1. I finished reading The Woman in White this afternoon. More surprises lay in store as the novel drew to its conclusion. Wilkie Collins had created multiple plot lines in the course of the book's 600+ pages and managed to adroitly tie things together. Throughout the novel, I enjoyed Wilkie Collins' imaginative methods of narration -- letters, a journal, interviews, and straight ahead storytelling --, his detailed development of characters, and his various styles of prose. Each character who contributed to the narration had a distinct voice, a distinct prose style, and employed varying levels of plain speaking and florid language.
In her introduction to The Woman in White, which I read after finishing the book, thank goodness (it gives too much away), novelist Anne Perry writes, "Perhaps The Woman in White is not a great work of literature. We may not be any wiser regarding the human condition after reading it."
Well.
Dang.
I'm wiser after reading it. I came to understand more fully greed, patience, determination, amorality, dedication, self-absorption, neglect and abuse, courage, and many other human qualities. If the human condition is a fallen one, if we live in a postlapsarian world, then I am wiser about the nature of such a world; I also learned from this novel that a fallen world is not a hopeless one, thanks to the persistence, insistence on principle, and bravery.
Wilkie sums this up in the novel's opening sentence: "This is a story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve."
It sure is.
2. I shifted to baseball after finishing The Woman in White and making a trip to recycle more cardboard at the transfer station.
I watched one of my favorite documentaries, The Battered Bastards of Baseball on Netflix. The movie tells the story of Bing Russell, Kurt Russell's father, deciding, in 1973, to field a single A minor league baseball team in Portland, OR, an independent minor league team, unaffiliated with any major league organization. The team was the Portland Mavericks and, unlike their Pacific Coast League predecessors, the Portland Beavers, the Mavericks become a sensation in Portland and, eventually, a national sensation.
That's all I'll say. Watch it and you'll learn more about the players who played for these battered bastards, learn more about the major/minor league baseball system, and learn how and why Bing Russell's joyous and successful experiment ended.
I also watched, on YouTube, a ninety minute program looking back at the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates and their unlikely triumph over the Baltimore Orioles in the '71 World Series. I enjoyed the program's many interviews and enjoyed watching the highlights of that 1971 season and the World Series itself.
3. What a great surprise at dinner tonight! Debbie fixed Spanish rice and not only did it bring back very enjoyable hot lunch memories, it was also delicious. We both wondered why we haven't been fixing this simple and very satisfying dish for dinner up until now. Staying home and doing all of our own cooking has been far more pleasing than I could have imagined. The best part of it has been each of us bringing dishes from our earlier days, like refried beans, chicken and noodles, and Spanish rice, into our present life.
Yesterday, in his limerick, Stu left the word rhyming with "Nantucket" and and "in a bucket" blank so readers could make their own guesses.
Today is the reveal: Stu filled in the blank with "truck it", in tribute to our pal Ed who, over the years, has often operated a water truck on work sites to keep down dust. So, here's the limerick again:
There once was a man from Nantucket.
Who brought water to home in a bucket.
Too expensive for plumbing,
Can you see what is coming?
He decided it was best just to truck it!
Stu has a limerick for today -- it commemorates Go Fishing Day:
There’s Bass and there’s Salmon for you.
Maybe Tuna or Marlin that’s blue?
There’s Walleye and Pike,
Or is it Trout that you like?
Even “Noodling” if that’s what you do.
No comments:
Post a Comment