Quickly Commonplacing #3

Fall vibes and fall reads are finally here

September has been a very full month for our family, with a disproportional amount of its second half spent in the car. We drove to Long Beach Island for a reunion with some of my high school friends, to Staten Island for my great-aunt’s funeral, and to my grandmother’s house so that she could spend time with all of her great-grandchildren. In all of these scenarios, whether joyful, sorrowful, or nostalgic, I was so grateful (despite the inevitably horrendous car rides home) to have my children with me. There is something truly special about having multigenerational gatherings where I could share the little people I am helping to form with the people who formed me when I was a little(r) person. Furthermore, I was able to watch in awe as they performed wonderful works of mercy. They helped to bury the dead. They comforted those who mourned. They visited the sick. And they did this so much better than I, with all my years of experience, ever could. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as them indeed.

Current Reads:

1. Reread: Jane Eyre By: Charlotte Brontë

   1. I’m reading this with the lovely ladies at Reading Revisited this month. As far as I can recall, it’s the first time I’ve read Jane Eyre during the fall, and I am truly enjoying the pairing of a gothic novel with the changing leaves and weather. Probably because of this, I’ve really noticed the prominent place that the weather/the natural world hold in Bronte’s novel, and have thought a lot about the ways in which the natural world reflects/relates to specific characters and events. I’m also intrigued by how frequently Jane Eyre is tied to the “fey folk” of folklore. Orphaned and homeless, she is untethered from the social fabric of the day-to-day world, much like the fey folk. Imaginative and emotional, she can be tempted to transgress moral and social boundaries, such as when she gives Aunt Reed a (richly deserved) telling off as a child, or when she wrestles with whether or not to leave Mr. Rochester after discovering the existence of Bertha Rochester. In short, it’s a reread that is providing a lot of food for thought, and I am already looking forward to the virtual discussion (and said discussion is open to all-contact Kelsie Hartley to join!

2. New Read: Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin

   1. So many well-read people have recommended this book for so long. I’m glad I’m finally jumping in! I’m also very glad I was warned to wait until after I gave birth to my third to read this book…if you know you know. I love the way Vodolazkin recreates a medieval world deeply conscious of its closeness to, and the importance of, the supernatural realm. It’s a world that, as a result, feels fuller, richer, and stranger than our hyper-secular present. For all that the medieval characters believe in grotesqueries and superstitions we moderns dismiss out of hand (and in plenty of cases rightly so), Vodolazkin also forces his readers to question if we’ve been to hasty and thrown out the baby with the bathwater. There is wonder, comfort, and joy (as well as danger) to be found when we open ourselves up to the possibility that the material world, and our limited understanding of it, isn’t all there is. In addition, like any good Russian novel, death looms large in this novel. Therefore Laurus, like Jane Eyre, is a perfect fall read.

Recent Commonplace Quotes:

1. “On you is fallen the shadow,/And not upon the Name;/That though we scatter and though we fly,/And you hang over us like the sky/You are more tired of victory,/Than we are tired of shame./That though you hunt the Christian man/Like a hare on the hill-side,/The hare has still more heart to run/Than you have heart to ride.” (The Ballad of the White Horse, by G.K. Chesterton)

   1. My goodness. This poem. It is beautiful, and profound, and lovely to read out loud all at once. And whenever I read it I come away hopeful and ready to fight the good fight once again. This particular quote comes from the English King Alfred, disguised as a bard in the enemy camp of invading Vikings on the eve of battle. After King Guthrum describes a nihilistic and despairing worldview, and dismisses the weakness of the crucified God of Christians, Alfred offers this repartee. Evil may seem more powerful, death and despair overwhelming, but a true Christian, rooted in supernatural hope, can outrun and outlast them, retaining a zest for life even in the midst of persecution.

2. “All art is cosmos, cosmos found within chaos. At least all Christian art (by which I mean all true art…) is cosmos in chaos. There’s some modern art, in all disciplines, which is not; some artists look at the world around them and see chaos, and instead of discovering cosmos, they reproduce chaos, on canvas, in music, in words. As far as I can see, the reproduction of chaos is neither art, not is it Christian.” (Walking on Water, by: Madeline L’Engle)

   1. This is, quite possibly, my favorite of the (many) quotes I commonplaced from L’engle’s book. She puts into (eloquent and learned) words a feeling I’ve been trying to express for years about modern art, particularly modern film and literature. It’s not merely the gratuitous violent and sexual content of so many books/films I struggle with, but the absence of cosmos being brought out of chaotic depictions of said content. East of Eden is a novel as ‘gritty,’ violent, and concerned with human sexuality as any Game of Thrones book/show. Unlike Game of Thrones, however, Steinbeck ends his novel with moral, spiritual, and societal cosmos being brought out of the chaos he depicts (a cosmos that most definitely comes at a cost-just as in a Shakespearean tragedy). It’s not that I want to read novels or see movies that ignore or refuse to confront the darkness in the world around us. It’s that I want to read novels and see movies where there is hope that such darkness isn’t the end all be all of human existence. As L’engle asserts, it takes a true artist to confront and maintain hope in the face of chaos. Merely reproducing it is for hacks.

Excellent Earworms:

1. Music: Home (Nathan Evans-we honeymooned in Scotland and this song is a fantastic tribute to the country we would 100% be living in if it weren’t for distance from family/friends) and

2. Podcasts: The Book-Bosomed Podcast hasn’t posted anything since 2022, and they don’t have many episodes. However, the episodes they do have are 100% worth listening to for any literature lover.

Substack Shares:

1. I reflected not too long ago on the importance of commonplacing in my life, and I am excited for my discussion on the art of commonplacing with the ladies at Reading Revisited to drop tomorrow. So I think this post, which offers some practical guidance on how/what to commonplace, and ideas about how to organize your commonplacing, is very worth reading. I absolutely want to implement some of these ideas in my reading/journaling.

Commonplace Journals

2. This is such a lovely idea for a piece, and great to peruse with Tolkien Reading Day having just passed. I would humbly add the Redwall series as another set of books that can prepare children to encounter the world and themes of Tolkien.

A Child's List of Prerequisite Reading for Tolkien

3. A fascinating look at a scandal I was completely unaware of, and a really good example of someone thoughtfully using their writing to reflect upon and confront their beliefs and make sense of a world gone mad.

How to be a swinger and destroy your family

Polling the People:

Last week I asked which writing utensil (if any) you use to mark up your books. Pencils (my least favorite writing utensil) won with 47% of the vote followed by, hilariously, “Writing in books is sacrilege” with 27% of the vote. And I think that is a far exemplar of the two types of readers; people who don’t mind marking up/damaging their books, and people who love their books by keeping them as pristine as possible. Both are valid responses to loving books, and I tend to go back and forth between the two camps depending on the individual book itself (I would never write/dog-ear my hardcover fully illustrated copy of A Little Princess for example, but have no compunction when it comes to beating up my secondhand copy of Jane Eyre).

I am very excited to present this week’s poll, which anticipates upcoming All Souls and All Saints Day celebrations. Please share your thoughts below, and propose alternative literary dinner guests/combinations.

1. Brit Lit Ladies: Jane Austen, Bronte sister of your choice, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Shelley

2. American Dudes: Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanial Hawthorne, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison

3. Detective Dabblers: Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Edgar Allen Poe

4. The GOATS: JRR Tolkien, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Homer

5. Southern Gothic: Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Harper Lee, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty

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