Astronomical Observations

Halfway through Mike Brown’s How I Killed Pluto, my son is still enthralled by the story of discovery of Kuiper-belt objects. Kudos to Mr. Brown for his skill in making this astronomy accessible and interesting enough to hold the attention of a stubbornly non-book 11-year-old boy. And his mother. (Will you lose all respect for me, dear reader, if I admit I did not know what the Kuiper belt was until I read about it in this book? I even had to look it up so I could pronounce it correctly.)

Meanwhile, I am halfway through Edith Pargeter’s massive Brothers of Gwynedd. More than once, as the dramatic story thread has seemed to get lost in more prosaic history retelling (and hey, I’m a big fan of history), I have worried I might just put the book down. (Dear reader, I have done this many times before. My attention span is not what it once was.) But I haven’t! I feel compelled to keep turning the page (or in this case, pushing the “Next Page” button on my Kindle). I even know what will happen, having recently read Marc Morris’s biography of Edward I, and it isn’t nice. All this to say, I can’t give enough credit to Pargeter’s masterly writing style. She’s just that good.

Writing (again)

One week and counting since I’ve been back to a morning writing routine. To say it feels wonderful would be an understatement. I’m working on what I’m cautiously telling myself is a “short story.” It’s enough. I have no idea how long this will last, but am so incredibly grateful for the gift of wanting to write. Again.

Meanwhile, I passed a milestone in my e-book sales: I have now earned enough in royalties to be sent real money. And I have been book-living my favorite historical era through Edith Pargeter’s The Brothers of Gwynedd. As a counterpoint, I’m reading Mike Brown’s How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming with my son. A little 13th century, a little 21st century. That gives me an average of, um, Shakespeare?

Also the garden is looking good, the kids are healthy, and it’s officially summer. Life is good.

Having survived the laundry

and spent a week back in the groove, I can now write about our post-Christmas trip and family reunion in Branson, MO. There were twenty-one of us—sisters, brother-in-law, nephews, mother, aunt and uncle, cousins— staying in three houses on the beautiful 40-acre wooded property of Tall Pines. The best new experience: relaxing in the outdoor hot tub with snow falling all around. The worst new experience: driving twisty mountain roads in dark fog.

In town, I picked up the 100th anniversary copy of Harold Bell Wright’s The Shepherd of the Hills, which is apparently quite famous and what stirred up people’s interest in developing the Branson area around the turn of the last century. At least that’s what the man at the Toy Museum told us. He also told us that this book inspired former President Ronald Reagan to become a Christian. Anyway. After wandering through case after case of model cars and Star Wars figures and toy guns and way too many familiar childhood toys that are now, apparently, antiques, we found the Harold Bell Wright part of the museum, which houses some of his old furniture and several manuscript copies of his books. Were it not for Princess Two tugging me along, I would have spent more time here. Along with the manuscripts were large cards with typed commentary from Wright himself, describing his writing process, as well as period advertisements for the published works. An interesting glimpse into the business of writing in days long gone by.

Part of our reunion involved a belated Christmas exchange of gifts, and I received two more books (my family knows me well): Reflections on the Psalms, by C. S. Lewis, and Joseph Plumb Martin’s A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier. So now I have an even larger cozy stack of books to read by the fire.

Speaking of reading, I finished Margaret Frazer’s The Reeve’s Tale, and found it decent though not wow reading. I had trouble getting attached to any of the characters. But then I have been spoiled, as far as mysteries go, by Ellis Peters and Dorothy L. Sayers. Last night I started Robin Paige’s Death at Blenheim Palace, hoping…

Feeling Medieval-ish

When am I not? A writing friend once said I must have been a medieval princess in a former life. Which might make a lot of sense if I actually believed in reincarnation. Which I don’t. So perhaps I should look back into my childhood to account for this fascination with all things middle ages. Too many fairy tales? Too many King Arthur stories? I can hardly explain the thrill—nearing giddiness—I experience when I come across a book like Laura Amy Schlitz’s Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! (a Newbery winner, no less; and I absolutely swoon over the two-voice poems) or the bargain-bin tome Art of the Middle Ages by Riccardo Belcari and Giulia Marrucchi.

I have been perusing the latter of late. I have been especially transfixed by the beautiful photos of ruined Irish monasteries and the stone crosses dating from the 800s or so. Then there were the pages from the Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels. I have a definite weakness for illuminated manuscripts. The colors! The gorgeous Latin script! (I recently picked up a library book on Vikings and right there on page 5 or so read about their raid on the Lindisfarne monastery in the late 700s. Coincidence? Hmm…)

Speaking of the library. A couple of days ago I had an hour to myself in the grown-up section and while wandering around in bliss, I came across a paperback copy of Maureen Ash’s Murder for Christ’s Mass, which led me into the stacks to find the first of her Templar Knight mysteries, The Alehouse Murders. Now I’ll say right off that Ash is no Ellis Peters, but so far I’m having fun getting to know the denizens of Lincoln in the year 1200, including the former Crusader Sir Bascot de Marins. (My nightly read-aloud with Number One Daughter, Kevin Crossley-Holland’s Arthur and the Seeing Stone, also is set in 1199/1200. Coincidence? Hmm…)

Roses

He had brought her a rose, the last from the old stem, a small miracle.

Ellis Peters,
The Rose Rent

As much as I love gardening, I have never been much of a hand with roses. Is it irony, then, or a kind of small miracle, that roses are among the lingering blooms in my November yard? Pictured is an English shrub rose (Chelsea Morning, I think), but also still blooming are my white Icebergs and the yellow Habitat for Humanity at the end of the driveway.

So while summer’s prolifically purple but frost-tender morning glories went the way of the compost heap over the weekend, here in my cleaner, neater garden the roses are coming into their own, just as the year rushes to a close.

I think there’s a poem in this.

A is for Anglophile

Last night I watched Episode 1 of Monarchy with David Starkey. It is a series about the British monarchy from Anglo-Saxon times through the Restoration. Why did I watch this?

1. I am a nerd (maybe even a super-nerd, according to my youngest sister).
2. I find the subject of the history of England’s monarchy interesting (see #1).
3. My husband was out of town.

The episode I watched began with the Anglo-Saxon incursions after the fall of the Roman empire. No mention of King Arthur, alas, but I guess I don’t need to feed my obsession with things Arthurian. Instead Starkey focused on the Anglo-Saxon rulers, of which there were many overlords of separate small kingdoms, but no one ruler over all the island. In the late 800s, the Danes (“Vikings”) swept over England, wiping out all but one of these small kingdoms, which was Wessex under the rule of Alfred. Alfred and his successors eventually reclaimed the land taken by the Danes and established the first unified kingdom. For anyone who wants to read more about this period in history, I recommend Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles (fiction). His series focuses on a young warrior, Uhtred, who is English but captured and fostered by the Danes. What I like about this series is how Cornwell shows sympathy with both sides of the conflict between Dane and English. (By the way, for King Arthur fans, Cornwell also has an excellent series beginning with The Winter King.)

I knew virtually nothing about the next periods of English history, during which the Danes returned and defeated Ethelred (the Unready), to take control of the kingdom in the early 11th century. The interesting note here is that Ethelred’s widow, Emma, who was of Norman blood (seems Ethelred had tried to pacify the Normans when he saw his kingdom in danger from both Normans and Danes), knew a thing or two about politics and power. After Ethelred’s death, she married the Danish conqueror, Canute. Two of Emma’s sons and two of her stepsons ended up as kings of England in the turmoil following Canute’s death. Her great-nephew, William the Conqueror, achieved the Norman conquest in 1066. I don’t know of any fiction about Emma. I’ll have to look into that.

After Starkey’s overview of the Norman conquest came some discussion of the Norman assimilation (or lack of it), and King Henry I’s cathedral- and castle-building. I started to doze here—not Starkey’s fault!

The last bit was on the anarchy following the death of Henry I, and the civil war between King Stephen and Queen Matilda (also known as Maude), in the early 12th century. This civil war is the backdrop for Ellis Peters’ terrific mystery series featuring Brother Cadfael, the crusader-turned-monk. I highly recommend this series for history buffs; for me the history trumps the mystery. Of course Brother Cadfael is an endearing, enduring character (played by Derek Jacobi in the PBS Mystery versions); but my favorite character is the Sheriff Hugh Beringar (read One Corpse Too Many, The Virgin in the Ice, and Dead Man’s Ransom to find out why).

Tonight: The medieval monarchs (my nerdiness is not sated yet).