I’m bleary-eyed and sleepy. But I did it. Fifteen hours, less than one week, three books. Well, almost three books. Les Miserables will probably never be finished. But Water for Elephants and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn were.
(Late night note to self: why have I never read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? I love A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.)
Maralise posed a challenge and I accepted. Mind you, my husband has been out of town this “week o’ reading,” and I am not one to wake with the roosters just so that I can fall back asleep with a book on my head. Instead, I fit the reading in at the kids’ naptimes and only fell asleep twice; I retired early with my books as soon as my oldest was snoozing, and only fell asleep with the lights on once. But the things I was thinking as I crashed into slumber”¦ Wow.
(Another late night note to self: Read more. Words were just flowing into my journal—goodness, I felt brilliant. A little “mad scientist,” yes, but positively brilliant. And getting to feel brilliant? Well, for that reason alone ladies, take the challenge!)
Yet here I sit—surveying the scene—as the dust around me settles. Oh, it wasn’t easy, mind you. I had to read six hours today. My house is in shambles. A day ago my kids threatened to banish all novels from the premises. On Tuesday my friends tempted me with distraction as they showed up last minute and demanded lunch.
(Late night note to friends: Thank you for showing up and demanding lunch. I needed a break.)
And speaking of food”¦ My books have left me caught up in notions of poverty and lacking. Each of them chronicled profound wants and hunger—the disparity between the haves and have-nots—and I found myself musing on the difference between food for the body and food for the soul. Jacob (WFE), as an old man abandoned in a nursing home, complained about his bland tapioca and in so doing highlighted the difference between his less-than-fulfilling elder years and the literal buffet smorgasbord of his circus youth; Katie (ATGIB) could make a discarded bone into a plethora of meals that lasted, and showed her kids that sometimes pluck makes it possible to survive on practically nothing; and Jean Val Jean (LM) is pardoned with a loaf of bread and blessed with a new life accordingly. For each of these characters, food became a life-altering symbol, and whether you had it or not was tantamount to the story, but by the end not necessary for survival and triumph.
I’m forced to think of hunger in all it’s forms and how we feel the need to feed—especially in our Church—where oft times a meal does more for the heart than the tummy. And how perhaps all of this stems from our Savior, our “Bread of Life,” our “living waters.” We are blessed to know things so transcendent, things that help us overcome the physical and monetary, even emotional, poverty of life.
But I wonder what we would be without the poverty of life. Because even as it clouds, it gives life color and heft, standing as a constant shadow to every good we know and making it brighter in contrast. There is so much to feel—so much to life, to living. My life is of relative ease, and save for fast Sunday, I rarely go hungry. Young Francie’s (ATGIB) physical hunger made her famished for life experiences. I want to make her prayer my prayer, when she pleads:
“Dear God, let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be [happy]; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry”¦ have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.” (ATGIB, 421)
To drink in life with such intensity, to gulp it in big mouthfuls and experience it fully—that is my goal. I am so blessed. But do I walk around with blinders on because my stomach is full and rounded, and my heart has a testimony? Lest complacency get the better of me, I will take heed from my literary guides and savor each and every bite of life, for better or for worse. Or at least I’ll try”¦
How about you?
Or have you read anything that made you think lately?
I’ve truly become an addict to segullah. I love reading the blog as well as the stories and such. Hopefully one day I’ll get the nerve up and submit one myself.
I am a friend of Heather H. who invited me on to Segullah. I too just finished reading “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and LOVED it! I echo many of your thoughts and feelings about Katie and Francie. It reminded me that less truly can be more because the less we have the more we often drink/soak up what little we do have. I struggle with the concept at times b/c I think of when I first joined the church and had but small morsels of knowledge, I held on to them and feasted on them. Yet I know that we are to grow in our testimony and knowledge of the gospel but years later I find myself getting lost at times in the pursuit of gaining a greater knowledge and losing touch with the small morsels that I feasted off of when I knew so little. A bit perplexing. . .
Thank you for your post.
Kelly
Everyone I love loves “A Tree..” but I get so book shy sometimes, however, reading Francie’s prayer formed this big lump in my throat. I know that prayer, really well actually. I think I am learning that when I feed others I miraculously become full.
that prayer could be said by me too. but i couldn’t write it like that. i love how life is one big balancing act. i love how their is opposition in everything. when we experience life. i mean really experience life. seeing someone on the street, helping an old lady carry her purse or groceries, helping a child who just dropped his ice cream, and is very sad, or just smiling at a stranger. or just something simple like taking a casserole to a family. or changing a diaper. i think there is real opportunity for growth. for reflection. for realizing… i love life and all i can do to make this world a little better. and of course loving every minute of it.
Huzzah! Good for you, Brooke.
Love that prayer passage. I have never read ATGB. But I will. Very soon.
I recently finished Marilynne Robinson’s _Gilead_. WOW. Here’s my teeny tiny review: http://queenserene.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/gilead/
Brooke–I wanted to cry as I read your post today. Not because I am overly emotional and a little unstable because of our looming move (I am in total CONTROL people!–ha), but more because I didn’t see your book choices or your book challenge experience in terms of good or bad, but a jumbled up mixture of both that, in the end, made me want to read instead of packing, instead of cleaning, instead of worrying about those things I can’t control. And hey, is there a better excuse to not pack than that irresistible little novel that sits patiently on my book shelf just begging me to procrastinate those things that are not as important?
Maralise, can I do the book challenge starting next Saturday, when I’ll be immersed in Harry Potter 7? There’s got to be something literary in all those 5,000 pages and 7 volumes — there’s just got to.
Of course! Let me know when you want to post it.
Ooh, Justine, I was thinking along those lines too. I love Harry Potter.
Brooke, I loved your thoughts on hunger and the importance of food. It’s something i thought about a lot on my mission, and after I got back. I remember very clearly my first post-mission trip to Albertson’s. I walked down the salad dressing aisle and got all misty at the rows and brands of salad dressing… the rows of canned foods, all the different brands and types and varieties. The abundance stunned me, flattened me.
I’ve never truly known hunger, and I’m grateful for that. But not as grateful as I would be if I’d known it, and then received what I have now.
This is one reason I read: to vicariously experience hunger and want, so that I can see my own life of plenty more clearly, with a more thankful heart.
Of Harry:
I devoured books as a youth: Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys (yes, I’m dating myself), From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler…
And a lot of what I read was wimpy, watered down drivel. But as far as kid lit goes I have to say I love the language of Harry. From a kid’s perspective, it’s got some words and expressions in it you can tear off with your teeth and chew on for a bit. Compared to what I cut my first baby teeth on, it’s not too bad.
On complacency: I spent a lovely evening and morning up at The Homestead in Midway last week. I tried to breathe it all in quite deeply so as not to waste a single delightful moment. At first I wished I could afford to do this often (I was treated by a friend who let me join her for a day of her week-long stay). But on second thought I realized that if I were accustomed to it I wouldn’t appreciate it nearly as much.
To Jessica “Jia:” Go for it!