Sara > Recent Status Updates

"He blew a smoke ring which feathered up, ghostly in the frail light that showed through the gap in the window curtains. "Don't you trust me, then?" "No" "Fair Enough"...He reached a lazy arm and pulled me to him. "You can, as a matter of fact. I thought I'd just given you the best of reasons why you should." "Or why I shouldn't."

How I love Mary Stewart, her ability to create characters that are real, romance that feels right (not smutty), and a sense of place that few authors can rival.

Connivance:
"It is all over the Psalter. One almost hears the incessant whispering, tattling, lying, scolding, flattery, and circulation of rumors. No historical adjustments are here required, we are in the world we know."

A warning from the Psalms to be careful of our company and to watch the evil of sins of the tongue.

Chap 2: Possessing Nothing Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. - Matt 5:3

Great discussion of the way 'things' can replace God in our heart and our lives; how to guard against it, and how we are tested by it.

Chap 1: Following Hard After God - My soul followeth hard after thee; thy right hand unholdeth me. Psa 63:8

"This is deep calling unto deep and the longing heart will understand it."

"All these other lifetimes. All these different choices that she could have made and which, in the years to come, Florrie would imagine–all the different outcomes, all with Jack in them (Jack kissing her forehead, Jack by her side)."

We cannot resist thinking of how life might have been. But, in reality, we know no more about the possible outcomes than we did about the one we chose before we chose it.

We feel that we, as individuals, might somehow be exempt from it [old age], that we might be given some sort of ticket that allows us to sidestep death, as one might a manhole cover, and carry on, whistling a tune. And then, one day, we find that our knees crack as we descend a staircase or someone offers us a seat on a tube train or we catch sight of ourselves in a shop window and think ‘Good God, that can’t be me’.

Did she think it would always be this way? Florrie supposes so. As a child (or a lucky one, at least), one believes all beds will be toasty. One thinks that these voices you hear downstairs or calling for you at dusk, through cupped hands, will always be there–loving and healthy and strong.

How true is this. As a child I thought my parents would go on forever.

Renata saw in this Florrie the Florrie she used to be: boisterous, healthy, capable of vaulting a gate or of drinking a pint as quickly as a man; the woman who’d fallen in love more than once–and, on occasion, been loved in return. … Who is, one might argue, the real and proper one? To be seen.

how on earth had it come to this; how she was looking at care homes for the elderly when she still felt twenty years old inside, still believed she could do headstands, and when there was still so much that she want to do with her life--like swim the English Channel or ride across plains with proper cowboys, learn the trumpet or walk the Camino de Santiago with all her belongings on her back.

I have read five sections and a selection of the Psalms that he is putting into each category. Of course, his views are interesting to me. I recognize him as a great theologian. He probably exceeds my understanding, but there are a few occasions when I think he gets it a little wrong...he doesn't seem to read the Psalm as I do. Different backgrounds? No hubris on my part, he is surely the more intelligent scholar.

Absolutely loving this. Like Silverbridge very much, but I'm not sure Lady Mab is the best choice for him. She loves another and she belittles him. A good wife does not belittle her husband, even in private. I also like Tregear, but he and Mabel would be better to take their chances than marry for the money they need. Perhaps Mary will not get what she is bargaining for.

Cora has died. This both shocked and shook me. She is a favorite character from the series, will be missed terribly as the story goes forward. "The utter prostration of the bereft husband could not have been more complete. It was not only that his heart was torn to pieces but that he did not know how to look out into the world. It was as though a man should be suddenly called upon to live without hands or even arms."

That's the kind of death that frightens me. The shadow of dying slowly, slowly eats away at the region of life, and before you know it every thing's dark and you can't see, and the people around you think of you as more dead than alive. I hate that. I couldn't stand it.

"The others in the dorm thought I wanted to be a writer, because I was always alone with a book, but I had no such ambition. There was nothing I wanted to be."

This struck me as very sad, because others had more ambition for him than he had for himself.

The night Kizuki died, however, I lost the ability to see death (and life) in such simple terms. Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that.

The book is interesting, but very slow and a bit repetitive. He has a nice style. My first Murakami, so unsure what to expect.

A little over halfway finished and I am not finding this one as good as the first two. Two much political, too heavy on the sex and sex talk (although sexual dominance and carelessness is a major theme of the books), too much violence, and a little bit too much repeated overstatement of both Lila and Elena's situations.

Well, this started out quite differently than I had expected. Not sure why, but I thought it was going to be soft and sunny, but it is apparent already that it is going to be a very interesting character study and perhaps a bit grittier than I had thought.

Tigger just entered the story and I had forgotten how absolutely precious he is trying to find something a Tigger likes to eat.

The second story is Turgenev "The Singers". I had not ever read this one, so no preconceived idea of what was there. I took notes as I went and compared to what Saunders highlighted. Boy do I miss things when I am reading! I think I got about half the salient points in this one. I especially loved his discussion of binary.

"But he was one of those men who, as in youth they are ever very young, so in age are they never very old."

Barely made a start and already met three very interesting characters. I'm not sure if I am going to like Lopez.

"In very truth he loved the girl and reverenced her, believing her to be better and higher and nobler than other human beings,--as a man does when he is in love, and so believing, he had those doubts as to his own success which such reverence produces."

"In the Cart" - Chekhov
I have read this story before, so I found it very interesting to see how much more Saunders was able to reveal to me than what I was able to notice alone. The story was dissected page-by-page, with questions put to the reader regarding what feelings it evoked and what expectations it aroused. I might find myself reading short stories more slowly hereafter.

Need something lighthearted and nothing is really more lighthearted than Winnie.

I have always been fascinated by the art of NC Wyeth and the way he set out to make a great painter of his son and succeeded. I think all the Wyeth's had amazing talent, and Andrew was the most famous, but for me the genius was still NC.