The Hiding Place & The Actor and The Housewife

THE HIDING PLACE

I'm sorry if you are tired of me always sharing my favorite quotes from the books we read. But these truisms are exactly what I feel is important, and want to remember. Sooooooooo........ 

My favorite "HIDING PLACE" quotes:

• That was Father's secret: not that he overlooked the differences in people; that he didn't know they were there.
  
• Happiness isn't something that depends on our surroundings, Corrie.  It's something we make inside ourselves.
  
• How often it is a small, almost unconscious event that marks a turning point.
  
• This was evil's hour: we could not run away from it.  Perhaps only when human effort had done its best and failed, would God's power alone be free to work.
  
• Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light.  The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God.  "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."
  
• Surely there is no more wretched sight than the human body unloved and uncared for.
  
• Oh, this was the great ploy of Satan in that kingdom of his; to display such blatant evil that one could almost believe one's own secret sins didn't matter.
  
• When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
  
• Whatever in our life is hardest to bear, love can transform into beauty......when we're feeling poorest–when we've lost a friend, when a dream has failed, when we seem to have noting left in the world to make life beautiful–that's when God says: You're richer than you think.  – Elizabeth Sherrill in the last chapter entitled "Since Then"

Seldom.....no, never in my life have I been able to relate to the kind of suffering that Corrie and her family, along with so many others, experienced during that horrible time in our history. Nor am I able to relate with her profound faith, and her ability to remain positive and forgiving...... even to the point of loving those who hurt her so deeply, and witnessing miracles as a result. 

On an even more personal note, I have a dear niece, who along with her family have recently experienced and continue to experience, some very difficult challenges as well. Briefly, she is a mother of four. The oldest child isn't two yet, and she delivered triplets less than two months ago.  About two weeks after the triplets birth she suffered a brain hemorrhage. We didn't know if she would survive, and if she did what her chances were for any kind of a normal life, and how she would ever care for her little ones. Since then I have been bowled over by the faith and love and support that surrounds this young mother, and the miracles that have multiplied as a result. She still has a long way to go, but in the end it will be a beautiful story. Like Elizabeth Sherrill wrote at the end of The Hiding Place ......Whatever in our life is hardest to bear, love can transform into beauty......

I doubt any of us will be asked to suffer the way Corrie did, or have the challenges that my niece and her family face, but we will all experience our own set of trials, and I hope to remember these marvelous examples and be strengthened by them when difficult times come in my life.

I'm sure the family wouldn't mind if I invited you to check out the blog they are keeping to record my niece's recovery. I think you would find it truly inspirational.  janielsjourney.blogspot.com

We'll start looking for your comments on The Hiding Place in the next week or so!

THE ACTOR AND THE HOUSEWIFE is our book for November!

Since Julie is the one who recommended this book, I asked her to write a little intro for us. Thanks Julie!  Sounds like a fun book!

"I recommended The Actor and the Housewife because I remembered that it made me laugh and it made me cry.  Shannon Hale's books have a lot of fun conversation between the characters--I enjoy their wit and the back and forth that goes on.  I also loved her portrayal of people that fit themselves into a sterotype (i.e. hollywood gypsy, gossipping Mormon women...)

 

"Reading it again I noticed how Felix goes from denying that God exists at the beginning to saying a small prayer, in essence, at the end.  I tried to notice the journey that he made during the book and not just the journey that Becky makes.  And I laughed and cried in all the same spots the second time through.

 

"Shannon Hale wrote this on her website about this book:  " In interviews, "I'm often asked, "What do you hope readers take from your books?" I have a hard time answering that question, because I never write toward a purpose or moral. I just hope that a reader takes whatever she needs from my story. And while that's still true for this book, I do have a tiny hope: I hope that readers want to talk about it. I have a lovely dream of groups of readers, women especially, sitting around and talking, heatedly sometimes, questioning the actions of the characters, debating some of the questions raised, what the characters did or didn't do, and the way I chose to tell the story. I hope there are lots of questions, debates, and listening too. And I hope that activity is fun."

"I guess she's getting her wish!  There are a lot of points to debate in the book--if I picked one it would be the ending.  I really don't like the ending because it seems like Becky starts grasping at straws just to make all the dots connect.  I guess I'll read your comments to see what everyone else thinks."

THE HUNGER GAMES Discussion

Jenn will be commenting soon.  But I thought I might as well get things started.  

Since I had never heard of The Hunger Games previously, when I saw Becca reading it, during our family's summer get-together, my first thought was “Oh...another diet book.” Obviously though, no diet book could have riveted her attention the way this did.

Unlike the other books we’ve been reading I wasn’t inspired to do a lot of underlining and margin noting, but it certainly held my interest. The whole idea of the hunger games reminds me of ancient Rome and the gladiators. It’s so barbaric and uncivilized that initially it seems beyond the realm of possibility. But it did happen anciently, and as a society we’re certainly on a downward slope and moving fast! I can’t help but think of our fascination with reality tv shows where only the cleverest and strongest...... the fittest survive, and I wonder if it could ever actually evolve into such nightmarish evil.   

– Aunt Louise

Grandma Mary wrote:  

I have mixed feelings about The Hunger Games.  It is an exciting book to read and far different from the books I ordinarily read. I can understand why younger people and especially teenagers would enjoy this book. I was glad to finish it and it left me up in the air. It is a trilogy – so the end is far away. I don’t think I will read the other two books – but would dearly like to see the last page of Book III!!!

JENNIFER'S DISCUSSION POINTS:  

I heard the buzz about The Hunger Games long before I finally decided to read it.  I would overhear people talking about it in little bits and pieces – never enough for me to understand the plot, but I was intrigued.  Finally, I decided to check it out for myself, and it didn’t disappoint. 

I enjoyed the characters, the roller coaster plot, the romance and adventure.

Although the book is futuristic, I appreciated the text to world connections.  I felt like Suzanne Collins was giving a nod to Survivor, Wipe Out, Lost, and American Gladiator.  It makes you wonder if this is where reality TV is headed?  What will TV producers and directors do to push the envelope to keep ratings high…Extreme Survivor?  And more importantly, what will the public do about it… Will we choose entertainment over humanity?

As in The Giver, 1984, Freedom Factor, and more recently The Uglies trilogy, the theme of the book is government control.  The possibility of such a thing is perplexing and disconcerting.  However, I think it is important to realize that every day we are inching closer and closer. 

This book was not one of my all time favorites, but it was a great read.  From the “grabber” lead to the very last page, I was captivated.  It’s a book that really made me think and ponder.  Ilah recently started reading it, and I am anxious to discuss it with her.

Looking forward to YOUR comments on The Hunger Games!

My Antonia • Final Thoughts

I finished reading My Antonia a few weeks ago, and have since finished The Hunger Games. While I try to sort out my feelings about The Hunger Games I thought I might share some favorite quotes from My Antonia before we put it back up on the shelf and move forward.  If any of you have any more comments about it, they too are still welcome.

Perhaps the only part of the book I didn't enjoy were the chapters about his time away at college. For some reason it felt a bit dark to me and I  had a hard time following or understanding it all.

But what I LOVED about this book is Cather's remarkable ability to describe anything...... emotion, landscape, people, etc., and the way she speaks of goodness without seeming to preach. (Or does she Ben?) The following quotes are just a very few examples of my favorites from My Antonia.

I was entirely happy.  Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge.  At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.  When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.  – Jim alone in the garden

I can remember how glad I was when there happened to be a light in the church, and the painted glass window shone out at us as we came along the frozen street.  In the winter bleakness a hunger for colour came over people, like the Laplander’s craving for fats and sugar.  We used to linger on the sidewalk outside the church when the lamps were lighted........The crude reds and greens and blues of that coloured glass held us there.  – Jim on the Methodist Church in winter

At the piano, he swayed in time to the music, and when he was not playing, his body kept up this motion, like an empty mill grinding on...... To hear him, to watch him, was to see a Negro enjoying himself as only a Negro can.  It was as if all the agreeable sensations possible to creatures of flesh and blood were heaped up on those black-and-white keys, and he were gloating over them and trickling them through his yellow fingers.  – Jim on Blind d’Arnault (sounds kind of like Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles)

When boys and girls are growing up, life can’t stand still, not even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether they will or no.  That is what their elders are always forgetting.  – Jim

Disapprobation hurt me, I found – even that of people whom I did not admire.  – Jim after his actions had disappointed his grandmother

–it is so necessary to be a little noble!  – Jim as he contemplated leaving Lena to pursue his education

The Hunger Games. Jenn, since you suggested the book it seems to me you should begin our "discussion".  Send me your comments via e-mail and I will create a new post for the blog!  But any of you that want to share your impressions on The Hunger Games please feel free to do so – whenever. Officially we have to the first Sunday in October and then we will be Reading The Hiding Place.

Love, 

Aunt Louise

PS For those of you who feel you can't remember well enough to comment as it's been a while since reading, I'm amazed that every book we've read so far has study helps and questions on-line for groups just like ours.

Willa Cather Lecture

Last night Richard and I took Grandma Mary to hear Marilyn Arnold, a Willa Cather expert, speak at Barnes & Noble here in St. George about Death Comes For The Arch Bishop.  Since we have just finished reading Cather's My Antonia I thought you might enjoy reading some of the things we learned from Marilyn about Cather herself.

• Her real name was Wilella. 
  
• She was the oldest of seven children.
  
• At the age of 14 she wrote in an album/diary that she wanted to be a doctor; her favorite color – sea green; favorite flower  – “cauliflower”; favorite writer – Shakespeare; favorite season  – when the roses bloom again; favorite music – the bawling of babies; favorite trait in others – an original mind; trait she was most tolerant of in others  –  passion; trait she was least tolerant of in others  –  lack of nerve; and qualtiy she most desired in a spouse  –  lamb-like meekness.
  
• Later in life she had at least one sweetheart, Julio, but maybe he wasn't meek enough as she never married.
  
• She was a poor speller and had very bad handwriting, but was highly educated, cultured, and spoke several languages.
• She loved the desert and said something to the effect that people are the only interesting things in the world, but you have to come to the desert to find that out.
  
• Most of the central towns in her books are based on her home town, Red Cloud, Nebraska.
  
• When you read Cather you must read EVERY word.
  
• She was extremely experimental in her writing, and every book’s style is different.
  
• She felt the mood and spirit of her books were what was most important.
  
• Her books are morality based, so they have gone in and out of fashion.
  
• She felt Death Comes For The Arch Bishop was her best work.
  
• It was her will that her letters never be published, and that her books would not be made into movies, or published in paperback.  (The intellectual property rights that protected her will regarding her books have expired, so they are available in paperback and several have been made into movies, but her letters have not yet been published. It is interesting to note that most of this information was taken from her unpublished letters that are part of collections in various university libraries. )

Cather felt that novels which celebrate nobility of character are the novels that are finally loved. We have certainly loved My Antonia!

This is our friend and lecturer Marilyn Arnold.....author of some of Grandma Mary's favorite books!

The Hunger Games & The Hiding Place

It's time to get our young adult readers involved in the book club. I think they will enjoy reading The Hunger Games, as well as The Hiding Place, and gain a greater appreciation of the freedoms they have always known and have perhaps taken for granted.

THE HUNGER GAMES

Jennifer recommends The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as her most recent favorite young adult book. She feels it would generate some good discussion as it really makes you think. It is a quick read so we will plan to read it during the month of September. Jennifer, we look forward to hearing anything and everything you feel makes this a book you would recommend.

For those of you who are not at all familiar with this popular book, the following is a super condensed version of a review found on the internet.  

"After society’s collapse from environmental chaos and a subsequent failed rebellion, what’s left of humanity is organized into 12 districts. Kept in poverty by a totalitarian government, the populace is forced to labor to keep The Capitol in sumptuous splendor. Katniss and her mother and sister live in District 12. Every year, a boy and a girl are chosen via lottery to “represent” their district in The Hunger Games...a blood sport in which the 24 teens are dumped, gladiator-style, into a locked arena and left to fight it out in front of cameras. The last one alive wins freedom and a lifetime of riches. Collins largely avoids graphic descriptions of violence, but a couple of the players’ deaths are emotionally disturbing. The book is considered suitable for readers 12 and up, but that would depend on the 12- (or even 13-) year-old."

Something I didn't know until I went to buy the book is that it's part of a trilogy.  Has anyone read all three?  

THE HIDING PLACE

The book for October is The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. 

The following plot summary was taken from the internet for those who haven't read it before.

"Published in 1976, a bestseller, and still in print, this is the famous autobiography of Corrie Ten Boom who lived through the Nazi occupation of Holland in WWII and formed part of the Dutch resistance in Haarlem. It tells how the Ten Booms smuggled Jews, and others sought by the soldiers, out into the countryside and abroad. Eventually Corrie and her sister Betsie were caught and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. Corrie miraculously survived to tell the tale and help in the post-war reconstruction of Holland and work tirelessly for reconciliation in Europe." 

I've read it before, and saw the movie years ago in Vegas......but like so many other things it is no longer fresh in my mind.  I look forward to re-reading it and marveling once again at this woman's incredible ability to forgive!  *Grandma will have some comments on it shortly, but for me it ranks right up there with The Diary of Anne Frank.  

Love, Aunt Louise 

PS  It's not too late to comment on My Antonia!  I'll be commenting as soon as I've finished the book.  Don't know why it's taking me so long this time!  Just a slow reader I guess.

*GRANDMA MARY'S THOUGHTS ON "THE HIDING PLACE" (Added September 2, 2010)

I haven't read the The Hiding Place for years.  I just remember the impression it left me with.  I knew I wanted to read it again, to realize what some of the Jewish people went through and to read about a truly great lady.  There is so much wickedness and selfishness in the world, but there is also true greatness and goodness.

Hunger Games?

Is everyone through with My Antonia?  Thanks for all your comments.  And for those of you who may be still reading, like me, G-ma and I would love to read your comments as well.

Jennifer has agreed to suggest our book for September.  She is considering Hunger Games, but is concerned that many of you may have read it already.  Let us know if you would like to read it as a book club, and we will place more info about it here on the blog asap.

Looking ahead to October, Grandma Mary would like us to read The Hiding Place.  More on that later as well.

Keep reading!

My Antonia

What a great time we've had with Pride & Prejudice!  I finally saw the movie (shorter, newer version) and I'm still looking forward to seeing it at the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City. Grandma and I both have enjoyed your comments! I've become aware that while some of you ARE reading you're not commenting. Please share you thoughts with us. They don't have to be intellectual or deep, while we love those......a simple "I loved it" or "Hated it" or "Not my favorite" would do. We just love hearing from you.

Some of you have already finished reading My Antonia, but some of us are just getting started. It's been a very busy month for me so far so I'm just getting started myself, and just barely got Grandma Mary to contribute her feelings about the book.

She wrote:  "Willa Cather has certainly created a style of her own in this novel.  I didn't really appreciate it until about the third reading.  You'll wonder why all the little stories.  Nebraska is a more interesting state to me after reading some of her fabulous descriptions of places.  It's just a different novel and I know you will enjoy reading it."

I know I'm already loving it and based on comments from some of you on facebook, which I will share, it seems everyone has enjoyed/or is enjoying it.

FACEBOOK COMMENTS:

Natalie Crosby: I had an interesting experience at the library a few days ago. I asked the librarian to check on the computer to see if they had My Antonia at their location (and I pronounced it An-to-nee-a). She checked her computer and responded that “no we don’t have that book, but we do have ‘My An-tone-ia’ here.” I said, “sure, I’ll take that one” and chuckled to myself.

August 15 at 3:40pm

Rachel Crosby Garner: I’m still fuzzy on how to pronounce it. Every time I read it in the book I had to go back and forth between ways to pronounce it! I loved the book regardless. It was a great read for me.

August 15 at 4:45pm

Louise Crosby:  I called Marilyn Arnold, who knows EVERYTHING about Willa Cather.....taught her at BYU and has written about her and her work extensively. She told me that the proper pronunciation is ANN-tuhn-EE-uh, with the heavier emphasis on the first syllable. (The phonetic spelling is mine after listening to Marilyn say it.) 

For anyone near enough, Marilyn will be talking about Death Comes for the Archbishop, another of Cather’s works, at the Barnes & Noble Book Store here in St. George on Monday the 30th in the evening. We might see if we can get Grandma to go with us for a special FHE.

 

Natalie Crosby: I am about 250 pages into it, and I really like the vivid descriptions that the author uses. However, I am still waiting for something to happen. This book feels more like a commentary on life in the midwest then on an actual event, mystery, or adventure with a beginning, middle, and end to it. This seems like a book that I will like the more I think about it.

August 15 at 10:54pm

Natalie Crosby:  I finished My Antonia that other day, and I really liked it. The edition that I got from the library has pictures of the actual people that the characters are based on, as well as the homes that the characters lived in, and some very interesting facts about Willa Cather. I am looking forward to a discussion soon.

14 hours ago

About FACEBOOK:

In case you didn't get the message, Natalie felt, and suggested, that it would be a definite plus to the book club to use facebook for on-going discussions and notifications of new posts on the blog.  She set it up for me, and I'm trying to figure out how to use it properly....... I may need some tutoring on it.  But I like the idea.

She also suggested, and grandma Mary concurs, that the book club would be more interesting if we opened it up to some of your favorite books as well. We have tentatively decided that we would do one of grandma's books one month, and one of yours the next. The question remains however which of you would like to lead out and when? I'm tempted to suggest Jennifer as we are due for a children's book and as an elementary school teacher she is up on the best and the newest. That would be for September, and I'll ask grandma to come up with a suggestion for October. What do you all think? Who wants to choose for November?