Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (novel #231)

You did not hear them coming. You hardly heard them go. The grass bent down, sprang up again. They passed like cloud shadows downhill…the boys of summer running.

 

Dandelion Wine is the story of summer 1928, Green Town, Illinois as seen through the eyes of 12 year old Douglas Spaulding and his younger brother Tom. Douglas and Tom could be any boys from middle America, though Douglas is a bit more philosophical and imaginative than most. Summer is the grand adventure. Not a moment is to be wasted.

 

The beginning of summer is marked when their grandfather begins distilling dandelion wine, aided by the boys harvest of the ubiquitous weed.

 

The golden tide, the essence of this fine fair month ran, then gushed from the spout below, to be crocked, skimmed of ferment, and bottled in clean ketchup shakers, then ranked in sparkling rows in cellar gloom.

 

Dandelion wine.

 

Some have suggested the wine-making process is a metaphor for capturing all the joy and warmth of summer. Perhaps. To me it was just a quaint remembrance.

 

Deep in winter they had looked for bits and pieces of summer and found it in the furnace cellars or in bonfires on the edge of frozen skating ponds at night. Now, in summer, they went searching for some little bit, some piece of the forgotten winter.

 

There isn’t a true plot; it is character driven. As such it wasn’t my favorite by Bradbury, not as terrifying as Something Wicked This Way Comes, nor as poignant as Fahrenheit 451. But as always, Bradbury writes so beautifully his prose is nearly poetry.

 

Halfway there, Charlie Woodman and John Huff and some other boys rushed by like a swarm of meteors, their gravity so huge they pulled Douglas away from Grandfather and Tom and swept him off toward the ravine.

 

Dandelion Wine is inspired by Bradbury’s childhood: Douglas is Bradbury, fictional Green Town, is the author’s hometown Waukegan, Illinois, and other characters are presumably mapped to his family and friends. It is the first in the somewhat vaguely connected Green Town Trilogy: Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer, and Something Wicked this Way Comes.

 

Still a very enjoyable read. I’m glad I read it in Summer.

 

My rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

 

It was surprising to me that this was set in 1928. It could just as easily have been 1973, my own 12 year old summer in middle America. I think those days are gone now. Pity!

The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.

 

It is the privilege of old people to seem to know everything. But it’s an act and a mask, like every other act and mask. Between ourselves we old ones wink at each other and smile, saying, How do you like my mask, my act, my certainty? Isn’t life a play? Don’t I play it well?

 

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The Classics Club Spin #38

It is time for the 38th edition of the Classics Club Spin – List 20 books from my CC TBR, by Sunday, July 21, the mods then pick a random number, and I have until September 22 to read the corresponding book.

 

My spin list:

 

1. Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton

2. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

3. Loving by Henry Green

4. Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

5. The Magus by John Fowles

6. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

7. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

8. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

9. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

10. The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers

11. Grendel by John Gardner

12. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

13. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

14. Cool Hand Luke by Don Pearce

15. The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier

16. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

17. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

18. The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

19. Post Office by Charles Bukowski

20. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

 

 

I don’t have one I’m especially hoping for; maybe Cool Hand Luke. I’m not in the mood for a long read, so not hoping 2, 4, or 7, even though I usually enjoy Dickens.

 

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Recap of Novels 221 – 230

Average rating of novels 221 – 230:  3.5 stars (out of 5)

 

211.   ★★★½             Killing Floor

212.   ★★★★             NeverLet Me Go

213.  ★★★½              A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

214.  ★★½                 Zuleika Dobson

215   ★★½                 Martin Chuzzlewit
216.  ★★★★             The Screwtape Letters
217.  ★★★★             The Clan of the Cave Bear

218.   ★★★½            A Fire Upon the Deep

219.   ★★★½            The Age of Innocence

220.  ★★★½             Pippi Longstocking

 

 

Favorite: The Screwtape Letters

 

Least Favorite: Zuleika Dobson

 

Best Hero: Jack Reacher from Killing Floor

 

Best Heroine: Ayla from Clan of the Cave Bear

 

Best Villain: Screwtape

 

Most interesting/Complex character: Pippi Longstocking

 

Best Quotation: I wanted the open road and a new place every day. I wanted miles to travel and absolutely no idea where I was going. I wanted to ramble. I had rambling on my mind. ~ Jack Reacher

 

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Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren (novel #230)

“Three cheers for Pippi Longstocking!” shouted the fire chief.

“Hooray, hooray, hooray!” yelled all the people. But someone yelled it four times. And that someone was Pippi.

 

The eponymous heroine is a precocious nine-year old, red haired, pig-tailed, Swedish girl who lives in her house, Villa Villekulla, with her monkey, Mr. Nilsson, and her horse. She lives without parents. Pippi assets…

 

My mum is an angel and my dad is a South Sea Island king.

 

Her father, a ship’s captain, by all other accounts, perished at sea.

 

This first book in the series recounts Pippi’s adventures with two neighbor children. Annika and Tommy know that whatever they may do…

 

…it’s always more fun with Pippi.

 

Pippi is always confident and ever pleased with herself and her own company. One day alone at Villa Villekulla she paints a large picture on the wallpaper.

 

It was a picture of a rather large lady in a red dress and black hat. In one hand she was holding a flower and in the other a dead rat. It was a very beautiful painting, thought Pippi. It brightened up the whole room.

 

Pippi’s full name is: Pippilotta Victoriaria Tea-cozy Apple-minta Ephraim’s-daughter Longstocking.

 

This may seem like an odd thing for me to read. I needed a book with an item of footwear in the title, and since I stick mostly to classics, this satisfies both. It is definitely a young person’s story, but lengthy enough and grammatically complex enough to be considered a children’s novella.

 

I read it, or another edition in the series, as a child. It didn’t make much of an impact. I don’t think it has aged well. Pippi is confident to the point of arrogant, daring to the point of reckless, and independent to the point of disrespectful. I know it’s a whimsical story and allowed to be fantastic, but many of Pippi’s actions are quite dangerous. Pippi swallows a red death cap mushroom, for instance, with no concern and no ill effect. It was written in a more innocent age, but I’m still a bit incredulous. Not sure what the message is supposed to be.

 

I think children might still enjoy it, and mostly for that I give it…

 

3 1/2 out of 5 stars

 

 

This novel satisfies the “footwear” category: (title must mention a type of footwear) in the What’s in a Name 2024 challenge.

 

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The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (novel #229)

Here was the truth, here was the life that belonged to him; and he, who fancied himself so scornful of arbitrary restraints, had been afraid to break away from his desk because of what people might think of his stealing a holiday! ~ narrative regarding Newland Archer

 

Set in late 19th Century, upper-class New York, The Age of Innocence follows the last days of bachelorhood and early married life of gentleman lawyer Newland Archer. And then, the conflict he suffers between duty and self-indulgence.

 

He’s not a bad guy, and his fiancée/wife is by all accounts a peach. But sweet May is not quite equal to Newland’s ideal of an independent minded woman. He has some progressive ideas about equality of the sexes, but…

 

There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free…

 

So, they are wed.

 

He had married (as most young men did) because he had met a perfectly charming girl at the moment when a series of rather aimless sentimental adventures were ending in premature disgust; and she had represented peace, stability, comradeship, and the steadying sense of an unescapable duty.

 

But only weeks before the wedding, enter May’s cousin Countess Ellen Olenska. Ellen’s presence and behavior is scandalous to the upper-class New York society for leaving her husband and though the family harbors her from the horrible count, she is still something of an embarrassment and social liability. Newland is disdainful with all the rest, but he slowly perceives a fascinating soul, unbound by tradition and duty.

 

And as Deano sang…that’s amore!

 

Poor Newland. He must do what is right, or what he desperately wants. He concludes that in all the world, in all of time, only he and Ellen suffered such an unbearable duty.

 

Ellen Olenska was like no other woman, he was like no other man: their situation, therefore, resembled no one else’s, and they were answerable to no tribunal but that of their own judgment.

 

I was never quite sure what Wharton intended the reader to wish for:  Newland and Ellen to run away together, or for Newland to honor duty and societal codes (probably the latter). I was sympathetic to his unhappiness, but I’ll spare the spoiler as to which road he chose.

 

His wife May? Well, she is just a little bit more clever and more independent minded than is apparent to Newland or the reader.

 

The three main characters, Newland, May, and the Countess Olenska were all vivid and believable. Secondary characters were probably caricatures that Wharton fully intended to lampoon society elites of the gilded age. I thought it was masterfully done. It was a bit esoteric for me though, and I don’t feel it has aged particularly well. For that, I give it…

 

3 ½ out of 5 stars

 

 

Which I’ll remind, is a good rating.

 

This novel satisfies the “Virtue” category: (title must name a virtue: “innocence”) in the What’s in a Name 2024 challenge.

 

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Warrior Preachers by David A. Harrell

We must know…the power of sin and the greater power of the gospel to conquer it. ~ narrative

 

This is not your typical Christian life-help book. It is principally for preachers, pastors, and Bible teachers. However, it is still useful to laymen, like myself, since every Christian is in full-time Christian service. I have another, more personal, reason for reading this book, that I will address at the end of my review.

 

The author, Pastor Harrell, believes that 21st Century Christianity is facing “militant unbelief” and that…

 

Christians, especially pastors, must begin with the presupposition that we are vulnerable, prone to being naïve, apathetic, self-righteous, and overconfident.

 

He further asserts that…

 

Satan’s objective is: “to blind men to the truth of the gospel and prevent them from seeing the glory of Christ.

 

…the world is a battleground between two opposing kingdoms: Satan and his demonic horde; and God and His holy angels.

 

Harrell quotes and obviously agrees with the late A. W. Tozer, that…

 

A scared world needs a fearless church.

 

To that end, Harrell instructs preachers on the wiles of the enemy and God-given resources for waging spiritual warfare.

 

He describes the warrior’s: enemy, armor, weaponry, mindset, character, and rewards.

 

It is a powerful message, but as I’ve implied, not for the novice. It isn’t woke; it isn’t politically correct.

 

Harrell repeatedly cites private correspondence with a former Green Beret. This elite U.S. Army Warrior, identified as Joel C., draws parallels between modern physical warfare and spiritual warfare. Joel C. is a former fellow-laborer with the author, and also a dear friend of mine.

 

I’m grateful to the author and brother Joel for their valuable insight. I’m infinitely more thankful and blessed by the sufficiency of the atoning work of Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

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A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (novel #228)

In case you haven’t guessed, that’s the one reason you’re here – to remind the chuckleheads there’s more in heaven than they have dreamed. ~ Pilgrim [a tine] to Johanna [human child], likely an homage to Shakespeare: There are more things in Heaven and Earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Hamlet, Act 1, scene 5

 

A Fire Upon the Deep is a science fiction novel or Space Opera set in the far distant future in the Milky Way Galaxy. There are humans and occasional references to “Old Earth.” And, as the previous statement may imply, there are other sentient beings, some advanced, some primitive.

 

This was unlike any other Sci-Fi I’ve read or watched. While the Sci-Fi megatext allows for a myriad of cosmos building, Vinge’s novel describes a galaxy that takes some extra concentration to comprehend. The galaxy is divided into four “Zones of Thought”: The Unthinking Depths at the center, then working outward the Slow Zone, The Beyond, and The Transcend. The Unthinking Depths contains only elementary intelligence. The Slow Zone contains some higher intelligent life but almost no artificial intelligence. The Beyond is where most of the novel takes place and contains both highly intelligent life and artificial intelligence approaching sentience. Finally, The Transcend contains the highest intelligences, natural and artificial, known as “Powers”.

 

The boundaries between zones are shifting and the characteristics within each zone change as one approaches the bordering zone. For instance, there are higher intelligence levels in the High Beyond, while at the bottom of The Beyond, intelligence is only slightly greater than in the High Slow Zone. If a ship using artificial intelligence for propulsion and navigation passes into the slow zone, the artificial intelligence will not function properly, speed of light travel is impossible, and the ship and crew may be stranded in the slow zone.

 

That’s a gross over-simplification, but it should give some idea.

 

Similarly, Vinge’s creatures are abstract ideas that also require some deep thinking to imagine. The three main life forms in the story are humans, which are easy enough; Skroderiders, plant-like creatures capable of intelligent thought and speech, rendered mobile by coupling with wheeled vehicles; and Tines.

 

Tines! How to describe them? Doglike, but longer necks, which exist in packs of 4 to 8 creatures forming a single, group-thinking identity. They can survive losing a member or two, but “Singletons” are nearly invalid unless they can join another pack.

 

And I haven’t even hinted at the plot: Pandora’s Box. A group of Human Explorers in the High Beyond discovers a data treasure in the low transcend, and they unleash…I’ll spare the spoiler. Lousy humans; they’re always the villains. There’s a desperate escape attempt that is more than an escape; it’s an attempt to save free-thinking beings. There’s a space chase and an internet-like communications network nicknamed “the net of a million lies”. VERY internet-like.

 

And the ending? Anything but predictable.

 

This was a fascinating but difficult read. Certain aspects were so abstract that they were challenging to comprehend, but the story kept me engaged. I give Vinge high marks for such an unusual setting and narrative. I’d like to see the movie but don’t envy the director or screenwriter.

 

My rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

 

 

This novel satisfies the “Natural Disaster” category (title must contain a word or words that denote a natural disaster, in this case, “fire”) in the What’s in a Name 2024 challenge.

 

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