I just finished reading Persuasion by Jane Austen this morning, and so far it is my favorite of the Austen books I have read. I have a video of it from 1995 with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds as the main characters, and the video, as I remember it, is remarkably faithful to the book. The book I checked out from the library is an Oxford World’s Classic with footnotes in the back explaining some of the practices Austen refers to or phrases she uses and several appendices explaining the “ranks” of the time as well as dances, the navy, etc. There was also an alternate ending, several lines of which were included in the video (now also available on DVD).

Persuasion was Austen’s last novel. The story flowed, for me, much better than Sense and Sensibility did. There is no witty repartee such as there was in Pride and Prejudice and there is a lot less sarcasm than in either of those books, though peoples’ foibles are in evidence. Persuasion is the story of Anne Elliot. She is the quiet and not very well-favored daughter of a man who, despite his initial wealth, has gone into debt due to indiscreet spending. His late wife had economized and kept things in check, but with her gone, the expenses rose. The best way to deal with the situation and “save face” among their social set was to move to Bath and rent their home to others.

Anne’s father and older sister don’t dislike Anne so much as they just disregard her as being of any importance. It’s not clear why (unless I missed it) except they are both selfish and vain creatures and seem to disregard anyone who can’t raise them in their social standing. So when the younger married (hypochondriac and complaining) sister, Mary, is ill, Anne is sent to help her.

Seven years earlier Anne had been in love with a Frederick Wentworth, but had been persuaded by a longtime family friend, Lady Russell, who has more or less taken Anne’s mother’s place as adviser, that it would not be a good match. As it turns out, the wife of the couple renting Anne’s home is Frederick’s sister. Anne doesn’t feel she’ll meet him, though, since she is out of town visiting her sister and will then travel on to Bath to her new home. But she is surprised to find him among the party of friends of her sister’s in-laws.

Frederick, now Captain Wentworth who has made his fortune in the Navy, is still smarting from Anne’s earlier rejection, so their conduct around each other is very polite but distant. Anne discovers her feelings for him have not changed.

It is peace time, so naval officers have time to spare, and Captain Wentworth is looking to get married. He seems very interested in Anne’s sister’s sisters-in-law. And later Anne’s estranged cousin, Mr. Elliot, attempts to make amends with the family, and people seem to think that he will eventually marry Anne…

If you don’t know the story, I’ll leave you there to find out what happens.

I liked Anne’s character. Somehow she has escaped the foolishness of the rest of her family and seems not only normal, but reasonable, kind, thoughtful, and gracious. I don’t remember if this is stated, but it seems she took after the mother who had passed. One thing that spoke to me was that, in situations where many of us would have been miserable (such as with the complaining sister), she was glad that she was able to be of use to her family. To my shame, I have to confess that that’s not what I would be thinking in the same situation, and that was a rebuke to me.

Overall it is a very sweet story about the power of different types of persuasion and the ease of being persuaded the wrong way by outward appearances. Anne learns to avoid being at the mercy of others’ persuasions and learns to know her own mind.

The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

1. Do you cheat and peek ahead at the end of your books? Or do you resolutely read in sequence, as the author intended?
2. And, if you don’t peek, do you ever feel tempted?

I used to look at the end in my undisciplined youth. 🙂 But I found that actually spoiled the story for me. Part of the enjoyment is the unfolding of the story itself, the anticipation, the guessing of what’s going to happen.

I had a similar experience with Christmas presents when I was a child. I was playing near the Christmas tree when I realized that some of the wrapping paper on the presents was light enough to see through. I came back later when no one was around and investigated and made out what most of my presents were. I was delighted! Until Christmas morning when there were no surprises left. Then I was bereft and deflated. I never again yielded to the temptation to find out what my presents were ahead of time.

I’ve come to love savoring the story, not just finding out the ending — unless it is a really boring book. There are times when I am reading through kind of a dull part of a book that I’ll skim through the next few pages and see where it’s going, and I’ll usually come back and finish the dull part before going further. But I do like the save the end for the the last thing.

The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

Almost everyone can name at least one author that you would love just ONE more book from. Either because they’re dead, not being published any more, not writing more, not producing new work for whatever reason . . . or they’ve aged and aren’t writing to their old standards any more . . . For whatever reason, there just hasn’t been anything new (or worth reading) of theirs and isn’t likely to be.

If you could have just ONE more book from an author you love . . . a book that would be as good any of their best (while we’re dreaming) . . . something that would round out a series, or finish their last work, or just be something NEW . . . Who would the author be, and why? Jane Austen? Shakespeare? Laurie Colwin? Kurt Vonnegut?

I guess the two I would love to hear more from are Janette Oke and Elisabeth Elliot. They both have written prolifically and I don’t feel anything else is needed to finish or round out anything — I just like reading them both, and they are both at an age where we’re probably not going to have any more books from them, and that makes me sad.

Janette Oke was the author who first got me started reading Christian fiction. I loved her gentle “voice” as an author and the godly wisdom imparted through her stories.

And speaking of godly wisdom — Elisabeth Elliot has been a source (or maybe conduit would be a better word?) of that to me for years.

I finished Sunrise by Karen Kingsbury sometime last week, but hadn’t yet sat down to review it. It wasn’t on my original Spring Reading Thing list, but when I knew it was coming out in early May, I added it, just barely restraining myself so my kids could buy it for me for Mother’s Day. 🙂

The characters in Sunrise, the Baxter family, originated with the Redemption series of five books, then continued primarily focusing on John Baxter’s oldest son, an actor named Dayne, in the next Firstborn series of four books. The Sunrise series will end the Baxter family saga with I believe another four books, the first of which is Sunrise.

Sunrise has an ensemble cast: Dayne and Katy’s story continues, as does John Baxter’s and his daughter Ashley’s. The other Baxters are there in the book, but we see the most of these. Also, the family Katy lives with, the Flanigans, are spotlighted a little more in this book than the previous ones.

There are several issues touched upon: teen-age alcoholism, a friend’s jealousy, the need to be careful in dating — their are three dating or almost, sort of dating couples in the book, and each relationship has its challenges. There’s the issue os what a prime Hollywood actor would have to face if he became a Christian and the issue of dealing with the media. This storyline seemed the most real to me, even though I know no one in Hollywood. I am thinking that Karen must — or else she has a good imagination. 🙂

But one of the things I most enjoyed about the book was the continuation of Dayne and Katy’s story. In so much fiction, when the guy and girl get together and declare their love, that’s pretty much the end of it. But Karen progresses Dayne and Katy’s relationship and shows some of the struggles they will face and concessions and sacrifices they will have to make, especially when joining together from such different worlds.

Overall this was one of my favorite Karen Kingsbury books.

(By the way, many Spring Reading Thing participants are linking to reviews of the books they’ve read on Katrina’s blog here, if you’d like to see what other people think about other books. Plus Semicolon sponsors a weekly book review link on Saturdays.)

This seems to be a summer of book give-aways! That’s fine with me! Besides the ongoing ones at Katrina’s and the one I mentioned earlier at Deena’s, there is another one this week only at Joyful Days.

Questions for today from Booking Through Thursday:

• Do you read e-Books?
• If so, how? On your computer, or a PDA?
• Or are you a paper purist? Why?

I have never read an e-book — I can’t imagine sitting at the computer for the length of time it would take to read through a book — although I probably sit at the computer long enough to read a book. 🙂

I think in my mind I think of reading on the computer in shorter bits — I even lose attention in very long posts or e-mails or articles. Plus there’s just something about curling up on the couch with a throw blanket and a good book. 🙂

So, I am not a paper purist in the sense that I think all books should be on paper and it’s a travesty to have books on the computer — not at all. I’m glad books are available on the computer, but my preference is to take any lengthy reading away from the computer.

I don’t own a PDA, so that might make a difference. I can’t imagine reading a book through that tiny little screen. But my husband and two older kids use them a lot. I may try it out down the road.

I just discovered today a blogger named Deena at A Peek at My Bookshelf who will be giving away one book a week during the summer from June 1 to August 24. She’ll review a book each week for the contest, and whoever leaves a comment on the post of the featured book will have their name entered to be drawn the following Thursday.

Sounds like my kind of contest! Click on the doggie button for more information.

I first saw A Tree Grows in Brooklyn mentioned in a Bugs Bunny cartoon when I was a kid. I don’t remember the plot of the cartoon and don’t know if this book title related at all to what was going on in the cartoon: I just remember Bugs reading it as he was walking off into the sunset at the end of the episode. For some reason the title stuck with me. Then a few years ago I caught part of an old black and white film of the same name and discovered it was the story of a little girl with an alcoholic father. My father was an alcoholic as well, and though his personality and situation were different from the film, I still found many things I could identify with. So I planned to read the book “some day.”

I must say at the outset — I had no idea this books would have such profanity and vulgarity. I don’t read much modern secular fiction because of those elements. But I thought this book was published long enough ago that it wouldn’t be a problem. I know that profanity and vulgarity aren’t new to the 20th century, of course, but I just figured books from farther back in time would be “cleaner.” If I had known that this books contained so much of this, I would not have begun it; as it was I considered laying it aside many times.

I know, of course, that these things are a part of many people’s lives: I grew up in an unsaved family and heard  much of the same in my early years. I know many children today see, hear, and experience much worse things than are contained in this book. But I don’t want to fill my head with it again in my reading after years of trying to get that kind of thing out of my mind.  I think the realism of Francie’s life could have been expressed without being explicit.

That said….I discovered the book was not just about Francie and her alcoholic father. It is more about a young girl “coming of age” in Brooklyn in the early 1900s, though that description sounds so bland. Francie had more to deal with than an alcoholic father: extreme poverty, a mother who had hardened herself somewhat to deal with the blows of life and who loved Francie’s brother, Neely, more than she did Francie, a love of learning yet a need to quit school to work to support the family.

The symbolism of the tree in the title and in the story is clear: the tree that “liked poor people,” that grew in “sour earth” where it wasn’t given much inducement to grow, that continued to grow even after it was cut down, is parallel to Francie’s life.

There were several poignant moments in the book. Though I don’t think anyone in the family ever said so out loud, everyone knew that Francie’s mother favored her brother, Neely, yet when  her mother was in the last days of her third pregnancy and gave birth, she and Francie found a companionship they hadn’t had before.

Francie enjoyed reading, and later, writing, and often got As on her “pretty” compositions.  But when she began to write about her father, trying to “show that, despite his shortcomings, he had been a good father and a kindly man,” her teacher rebuked her for writing “sordid” stories, saying, “Drunkenness is neither truth nor beauty. It’s a vice. Drunkards belong in jail, not in stories. And poverty. There is no excuse for that. There’s work enough for all who want it. People are poor because they are too lazy to work. There’s nothing beautiful about laziness. Hunger is  not beautiful. It is also unnecessary. We have well-organized charities. No one need go hungry.”

Francie thought, “Imagine Mama lazy!” Her mother worked her finger to the bone. “Her mother hated the word ‘charity’ above any word in the English language and she had brought up her children to hate it, too.”

Though I do know of people who are poor because they aren’t diligent, there are also people who work harder than many of us have ever known, yet have low-paying jobs and just cannot get ahead — yet we so glibly let these judgmental thoughts pour forth. Francie had been brought up to believe that education was her hope, yet she began to realize that “her life might seem revolting to some educated people.” She didn’t want to grow up “ashamed of handsome papa who had been so lighthearted, kind, and understanding; ashamed of brave and truthful Mama who was so proud of her own mother, even though Granma couldn’t read or write; ashamed of Neely who was such a good honest boy.” She felt that all her pretty stories were lies and burned them.

There seems to be, in literature, at least, three kinds of “drunks.” There’s the “mean drunk” who abuses his wife and children and gets meaner the more he drinks. There’s the “happy drunk” like Magnolia’s father in Showboat, drunkenly sputtering “Happy New Year” to smiling observers. Then there is a kind of beautiful tortured soul — the person who is kind, often artistic, likable, charming, yet with this one destructive weakness. In the film Francie’s father seemed to be the happy, jolly sort, from what I remember, but in the book he was more the last type. He was warm, thoughtful. and caring; he was the one who took care of Francie when she was injured, who seemed to understand her in a way that her mother didn’t.

One situation in the book particularly showed Francie’s dilemma and character. The time came when the children were old enough to legally quit school and work. they needed the income of one of them; only one would be able to continue on to high school. Francie was studious and wanted to learn; Neely wanted to quit school and work. It would seem natural to let them both follow their desires. But Francie’s mother determined that Neely would go to school because if she didn’t make him, he never would, whereas Francie would fight to get an education. Both children were bitterly disappointed, but Francie’s mother’s prediction turned out to be true: Francie later put herself through college. I don’t know if I could have made the same decision in that mother’s place.

Along the way in the book there are intriguing historical glimpses into everyday life and the customs of that time and place.

Some portions of the book are autobiographical: Betty Smith grew up in Brooklyn and wrote what she knew. Yet she said that she “didn’t write it the way it was, but the way it should have been,” so it’s hard to know, at least from the biographical information in the back of the book, which parts were “the way it was” and which were the way she thought they should be.

I won’t give away the ending, but I will say it ends on a more hopeful note than what is found in most of the story.