more fantasy books

We have been spending afternoons at our lake's beach recently, which gives me a couple of hours at a sitting to read, so here's another list of books I've read recently. This probably concludes my run of fantasy/sci-fi novels for now -- what is that, 14 in the last 3 weeks? My next list will probably be books I want to read for next years' homeschool...... but in the meantime....

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I finished the Dark Elf Trilogy -- well, actually, I read the first one and the third one in the book. Reading the first chapter almost made me put the book back straightaway in the library pile. It was quite grotesque, with a dark elf mother giving birth to a baby and a complicated assassination plot going on at the same time. There was nothing but evil and internecine contrivances(always wanted to use that word internecine, AH, and I just checked it, and it looks like I used it correctly, which brightens my day ).

But the point of the book turns out to be that Drizzt, the dark elf, is different from his kin and his kind. It's a contrast thing. Once you realize this, the moral tone is fairly substantial. I didn't say profound. But substantial is something. The rest of the book concerns how this dark elf manages to grow up in a thoroughly wicked society, devoted to worship of the spider goddess Lolth, without becoming corrupted himself.

It was another nine year old recommendation from the Waldorf page. I am starting to wonder if the Waldorf page means the same thing as I do by "nine year old". I would be OK with my middle to high teen reading this, if he was level-headed. PG-13 style violence. Comparable in tone and depth to the LOTR movies (not the books) and the second set of Star Wars movies.

The dark elf that is marked by his appearance, exiled from his own race by his desire to act rightly --- and outcast from the "good" races because of his looks and the reputation of his race -- the idea was moving. I guess this elf Drizzt is a sidekick in another series and I can see why people wanted to read more about his background. I was curious to read more about his adventures and really hoped that he would eventually find a place in the overlands. The books were very competently written; the third one about his forays into the Overland were less grotesque and dark than the first two, and I liked it better.
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Now -- the other fantasy book I read recently -- The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. What can I say.....on one hand, the writing style was very nice, at least at its best. It reminded me a bit of Mary Stewart or Madeleine L'Engle . ... intelligent and perceptive. On the other hand, the main character scored so high on the Mary Sue test that you would conclude that the author almost had to have planned it that way. This character had everything -- special powers, somewhat mysterious past, angst and unjustified self-doubt, strange (but beautiful) eyes and hair, everyone falls in love with her or is deeply affected in some way, special bond with animals (yes, horses and cats) -- it goes on and on.

The book itself was completely within the scope of a pre-teen or early teen unless the wish-fulfillment element was considered a debit -- stylized violence only, very mild romantic elements. You know throughout that the two main characters have a romantic interest in each other but there is no real progression of the romance until the very end, and it is as respectable as anything from Austen -- if Jane Austen would ever write anything about characters with golden eyes and special powers that enable them to change the world.

Drizzt, the elf, scored fairly high on the Mary Sue test too, by the way. I think this may be one of the job hazards of being a main character in a fantasy novel. You almost have to have some earth-changing powers, some dark secret in your past, some beyond-average fighting ability, etc. But there was a difference. To me the main sign of the true Mary Sue is that you get the feeling that the character is sort of a balm for the author's childhood issues. I think there is a certain type of serious, introverted, gifted child that is tempted to make childhood perceptions of his or her own abilities and trials into fodder for daydreams of grandeur, and if the child can write well enough, he or she might grow up to become a published writer. Well, perhaps you can't avoid this dream-fulfillment aspect entirely, but writers like Madeleine L'Engle seem to be more conscious of it, sublimate it and turn it into art a bit -- perhaps a lot -- more.
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Last of all, I forgot to mention the Celtic Crusade series by Stephen Lawhead. I thought I would like them -- Scottish Celtic, Crusades, and Christian author all in the same package -- but I found the one I read, the Black Rood, left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Was it the subtle anti-Catholic elements combined with a sort of gnostic Christian-pagan flavor? I gather that the series based on the story premise that there was some sort of medieval Celtic Christian "cult" that purported to follow Christ but didn't consider itself associated with the Roman Church. I just did not like that at all.

This book is about a search for the "Black Rood" which is a section of the True Cross that has been captured by Muslims. It's never really clear doctrinally or plot-wise in the book WHY the artifacts surrounding Christ's death are considered important..... the first book in the series, which I didn't read, was about the quest for the Iron Lance that pierced Jesus's side (here's a review). I know what the Catholic view on this would be but it was not clear why it was important in the Celtic Crusade worldview.

There's a scene where the protaganist encounters a secret veneration of a "Black Madonna" -- who turns out to be Mary Magdalene, who is holding a child who is reputed to be Christ's child. The author doesn't remark on the cult either way, but it seems like a hint of future developments. This sort of sums up the creepy, blind feeling I got about the book as a whole -- along with a scene where a pig is being tortured. No huge and unmistakable crimson flag, but tons of little flashes of red flags that whip out of sight when you turn around to look. PG-13 level violence again.

What I've Read Recently II

Faith at Dumb Ox Academy has posted her Summer Reading plans. If you look on my sidebar you will see my ongoing reading plans and here is my last Recent Reading post from May --but here are some more that I read too fast to want to go to the trouble of putting them up on my sidebar.

Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov

He started writing these after reading Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Asimov obviously has a cynical view of the role of religion in society -- in these books a religion is invented in order to inspire and control the society so they carry out the ideas of the intelligentsia. He neither approves or disapproves this, just depicts it as part of the sociological landscape.

The premise is that the Empire is collapsing in slow motion and a mathematic-historian devises a Foundation in order to preserve and regenerate civilization -- there is a millenium-long "Dark Age" and the stories in the trilogy are to do with how historical events in actuality line up with the founder's mathematically based prediction.

As Asimov writes in the introduction, these stories are all about dialogue and the play of one intelligence against another and the sweep of history. There is hardly any romance and no graphic violence. Interesting to read. My teenage boys read it in their mid to late teens -- could be read by younger teens but probably better once they've reached a more analytical stage and can think through premises.

Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Children of the Mind. Someone in my local community must be a fan of Orson Scott Card since this is the second of his series I have found in part on our library remainder shelves. It looks like there are a total of 8 books in this series, but I only read the three above. There is plenty of violence and intensity in the first two listed above; much less in the third one. All were thought-provoking and dealt with Card's themes of guilt and family dysfunction and intellectual talent. Ender's Game, which is apparently a sci fi classic, is about an intellectual prodigy who is being trained to save Earth from aliens called the "buggers". The other two books are about Ender's attempts to redeem and regain control of his life after the events of the first book. Card is a serious writer (a practicing Mormon, incidentally) and according to the intros in the books, he was consciously writing in the tradition of the Foundation novels. My oldest son read the first two as well and we had some interesting discussions. I personally would not give the books to my kids until they were older teenagers.

Right now I am reading The Belgariad, which I found recommended on a Waldorf site for nine year olds along with some other fantasy books. I don't think I would give the book to my nine year olds, personally. The first book (it's another3-in-1 edition) is a relatively mild coming of age story that reminded me slightly of Lloyd Alexanders' books (not quite as sweet and formative but with the same idea of an ordinary boy who is involved in great events) but the second two have graphic violence (similar to Homer's epics) and some elements of moral cynicism. I think they would be better for a high schooler.

My library sale shelf also had some discards in the teen-sociology non-fiction genre. So when I got back from Ireland I read:

Eating Disorders by Diane Yancey

This is a clear and straightforward book about 3 kinds of teen eating disorders -- anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive eating. It approached the disorders through seven case studies, explaining some of the risk factors and the progression of the disorders, and gave summaries of the partial or complete recovery of the seven people described.

If you look on Amazon under "Eating Disorders" a LOT of books come up. When I was a teenager, anorexia nervosa was just coming onto the radar due to Karen Carpenter's sufferings from the disease. I mentioned once before that I suffered what appears to be a relatively mild bout of it brought on by depression and viral illness during my teenage years. Though my case has resolved, this book brought back some painful memories. This is the first book I've ever read about the condition -- instinctively knowing, I suppose, that it would have been harmful to gather information about it in the past, since one notable feature of the disorder is a competitive element.

A Tribe Apart.

This book is a keeper, though often painful to read -- about the lives and (mostly) school culture of eight "typical" teenagers in Virginia in the 1990's. It is a descriptive, anthropological account more than a problem-solving book. It would be interesting to read alongside Hold On To Your Kids (which I read last year and which seems to take note of some of the same problems and propose a more detailed solution) and in contrast to the more optimism-inspiring Real Lives by Grace Llewellyn -- accounts of eleven"unschooled" teenagers who have managed to escape the alienation and intense peer dependency of their "schooled" peers in A Tribe Apart.

Then I read two self-help books called:

Smart Love

(another library sale find) about alternatives to punitive discipline, using what the book calls "loving regulation" to bring up kids. It is subtitled: The Compassionate Alternative to Discipline That Will Make You a Better Parent and Your Child a Better Person. The authors, apparently a husband-wife team, have raised five children using their methods. They propose an alternative to the two extremes of permissiveness or punitive-type discipline. It deals with the concept of "inner happiness" somewhat similar to a book I read last year -- The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness. The idea is that in the first years of life, a child assumes that his parents are parenting ideally. This forms the foundation for later life -- for example, if the child is unhappy for his first years of life, he will try to seek out unhappiness in later life assuming that this is the ideal state. If a child is brought up to experience love and security as foundations, he will have an equilibrium based on a drive for happiness, not misery. This rang true with what I've noticed through the years -- that often, severely disciplined children seem to TRY to get themselves in trouble, which of course perpetuates the punitive discipline since the parents feel that the kid would be even more out of control if they "let up". A lot of the book's recommended practices made sense to the style of parenting I have intuitively gravitated towards. It reminded me a bit of St. John Bosco's Preventive Discipline and some of the teachings of other saints, like St Therese and St Francis de Sales, of winning hearts and souls through love and trust rather than fear.

John Bosco writes:

How then are we to set about breaking down this barrier (of mistrust and fear)? By a friendly informal relationship with the young, especially in recreation. You cannot have love without this familiarity, and where this is not evident there can be no confidence. If you want to be loved, you must make it clear that you love. Jesus Christ made himself little with the little ones and bore our weaknesses. He is our master in the matter of the friendly approach.

In general, the system we ought to adopt is called Preventive, which consists in so disposing the hearts of our students that they ought to be willing to do what we ask of them without need of external violence

Where Smart Love is at its best, it follows this prescription. I don't feel it would entirely work as a parenting system in itself -- it might be better as a counter-balance type book. I think the concept of children needing to acquire primary happiness is a useful one and explains things that would otherwise seem mysterious, but at some points in the book I think it goes over the line to the point where some parents reading it might be tempted to surrender authority in return for presumptive happiness for their children. The book does warn a bit against this, saying that some parents experience a need to inappropriately cushion their children from any type of obstacle to immediate gratification.

The last book on my list (whew!) is one that was recommended somewhere (can't remember where). So it cost more than a dime -- 40 cents plus shipping, to be precise.

When You Can You Will

This seemed a bit like a grown-up, self-help version of Smart Love. It discussed the underlying reasons why we can't make ourselves do what we want to. Like Smart Love, it did not explicitly discuss sin and fault, so I think some conservative Christians would call both of them "modernistic" and dismiss them as psychobabble. However, to me as a conservative Catholic who has been attracted to the (thoroughly orthodox) teachings of the saints mentioned above, I think that sometimes labelling some personal problem "sin" CAN become a dismissive label, and a shortcut..... just like "God's creation" CAN be used as a shortcircuit to avoid rather than pursue legitimate scientific research. I'm trying to finish off this summary in haste and hope not to be misunderstood. Sin has always been recognized -- descriptively, ontologically, poetically -- throughout history, but of course not always under that name and not always with the metaphysical specifics of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The way St Paul describes it rings very true to me

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

But not everything that goes wrong in human life is sin, and punitive, retributive methods are not always the most effective or the most appropriate even for moral issues. Jesus makes that clear in several of his dealings with the people around him. If you read St Paul's description above, you will see the mental turmoil of a child or adult who WANTS to do better but can't. Harshness is not the answer -- the answer is love, and grace and true guidance and support.

The idea of When You Can You Will is that sometimes the methods we use to try to change ourselves --- like self-criticism, behaviorial regimens, imitating what worked for others, and so on -- are methods that oftendo not address the REAL problems, or do not address them constructively, and thus fail. Say you are trying to be a better homeschooler, or make a career move, or change a destructive relationship -- WHATEVER. Berating yourself, or imposing some "failproof" system, or copying some perfect other person -- these things usually don't work anymore than scolding, comparing or complicated discipline systems usually work in raising children. The reason -- according to both these books -- is because the real situation is underneath -- and usually concerns something that is presently somehow "working" even though in a non-functional way.

This actually does accord with traditional Christian thought more than you would think at first sight. For example, St Augustine said that Sin and Evil are not positives, but negatives. Sin is a lack, a choice of the lesser good. No one chooses something except when he or she somehow thinks it is good. Even when St Augustine stole the peaches even though they were not good peaches, he knew he was operating under what his nature dictated as "good" -- self autonomy, and pride, perhaps.

I guess I could go on and on about this, but the post is long enough already.

What I've Read Recently

I just finished reading several books which I'm going to add to my Spring Reading Plan but in this separate post, because these were all easy quick reads that I got through too fast to put on my sidebar. Like The Bookworm, I don't seem to read so much fiction nowadays, though I want to tackle some this summer. I used to be such a fiction reader that I would spend the whole day with my nose in a book, so I cut back to reading novels only on hospital stays and during holidays. Maybe now it's time to swing back the other way, though.

Anyway -- here is the list -- these are all books I've read in May -- yikes! I get a lot of reading done on our trips to town, even though it makes me carsick. They were all fast reads in one way or another.

Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality

I'm not sure how this ended up in our library request pile -- my kids don't remember requesting it (!) and nor do I -- but I picked it up while I was eating lunch one day and finished it by evening. Medical journalism is a stress-buster for me, as I suppose it is for many people, judging by the number of medical books and reality TV shows out there.

The doctor who wrote the book is a young Asian woman and she went into liver transplant surgery at UCLA. This comes close to home since Aidan is an OLTX recipient and could have gone to UCLA instead of UCSF if our insurance had been just slightly different, perhaps. We could have met her, and we did meet her distillation in the ranks and ranks of intellectually high caliber young interns and residents at the hospital.

Growing Up with NLD

This came from the library in a spiral bound edition with double-spaced type -- so Liam asked me if I was reading someone's dissertation! But I guess it must be a paperback now judging from Amazon.

It was a personal account of a woman who had NLD before it was really a diagnosis, arranged by topic. Say, the chapter was Socialization -- she would tell about her experience in that area and then list some helpful tips in that area. There was an extensive bibliography and resource section and a chapter on managing NLD, as well as an introductory chapter giving an overview of the disability.

Why was I reading this? I have a couple of kids with soft symptoms for an LD, and am a bit that way myself. Often you can find really useful tips and insights in a book like this, even if your child does not fit the whole pattern.

Relationship Development Intervention with Young Children.

I got this because I was looking for social skills information for Aidan. Now RDI has become my information project for the summer. I found the book confusing -- lots of activities based on different "Levels". I had no idea where to start actually applying anything -- not being a bottom-up thinker at all.

So I got this book
Autism Asperger's Solving the Relationship Puzzle

I am still reading this, but it is much more clear now what the other book was about. It gives the whole context with case samples and so on -- very interesting.

The idea is that social skills therapy that focuses on what the author calls "Instrumental Skills" -- ie, social rituals that are relatively fixed, like buying something in a store or saying Hello and Goodbye -- are useful but don't get to the essence of the autistic spectrum child's problem -- which is learning to relate to people in a meaningful way. Many higher functioning autistic children have already figured out instrumental modes for getting what they want -- but they have not learned to receive pleasure from spontaneous, relationship-oriented encounters. So the programs are designed to help the child learn, through mentorship, how to tolerate and get emotional rewards from interaction. Most children learn this naturally through playful affectionate interactions with their parents and caregivers, but AS children have to be taught more consciously.

Yesterday, on our extended waiting room tour, I read Relationship Rescue by Phil McGraw. Someone in our little local community gave away a slew of Dr Phil books -- at 10 cents, I couldn't resist grabbing them to read.... someday. I read his weight loss and Life Strategies ones last year before the homeschooling debacle on his show. It wasn't like I was a great fan of Dr Phil's show before -- I only watched one episode, at my mother in law's house, and didn't like it. But the homeschooling thing (a couple of friends were involved a bit in it) took a while to get over. But now I've read this Relationship Rescue one. His style is a linebacker one, but like a linebacker he usually does get where he intends to go IF it's only a few inches or feet away. Sometimes, that kind of effectiveness is a breath of fresh air, especially when he knocks aside some longterm obstacle to the goal like the myth that couples have to have to have a lot in common to work as a couple, or that men have to learn to talk like women in order to communicate well -- those irritating ninepins deserve to get knocked down.

In the same line, someone in my community gave away Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It and it ended up in the library 20 cent rack. This I am reading while I'm on the "relationship" roll. Its a very evangelical-pastor type book, about how to preserve a faithful marriage if you are a man. I like the idea of building "hedges" to protect things you value -- an evangelical re-statement of the Catholic "avoiding near occasion" and "custody of the eyes and heart". But the idea of hedges could have been expressed in an essay -- apparently the book started off as an essay and got so much response that he built it into a book, and now apparently Tim LaHaye is involved in the new version. I find it SO not the world I live in but then I'm SO not an evangelical husband with 2.2 children and a house in the suburbs and a job that requires working and travelling with women. If you are one of those (I doubt if very many of my readers are) then maybe this will be a helpful book. For me, it reads like an anthropological study. Fascinating in its foreignness.

Another 10 cent "treasure" I read recently was Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution. The main reason to read a diet book, in my opinion, is to gather the motivation to kick off your habit changes. It worked for that. I don't think I'll ever try that Induction thing again though, even in modified form for 2 days. It almost stopped me in my tracks. However, he is right that there is gathering evidence that moderate carb restrictions are more effective for at least some types of people than fat restrictions. Limiting the carbs moderately has made a giant difference in my blood sugar swings, and almost eliminated cravings. A relief!

I think that is all the recent reads that aren't on my sidebar. I am still chipping away slowly at the sidebar reads.

On My Reading Table

My list of books to read just keeps growing, and growing....

OK, I've finished Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology (HT Lissla Lissar) and How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (HT Sonya at RC History), but I still have to-- OK, would like to, HOPE to-- type out some quotes before I send them back to the library.

The books to glance through for homeschool next year would be another stack.

The Classic Model of Learning

The title of this post sounds like it's going to be about classical education, and in a way it is, but it gets there by the scenic route.

Steph at A Room of My Own had The Book of Learning and Forgetting on her sidebar. I requested it from the library because of the title and the picture. It is a very good read; reminds me a bit of some of John Taylor Gatto's books.

There are some details about the contents of the book at this page: The Classic View of Learning and Forgetting

The book's premise is that we have lost the "classic" view of what learning is about. Up till about a century and a half ago, everyone assumed that "we learn by the company we keep." He says that every culture has a proverb dealing with this truth. ( For example, it is expressed in antithesis in Proverbs 13:20: He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will suffer harm) . Learning was seen as a process of growth. The ten year old is not a different creature from his two year old self -- he is the same person, grown and developed. Similarly, learning is not an accumulation, like crystals forming or liquid collecting in a bucket, so much as a growing, like a seedling into a plant.

A century or so ago, a different view of learning came about as a combined result of the birth of the science of "psychology" and the creation of the efficiency industry inspired by the Prussian army. The admiration of the Prussian system led to a desire for increased efficiency and organization in the education system. The early pyschology endeavours -- many based on studies of animals or research done into mental illnesses -- seemed to promise that learning behavior of humans could be codified and measured objectively. This led to many changes in our school system that we still think of as standard today. For example:

• Age-segregated classrooms (thus eliminating the possibility of older students coaching and setting an example for younger ones, and older students getting the benefits of being leader and model for the younger ones).
• Testing and recording as ways to measure academic progress.
• Disability/at risk industry growing around the students who do not keep up (since obviously, it can't be the methods that are at fault, since they are objectively designed).

I am planning to take notes as I read through the chapters, but for right now I wanted to recommend it as a short, thought-provoking read. The main thing that stood out as different for me from books like Gatto's and Alfie Kohn's is that it traced the "paideia" or "learning as mentorship" back to ancient days rather than putting it in a purely modern frame of reference.

Smith makes the point that most "back to basics" advocates are proposing something like "back to 19th century regimentation". He recommends going further back, to a more classic tradition where learning took place in the context of spending time with those who knew what you wanted to know.

Like a Soldier, to the Stage

Finished Hamlet!

A few random notes.

The last act took me aback a little. The tone of the play moved from quick and hectic to a more serene rhythm... not so much the plot itself, which remained very full of incident, but the way Hamlet reacted to the events and the way the play moved from close focus on him to a wider, almost national focus in the last part. I am having a difficult time describing it, but the edginess of the first part seemed to culminate when Laertes and Hamlet scrabbled in Polonius' grave. After that, Hamlet seemed to take back stage as a persona and move into front stage as a more historical character. The final scene where practically every key player is poisoned by cup and rapier seemed to be a bit of a homeopathic anodyne.

To me, his hesitation during the earlier parts was not the ineffectual hesitation you see in something like The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Hamlet's hesitation is informed by a kind of grace. When he finally can act effectually, he does.

Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

A couple of sites:

This one is a standard informational study-guide place with resources for teachers.
This one is interesting and a bit quirkier and more personal.

Here's a Shakespeare Theme Page.

Reading Plan-- Spring 2007

My daughter is also keeping up a reading plan -- I like the way she records it month by month; maybe I will try it that way.

More May reading.

Updated May 2007
Currently Reading

An Experiment in Criticism

Josef Pieper: An Anthology

From Homeschool to College and Work

Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology

finished May 2007

How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

finished

The Mislabeled Child

finished

The Book of Learning and Forgetting

-finished May 2007

Memorize the Faith!

Religious Potential of the Child

Mind of the Universe

Everlasting Man

Must We All Die? Alaska's Enduring Struggle with Tuberculosis

finished April 2007

Home Education by Charlotte Mason

finished

Myth of Laziness

finished reading April 2007

Apologia Pro Vita Sua

finished April 2007

My general plan is to read a Shakespeare play every month -- another classic every two months -- to have a spiritual reading going on at all times -- and to keep plugging through Chesterton's Everlasting Man (I'm reading this one and discussing it with a small group online).

I would also like to read some book of science or nature study every couple of months -- and have a poetry book going on at all times. But that is in the back seat right now until I see how the rest of it goes.

During March I read:

• MacBeth
• Apologia pro Sua Vita
• David Copperfield
• Myth of Laziness
• Organizing from the Inside Out
• Time Management from the Inside Out
• Living Water
• Charlotte Mason: Parents and Children
  

(this looks like a lot, but it's explained by the fact that we had quite a bit of car time last month and that is when I get a lot of my solid reading in).


I'll add to this as I go. My ideal would be to write out some notes on each book and then use the link to the book to show that I've read it. That may be overly ambitious though.

References

NEw Lifetime Reading Plan
Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan
Chronological Great Books