to be real. Our imaginations allow us to feel more emotion for the characters in the book we’re reading than for real incidents going on farther away. In fact, because these characters in a sense live inside us, they are in the closest proximity anything could be…and therefore might be more powerful than things going on in our own homes. 

Practical Christianity: Ignorance Is No Excuse

William Wilberforce’s 1797 essay, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes, confronts the lukewarm attitudes of religion in his culture. It really resonated with me, more than two hundred years later, because there are so many parallels or foreshadowings of present-day culture.

One thing that is constant throughout history—thus putting my life on an equal footing with Wilberforce’s—is the presence of sin. Sin is often simply defined as “evil” or “wickedness” or “doing bad things,” but I would argue that sin’s scope is a little wider than your stereotypical “bad” things like criminal acts, but extends to anything that is against God.

Practical Christianity: William Wilberforce’s Thesis

In the upcoming entries I plan to discuss some of these “nuggets of wisdom” I found in William Wilberforce’s A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes.  But first it might be helpful to know the purpose of this essay.

“The main object which he has in view is, not to convince the Sceptic, or to answer the arguments of persons who avowedly oppose the fundamental doctrines of our Religion; but to point out he scanty and erroneous system of the bulk of those who belong to the class of orthodox Christians, and to contrast their defective scheme with a representation of what the author apprehends to be real Christianity.”

The point of this book was for Wilberforce to expose the shallow religious façade that had become so prevalent in Britain at the time. Times have changed drastically since then, and while I can’t speak to the state of British religious views personally, from my observations in America we’ve drifted even farther from Christianity in its truest sense. 

Practical Christianity: Introduction

Awhile back I slogged through a very long and very dense essay titled A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes. For brevity’s sake (and to belay carpal tunnel syndrome) I will nickname it Practical Christianity. Published in 1797, this essay was written by William Wilberforce, whom I had best known beforehand as being an instrumental player in abolishing the slave trade in Britain.

This work is in public domain and so I downloaded a free version on my Kindle. I read it during my breaks at work, which hindered me from reading it very fast, and in the end I think that was a good thing because this is one book that one cannot simply breeze through. 

Focus on What Matters

"Many people are going through life "out of breath" because they are involved in so many activities--many of which do not contribute to their life's purpose.... So many agendas will compete for your energy and attention that if you're not committed to your own unique purpose, then your resources will be drained by everything else."

~ Fresh Air by Chris Hodges

Chapter 2: Catch Your Breath, pg 29

I've been feeling so overwhelmed lately, stalked by an ambiguous anxiety that's not caused by one big stressful thing, but rather a thousand little inconsequential chores or errands. 

It's funny how even things that are recreational or entertainment, like reading or hobbies or even watching TV, can warp into yet another thing on the To Do list. For instance, "having" to watch TV because you're trying to clear up your DVR queue.

The same has been true of reading for me as well. At the beginning of the year I challenged myself to read 150 before 2019. While I think this has generally gone well, it has had two shortcomings:

Thoughts on Aristotle's "Poetics"

The way words can conjure a world and convey thoughts from one brain to another’s seems like true magic, yet a magic that has a science behind it nonetheless.

“Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and thought imitation learns his earliest lessons…. Next, there is the instinct for ‘harmony’ and rhythm, metres being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry.”

One of the earliest books about the science of writing happens to be one of the best I’ve read thus far. Aristotle’s Poetics is not simply about poetry—genres of Ancient Greece were not divided in the same ways as they are in modern times—but also talks about storytelling, comedy, plot structure, character development, diction and word choice, evoking emotion in the reader, Style, logic, and verisimilitude. (Verisimilitude is one of my favorite words learned in college lit classes, referring to a story being “true to life” or realistic.)

The Mabinogion - The Fairest of Them All

If you thought it was fun counting how many injuries should have killed Sir Kai, you’re in for another counting treat: How many of the maidens in this book are the most beautiful in the land?

If you want to know the answer but don’t have time at the moment to read the entire Mabinogion, don’t worry. I did it for you:

The Mabinogion - An Easy Quest

Since Sir Owain tends to be a jerk going around in disguise and making all his relatives—including King Arthur himself—put out Missing Persons lists about him, portraits of him on whatever Camelot used for milk cartons, and generally assuming he was dead in the ditch somewhere, a fair amount of The Mabinogion’s Camelot segment is devoted to people going on quests looking for him.

One of my favorite exchanges is the result. King Arthur, now thinking that Owain is dead, has put out a call to his knights to go out into the land and find out Owain’s ultimate fate. Before anyone goes anywhere, though, he puts on a grand tournament…which of course Owain shows up to in disguise.

In a rare instance of poetic justice to Owain—the other one being where a dwarf gives him a good smack—his opponent is also in disguise. It’s Gawain (here called Gwalchmai), which, taking into account their uncle Arthur’s penchant for going incognito as the Black Knight, and also Arthur’s sisters Morgause and Morgan le Fay being enchantresses who regularly change their appearance, makes me think this whole disguise-y thing is a family trait.

The Mabinogion - Introduction

The Mabinogion is compilation of medieval British (specifically Welsh) stories of love, war, and magic. Although there are many references to Arthurian legends, this compilation includes a variety of other tales as well. Although probably not as well-known as Mallory’s Le Morte D’arthur, The Mabinogion nevertheless has had a lasting impact on literature. To reference some past blog posts where I discussed this influence, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion is one example, and Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain another.

To the contemporary audiences of the 12-13^th centuries or even before, this was their form of entertainment. Like television today, these oral recitations (or, once the stories were finally written down, read-alouds) had to serve in many roles: Romance, action, mystery, fantasy, philosophy, history, and perhaps even a little theology.

It takes a shift in values to understand how original audiences received these stories. To the modern reader, many of these heroes come across as meatheads and braggarts. Take Sir Kynon:

“I was the only son of my mother and father, and I was exceedingly aspiring and my daring was very great. I thought there was no enterprise in the world too mighty for me…”

Wow. Humble much?

I've been listening to too much Dumas fangirling

The subject of bereavement is one that has often been treated powerfully by poets, who have run the whole gamut of the emotions while laying bare for us the agony of those who have lost parents, wives, children, gazelles, money, fame, dogs, cats, doves, sweethearts, horses, and even collar studs.  But no poet has yet treated of the most poignant bereavement of all—that of the man halfway through a detective story who finds himself at bedtime without the book.

~  P.G. Wodehouse, Strychnine in the Soup

When I read "collar studs" I legitimately thought Wodehouse was making a reference to The Three Musketeers until I reminded myself that's a novel, not a poem. I guess I've been listening to my sister's Dumas fangirling too much!

Words to Read By: Evaluating Books by Their Blurbs

BLOGGER’S NOTE: I usually try to keep my blog family-friendly and age-appropriate, but this entry will describe briefly some of the things I avoid when choosing reading material.

The last time I was at the library I went on another borrowing binge. As I was scouring the stacks searching for my next Great American (or any other nationality, I’m not particularly picky on that count) Novel, I realized that I was judging books by their covers…but more than that, I was judging them by their blurbs.

This is perfectly acceptable library behavior. Blurbs—the description of the book’s contents either on the back cover or inside the front flap of the dust-jacket—are carefully crafted in order to communicate how great and readable the book is, in order to sell as many copies as possible.  It’s important to remember that a badly written blurb does not mean the book itself is badly written or vise-versa. However, it is also important to put some time into decoding a blurb in order to get a correct idea of what the book will actually be about.

What are you, a Man or a Rabbit?

I love C.S. Lewis’ writings, from his children’s fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia to his Science Fiction Trilogy (particularly Perelandra) to his Faustian, dark-humored epistolary novel The Screwtape Letters. His nonfiction writings are equally as well-written, perhaps more so.  I won’t deny, however, that his theological and philosophical arguments sometimes go over my head. So in reading the collection of essays, interviews, etc. compiled in God in the Dock, it was a bit of a mixed bag. One chapter might be deep and dry and incomprehensible to me, the next would be illuminating and fun and a challenge to my character and growth. This book definitely gave me plenty of food for thought, so much that I took several months between reading it earlier this summer before attempting to write about it now. I just re-read it, trying to find what nugget of wisdom I initially thought of interest. I found much more merit the second read around.

In the essay Man or Rabbit? Lewis poses the question “Can’t you lead a good life without believing in Christianity?” It’s a conflict between Christians (most of whom would say, “No”) and the rest of humanity, whom Lewis refers to as Materialists. There’s another conflict here, which Lewis poses as a question as whether we’re Men or Rabbits. (I’ll try to unwrap that conflict later.)

Fun with Kindle Comments

Due to a weird nerve pinch thing that affected my neck, left shoulder, and all along my back, I was laid up an entire workday last week. Of course this--and the fact that my being left-handed meant I couldn't use my dominant hand for anything whilst being laid up--meant I had to sit in a recliner reading all day. What else was I to do, aside from complete three books (two of them from start to finish)?

 

Because of this misfortune I actually cleared my reading pile. You'll notice I didn't capitalize that "reading pile," because my official To Be Read Pile is not some piffling three books tall. Ever heard of the Eiffel Tower? California Redwood Trees?  Mount Everest? Good, then not only have you received a well-rounded education, but you're also getting closer to imagining how high my TBRP measures.

Taking Sides

Reading all the good books is like a conversation

with the finest people of past centuries. 

~ Rene Descartes

It may seem strange to a person who is more extroverted and less of a bibliophile, but I often feel as if an author is a personal acquaintance of mine, and that reading their works is like carrying on a conversation with them. The author may be dead, or even if they’re alive they may not live in the same country or speak the same language. There is a great unlikelihood* that I will ever have an actual face-to-face conversation.**

This very feeling of closeness, even kinship, with an author, is part of what prompts me to want to read so much. When you are friends with someone, you want to talk to them as much as possible, and if reading is a conversation, then you want to read as much as possible for the same reasons. 

A real complication arises from this, though: when you’re having a conversation with a real person, it goes without saying that sometimes this conversation becomes an argument. And if this argument takes place between you and a book—or even worse, between two books—it’s a bit hard to know how to react.

T.S. Eliot's "Portrait of a Lady"

Poetry as a genre is distinct from other genres of writing in that, although it has the ability to tell stories, poetry uses form as well as plot to illustrate a particular theme.  In his poetry, T.S. Eliot uses words not only for exposition of characters and situations, but also to instill form in a poem.  This is evident in his poem “Portrait of a Lady,” in which words not only create the personas’ characters, but also create order in a poem that in many ways goes against formulaic convention. 

"Portrait of a Lady” tells an intricate story condensed into three sections, and mainly concerns interactions between two characters: the narrator and a lady.  In the first section of the poem, the narrator is one of a group of people visiting the lady, but in subsequent sections they are alone, as the action centers on them.  The two characters are exposed through the poem’s story by how they react to their current situations: the narrator voices his reactions in thoughts and the lady does the same through dialogue.  In both cases the characters and situation develop as the poem itself progresses.