Book Forty-Seven - The Grapes of Wrath - Part Three

Well. I finished the book but I need to think about it for a bit before I write about it. The title comes from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," 1862, by Julia Ward Howe. Here are the first two lines, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." If you'd like to listen to a stirring version of the song, here is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performing at West Point (it's quite goosebumpy, y'all).

Book Forty-Seven - The Grapes of Wrath - Part Two

On a family road trip, two members of the Joad family, Tom and Al, go to a car junkyard place in search of a desperately needed part. As Al scopes out the remnants of a 1925 model, the junkyard attendant complains to Tom that his disability is holding him back in life. What with one thing and another, Tom is running low on patience yet somehow offers a bit of a pep talk.

Ya full of crap. Why, I knowed a one-legged whore one time. Think she was takin' two-bits in a alley? No, by God! She's getting half a dollar extra. She says, "How many one-legged women you slep' with? None!" she says. "O.K.," she says. "You got somepin pretty special here, an it's gonna cos' ya half a buck extry." An' by God, she was gettin' 'em, too, an' the fellas comin' out thinkin' they're pretty lucky.

Isn't it commendable that one of Steinbeck's characters from a book published in 1939 is such an early champion of disability rights?  

Book Forty-Seven - The Grapes of Wrath - Part One

 I've only read a few chapters thus far but feel as if I were there. I feel the dust beneath my feet and the desolation of the land as if it were mine. Steinbeck's description of the place is more prolific than his description of Joad's thoughts. Thus far, we have only what he says to determine how he feels. 

Book Forty-Six - Katherine - Part Three

Anya Seaton

When I finished this book, I was overwhelmed with sadness. I'd previously read about daily life in the middle ages (spoiler alert: it sucked) so I wasn't surprised by the setting. I won't spoil it, but Katherine did not have an easy life. Part of this was the matter of her birth, part was the time and culture into which she was born, and part of it was her choices. Couldn't the same be said of each of us?

Okay, so  I understand a bit more about the Wars of the Roses. (There were a bunch of battles, so it's plural.) John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, (key in this book) was a rose. Well, the symbol of the House (i.e., family/heritage/direct line) of Lancaster was a red rose. John was a prince, son of King Edward III. Okay, I may be getting some of this wrong; the thing about British history is that there's so much of it. But basically, the Lancasters ruled from 1399 until they (the red roses, John's descendents) fought with John's brothers' descendents, the House of York (symbolized by a white rose) for the crown, i.e., power, control, and all the usual stuff wars are fought for. It all equals money, doesn't it? Finally, the Lancaster Henry Tudor defeated the York King Richard III* (the one whose body was found in 2012 beneath a parking lot in Leicester, England) at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. Then--get this--Henry, who became King Henry VII, married a York! Talk about consolidation of power. So Much Drama. Reminds me of those feuding families back in Mayberry.

House of Lancaster

Here's a link to a site detailing the familial relationship between Katherine and Queen Elizabeth II.

*If you've read or seen Shakespeare's Richard III, he's the one with the line, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" You may also know this line if you've ever seen The Goodbye Girl.

Book Forty-Six - Katherine - Part Two

I finally got the urge to continue reading this one and most of my free hours over the past few days have been devoted to finishing it. Now I have that empty feeling... but what happens next?! The good news is that this is a historical novel and further information is available about Katherine and her children. I've been searching for a family tree for Queen Elizabeth II which includes Katherine's name.

Stay tuned!

Book Forty-Six - Katherine - Part One

I've been reading this book for ages... well, actually only reading it when I'm not reading something else. I like it but don't love it. Yet as soon as I start reading it I'm pulled back in, so I shall continue. Queen Elizabeth II is among Katherine's descendents thanks to that whole War of the Roses thing. I don't quite understand the War of the Roses but the gist seems to involve a power struggle.

Book Forty-Five - Gone With The Wind - Part Seven

 

Margaret Mitchell

from Biography.com

Let's talk Captain Rhett Butler, shall we? My goodness, yes. Captain Butler was "not received" in decent homes. I rather like that designation. Apparently he was out with a young woman after dark and refused to marry her! So Rhett is not received into decent society. Except for the Wilkes, who invited him to the barbecue at which Scarlett met him. Captain Butler knew a thing or ten about women. At one point, Scarlett has a bit of a rant about Rhett and his friendship with a Lady of the Evening--

Bad women and all they involved were mysterious and revolting matters to her. She knew that men patronized these women for purposes which no lady should mention — or, if she did mention them, in whispers and by indirection and euphemism. She had always thought that only common vulgar men visited such women. Before this moment, it had never occurred to her that nice men — that is, men she met at nice homes and with whom she danced — could possibly do such things. It opened up an entirely new field of thought and one that was horrifying. Perhaps all men did this! It was bad enough that they forced their wives to go through such indecent performances but to actually seek out low women and pay them for such accommodation! Oh, men were so vile, and Rhett Butler was the worst of them all!

Remember that any mention of "indecent performances" was considered trashy. Apparently it gave women the vapors. One more-- 

She could hear him chuckling softly. Sometimes he was odious. In fact, most of the time he was odious. It was awful for a man to know what women really thought about and talked about. It made a girl feel positively undressed. And no man ever learned such things from good women either. She was indignant that he had read her mind. She liked to believe herself a thing of mystery to men, but she knew Rhett thought her as transparent as glass.

Scarlett saw that as a bad thing; she was taught to always keep men guessing. Mitchell was making a point about how naive women of the late 19th century were in comparison to those of the early 20th. My, how far we have come. I'm not a huge fan of Kierkegaard but I do like "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Unless one has, say, a time-turner or something. (I was given one as a gift but it doesn't work properly.)

I haven't "southernized" (not a real word) Scarlett's words here, and neither did Mitchell--though she did use the dialect of the slaves/former slaves. It was distracting and a bit tedious to have to read a sentence several times to comprehend its meaning. 

Back to Captain Butler... Rhett saw much of the world, both good and bad. He loved intensely and showed a great deal of wisdom.

"All wars are sacred,” he said. “To those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn’t make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it."

When I was a young college student, I heard from a military man that wars are fought for economic reasons. I disagreed, for I had bought into the propaganda. But no longer. "Wait a minute!" I hear you say. "What about WWII?" I would say that is the exception which proves the rule but I don't believe that old saying--doesn't it simply mean that those creating the rule didn't find a big enough rule? Or has it come to mean something beyond the original intent? In any case, I don't have an answer about WWII. 


Bet Rhett would know.