Still In Middle Earth
While Tim is away, the family will ... okay, we're playing. The boys ordinarily aren't allowed Nintendo and television during the week, but I've allowed them both for the past two days. We've eaten our supper earlier, and stayed up later than when daddy is home. We are still doing school and chores, but somehow knowing that Daddy isn't coming home for supper alters our schedule significantly.
I didn't feel well yesterday, and on top of it, I've had two nights with little sleep. Sunday night I was awake and miserable with illness. Last night I was awake and miserable from trying to sleep alone. I've always said that if anything ever happened to Tim, I'd never marry again. But, I gotta tell you, a few nights all by myself in that big bed, and I might be sorely tempted to at least find a lover. Or if my conscience won't let me do that, maybe a hobbit with very warm feet can keep me company.
I'm down to the bottom of the pile of books on my nightstand. (I hate when that happens.) But, knowing how much I dread to see the end approaching, that's where I put the books I'm most interested in reading. This last round of reading has been marvelous. Philip Yancey and Brennan Manning are never dull. Because they pack so much wisdom into their prose, I make it a point to read each chapter twice. But, they still don't last me very long.
I was thrilled over the weekend to find that two of my favorite popular fiction authors have new releases. Iris Johansen's protagonist, Eve Duncan is a forensic sculptor. Her murdered daughter shows up from time to time to argue with her mother over various choices Eve makes and that's in intriguing note. But, this latest volume, Body of Lies, is beyond complex. The plot twists and turns begin to unravel into incoherent scatterings of frantic emotional reaction to shocks that make it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief.
The other Eve, J D Robb's Lieutenant Eve Dallas, is back this month in a new future thriller, Portait of Death. As the novel opens she is uncharacteristically cheerful. Her husband's employee/friend, Sommerset, who grates on her every nerve, is leaving for three weeks of well-earned vacation. But on his way out of the house, he trips over the cat, falls down the stairs, breaks his leg, and sets the tone for the rest of Eve's day. Before noon, she has dealt with a horrific murder scene, hauled in her best friend for questioning (it's Nadine's bad luck that she's a reporter who got an annonymous tip regarding the murder) and gotten to the station house just in time to see the last cheese danish crumbs being wiped from her boss' mustache. But, the dialogue is snappy and the villian is a worthy opponent. It's worth the $6.
Now I'm down to the books I've been looking most forward to over the past three weeks. J R R Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth by Bradley Birzer and Tolkien, Man and Myth by Joseph Pearce. Through my life I have consistently come back again and again to the writings of two men who were contemporaneous Oxford Dons, Tolkien and C S Lewis. Because I've read their works so often I eventually start to wonder about the men behind the books. Several years ago I read Lewis' autobiography, Surprised By Joy along with several books and essays written about him. Tolkien was instrumental in Lewis' decision to convert from atheism to Christianity. But the two men had many differences. Tolkien was a life-long Catholic, (his son John became a priest) and Lewis opted for the Protestant version of the faith.
It's tempting when reading works of theology to forget that there are very real people with foibles, irritating habits, and character flaws behind the writing. Lewis was an odd duck by almost any definition of the phrase. His best friend was killed in battle during WWI and Lewis took on the responsibility of caring for his friend's mother for the rest of her life. He lived into his middle age with this old woman, and his brother. In his mid-fifties, he met and eventually married an American divorcee to the scandal of many who admired his Christian writing. When his wife died of a painful cancer only a couple years later, Lewis wrote what many consider to be his best work, A Grief Observed.
Now I'm on to reading about Tolkien. I've been very interested to learn more about Tolkien since I've re-read the Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, Silmarillion and I've been watching all the documentaries about Peter Jackson's LOTR Films. I want to know more about the man behind the myth. And one of the things I want to learn is why Tolkien and Lewis "fell out" with each other. Yes, I'm going to pay close attention to all the literary details and psychological insights, but I have to acknowledge that a huge part of me just wants the dirt.
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Tim installed a new thingy on our desktop before he left. It's a koala bear with loads of personality. He plays with a yo-yo, dresses as a circus clown, is walked by his dog, and even tries on the red robe and sorceror's hat that Mickey Mouse made famous (my koala friend conjures a flood that whisks him down a drain.) When I stop to think a moment before typing the next sentence, he flops over in a hammock and snores in editorial commentary. In other words, he's the most annoying thing I've seen in a while, and I'm in love with him. I've spent a considerable amount of time distracted from balancing the checkbook while I giggle at his antics.
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