Literature Resolution: January

So one of my New Year's Resolutions was to read one new book a month... or 12 this year. The reason I distinguished "new books" is because I often just re-read my favorites every year, which is great and all, but I have such a long list of books to read that I haven't before. How will I find new favorites if I don't explore new books?

So in January, I read two new books! Yay me! But, one of them was an extremely quick read so it doesn't really count.

Book 1: Man Made by Chris DeMan, Don Pearson, and Ben Arendt. 

This is a book about rites of passage from boyhood into manhood from a Christian perspective. The authors are members of Matt and my home church when we used to live in Grand Rapids, Blythefield Hills Baptist Church. My bro-in-law picked up a copy of this book for us when it was first published. Matt read it (as it really pertains to father-son rites of passage), but I wanted to read it too. I want to assist my son in growing into a godly man in any way I can. Plus, now if Matt decides to take Jack on a man-cation and I'm not invited I will understand. Parenting is a journey. Parenting is a struggle. Parenting is a gift. I hope Matt and I will at the very least be examples of a godly man and woman to our children. At the very least. We cannot control our children's choices. We cannot control how our lessons are gleaned by them. But we can control our own lives. We can control what we try to instill into their little hearts.

Book 2: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Some plot details given in an offhand way. Not spelled out entirely, but enough that if you've never read the book and plan to you may want to stop reading. For you, I enjoyed the book and highly recommend it.

Yes, I made it through high school and college without ever having read this. Interesting as my favorite genre is British Lit. I think I never read it because I read Tess of D'Urbervilles and thus associated all literature based on a female protagonist. Wrong. Jane Eyre is nothing like Tess. I can appreciate parts of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, but I am still not a huge fan and would not recommend it. Moving forward- Jane Eyre. Excellent. Excellent. The characters were well developed for their purposes. I like that the author revisited minor characters just so we knew how they got along. I don't like being left to wonder what happened to so-and-so. Jane is an "accomplished" for a lady. She made the most of her situation. Lesson: do not be idle! When I was reading, I envisioned Mr. Rochester as my own husband! Physically, I mean. I had to continually remind myself that he is to be an unattractive man, and my husband is quite attractive. But, I came to love his character and so I envisioned him with the shell of my husband. Mr. St. John I envisioned as Dan Stevens who plays Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey. Isn't it interesting how British film can introduce an actor who at first you don't find attractive and think he was all wrong for the role... but by the end you think he is charming and handsome? So, going through the story with those images was quite interesting. I enjoyed that Jane was true to herself always. I enjoyed that she started with nothing and then gained the whole entire world, in a sense. I like that even though she had nothing, she was always generous with herself and what little she had. I like that she was able to develop true relationships even though she was offered none in her childhood. I like how characters would come and go in her life. How true that is. I am just not starting to embrace the idea that people come into our lives for a season, and that's ok. I used to take it personally when friendships would fade. Now I understand that we all grow, change, and evolve and so much our relationships.

I was a bit worried about halfway through that there may be a vampire in the book. The word "vampiric" was used in the text and that made me even more apprehensive. I admit, I did not see Mrs. Rochester coming. I tried to figure out what was going on and had many the hypotheses. All proved false. I figured that it couldn't couldn't be a vampire though. Otherwise people would not enjoy it, it would not be a classic, and it would be so trendy right now. I am so over vampires. I don't watch any of the vampire TV shows and most of the books I can hardly tolerate. Now, Underworld Vampires I can handle. Other than that, romanticizing vampires is over done and just plain silly. I honestly get worked up because "vampires aren't like that!" Yup, that's how I feel about fictional species!

So, I do recommend Jane Eyre. I will most likely read it again someday. Not someday soon, mind you. No, it is not one of my favorites. In the past few years every new book I read I either loved or extremely disliked. This book is good enough to sit proudly on my public bookshelf (the shelf that may be in the living room where people can see it) and not hidden on the storage bookshelf. But it is on my Kindle so it will get no shelf space. But was a lovely read and I was transported to that world for the time. Next, dreary ole England some more... but an entirely different context. A little Dickens is in order.