Quickly Commonplacing # 14

Steinbeck's King Arthur, Greek Tragedy, Wild berries, and Voting for iconic book characters

Welcome all and sundry to another installment of Quickly Commonplacing! If you haven’t read a post in a while, or are new to my Substack, I am excited to let you know that I have turned on paid subscriptions for $50 a year, or $5 a month. I’ve already created some posts for my paid subscribers, so now is a good time to join! Curious about what paid subscribers have access to? Read this post. As for what’s going on in my life offline, please keep scrolling to Quickly Commonplacing’s newest section!

Current Reads:

1. Reread: Wives and Daughters (Elizabeth Gaskell)

   1. Though, it is early days rereading one of my five favorite novels, I already feel so comforted. Molly Gibson is a truly excellent heroine, and I love Gaskell’s depiction of the relationship between Molly and her father. It reminds me a bit of Lizzie and Mr. Bennet’s relationship. Like Mr. Bennet, Mr. Gibson is an intellectual with an ironic sense of humor. And like Mr. Bennet, Mr. Gibson finds himself married to a woman he cannot ultimately admire or respect (though in Wives and Daughters, we see how this marriage comes about, rather than being presented with the marriage as an accomplished fact). Unlike Mr. Bennet, Mr. Gibson has only one daughter (which is part of the reason he and Molly are so close). Furthermore, Mr. Gibson is a much more proactive father, seeking to protect his daughter from scandal rather than letting events happen as they may (in fact, his desire to protect Molly is what ultimately precipitates his unhappy marriage). He even seeks to do right by his stepdaughter Cynthia, though he cannot love or admire her the way he does Molly. Since I first read Pride and Prejudice during summer vacation, it is almost always on my mind in the summer (whether I end up reading it or not). So I’ll definitely be reading Wives and Daughters with the Austen/Gaskell comparison in mind this go around.

2. New Reads: The Acts of King Arthur (John Steinbeck) and Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (Nancy Isenberg)

   1. I couldn’t resist starting Steinbeck’s rewriting/retelling of the Arthurian myths-the cover was too pretty! I’m only a few pages into the actual book and am intrigued to see where exactly Steinbeck will take it all. I loved his introduction, in which he describes how, as a child, “words-written or printed-were devils, and books, because they gave me pain, were my enemies.” It was when he read Caxton’s version of Malory’s Morte d’Arthur that, finally, “the magic happened.” So for any bookish parents out there whose kids currently hate reading, there’s hope: they could be the next Steinbeck! My nonfiction book is a biography of Aaron Burr, and I’ve enjoyed reading a biographer who goes as hard for Aaron Burr, sir, as Lin-Manuel Miranda went for Hamilton. I didn’t realize that when Aaron Burr sings about his grandfather being a “fire and brimstone preacher” he was talking about the fire and brimstone preacher Jonathan Edwards, of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” fame. I think what I admire most about Burr, at this point, is his commitment to offering his daughter, Theodosia, a classical education, inspired by the writing of Mary Wollstonecraft. Having read Erika Bachiochi’s book The Rights of Women last year, I was better able to appreciate the significance of Burr’s admiration for Mary Wollstonecraft and how it inspired the kind of education he offered Theodosia.

The "Tottering-by-Gently" rose, curing the garlic harvest, and a stunner of a sunset

Recent Commonplace Quotes

1. “The great thing is to have lots of love about. I don't see…that it matters who loves as long as somebody does. I was a stingy beast at home, and used to measure and count. I had a queer obsession about justice. As though justice mattered. As though justice can really be distinguished from vengeance. It's only love that's any good. At home I wouldn't love Mellersh unless he loved me back, exactly as much, absolute fairness. Did you ever. And as he didn't, neither did I, and the aridity of that house! The aridity . . .” (Lotty, The Enchanted April, Elizabeth Von Arnim)

   1. Speaking of her relationship with her husband, prior to a healing trip to Italy, Lotty offers a challenge to us all. This quote was certainly a bit of an “oof” for me. It is a great and good thing to desire love. Love Himself created us; we are hard-wired to long for it. But we can indeed be curiously “stingy” and fearful creatures when it comes to doling out love. We are only willing to give if we know that we will get a return on our investment, if we are certain that we will be loved back, “exactly as much” with “absolute fairness.” But of course if we all adopted that attitude, the whole world would become (is always in danger of becoming) an “arid” place indeed. Instead, we are called to model the love of God, who we are only able to love because He first loved us. On our own, without supernatural grace, of course we can’t love with the radical love that transforms a Beast into a Prince, or (in Lotty’s case) a somewhat boorish and career-obsessed husband into an affectionate companion whose social skills put others at ease. This is not to say, of course, that we ought to put up with abusive or neglectful behavior in the name of love. In those circumstances, love might very well look like bringing the other to an awareness of the evil of his or her deeds by confrontation or escape. In Lotty’s case, she didn’t didn’t love Mellersh either by communicating her unhappiness, or by being the first to treat him with affection. As so many spouses do, she had a vision in her head of exactly how much and in what way she should be loved at all times, forgetting that (with the grace of God) love begets love. And in the ebb and flow of life’s tides, individuals in a relationship will be more (or less) capable of giving or receiving love in a given moment. I highly recommend this beautiful book-though you might be very tempted to make some potentially imprudent financial decisions in search of your own Italian castle.

2. “I know, young man, it is not your natural bent/to say such things nor to contrive such mischief./But the prize of victory is pleasant to win./Bear up: another time we shall prove honest./For one brief shameless portion of a day/give me yourself, and then for all the rest/you may be called most scrupulous of men.” (Odysseus, Philoctetes, By: Sophocles)

   1. Sophocles’ plays continue to amaze me both because of how readable they are, and because, 2,000+ years after they were written, they can still grab my heart. For all that Sophocles’ world is so different than mine, he still writes about universal human questions, emotions, and experiences. I think of the four new Sophocles plays I read, Philoctetes was my favorite (Electra being a close second). Be warned though, if you are an Odysseus fan, this play casts him in a less than flattering light. In this quote, Odysseus is persuading Neoptolemus (Achilles’ son) to trick Philoctetes so that he might be captured and brought to Troy; for a seer has revealed that the Greeks need Philoctetes and his bow in order to take the city. Odysseus needs Neoptolemus’ help since Odysseus had marooned Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos after Philoctetes received an incredibly smelly (and painful) snake wound. And Philoctetes (understandably) still resents Odysseus and the other Greek leaders for their betrayal. This quote from Odysseus is so chilling, because it is the voice whispering our ear in so many temptations: Turn aside from what you know to be right this one time to get what you want, to win. Then you can go back to being a good person afterwards. But of course, the tempter doesn’t lie completely; to do evil is to indeed give yourself away. And getting yourself back in order to be the “most scrupulous of men” may not be so easily done. And if you want further proof that such ancient texts are well-worth reading today, check out the Theater of War Project.

Excellent Earworms:

1. Music: Hazel Eyes (Sabrina Jordan), Blessed Are the Ones (Rend Collective), Killeagh (Kingfishr)

2. Podcasts: The Gender Accompaniment Project by Abigail Favale

Substack Shares:

• Michael Scott Meets Mr. Darcy (By: Amy Colleen): This pairing of quotes from The Office with various Jane Austen characters had me cackling, and this coming from someone who has watched maybe 2 total episodes of The Office ever. If you need a good laugh, Amy’s post will definitely do the trick.

• Gardens in Middle Earth (By: Matěj Čadil): A thoroughly beautiful piece about my favorite book(s) of all time. And very appropriate to meditate on during the summer season of bursting flower/herb/vegetable beds.

• Christian beliefs fueled some big scientific breakthroughs (By: Sarah Salviander): I have been fascinated with the interplay of faith and science since high school, and even wrote a post-death dialogue/play between Galileo, Pope Urban VIII, Cardinal Bellarmine, and Christoph Scheiner to explore that relationship for my senior thesis. As a result, I very much enjoyed Sarah’s article about the ways in which the specific Christian beliefs of historically significant scientists actually helped to fuel their breakthroughs.

• shake it off (in religious ecstasy) (By: Katie Marquette): I really love Katie’s writing, and her thoughtful exploration of a movie I would not (prior to have reading) considered watching is a wonderful example of how to critically engage with media and find the “seeds of the word” within it.

Little Bits of Life (Updates from the real world):

Despite the current heat wave, this summer has been truly lovely for our family. We visited Hobart Book Village in the Catskills for a short, but sweet, getaway. You can’t really go wrong with the combo of gorgeous landscapes and stacks of new books. We’ve also been world-cupping with the best of them. The love affair between Boston and the Scottish football fans is my new favorite thing. And I continue to be amazed at my husband’s casual sports knowledge. He’s long been a soccer/football fan in general, and a Manchester United fan in particular, and though he doesn’t watch or consume sports media in great quantities, he somehow remembers so many details about players and games and coaches. But then, he frequently expresses the same kind of “how do you remember all this” when it comes to me and the books I’ve read. In short, it’s fun to be a little in awe of your spouse, and to see them excited about their hobbies and passions.

On the aspiring farm/garden front, our 6 newest chickens have finally figured out how to get into the coop themselves at night. I am very glad that I no longer have to manhandle Rose, the leader of the flock who needs a chicken prozac and has the eyes of a killer, into the coop at night. Ditto for dear, sweet, stupid Peony, who is at the bottom of the pecking order and could not figure going up the ramp days after everyone else had. A special delight has been the patch of black raspberries growing on the side of our house (which I’ve used to make this berry crumble). There’s something special about the fact that the one thing we did not plant or cultivate ourselves has provided our children some of the greatest delight of the season. Sometimes, God’s greatest gifts come to us completely separate from our (necessary and still good!) work in the garden of life.

Finally, some prayer requests for the praying people out there:

1. For healing and comfort for a friend going through a horrendously difficult time and facing persecution for her commitment to doing the right thing.

2. For the gifts of patience and cheerfulness in my daily life-I’ve been running a lot into the problem of my own tendency to be easily frustrated and impatient lately, and I just know I have a lot of work to do in this area.

3. For healing for two family members diagnosed with cancer, and another trying to figure out the causes of fertility issues.

Highlights from our vacation: A gorgeous waterfall, and my book haul

Polling the People:

Last poll, I asked what was your ideal reading (seasonally based) scenario, and winter: “a squishy armchair by a roaring wood fire. Hot coco and cookies on the side table next to you. Favorite blanket(s) keeping your toes warm. Christmas tree lit up nearby” won with 50% of the vote. For this poll, I’m bringing you a poll begun in previous posts (Fierce Fighters and Feisty Females Parts 1 and 2).

So vote on the four polls below! You may go the route of which character you find more iconic/likeable, or which character would win in a fight (assume everyone is at their fighting best).

Fierce Fighters

Fierce Females

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