Reading Journal

Yeah, there's a reason I haven't updated this one in a month...I haven't been reading for leisure much. Not because I don't have leisure time; I do. My first excuse is that I've been opening a lot, which requires me to be out the door by 4:40 a.m. to be there on time. Which makes reading my scriptures when I wake up not as possible as I'd like it to be. So I've been reading them on my break at work, which was when I normally did my leisure reading. Also, we've got cable. And it's been hot out, so not as much opportunity to sit outside and read.

I have managed to knock out a few pages in this month, though. But I feel a little guilty for renewing my library book online since I know a librarian who got laid off the other day.



Our New Nation

I didn't mark any quotations. So either I wasn't struck by anything or I was, didn't have an appropriate way to mark the page and have forgotten.

However, I do remember enjoying reading the section about "Cowboys on the Plains." Especially when the book went into great detail on the trek from Texas to the midwestern meat packinghouses.


Oh, but here's a little gem from p. 239, on the spreading of our nation into the islands of the Pacific.
"...and today the population [of Hawaii] is made up of brown-skinned Hawaiians, yellow-skinned people from China and Japan, and white people mostly from the United States."
How hilariously un-PC.




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Sense and Sensibility

So I've apparently read more from this than I thought, considering my last quote came from chapter 19 and my first one for this post comes from chapter 22 and my bookmark is on 40. However, I had a piece of paper inserted randomly into the book, mistook it for my bookmark and read for 4-5 pages, thinking it was familiar from the movie. Just more proof that I have zero reading retention. (I'm hoping that my pulling out and posting quotes helps at least a little with that.)

Chapter 22
"I certainly did not seek your confidence," said Elinor (to Lucy).
I like the way that sounds and have felt that way many times. Especially during one circumstance this past month.

Chapter 23, near the beginning
Elinor's thoughts after Lucy's news on the way Edward had treated herself at Norland
"Her mother, sisters, Fanny, a had been conscious of his regard for her at Norland; it was not an illusion of her own vanity. He certainly loved her. What a softener of the heart was this persuasion! How much could it not tempt her to forgive! He had been blameable, highly blameable in remaining at Norland after he first felt her influence over him to be more than it ought to be. In that, he could not be defended; but if he had injured her, how much more had he injured himself! If her case were pitiable, his was hopeless. His imprudence had made her miserable for a while; but it seemed to have deprived himself of all chance of ever being otherwise. She might in time regain tranquillity; but he, what had he to look forward to? Could he ever be tolerably happy with Lucy Steele? Could he, were his affection for herself out of the question, with his integrity, his delicacy, and well-informed mind, be satisfied with a wife like her--illiterate, artful, and selfish?
"The youthful infatuation of nineteen would naturally blind him to everything but her beauty and good nature; but the four succeeding years--years which, if rationally spent, give such improvements to the understanding, must have opened his eyes to her defects of education: while the same period of time, spent on her side in inferior society and more frivolous pursuits, had perhaps robbed her of that simplicity which might once have given an interesting character to her beauty."

That is why I love Austen.

Chapter 31, near the beginning
Marianne on Mrs. Jennings
"'No, no, no, it cannot be,' she cried; 'she cannot feel. Her kindness is not sympathy; her good-nature is not tenderness. All that she wants is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it."
How true that can be sometimes.

Chapter 36, near the beginning
"One thing did disturb her [Mrs. Jennings]; and of that she made her daily complaint. Mr. Palmer maintained the common, but unfatherly opinion among his sex, of all infants being alike; and though she could plainly perceive at different times the most striking resemblance between this baby and every one of his relations on both sides, there was no convincing his father of it; no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like every other baby of the same age; nor could he even be brought to acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the world."

Chapter 37, smack in the middle
I wish I could quote this all...I've tried to pick out the good parts, but it's all good. The exchange between Marianne and Elinor in this chapter is one of my favorites of the story. When Marianne discovers not only how long Edward has been engaged to Lucy, but how long Elinor has known of it and Marianne accosts her sister...it's an exchange of sisterhood at it's finest. If you don't have a sister and want to understand the bond that sisters have, despite being so different in personality, read this exchange. (Or watch this scene in the movie, I guess. But the book does better at conveying the relationship, I think.)

Yet one more reason I love Austen.