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It’s hard to know how to take the loss of winter. Most people are happy and congratulate each other on it. They smile on twitter and face book, crowing over the warmth and the lack of snow. And I, twisted this way and that, sorrow in my heart. I miss the bright red of the cardinals in the snowy bushes or the dear plump grey caped juncos hopping in and out of the tracks my husband and I leave in the snow after we fill the feeders. I miss the intense cold of winter, when it’s so cold that no one is out and when I go to the river, each sound is crystal clear. The downy woodpeckers sound off as do the chickadees and I listen to breaks of ice in the river as it hardens and forms and floats. Winter is cold and it’s bitter but it has a blue beauty of all it’s own and I miss it.
Due to winter not being here, I can take walks everyday in my jeans and my tennis shoes. It’s a little cold but not bad as long as I take a quick pace. Everything is brown and olive. The trees are. The goldfinches are. The big windmill overlooking the park is. People bike furiously past me every day. They’re mostly men and mostly frown. Biking seems hard work even without snow.
The days pass and they are easy on all of us. The temperature hangs around forty and it makes so much easier for grocery shopping, visiting with friends, eating out. It is a world held in suspension. I haven’t been able to smell the snow yet. I haven’t shoveled and I haven’t marveled at the sculptures snow and ice make. Life is easier but it’s loss is the toothy edge that Nature always brings. I hope this easy winter makes life lighter for the birds and squirrels and other wild things but I worry about the turtles and frogs coming up too soon believing it is spring and then losing them to the deep winter that may come still.
I haven’t had to fight in this winter, where I grow cold constantly, where I just want to sleep forever. Missing winter is like missing a great cold god. Sure, they’re mean, sure they try to kill you but hey, they’re mysterious and beautiful and as it happens, you aren’t starving and you can get through the experience of this god with relative ease as long as you drive safe on the roads.
This crownless god crawls in at night however. Every night, the temperature plummets to the teens and when I rise in the morning, everything is sheeted in the handiwork of the winter kingdom. The car’s windows are scrolled in feathers and diamonds and the grass snaps white in the bright sun. I gaze from without and gaze and gaze. Maybe there’s hope the god will come back. Maybe we’ll get to see the dazzling change we see every year and complain about. I want to complain about it. I need to complain about the cold and then have it take my breath away with it’s sharp hard beauty.
The sun is setting now in shades of orange and apricot, setting where I can’t see it, I only see the afterglow. One more day to go and then the weatherman says, the Artic cold will come in and all this warmth and dryness will pass away. So when that happens, I’ll head out with a shovel and salute the glorious day. Winter is coming after all. We get to see it at least for this year, I dearly hope.

Ever since Masterpiece put out “Bleak House” 2009, I’ve watched it seasonally. My husband, Jeff, can’t help but get involved too. We get rattled, angry, Jeff swears off the series but comes back and in the end, it all works out because that is Dickens. Now there isn’t much Dickens I care for. It’s pretty much just the tv version of Bleak House and Miss Havisham that does it for me. I’ve read plenty of Dickens and have always felt sorrowful that I, unlike Jo March, just cannot get into Pickwick Papers.

And then life happens and we get older and I got older too and after all these years, I finally picked up Dickens again. I picked up Bleak House, naturally. Knowing the plot doesn’t bother me any and I was looking forward to what Davies couldn’t possibly pack in. And well, I get it now. I get why people love Dickens. I love him too. Loving him doesn’t mean he isn’t perfectly maddening at times with too many words. Loving him doesn’t mean that his psychology isn’t off at times. It’s just loving him. I love him because when I picked Bleak House and read just a few lines, I realized he loved writing.

“London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes–gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.”

London. Now. Back Then. So yes, I see the Dickens allure. There’s also two characters that have caught my eye. One is Mrs. Jellyby. She has innumerable children but due to a heavy correspondence about forming and raising money for a colony in Africa, she neglects her household to a shocking state. Her children run ragged and dirty. The food on her table is served nearly raw. Her husband pines in a dark corner. Her oldest daughter is sort of a goodwill slave, always at her mother side, taking down her memorandums and letters. I’m certain this daughter will break free (okay so I know the plot but still! I’m intrigued at what she’ll do) though I doubt it for the poor depressed husband.

Counter to this is a Mrs. Pardiggle. She keeps her five young boys, age 12 to 5, in constant movement with her. She visits the poor and by visits, I mean comes to their house unwelcome and lectures them on what to do. Immediate assistance, she cannot give. Practical assistance, she cannot render neither. She is however, full of energy and strength. So she visits, commands and leaves, never tiring, never faultering. Her boys trail after her, pinching people’s arms for money when she isn’t looking and being as nasty as they can be whenever Mrs. Pardiggle is up to her ears in some other matter.

Neglect on one hand, control on the next. I’ve been mulling over those characters and wondered what Dickens’ wife thought of these women. What is the safe way through motherhood? How to not ignore one’s children for sanity or control them for some order? Mrs. Dickens had tons of children. I wonder what she thought of his ladies. And as much as I love these two ladies for their caricatures, I do want to see a lady of his creation who is both controlling AND neglectful. It seems to me that the two have a tendency to go hand in hand.

Also…Esther Summerson. So of course, I love her because she’s a sweetie but whot? Seriously? You must be joking. To quote Wharton:

“How this miracle of fire and ice was to be created, and to sustain itself in a harsh world, he had never taken the time to think out; but he was content to hold his view without analysing it…”

That’s Newland Archer but it might as well be Dickens. How Esther is supposed to be so sweet and dear and good when she was raised by a neglectful, demeaning aunt and servant is beyond me. The girl had no outside contact till her aunt died. And yet here she is, the dearest, sweetest of women, sprung fully formed out of a void. Not only is she such a blushing rose but she grows stern and severe when the pathetic Guppy proposes to her. So she’s harsh when she needs to be but a dear all the other times. There are no break downs. Self-hatred is sort of holy halo on Esther. To be perfect in action but demean yourself internally…the pinnacle perhaps of Victorian womanhood and womanhood even now, I would say.

What struck me at once about Jane Eyre was her incredible refusal to throw her self on the altar of anyone’s desire or command. She cannot do it for Mrs. Reed, she decides not to for Mr. Rochester despite the terrible pain it gives her and she manages to resist St. John Rivers though he is terribly persistent and believes God is on his side- the scariest of all people, I find. At each turn, she remains distinctly herself and at the end of book, she respects all her decisions and is ashamed of none, though others still might think ill of her for those choices.
I can’t imagine there were any heroines like this on the book scene at that time. Charlotte Bronte lived off in her own world, not in the literary scene but in a wonderful and vivid fantasy world built by her and her siblings. She did eventually shrug off this dazzling world of huge, intense sagas but she came up with things like “Jane Eyre” instead and “Villette,” which weren’t very far in their internal, psychological worlds of her earlier writing.
So “Jane Eyre” came seemingly out of nowhere, bursting onto the public world and being rather scandalous as a result. It’s only 20 years later that “The American Woman’s Home” got written by Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. This a book full of the pleas and then commands women to live the life of self denial and self sacrifice. Someone must perform self sacrifice so the rest of the family can lead a good life! Throw yourself on the altar of this good and consuming act! Christ will reward you! It’s all very bone-chilling.
One of my favorite authors L.M Montgomery took tremendous refuge in reading “Jane Eyre”- which she did over and over and it’s not surprising. In one of her series, Emily of New Moon, there’s many links of spirit and description between Emily and Jane. And one wonders if not for Jane Eyre, would there have been an Anne as well?
And so while Jane Eyre threw the reader forward to a strong female protagonist full of her own resolve and will, Mrs. Rochester propels the reader back. This is not humane treatment of an insane person. And of course, the insane person does deserve that treatment. Hmmm…where have I heard that before? “She made me do it!” Tsk, tsk, Mr. Rochester.
Anyway, this is such an awesome read and I want to read it all over again now that I’m done. It’s a world that’s dark, gloomy, awesome and gothic. It wrestles with views on God and how to lead a good life where the self is not sacrificed.  Nothing else I can ask for!

I read this poem this morning and can’t shake it. It’s following me around right now… It reminds me of Yeats and Walter de la Mare and is its own all wrapped into one. A very Celtic feel. Read it slow. It’s so worth it.

A Valley of White Poppies

Between the grey pastures and the dark wood
A valley of white poppies is lit by the low moon:
It is the grave of dreams, a holy rood.

It is quiet there: no wind doth ever fall.
Long, long ago a wind sang once a heart-sweet rune.
Now the white poppies grow, silent and tall.

A white bird floats there like a drifting leaf:
It feeds upon faint sweet hopes and perishing dreams
And the still breath of unremembering grief.

And as a silent leaf the white bird passes,
Winnowing the dusk by dim forgetful streams.
I am alone now among the silent grasses.

~Fiona Macleod

Dear Fellowette alerted me (and everyone!) to this fun challenge going on over Laura’s Review. And can I resist a Bronte Challenge? I think not. Can you?

The idea is to pick a bunch of Bronte books, written by them or about them and then naturally, write a review.  Or you can watch some movies and write a review about that.

So here’s my list:

“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte. I haven’t written this since I was thirteen or so! for shame.

“Agnes Grey” by Anne Bronte. I wrote a paper awhile ago on Anne’s pleasure and escape from a difficult life in writing religious poetry and I remember really enjoying this particular novel (which I believe has some of that poetry) though I can’t remember a thing about the plot or characters. Again, for shame!

“Tales of Angria” by Charlotte Bronte. Which I have somewhere…

“The Life of Charlotte Bronte” by Elizabeth Gaskell. Long been on my list of things to read!

“The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte” by Daphne DuMaurier.  The title says it all, I believe.

“The Brontes Went to Woolsworth” by Rachel Ferguson. Kinda cheating since I read this last year but it’s oh so imaginative and believable. A rare combo in my book. I also want to puzzle over more what exactly happened near the end…

I think I’ll pull up here. More may happen, maybe less but this is the Bronte bedrock.

How can a book about dull people be so fascinating? I don’t know the exact secret (and I may have to reread to ferret that one out) but all I know is that Frances Hodgson Burnett has done it with “The Making of the Marchioness”! It’s also a page-turning read into the bargain. I read “The Shuttle” by her this summer and oh, how I reveled in it. Hodgson Burnett writes so clearly- which is unusual for a Victorian writer and why she’s such an excellent children’s writer as well. In “The Shuttle”, I sailed through on her clear writing and it’s always interesting on how uncluttered writing presents melodrama. Because, of course, “The Shuttle” and “The Making of the Marchioness” have delightful melodrama (these aren’t children’s books by the way, they’re for adults). I suppose her good use of characterization prevents melodrama in it’s truest sense but oh! There are parts of “bad people doing thrillingly bad things” where I hugged myself in glee instead of thinking flatly, “well, that’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of.”
The girl has got the goods. Hodgson Burnett may not be considered the 3l33t of the lit world but she knew her craft and she knew how to write a great story.

I just finished “Flush”, a novel by Virginia Woolf. I was surprised to run into “Flush” because I’m fairly acquainted with Woolf’s writing (I’m a huge fan of her Common Readers) but I had never heard much about this one. “Flush” is put out by Persephone Books and like all of their books, is a real gem.

Flush was Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel given to her a friend to cheer Miss Barrett up while she lay on her invalid bed doing invalid things. Like writing poetry and reading books and having friends occasionally visit while she cocooned herself up in Paisley Shawls. “Flush” then is the biography of Flush himself and it starts out with his ancestry and their love of chasing rabbits and running free as a breeze. Of course, this very great love of chasing things outdoors runs like quicksilver in Flush’s body but he is destined…for other things. And he resigns himself to the fate of living in a stuffy room and mostly eating and lying about. The first half of the book was difficult for me to get through. This clearly is no life for an energetic young dog. He rarely goes out and when he does in a park, it’s on a chain. Oh, Woolf whips it up all right and the puzzled longing of Flush to gallop about and play goes like nails into the heart. He loves Elizabeth, of course, but in his heart lies many turmoils…not just his need to race about in the sun…but there are jealousies and hurt feelings too.

The claustrophobic feel in the first half the book is pretty hard to get through. Elizabeth Barrett is cooped up in a room and sure, it’s been artistically and tastefully decorated but…it’s just one small room. She’s one of many children and an invalid and it’s hard to exactly know why she’s an invalid. She doesn’t feel well most of the time but it’s hard to think who Would feel good trapped up in a room nearly all the time. And why am I throwing conjectures about her when this book is about Flush? The book is about Flush but because he’s in this sweltering atmosphere, it gives us a good idea what Elizabeth Barrett is stuck in as well.

Release comes in the form of Robert Browning, whom Flush despises at first but who ultimately whisks the pair off for a life in Italy and Elizabeth Barrett’s and Flush Barrett’s lives are ultimately changed…

I galloped through the second half, managing to take a little bit of time to linger in the Florence that Flush hustles through everyday and the Apennines which Flush barely concedes to notice but whom his mistress exclaims over…yes, the first half sets the second half off, like a foil for a jewel.

And there really can be no doubt on how Woolf felt about Victorians and their “invalids” and I really cannot forget how sick I felt over the straightened ribs of that lone room, holding dog and mistress in its crush…and now I’m grateful too that at least one woman and one dog escaped that savage confine.

(yes, it is really them!)

It’s never too early for Christmas! I feel incredibly lucky to have born near Christmas because it’s my favorite holiday of all. Of course, that begs the question, why do I love it? Because of my birthday or because of the holiday itself? And just like the chicken and egg question, it can never be answered.

Last year, I did a great online craft class by Elsiecake, one cool girl, and while I ripped my hair out over a few crafts, I really did enjoy it. *Note:  it’s only being a perfectionist that makes me rip out my hair while doing projects, after all.*  The class got me to steadily craft, at least for a few weeks and that was an entirely new experience. This year, I want to start the crafting mayhem again and I’ve started to rev my wheels. Of course, there are a few things that should be done before I start complete and utter crafting. One is stripping off all this ugly wallpaper and two is painting afterward. Three is painting a darling,  peeling stand-alone cupboard and four is painting a shelf for the wall. See how everything comes down to painting? And I have no compulsion to paint so I’m just going to have to craft. Maybe some painting will get slipped in there but that’s doubtful!

For this year, I’m thinking gingerbread. Gingerbread ornaments for the tree down in the finished basement and a gingerbread farm for…gingerbread farm animals, of course! I lived on a farm for a good part of my life and while we never had as many animals as I hoped for, this one will have The Animals. I kid you not. And of course, there’s many many presents to be made and decorations to come to life and so you see…painting just isn’t an option.

[spoiler warning! yikes!]

“The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” by Katherine Howe pretty much jumped at me from off the shelf and so swung me into its world. Its loaded with of my favorite story elements: an old decrepit family house, a long family history of powerful, magical women, plenty of scholarly studies going on and last but not least, amore.
I am still impressed that this book had all this going on and still held a real soul at its center. “A book with a soul?” you might inquire. “Let me continue,” I say.
Many years ago, a dear professor let me know, as I studied magical realism in literature, that as northern caucasian women, we would never be able to write magical realism ourselves. Our culture, our history was all wrong for it. This made me furrow my brows but I saw her point. At the same time, I didn’t see her point at all. And I’d like to think that “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” is a good candidate for magical realism in Northern American culture. Women coming over from England (around the 1600’s) brought over a lot of folklore, a lot of remedies, some which were contained in grimoires and other writings. These remedies, while using various things in Nature, had a strong magical bent and were carried out by “cunning” women and men.
This book explores the fictional history of one line of “cunning” women and how the earlier ones related to God in Puritan culture. And I think this is where the soul of the book lies. Whether these women had magical powers or not is pointless but they did have something special whether it be special knowledge and a healing gift or whatever. They had the gifting and they used it to help others. Deliverance Dane believed that God had given her this gift to share and to her that’s the point of this life, to give the help we contain in ourselves to others.
Perhaps because of where I am in life, this spoke to me very deeply. And despite those years ago, I remember that same thread of thought running through the magical realism books I had read before by Allende and Morrison and others. Whether we believe in God or not, giving whatever (flavor of) magic we contain in ourselves is one of those best things.
I  also appreciate how Howe took the time and effort to put a strong and gifted woman into a very difficult culture and to really ponder out what could have plausibly happened to Deliverance Dane. And not only that but to ponder out Deliverance’s beliefs in everything that was going on around her. The ending is a sad one, of course because this is the time of the Salem witch trials but this book is a rare treat and one I’ll enjoy again.

“…and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.” This is excerpt from the back of the book “Soulless” by Gail Carriger and while all the “he’s so hot” adjectives left me cold, the idea of Queen Victoria employing a werewolf made me sit up straighter. What? Wwhhhaaaatwhoooooohooooowww?  What?Who?How? are the first questions for falling into true book love and I rushed out to buy myself a copy. I’m never one to resist falling for a book. My library and husband can both attest to this.
So I went and found and was thrilled to find that “Soulless” is only available in mass market paperback. Mass markets are smaller, cheaper and so easy to carry around and to hold while reading. I took my copy home and began and was surprised to find…
A strong, self-assured and cranky heroine. She joked and verbally clawed at everyone and my, how refreshing it was. Now there’s other things about this book too, like steam punk professors with special eyeglasses that clink through various lenses and copies of writing made with metal and the fact that the supernaturals like vampires and werewolves have all come out and have helped England become the mighty Victorian superpower that it was and all this is good and exciting…but what really got me was Alexia Tarabotti, soulless female extraordinaire. She bops ill-wishers with a weighty parasol and fights with her skirts and infinite petticoats so she may fight others. You try kicking someone hard with one of those huge Victorian dresses on and all the myriad of layers it cocooned the wearer in! Yes, exactly. The dress must be conquered so that the enemy may be.
She has a caustic tongue, lives with her family but does her best to not be in it and is lonely for companionship on so many levels. With someone like that, there’s bound to be adventures and there is. I hate to give away the plot so I won’t but it’s chock full of zany characters and lots of fun suppositions come to life.
There is only one thing about this book that I regret and that while it’s a fun and zippy read (dirigibles anyone?), I was hoping for a little bit more substance. There’s evil but it’s rather absurd and everyone’s rather mean for the most part but I wanted something nuanced to chew on, be it morality or whatever. This is not that book, ah well. Still tho’, I’m ready to be on to the next!

Also…I find it odd this is my first steampunk novel…I dressed steampunk for years without even knowing it. And of course, I always feel pretty much at home while reading Victorian lit. hmmm.