Their Eyes Were Watching God by Nora Neale Hurston

It was my time to choose a book for the book club. I have several lists of books I want to read, but none listed  seemed appropriate for this club. Most are non-fiction and we tend to read fiction. Many were too long and we've done a lot of that lately. Or too old. Or probably already read by a majority of the club. One book on my list intrigued me, but I had no idea what it was about. Then I read an article on it by John Miller and it cinched my choice. I picked Their Eyes Were Watching God by Nora Neale Hurston. I'm glad I did.

The book is written by a black woman in 1937. Far enough from slavery, but far from the Civil Rights Era. Deep into Jim Crow. But what I liked about the book was that that wasn't the focus. Instead it's focused on one woman's growth to maturity within that context. Who will she be? Will she represent the hopes of her slave-born grandmother? Her husband with big dreams? Or will she finally be and understand herself and stand on her own two feet, not told who to be by others.

As an author, Hurston's heterodoxy eventually led to obscurity. She adamantly refused to toe the line of the other black intellectuals of her day. Today, however, readers and writers are rediscovering her and the beauty of her insight.

I ended up loving the book, but it was a journey. Initially I was put off by the "finding oneself" narrative. For me, it can involve too much "navel-gazing." Although, to be fair, our heroine does not really engage in that. We the reader are asked to help her figure it out while she struggles along as well. But by the end, it is clear she has grown up and has figured out exactly who she is. This allows her to return home, a different woman than the one who left. One who has made her peace. It's beautiful. I suppose it could be understood as a meta-narrative for the black race in America at this time. Who will they be? Will they forever be defined by others, whether white or black? Will black people ever just be and not what others expect them to be? I think Hurston answer the question in a beautiful, poetic, and immersive manner. The reader is sucked along and finally cares deeply about a woman's trajectory to peace.

A few beautiful quotations:
"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
   Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. then they act and do things accordingly." (p. 1)

"And when she gained the privacy of her own little shack she stayed on her knees so long she forgot she was there herself. There is a basin in the mind where words float around on the thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by thought. Nanny entered this infinity of conscious pain again on her old knees." (p. 24)

"'Over, Janie? I god, Ah ain't even started good. Ah told you in de very first beginnin' dat Ah aimed tuh be uh big voice. You oughta be glad, 'cause dat makes uh big woman outa you.'
   A feeling of coldness and fear took hold of her. She felt far away from things and lonely." (p. 46)

"Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to a such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter's neck tight enough to choke her. She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love." (p. 89)

"He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place." (p. 128)

"All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood." (p. 145)

"The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God." (p. 160)

"Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere an do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore." (p. 191)

And my favorite:
"It's uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves." (p. 192)

The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner

The subtitle of The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner is Why even our best schools don't teach the new survival skills our children need—and what we can do about it. It's a mouthful, but it's the basic message of the book.

Tony spent years as a teacher, principal, and educational professional. He's seen the beast from the inside out and he's able to identify the areas that modern schools are failing and why. When it comes to exactly how to address the issues, it falls a bit short. He offers three model schools, and maybe if the entire system was changed to reflect those schools' models, we could actually make a difference. But for an individual teacher, it's a bit thin. Either way, it was at least encouraging to know that there is something better out there and we might be able to get there.

He begins the book detailing conversations he's had over the years with business leaders and the types of employees they are looking for. Right away, he is struck by the desire for "soft skills." Employers, no matter the industry, want employees who can ask good questions. The disconnect between the real world and the classroom becomes immediately apparent. In school, students are told to answer questions, and, by the way, there is only one right answer. They are not rewarded for asking questions.

Employers also stressed the importance of critical thinking. When pressed for a definition, one leader told him, "Taking issues and situations and problems and going to root components; understanding how the problem evolved—looking at it from a systemic perspective and not accepting things at face value. It also means being curious about why things are the way they are and being able to think about why something is important." (16) Wagner quickly realized that this in no way lines up with the classroom. Over and over again, he was told how the workplace was changing. Gone were the days of following orders laid down by a boss. Employees were expected to solve problems, creatively, constantly pushing efficiency and production.

Ironically in an era when STEM is all the rage, Wagner begins noticing that the skills valued by an employer are those delivered by a quality liberal arts education. In fact, if you believe the purpose of education is to produce capable citizens who can participate in both the community and the workplace in a meaningful fashion, you cannot help but advocate for the liberal arts.

Wagner began his investigations by going to the best schools to see if they are delivering the kind of education employers say is critical. Unfortunately, he was routinely disappointed. Test scores simply do not correlate to the skills needed in the modern economy. He gives fascinating observation after observation detailing the complete disconnect.

Unfortunately, we are still under the complete control of a system designed for the days of factory work. We define "rigor" by how many academic classes and AP classes a student can shove onto his CV. This kind of disconnect from what is actually needed and developmentally appropriate is a major driver in the dropout rate in America. Many kids quit school simply because they are bored.

Wagner reveals repeated frustration as he visits schools and talks with teachers and administrators. There is not even any agreement on what the purpose of education is, how students should be taught, what they should be taught, and how they should be assessed. He showed example lessons to teachers all over the country and in various setting. When asked to grade the lesson, the professional educators routinely gave the lesson anywhere from an "A" to an "F," proving that they had no idea what a "good" lesson looked like.

I loved his chapter on the absolute joke that teacher training is. I laughed that even though his own experience pre-dated mine by decades, he experienced exactly what I did. Teachers get thrown in the deep end of the pool and are asked to teach the drowning student around how to swim, a skill the teacher herself has yet to learn. And we wonder why 50% of credentialed teachers quit within the first five years. He offers a brief helpful hint: teachers should be videoing their lessons and going over them with a mentor. This more closely tracks with the original ways teachers were taught in the best education schools. The problem is that teachers are extremely isolated. When the classroom door closes, that teacher is queen. No one knows what goes on (or doesn't) and no one knows how to help the teacher improve. The teacher is not held accountable for implementing whatever was suggested because nothing is suggested. Or if it is, teachers are not trained in how to implement whatever it is. In addition, long-term teachers have seen so many educational fads come and go, they know they can wait it out. This isolation is the Achilles heel of the teaching profession.

The solutions offered involve engaging the students in a way that asks them to think critically, solve problems creatively, and be rewarded for their efforts. "If members of this generation are to be truly engaged as students, workers, and citizens, they must be given new challenges at school and in the workplace, as well as have different kinds of relationships with the authorities in their lives." (188) Students want to be challenged, they want hard problems with no easy answers, they want to know the "why's," and to learn that learning is an end in itself. It is not about test scores, but a sense of accomplishment when the student can demonstrate what he knows. Rigor would be defined, not by overwhelming tests and grammar to memorize, but by "being in the company of a thoughtful, passionate, reflective adult who invites you into an adult conversation which is composed of the rigorous pursuit of inquiry." (210)

I love how he ends the book. It's pie-in-the-sky, but it's my dream. "National and state policy issues such as school accountability and educator certification, evaluation, and tenure policies for teachers—all of these must be considered in terms of whether they support or impede effective teaching and learning." (255) Imagine knowing what, how, and why teachers should teach and them teaching how to do that. Sigh.

How We Go to Now by Steven Johnson

I don't remember who recommended How We Go to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson. I think it might have been my dad. No matter, I found the book very interesting.

Johnson lays out the Six Innovations That Made the Modern World one-by-one, creating quite a compelling narrative. As to his reason for writing the unorthodox history book, he states,

"This is a history worth telling, in part, because it allows us to see a world we generally take for granted with fresh eyes. Most of us in the developed world don't pause to think how amazing it is that we drink water from a tap and never once worry about dying forty-eight hours later from cholera. Thanks to air-conditioning, many of us live comfortably in climates that would have been intolerable just fifty years ago. Our lives are surrounded and supported by a whole class of objects that are enchanted with the ideas and creativity of thousands of people who came before us: inventors and hobbyists and reformers who steadily hacked away at the problem of making artificial light or clean drinking water so that we can enjoy those luxuries today without a second thought, without even thinking of them as luxuries in the first place...we are indebted to those people every bit as much as, if not more than, we are to the kings and conquerors and magnates of traditional history. 

But the other reason to write this kind of history is that these innovations have set in motion a much wider array of changes in society than you might reasonably expect. Innovations usually begin life with an attempt to solve a specific problem, but once they get into circulation, they end up triggering other changes that would have been extremely difficult to predict." (p. 2)

Glass: Johnson imagines a time in the distant past in which sand was superheated, perhaps by a comet, melted, and then cooled into a previously unknown substance that has fascinated mankind ever since: glass. This fascinating material was initially used, as so many new products are, by the extremely wealthy. It was the stuff of kings. But as typically happens, merchants found ways to make it cheaper and more easily accessible to the masses. We got bottles, drinking glasses, and jewelry. Eventually spectacles would change the world right about the time they were needed: the days of Johannes Gutenberg. These lenses gave way to microscopes, telescopes, and cameras. The possibilities were endless. Mirrors changed how we see ourselves by allowing us to see ourselves as others see us. New societal norms became necessary. Today glass powers the world of Silicon Valley. Computers, the World Wide Web, iPhones, and every technology we hold near and dear are dependent on glass. This simple, decorative tchotchke of the wealthy changed the world.

Cold: Today we take such simplicities as ice and cool air for granted, but for most of human history, these luxuries were unavailable, even to the extremely wealthy. As late as the early 1800, inventors and investors struggled to store and ship what nature provided bountifully in the winter: ice. While the wealthy would carve out a large chunk of lake ice and store it underground in a cellar, it would hardly last the spring. Entrepreneurs and innovators made and lost fortunes developing ways to harvest, store, and ship ice. Once the process was perfected an entirely new market opened up. It was now possible to ship meat across the country before it spoiled. New England ice met up with MidWest cattle. Placing ice on top of rail cars created "refrigerated cars." Yet in Florida, hurricanes made shipment of New England ice problematic and undependable. One physician who desired "refrigerated" hospital rooms in order to cool malarial patients decided to create a machine to produce ice. While his simple machine worked, he had no head for business and lost all trying to monetize it. However, "the knowledge of thermodynamics and the basic chemistry o fair, combined with the economic fortunes being made in the ice trade, made artificial cold ripe for invention." (p. 66) By the 1950 everyday families had the product in their home. Meanwhile Clarence Birdseye, living in Labrador, Canada in 1912 had the opposite problem. Everything was frozen whether he wanted it or not. Fresh food was impossible to come by. With the new field of artificial refrigeration, Birdseye developed a process of "flash-freezing" that would preserve the freshness of food. A similar process allows for the freezing of eggs, sperm, and embryos. The refrigeration process began to be applied to air as well. "Air Conditioning" as it was called allowed previously uninhabitable areas to become boomtowns. Americans were now free to live anywhere. Cold, far from being a frivolous luxury, has become indispensable to modern life.

Sound:  For most of human history, all we could do was try to amplify sound. Recording and playing back were hardly dreamt of. In fact, the first person to record sound, two decades before Edison, was so impressed by his feat, he never even considered that the parchments could be used to reconvert back to sound waves. It was the genius of Edison who combined recording and playback. But even the genius of Edison was short-sighted. He imagined that the best use of his phonograph was in the form of audio letters. A sort of early "voice mail." When Alexander Graham Bell tinkered with the technology, he too failed to grasp the significance of his "telephone." He imagined the best use was in transmitting music across distances. Both had it exactly backwards as history would reveal. Eventually thanks to a partnership with the government, these sound recordings would be converted to digital form, making them far more secure and free from interference. But just prior to this, inventors had been tinkering with the idea of sending sound through the air, without reliance on wires. Radio was born, initially to broadcast Morse Code, "wireless telegraphs," and shortly thereafter music and the human voice. This led, unexpectedly to the rise in the popularity of music previously confined to small ethnic ghettos, jazz. Moving what was exclusively Black culture into the mainstream would also lead to movements promoting civil rights for Blacks. The same technology that made radio possible meant thousands could hear the words of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he used a microphone to speak to the masses. Knowing that sound moved in waves also led to the invention of undersea and eventually above ground RADAR, as well as that friend to all expectant parents, ultrasound. All of these technologies that resulted from the initial understanding of how the human ear processed sound have been used for ill and good. Such is the story of all technology.

Clean:  In the not so distant past, waste removal was a major concern. Cities like Chicago, built on very flat land and without the technology to tunnel deep underground intuited that the waste collecting in the streets was contributing to the disease in the city. In Chicago, the plan involved permanently jacking up the buildings and installing waste pipes underneath. Future buildings would lay pipes before anything else. But the waste solution created another problem. The drinking water became polluted with the waste being poured into it. Germ theory and even ideas we take for granted like the benefits of basic cleanliness were unknown in much of the nineteenth century. The idea that disease could be caused by invisible organisms living in the water had to be discovered and promulgated. It seemed simply too far fetched. This is where one of the previously discussed inventions plays a role: glass lenses on microscopes. Being able to see the harmful bacteria gave researchers an idea about how to kill it. Chlorine would come to the rescue. But convincing skeptical scientists to put the acrid smelling solution in drinking water would be a tough sell. So a New Jersey doctor, when given the charge to clean up the city's water supply, secretly and without permission, added chlorine to the water. He knew small amounts of the poison would not kill a human but would destroy the bacteria. The resulting increase in public health proved him right. This, of course opened up a whole new world. Pools. Which led to revealing women's bathing suits. Which led to images of cultural beauty that affect us today. All because of chlorine. Today the challenge is to bring hygiene to places where clean water and electricity may not be readily available. Solar powered toilets to the rescue, using microchips which themselves require ultra clean rooms for manufacture and use ultra pure water in the process. Clean has certainly changed our lives tremendously.

Time: For most of human history, time was calculated by tracking the movements of the heavenly bodies. A conference in 1967 set out to create as system of tracking time and weight that was much more accurate. Mechanical clocks of the Middle Ages were notoriously unreliable, but a quick look at a sundial could help recalibrate them. However, at the time, measuring exact time did not seem necessary. But once the age of exploration began, it became more important to be able to keep an accurate record of time in order to determine how far you had traveled. Based on Galileo's observation of swinging lanterns, a pendulum clock was created that could keep time far more accurately than anything before and open up whole new worlds to explorers. Of course the reason for the exploring largely centered on trade and the movement of raw and finished materials. These were produced in factories, and factories simply could not work without accurate time measuring abilities. The two epochs went hand in glove. Of course this greatly impacted the workers who now had to show up for work "on-time" and regulate their lives, not by the movements of the sun, but by the hands of a clock. By the mid-nineteenth century everyone had a clock...in their pocket. Humans had become disciplined to function according to the relentless ticking of a watch. Yet as railroads begin to criss-cross the country, passengers and cargo moved into different local times. How in the world to standardize what had never before concerned humans, moving faster than the sun? England solved this problem by putting the entire country on one time—Greenwich Mean Time. But England is a small island and the citizens could handle variations in "noon." America, spanning a continent, needed another solution. The railroads took the lead and established the four time "zones" we have today: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. In 1884, the entire world was divided into time zones. Timekeeping technology eventually progressed from pendulum clocks to the quartz clocks necessary for even more precision. But emerging technology required even further precision—enter the "atomic clock" based on the behavior of atoms. Time went from trying to accurately measure years, to days, to hours, to the seemingly frivolous seconds, to nanoseconds. Today orbiting atomic clocks enable Google Maps to tell you exactly where you are, because they measure time. Once again, a relatively simple concept has completely changed our world.

Light:  Once again, for most of human history, we labored without a device, now completely taken for granted—artificial light. The best most could achieve was a dim, smoky tallow candle. But in 1712, the first sperm whale was captured and to everyone's surprise, above his brain was a cavern filled with milky oil. To this day, no one knows quite the reason for the oil, but the people of that day discovered that it could be used to manufacture candles, which far surpassed the tallow candles in efficiency. But harpooning whales was difficult and dangerous. Fortunately a new source of oil was discovered under the ground. Lamps powered by fossil fuels changed our sleeping habits and led to the introduction of magazines because we could read them after the sun set and the work day ended. An interesting economic study shows that under tallow candles the average worker earned 10 minutes of light with every hour worked. Today, an hour of work can buy 300 days of light. Quite an impressive efficiency boost. But that required another leap in technology, the electric light bulb. While Edison is rightly credited with the invention, like all technologies, there are multiple chefs in the kitchen, so to speak. The modern light bulb is the result of several people and groups hard efforts at trial and error. But the electric light bulb didn't solve all the lighting problems. Archeologists working in dark pyramids in Egypt and wanting to photograph the secrets they uncovered had to come up with a way to momentarily light the dark chambers. Mixing magnesium and ordinary gunpowder created a mini-explosion and provided the burst of light the photographers needed. The flash was born. But this technology was not just good in Egypt. Jacob Riis took it into the dirty slums of New York and showed the world How the Other Half Lives.  This in turn inspired the Progressive Reforms and a new political ideology took hold. Other forms of lighting continued to be invented, notably the neon lights that created Las Vegas. Science fiction writers introduce "rays" into the consciousness and scientist were inspired to create lasers. Rather than used as killer "death-rays" this ubiquitous device scans groceries and performs surgeries. Someday, we hope lasers will lead to a limitless source of energy through nuclear fusion. From the time of "Let there be light" until today, the quest for light continues.

This fascinating book is certainly worth a read if only to make the reader grateful for so much of what we take for granted. Additionally, it's definitely worth watching the process of world-changing inventions take place. No one, in any of the above-named "Six Innovations That Made the Modern World" could have envisioned the far-reaching effects of their discoveries. We live in a different world thanks to their risk taking and hard work.

The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

When I decided to choose a "Jeeves" book for book club, I splurged and borrowed an "Omnibus" of Jeeves books, so I was also delighted to be able to read The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. Just as funny and clever as the others I read, I loved the book.

This time, Bertram Wooster is called in to help his much in love friend Bingo. Unfortunately, Bingo needs his uncle's blessing and continued financial support. So begins the adventures involving Bingo, myriad love interests, two juvenile delinquent nephews, lots of cats, international travel, and of course, Jeeves.

The basic plot of the novel revolves around getting Bingo's uncle to approve of a marriage between social classes. Bingo is in love (for now) with a waitress. Jeeves suggests that Bingo reads fashionable stories of love between classes to the uncle in order to soften him up to the match. Somehow, Bernie is fingered as the author of the tales. The plan works wonderfully until it all blows up in Bernie's face. Jeeves solves all and Bernie, while never able to really live down the tale, is able to reenter polite society.

In between the main plot points are wonderfully clever bits about gambling and n'er do well relations. Not much Aunt Agatha (a perennial favorite) except in bits and pieces.

A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Since I am on a quest to read the Great Books, I decided to download the audio version of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I think because it's audio, it got a bit confusing, plus there are characters with the same name and it goes back and forth in time. Certainly a recipe for confusion.

After looking up a summary in order to get everyone straight, I got the gist of it. There are three children being raised together by the Earnshaw family. Two, Hindley and Catherine are biological brother and sister. Heathcliff is adopted as a young lad. Hindley becomes bitterly jealous of the new addition, while Catherine and Heathcliff grow very close. There is another family that lives nearby, the Lintons. They have two children, Edgar and Isabella. Eventually Hindley marries and his wife dies giving birth to Hareton. Catherine marries Edgar, much to Heathcliff's enduring disappointment, yet she also dies in childbirth with Catherine (called Cathy). Heathcliff marries Isabella to spite Edgar who hates him. While she doesn't die in childbirth, she leaves Heathcliff shortly after giving birth to a son, Linton. When she dies about 15 years later, he is sent to live with the father he never knew. Heathcliff is now more bitter than ever, abusively raising Hindley's son, Hareton, after Hindley dies as a form of long-term revenge. When a pale, sickly Linton comes to live with him, Heathcliff only cares so that he may marry the boy off to Cathy and thereby inherit for himself the Linton property.

Everyone in the novel is a pretty unimpressive human being. The entire story is told by the housekeeper to a visitor. No one looks good. Even the housekeeper has fallen victim to the selfish mentality. All are narcissistic and extreme versions of awful, selfish people. I suppose this is what "love" looks like when there is absolutely no thought of another. Even Cathy, who seems untainted by the drama of her parents, eventually falls prey to Heathcliff's bitterness after going to live with him upon her marriage to Linton. It's two in-bred generations of self-centered self-pity. It's not unusual for the cause of death to be a broken and embittered heart. Odd.

I guess I didn't really identify with any of the characters, except as a cautionary tale. What not to do. No one is happy. Everyone lives their entire lives full of anger, bitterness, and regret. The book ends with Heathcliff being buried in the same grave as Catherine, literally on top of her so he can be with her in eternity.

Really.

Maybe it's me, but I really did not like the book. I'm not sure of the point. I'm sure better minds than I can get far more out of it.

UPDATE 9/25: I reread the book. My original synopsis still holds quite well, but my takeaway has changed. I now see the point. Bronte is asking whether each generation MUST suffer the sins of its fathers. MUST the second generation of very similarly named characters reenact their parents tragic lives. 

By bringing Hareton and Cathy together in a hopeful union after the death of Heathcliff, I believe she answers, "No." 

The Close Reads Podcast asked the question, "Is this a love story or a ghost story?" I now see it as a ghost story. Everyone is haunted by something; Heathcliff famously by the ghost of Catherine. Assuming the ghost is not real (although Lockwood sees her in the beginning), we can assume that Heathcliff was simply driven to his evil behavior by the haunting of his own demons. Assuming the ghost is real (as Bronte seems willing to suggest), it's possible that the ghost of Catherine comes back to haunt Heathcliff and drive him to his death to free her daughter from their fate.

Either way, the book makes much more sense and I think it has definitely grown on me.

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Looking for something lighter than usual, I suggested Wodehouse's Jeeves books to my book club. Since there are so many, we decided we would each choose whichever one we wanted. I decided on Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. I'd already read Right Ho, Jeeves, (my post here) and although Carry On was written before, it refers to events from the latter book as having already happened. Hmmmm.No matter, the book was delightful. This time, it is up to Bertram Wooster, the young playboy, to patch up the engagement of Gussie Fink-Nottle to Madeline Basset lest the young woman come after Wooster. Of course Bertie makes a mess of all and Jeeves swoops in to rescue him as only Jeeves, the "gentlemen's gentleman" can.

I love the subtle and not-so-subtle humor of the books. I love Wooster's inner monologue and self-awareness while having lack of self-awareness. I love Jeeves, while being always agreeable, manages to finesse events to his will. Wodehouse is a genius and his books, although light-hearted and very funny, are so well-written they deserve the accolades given him.

One particularly clever bit after Wooster has narrowly avoided being seen by Plank, a man who has it out for him:

Wooster: You may be happy, but I haven't been for the last quarter of an hour or so, nestling behind the sofa and expecting Plank at any moment to unmask me. It didn't occur to you to envisage what would happen if he met me?
Jeeves: I was sure that your keen intelligence would enable you to find a means of avoiding him, sir, as indeed it did. You concealed yourself behind the sofa?
Wooster: On all fours
Jeeves: A very shrew manoeuvre on your part, if I may say so, sir. It showed a resource and swiftness of thought which it would be difficult to overpraise.

Gotta love that Jeeves!

Manalive by G.K. Chesterton

I've never read anything by G.K. Chesterton. I know Orthodoxy is a favorite of Regan's, but for some reason I decided to start with his fiction. What a strange, unexpected, little book is Manalive by G.K. Chesterton.

The setting is a boarding house in London (I believe), with its requisite odd group of characters. As they are standing out in the garden one day, discussing the day's news and philosophizing, a strange man bursts over the fence and changes their lives. His strange, child-like behavior proves very off-putting at first, but within a short time, he grows on them. When he, however, desires to propose to one of the group's friends, they are thrown into a conundrum. How can their sweet, innocent friend possibly marry a man as silly and guileless as Mr. Innocent Smith. 

To simply consider the possibility of living a simple, care-free life, throwing caution to the wind and taking a chance suddenly begins to open up new ways of living that they had never imagined. Just as they are considering the implications, a doctor and an officer show up looking for Mr. Smith who appears to be quite the conman and criminal. 

The group commences an in-house trial and the prosecution gets to work. Yet every single example, be it of burglary or even adultery, can be explained by the defense. 

It turns out that Mr. Innocent Smith has decided that he will LIVE as long as he is alive. To the unsuspecting world who spends most of their time just waiting to die, this can look quite unorthodox. (Ironic for the man best known for Orthodoxy.) 

At the end of this delightful book, Chesterton says, “There is but one answer, and I am sorry if you don't like it. If Innocent is happy, it is because he is innocent. If he can defy the conventions, it is just because he can keep the commandments. It is just because he does not want to kill but to excite to life that a pistol is still as exciting to him as it is to a schoolboy. It is just because he does not want to steal, because he does not covet his neighbour's goods, that he has captured the trick (oh, how we all long for it!), the trick of coveting his own goods. It is just because he does not want to commit adultery that he achieves the romance of sex; it is just because he loves one wife that he has a hundred honeymoons. If he had really murdered a man, if he had really deserted a woman, he would not be able to feel that a pistol or a love letter was like a song—at least, not a comic song.” (p. 183)

It's a sweet book with a sweet (however probably highly impracticable) lesson.