'The Wind in the Willows' by Kenneth Grahame

Meet little Mole, willful Ratty, Badger the perennial bachelor, and petulant Toad. Over one hundred years since their first appearance in 1908, they've become emblematic archetypes of eccentricity, folly, and friendship. And their misadventures-in gypsy caravans, stolen sports cars, and their Wild Wood-continue to capture readers' imaginations and warm their hearts long after they grow up. Begun as a series of letters from Kenneth Grahame to his son, The Wind in the Willows is a timeless tale of animal cunning and human camaraderie. 

MY THOUGHTS:
Here is my choice for the Title which includes Nature category of the 2020 Back to the Classics challenge. Hibernation time is over and young Mole pops out of his burrow, fresh for adventure. He bumps into his friend Water Rat, aka Ratty, who invites him to be a permanent guest and enjoy life on the great wide river. They make successful friendship overtures to the wise but elusive Mr Badger, who hates society as a rule but has a soft spot for his little friends. And together the trio tries to curb the dangerous behaviour of Mr Toad, who has a serious addiction to fast vehicles, even though he's a terrible driver. Their attempts to stop him by sheer force are all to no avail, and he finds himself saddled with a hefty jail sentence, forcing him to shift his thirst for adventure into a crafty break-out.

Clearly many readers have a soft spot for reckless Toad, who shows us how to follow our passions wholeheartedly. We'd all like to live with a similar twinkle in our eye, knowing that we've milked life for all it's worth. He says, 'I'm not sorry. And it wasn't folly at all. It was simply glorious!' I've got to say, so is that line, Toad.  (More about Toad and his attitude here.)

But the dude has a fully developed case of FOMO syndrome. That's fear of missing out. For a short time he pours his heart and soul into the vehicle of the moment, then as soon as he sees anyone enjoying the next best thing, he abandons whatever he's doing to jump straight on board. And each time he declares that it's so amazing and great, he's going to devote the rest of his life to it. Toad is a prime example that FOMO is a self-defeating attitude. Because when we move on too quickly to master anything, or give it a fair chance, of course we cut short the pleasure of all it has to offer. If only he'd stuck to any one conveyance for longer, he might have developed more skill and not been such a menace to himself and others.

As a contrast we have Ratty, who was born with no curiosity or desire to explore the wider world at all, so satisfied is he in the knowledge that he's living his best possible life beside the lapping banks of his beloved river. He does succumb to a restless curiosity to discover what all the fuss is about when others get itchy feet, and lets the chatter of a couple of migratory birds get to him. But he soon comes to his senses, realising that what's right for others isn't necessarily a good fit for him. A basic theme of this book seems to be, 'To thine own self be true.'

There are plenty of beautiful, descriptive passages to contemplate, such as Mole's impression of the winter landscape. 'He was glad he liked the country undecorated, hard and stripped of its finery. He had got down to the bare bones of it, and they were fine, strong and simple.' And just to prove he's no respecter of seasons, we have this nice line about summer. 'A hot sun seemed to be pulling everything green and bushy and spiky up out of the earth towards him, as if by strings.'

It's not really what modern kids read, but that's not to say it shouldn't be. Perhaps early 20th century authors like Grahame gave children what they thought could benefit them, including slow, insightful reflections about nature. In the 21st century, in the true spirit of consumer culture, authors and publishers may kowtow to their audience, giving kids the upper hand and providing what they think they want; fast action and sparse description to suit their impatient, restless, ADHD little hearts. Or perhaps I'm just beginning to sound like the oldie I keep claiming not to be :)

There are sudden moments of strangeness that make us step back and say, 'Hey, come again?' I'm thinking of the chapter entitled, 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn' in which Rat, Mole and Otter's baby son come face to face with the Greek god Pan. The writing is saturated in reverential awe, and it's difficult to figure out whether Kenneth Grahame was promoting pagan pantheism to his young readers. The thing is, this story's heroes are anthropomorphic little critters and Pan has been depicted as the protector of animals, so perhaps Grahame is inviting humans to substitute the deities of our choice. His theme here seems to be that we generally perceive no more of the supernatural world beyond our senses because we couldn't handle it if we did. Our minds would be completely blown. It's such an interesting chapter I'd like to return to.

I have to say at times I found my credulity stretched to snapping point. We're expected to believe that Toad can break out of jail and head straight home to Toad Hall without having the law straight on his webbed heels! But then I remember we're talking about a book full of inconsistencies, in which certain animals walk around in waistcoats and slippers, yet still eat others. So why not?

Toad meets a travelling gypsy along the road, and gobbles up loads of his succulent stew. 'It was indeed the most beautiful stew in the world, being made of partridges, and pheasants, and chickens, and hares, and rabbits, and pea-hens, and guinea fowls, and one or two other things.' What a tempting description for the meat lovers in our lives, but comes as a bit of a shock since Toad's friend Mole was talking to a couple of rabbits as fellow compatriots earlier in the book.

Overall, it's a great little book that gives us quite a cool taste of the early 1900s, including Toad's driving costume, with goggles, cap, garters, gloves and the whole works. Not my favourite kids' classic ever, but it's clear that Grahame wrote it with love in his heart. It's brimming over with home comforts, rustic beauty and simple joys that aren't too hard to find, and probably form the backbone of a life well lived.

🌟🌟🌟½

Excavating Passions

In her book The Art of Extreme Self Care, Cheryl Richardson tells the story of how she uncovered a long-buried passion in a department store. She admired a smartly tailored hat but decided it was far too expensive to buy. Yet for weeks after that, she kept thinking about it. One day she went to have another look and discovered the price had been reduced.

So she stared at her new hat, which was nice but not amazing, and wondered why it had been so compelling. Then it hit her with force that it was stirring a buried passion from her teens, when she was crazy about creating lovely outfits with smart matching apparel. She challenged us readers to resurrect some passion we'd discarded over time, in the interest of growing up and moving on.

Well, I'd recently given mine a new lease of life, and didn't have to ponder at all. It's reading and discussing classics and famous books. Once long ago I'd dreamed of devoting my life to them, and maybe even becoming an English professor or some such smart person. Alas, four years of studying an English major at Uni cut me down to size. I realised the folk at the top were in a way different league to me when it came to reading. The depth of analysis we were expected to engage in, discussing the ins and outs of feminism, racism and many other isms were poles apart from my desire to simply dream up new scenarios for my favourite characters. All the long words with which we were expected to deconstruct themes and deduce possible unconscious author intentions seemed to wring every bit of magic and happiness out of it for me.

I finished the course, but went in hyped up and confident after doing very well at High School, and came out feeling like the runtiest ant in the mound. I remember deciding I'd been deluded, and only imagined I ever wanted to study books, because I obviously couldn't give them the polished focus they evidently deserved. I simply wasn't cut from the right cloth. I wasn't smart enough.

Well, fast forward a few decades. I'd been homeschooling my kids, writing some novels of my own and reading plenty of others. Then one day I pulled a couple of classics off my shelves and found I had a lot of feeling for the characters within the pages. It renewed a love of visiting second-hand bookshops for that cool adrenaline rush when I get my hands on famous and celebrated books from long-ago. But I'd turned a corner. At this stage they were no longer part of any lofty ambition. I just want to read and discuss them because they're so much fun.

In early 2017 my dad died. I've been thinking a lot about how fast his few decades of retirement flew, and how he spent time doing plenty of what he loved, including gardening, hiking and watching TV. I've reached an age where I'm fully aware that the years ahead are limited for all of us. So putting aside time for reading is vital not because I'm significant enough to make a major contribution, but because it's an excellent treat I look forward to. I'm sure that great books also provide us with lofty company and tools to put our own lives into perspective in the light of well-known characters, but those are just bonuses after the tremendous enjoyment. 

This blog is here to honour that enthusiastic part of myself, as Cheryl Richardson suggested. Up above is a photo of me aged 20, visiting Highgate Cemetery in England. Many famous folk are buried there, but I was hunting specifically for the tombstone of one of my favourite authors, George Eliot, aka Mary Ann Evans. She wrote some of my favourite classics, including Middlemarch.

 I was stoked to find the grave, especially when I remembered the famous final paragraph of her masterpiece. Discussing her heroine Dorothea Brooke, Eliot wrote, 'Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.'

Well, George Eliot's own tomb isn't unvisited, but I certainly had it all to myself that morning, as a kid pilgrim all the way from Australia. And the memorial from my past reinforces how deep and long my passion flows. (I'm even wearing my Adelaide Uni windcheater, as I'd taken a semester long break from those interesting but disillusioning days I mentioned.) All these years later I'm taking it as a sign that I was on the right track, and that life is more to do with paying homage to the brilliant than aspiring to be anything out of the box myself. 

I guess anyone who enjoys visiting my blog might have a similar passion for reading, but is there anything else that does it for you, or had to be excavated?

'Vanity Fair' by William Makepeace Thackeray

A novel that chronicles the lives of two women who could not be more different: Becky Sharp, an orphan whose only resources are her vast ambitions, her native wit, and her loose morals; and her schoolmate Amelia Sedley, a typically naive Victorian heroine, the pampered daughter of a wealthy family.

MY THOUGHTS:
Here's my choice for the Classic Adaptation in the 2020 Back to the Classics Challenge. We are to choose any novel that's been adapted as a film or TV series, so I thought I'd take the chance to read Vanity Fair and also watch the highly acclaimed BBC series from 2018. I was soon engrossed in this family drama set between 1815 and 1830, but published as a serial throughout 1847. I can quite understand why Thackeray's readers would have been panting for the next installment. It drops us right into scandal and intrigue and even whisks us off for a while to the Battle of Waterloo.

It all starts when two young friends graduate from finishing school and head off in a carriage together. Even though they seem fond of each other, it's soon clear to the reader that they have nothing remotely in common beyond heading for a week to the same destination.

Amelia Sedley is the soft-hearted daughter of a wealthy stockbroker. She's returning to her family home and looks forward to marrying her sweetheart George Osborne; a match preordained by both families from their babyhood. Amelia is the type of girl others automatically take care of and make decisions for. Conveniently for her she's madly in love with the boy they've chosen, because Amelia sets her tender heart devotedly on those she loves, blinding herself to their faults. When things go pear shaped, as they tend to do in the dog-eat-dog Regency era, she's the sort of victim who's always first to crumple. Amelia is a real canary in the coalmine type of character. Thackeray calls her a 'harmless lost wanderer in the great, struggling crowds of Vanity Fair.'

Her friend Rebecca Sharp on the other hand, is an orphan who relies on her street smarts and social awareness, since she has no relatives to look out for her. Becky has set her scheming heart on ascending to the top of the social ladder, which means she has no room for useless emotions like love to make her vulnerable. She's great at faking niceness to the right people, playing on their blind spots and giving them what will most flatter their vanity. But our admiration for an underdog who knows how to play the game changes to horror at her monstrous methods of getting what she wants. That makes this such a fun book. Our own sense of justice is kindled, and discussing the story with others becomes an exercise of comparing the moment we first saw her true colours as an unscrupulous con artist.

There's always an interesting contrast between Becky's callous lack of love for anyone, and Amelia's smothering excess of that same emotion, poured out on undeserving targets.

Becky intends to spend a week with Amelia's family before moving on to a post as family governess to a baronet named Sir Pitt Crawley. Unwilling to let any opportunity slip, she first attempts to seduce Amelia's brother Joseph, then tries her chances with the Crawley family. Sir Pitt's second son Rawdon is a simple, sporty, macho-man and gambler who expects to inherit lots of money from his wealthy aunt, with whom he's a favourite. So he becomes Becky's next target. Although he never dreams he's just a stepping stone in her selfish machinations, we know that's just what he is. And he's caught up in the mess when Becky's carefully crafted plans backfire on her.

Although Becky's clearly a gold digger, innocent Amelia sets us groaning for other reasons. She has so many good qualities. She's self-sacrificing, long-suffering, a model daughter and sister. Yet there's a strong sense that Thackeray doesn't intend us to approve of the way she wraps her whole being around the people she loves, which is a strain for anyone, let alone a selfish brat like George Osborne, or a spoiled, breezy kid like their son. She has all the feels, but lacks discrimination of worthy objects. When the good Captain Dobbin finally wins her hand after years of pining for her love, even he's come to understand that she's clueless, and not really that great a catch. The text puts it like this. 'Grow green again, tender little parasite, round the rugged old oak to which you cling.'

All through the story, Thackeray keeps showing us that money is a personality changer. It's a society in which anyone with decent dough suspects they can't trust claims of devotion from friends and family members. The section in which relatives visit grouchy Aunt Matilda Crawley are hilarious, especially since she sees straight through their ruse. Miss Crawley knows full well that she's a cantankerous grouch who's not at all lovable. Perhaps it's sadness over her family's hypocrisy which keeps her cross, so it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. The story keeps us psyched up waiting to discover who she finally decides to leave her moolah to.

Becky drops a famous line when she says, 'I could be a good woman on $5000 a year.' She sets us wondering whether raw need makes crooks, or at least unpleasant companions, out of otherwise harmless people. Thackeray's narrator helps us ponder the question with terrific observations such as, 'An alderman coming from a turtle feast will not step out of his carriage to steal a leg of mutton, but put him to starve and see if he will not purloin a loaf.' (I remember having very similar thoughts while reading Dickens' Pickwick Papers, if you'd care to compare.)

Anyway, I love this book mostly for the subtle nuances of its secondary characters. Between the shifting pendulums of our two flawed heroines we have very cool character development of others whose lives are tangled in theirs. We see matrimony and fatherhood have a positive effect on Rawdon, because unlike Becky, he's essentially a decent, normal person. We see their son figure out with childlike accuracy the truth about his mother, which takes adults years to comprehend. We have the unassuming Captain Dobbin, who fills Thackeray's every criteria of the perfect gentleman, including 'an equal, manly sympathy for the great and the small.' And we have Becky's sister-in-law, the awesome Lady Jane Crawley, who knows when enough is enough, because she's been considering Becky's outrageous behaviour, just as we have. These are all favourites of mine, making it a book I'll return to down the track.

This category of Back to the Classics challenges us to also watch and assess the film or series the book is based on, so I'll do that as a separate post I'll link to this. Look out for it soon.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

'The Enchanted April' by Elizabeth von Arnim

A recipe for happiness: four women, one medieval Italian castle, plenty of wisteria, and solitude as needed.

The women at the center of The Enchanted April are alike only in their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives. They find each other—and the castle of their dreams—through a classified ad in a London newspaper one rainy February afternoon. The ladies expect a pleasant holiday, but they don’t anticipate that the month they spend in Portofino will reintroduce them to their true natures and reacquaint them with joy. Now, if the same transformation can be worked on their husbands and lovers, the enchantment will be complete.

The Enchanted April was a best-seller in both England and the United States, where it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and set off a craze for tourism to Portofino. More recently, the novel has been the inspiration for a major film and a Broadway play.

MY THOUGHTS:
Here's a runaway bestseller from 1922 to highlight in the month of April, for obvious reasons. It'll also do nicely for my Classic by a Woman category of the 2020 Back to the Classics Challenge. It's a pretty good choice for this crazy year of strict Covid-19 measures, since these four ladies have chosen to do a bit of self-isolation together. But whew, what a story. Love is so thick in the air, it's almost suffocating.

Four ladies who are virtual strangers decide to each chip in part of their savings to rent San Salvatore, a medieval villa in Italy, for the month of April. All four are suffering from burn-out, adrenal exhaustion and disillusionment with their ho-hum lives in London.

Lotty Wilkins is a mousy little tryhard who suspects she keeps disappointing her solicitor hubby Mellersh. During the story, she taps into a dormant prophetic power that transforms her. Pious Rose Arbuthnot is ashamed that her husband Frederick, a raunchy memoirist, is earning money on sin and sensationism. She aims to acquire happiness through good works and self-denial, but it's exhausting her!

Mrs Fisher is a gruff and overbearing elderly widow living in the grand old past. Her father was a great host, and she's forever name-dropping dead celebs from her childhood into conversations. And Lady Caroline Dester is a stunning beauty who suffers the misfortune of being overly admired wherever she goes. She's all peopled out and just wants to recharge in peace and quiet without empty small talk and silly jokes.

The setting, which sounds like a Mediterranean version of a Thomas Kinkade painting, turns out to be quietly restorative, sanding down their rough edges and coaxing out their inner goodness. It even acts as a magnet for males, including the two irritating husbands along with the young man who owns the villa. And what do you know, it has a similar remedial effect on the dudes. Who woulda thought?

Is it way too cute? You bet! Lady Caroline's situation annoyed the heck out of me at first. We're supposed to believe her attempts to be rude and stand-offish keep failing because her face is such a beautiful filter. My word, was Elizabeth Von Arnim serious? Mean girls with snarky intentions can always get their messages across, no matter what they look like! But when you look at all the five star reviews, it seems this book somehow gets away with heavy-handedness that might destroy any other story. Or who knows, maybe the atmosphere starts working its way with us through the pages. I went from groaning to grinning, yet the kitsch writing quality surely never changed.

It's quite cool when the owner, Thomas Briggs, tells Rose that he's an orphan. 'Oh, are you,' she said, with proper sympathy. 'I hope you've not been one for very long. No, I mean I hope you've been one very long. No, I don't know what I mean, except I'm sorry.' At least Von Arnim has nailed the awkward response.

I kept thinking I should DNF it and move on, but continued turning the pages for the following reasons.

1) I like seeing how people who have just met each other manage to work through personality clashes and find common ground. It's the same reason I occasionally persevere with reality TV series.
2) The concept of healing environments intrigues me, because I do believe place contains power.
3) I appreciate epiphanies. It's easier for readers to take characters' lessons on board, especially when we have no means of getting to breathtaking Italian villas ourselves.
4) The inclusion of the blokes shows good sportsmanship. This story isn't just feminist propaganda about how women may be better off without them, but stays well balanced, showing that there are two sides to communication glitches.
5) I like garden settings. Anyone who liked The Secret Garden may enjoy hanging out with four grown-up versions of Mary in a similar environment.

I guess Von Arnim's two main themes are as solid and sound as they ever were. Firstly, whenever we start treating others with kindness and respect, they may surprise us by acting nicer toward us in return. And secondly, our environments truly do make a difference to our satisfaction levels, and perhaps even altar our characters for the better. So it's in our own best interest to choose good ones whenever we can. This book is a lovely destination overall, but prepare yourself for quite a cheesy, twee road to get there.

🌟🌟🌟

Masters of choosing a great attitude

Here's a list for where we find ourselves in 2020, which will always be remembered as the year of Coronavirus. We are still just a couple of weeks into the global social distancing measures intended to flatten the curve of new cases. Reluctant hermits everywhere are feeling a gamut of impotent emotions bouncing between fear, impatience, boredom, and frustration. I've noticed some positive remarks from exhausted souls embracing the peace and quiet, but that might peter out if this drags on for long. On the whole, we just want the threat of a catastrophic pandemic behind us and our old lives back. 

Our only recourse is to wait this out, so it would seem the one thing we can control is our attitude. So I've drawn on the collective wisdom of philosophers, characters from epic historical classics and kids' tales alike. Since these diverse people all figured out the same secret under very adverse circumstances, I'm taking it as a clear sign that it's universal enough for us to latch onto too. Let's make the choice to follow in their footsteps, and here they are.   

Smith Wigglesworth
This stern and scary plumber turned evangelist from the early 20th century was known partly for his unconventional healing methods, in which he'd forcefully strike the ailing body parts of patients seeking prayer. However, he did see stunning results, and a delve into his personal life reveals that he lived with an iron control over both his faith and his emotions. One quote of his I appreciate is along the lines of, 'When I wake up, I don't ask Smith how he's feeling. I tell him how he's feeling!' Perhaps our friend Smith was onto something there.

Voltaire 
He was a famous French Enlightenment philosopher who helped shape western thought as we know it. Voltaire was known for his outspoken championing of pure reason, and his criticism of church and state alike. Poles apart from Wigglesworth in most of his thinking, they did converge on that one simple, possibly crucial matter of attitude. Voltaire said, 'The most important decision you will ever make is to be in a good mood.' Hmm, that's from a famous thinker, folks.

Pierre Bezukhov
Our chubby young millionaire from War and Peace was battered from pillar to post in his emotions throughout most of the huge novel, as he tried desperately to wrap his head around the meaning of life. His huge bank balance and outspoken advisers left him reeling and puzzled. Only when he was captured by the French as a prisoner of war, herded with a group of other Russians toward the border and stripped of all but the rags on his back did the answer dawn on him forcefully. True freedom and meaning consists of being free to make the choice to stay serene, peaceful and optimistic no matter what the world deals out to us. It takes losing everything for Pierre to gain that epiphany through experience, and by then we readers have journeyed with him for so long that it's a powerful eye-opener for us too. (My review is here.)

Pollyanna
This happy little heroine of kid's lit had the secret all along, and clung to it even when people tried to shoot her theory down. It's the Glad Game her father taught her as a tiny tot, when she received a pair of crutches in a relief box instead of the doll she'd hoped for. He told her in effect to use her imagination to create lemonade from the lemons life throws at us. In her case, Pollyanna could be glad that she didn't need the crutches. That moment started a revolution that lasted through a whole book series, as Pollyanna grew up sharing her Glad Game with whoever she encountered. And in our digital era, we needn't look far to find a host of online Pollyannas dispensing positive advice to help us through our global crisis. (Here is my review)

Uncle Tom
He's the sturdy, noble slave from the novel that helped shape American history. Every day in which Tom served his earthly masters was done from an attitude of setting his heart on things above, which he trusted contained immeasurable glory and joy beyond his wild imaginings. He knew that transitory circumstances always change, which kept him patient no matter what. The only time Uncle Tom opened his mouth in opposition to Simon Legree, the cruelest master of all, was not so much a mouthful of backchat as a triumphant faith statement and attitude shaper. Tom told Legree that no matter what he inflicted on his body, he had no influence whatsoever over his attitude and soul. Tom's allegiance to God and looking to help from heaven would continue no matter how hard Legree tried to stamp it out (and that rotter tried his very best!) Tom's decision to remain trustful and optimistic was the defining crux of his life. Hurray! (My review is here.)

Esther Summerson
Charles Dickens' only ever female narrator is hard to forget, because life has taught her the benefit of choosing cheerfulness every single time. This girl practices what she preaches. Her loved ones are horrified when her beautiful porcelain complexion is ruined forever by the smallpox scars left over from a long illness. After one moment of grief, Esther draws on her habit of looking for something to rejoice over, instead of dwelling on her very hard luck. Maybe she couldn't have done it if it hadn't become second nature over time. But here's what she said and meant with all her heart. 'I found every breath of fresh air, every scent, every flower and leaf and blade of grass, every passing cloud and everything in nature more beautiful and wonderful to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of delight to me.' (Check out my review of Bleak House.)

Toad of Toad Hall
Okay, this egomaniac isn't the best role model in general, but he does learn some valuable wisdom while serving a jail sentence for car theft and reckless driving. The jailer's generous daughter brings him a delicious plate of bubble and squeak on toast to help cheer him up, and to the great surprise of both, it works. The succulent dish, appealing to all five senses, is the catalyst Toad needs to snap into a happier frame of mind. He discovers that thinking pleasant thoughts is a real mood-booster. Toad's new and inspiring thoughts include, 'Chivalry, poetry, broad meadows, and cattle browsing in them raked by sun and wind: kitchen gardens and straight herb borders; warm snapdragons beset by bees; the comforting clink of glasses set down on the table; breakfasts on bright, frosty mornings; cosy parlour firesides on wintry evenings; the purring of contented cats and twitter of sleepy canaries.' That's the spirit, Toady! When optimism fires his imagination, he begins to consider creative ways out of his fix which never occurred to him for as long as he was sobbing with hopelessness and depression. (Review of Wind in the Willows is on the way.)

Viktor Frankl
Perhaps this humble and famous Austrian doctor and Holocaust survivor says it best of all, which is why I've saved him for last. What Frankl figured out (which is basically a very eloquent wrap-up of everyone else I've cited) saved his life in Auschwitz. He devoted his remaining years to sharing his personal testimony and attitude methodology with others. The first draft of his classic, 'Man's Search for Meaning' was written in nine days flat when he was first released. Since it's based on the most horrific personal experience, it's no wonder this 1946 bestseller keeps making a powerful impact on readers. Frankl's basic tenet is that although we can't always avoid suffering, we can always choose our attitudes in dealing with it and moving forward. 'Everything can be taken from a man but one thing,' he writes. 'The last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. To choose one's own way.' (Review coming down the track.)

This is only scratching the surface of book characters and authors who echo the same sentiment. I kept thinking of more, but limited it to these eight for the sake of keeping this list succinct and diverse. If you admire any of my choices, or would like to add examples of your own in the comments, please do. Most of us have more time than usual on our hands for discussion, so what better subject than good attitude examples? You could even do worse than cherry pick any book from this list to read during these times.  

'City of Girls' by Elizabeth Gilbert

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

MY THOUGHTS:
I have great respect and admiration for Elizabeth Gilbert's work, especially after reading Big Magic, which is one of my favourite books about forming our creative mindsets to withstand hard knocks. I wasn't as big a fan of Eat, Pray, Love, but did find it interesting and easy to read. I'm sure Gilbert has established herself as one of the significant voices of the 21st century, so when I saw City of Girls at the bookshop I was interested right away but decided to hold off until I could borrow it from the library. Sure enough, it appeared recently for a one week loan, and turns out I was even more riveted than I expected to be from the blurb.

It's the overview of an elderly lady's life, focusing for the first section on the era just prior to and during the second world war, when she was a young woman. Nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris' high achieving parents are embarrassed when she flunks her first year at college, and send her to live for a while with her Aunt Peg, who runs a small theatre company in NYC. Vivian's knack for sewing amazing costumes makes her a favourite of all the actors and showgirls, and she also falls for the city nightlife in a big way.

This turns out to be a stunning epic about a girl who hits rock bottom and can barely hold her head up for shame, let alone figure out how to move beyond it. It's not the sort of false, misplaced shame we all get from taking critical comments and media comparisons on board. It's the huge, overwhelming shame of knowing that you've made a really bad stuff-up, bared for all to see and impossible to excuse. Vivian is a sitting duck for anyone who might cast aspersions at her, because she knows she has absolutely no comeback. We readers know long beforehand that something big is coming, and keep turning pages thinking, 'Oh oh, what does she do?'

After it's over, she's totally demoralised by a person she deeply admires, then wounded by the scathing words of a total stranger. Then in the wake of her big mistake, Vivian discovers one of life's big paradoxes. Sometimes people we pour lots of effort into nurturing relationships with just fall away, even though we may assume they will always have significant roles in our lives. And those who start off as sideliners have the potential to become very meaningful.

I really enjoy Gilbert's prose. Vivian becomes an artist with words as she tells her own story, yet she's still totally believable as the girl who says, 'How many books does a person need to read in order to prove she can read a book?' I guess it takes skillful talent on Gilbert's part to make Vivian both literary genius and rebel dunce rolled in one, but she pulls it off. And gives Vivian a great sense of humour to boot.

The opening hook grabbed me, as it's intended to. It's all meant to be one long letter. Vivian is writing her story for the benefit of a woman named Angela, who has written to finally ask what she meant to her father, since both parents are now dead. Vivian replies that she can't presume to tell Angela what she meant to her father, Frank, but she can certainly tell her what Frank meant to her! And that's what the whole story leads up to. At first it seems that Frank takes a looooong time to appear in Vivian's life, but we eventually understand why his appearance is tied up with all that went before.

Anyone who hates reading sex scenes, and stories about casual sex in general might be totally grossed out by this book! In all honesty, there is probably way too much information at times for all of us. It's not essential to the story, and certainly not the sort of stuff I can imagine Vivian would want to tell Angela! But as for the whole package, it's all about dignity, self-acceptance, looking through people's facades at the common humanity beneath the surface, and life's curveballs looking way different to how we might expect. Oh, and of course the assurance that no matter what we've done, it's possible to not only live it down but become good people in the process. What more can we ask for in a book?

Now I might look out for Elizabeth Gilbert's earlier novel, The Signature of all Things.

🌟🌟🌟🌟½

Mark, Charlotte and Us

KOVID-19 has entered the world silently and knocked it off kilter within a short length of time. The physical manifestations aren't the focus of this discussion. We in South Australia are possibly among the least statistically affected. I think there have been 20 cases to date as I type, and we are hoping and praying that stricter quarantine of international travelers and more vigilant social isolation will knock this sucker out sooner rather than later.

But I want to talk about the financial repercussions of this beast. My husband is an entertainer who visits nursing homes for his livelihood, so our household has been hit hard. His flourishing business was decimated literally overnight, as every nursing home has cancelled visitors for the foreseeable future. Avoiding a possible over-run on our hospital system must take priority of course, but my word it takes its financial toll on families like ours, who are left overnight in the frightening position of a mortgage and no income. We have to focus solely on practical ways of staying afloat and my head has been spinning like a top and getting nowhere.  

This blog is partly about drawing on literary heroes for inspiration, so I settled on an unlikely pair for one thing they share in common. That's their confidence that all will end well, in spite of the dire way things may look. This astronaut and spider are good role models for such hard times. Then I added the true example of a family from the 19th century.

I'll give a quick summary of what they faced themselves.

Nobody would ever choose to be in Mark's shoes. He was assumed dead and abandoned on Mars. Learning to wing it and improvise was necessary to keep himself alive on a barren red planet with no oxygen, food or water. He figured out many creative hacks including the use of his own manure to fertilise potatoes. Several times things looked very dicey. Mark's typical response was, 'This seems very bad, and I know I'll work something out or else I'll die, but I'm not sure what it'll be yet.' And he did pull through, with the help of a mighty roll of duct tape that never seemed to end. (My review is here.) 

For Charlotte, it was her best friend's life at stake. Poor Wilbur the young pig discovered that he was destined for the chopping block to be made into ham and bacon. Charlotte promised to save his life, but to Wilbur's agitation, admitted she had no idea how. But Charlotte was a wise spider who knew that necessity is a powerful trigger for creative inspiration. She was so certain she'd figure it out that she refused to lose her composure at all, and even told Wilbur that his histrionics were most unbecoming and annoying. Sure enough, cool and calm won the day, and she figured out an ingenious way to save Wilbur by weaving complimentary phrases about him in her web. (My review is here.)

For more inspiration is the Ingalls family from De Smet. During a scary winter in which a freakishly heavy barrage of back-to-back blizzards prevented the supply train all season, the townsfolk wondered whether they'd freeze or starve first. The only option was to sit at home and try to wait it out, without even the modern luxury of electricity. Pa and Ma got clever, improvising their own alternative sources of heat and light. He twisted hay into hard sticks to replace the scarce coal, and she made button lamps from scraps she had on hand. Perhaps they'd never have thought of these measures if the need had not been so dire. (My review is here.)

I guess we must all call on our inner Mark, Charlotte or Charles and Caroline Ingalls in the days ahead. There is no way of estimating when this is all going to end, which makes it all the more heartbreaking and frustrating for anxious control freaks like me. I just want my husband to be employed again, our elderly citizens to be safe and sound, and the assurance that anyone who needs a hospital bed for whatever reason may be assured of quality care. Oh yeah, and just a little bit of cash flow for groceries and overheads would be nice! But it's looking very much as if faith and creativity will be vital while we're waiting. In the spirit of these two heroes, my motto must be, 'I know we'll get through this, because we have to eat, although I'm not sure how it'll look.'  

Are any of you in a similar position to us? Perhaps we could pool creative ideas of staying afloat, if we're all sharing social distancing at home while supplies run short and income dries up. I can't suggest much myself, because I've got nothing yet. But at least we have cool, calm legends to inspire us in anxious times. Hopefully their example will prove to be even more contagious than COVID-19.