My Ten Favourite Books (Part One)

You know how Oprah has her "favourite things show"? Well, I decided I'd make March the month in which I blog about my favourite things! But I want to add the challenge of not just stating what I love, but attempting to define why. This is no easy task! In fact, in a survey of young people in Southhampton, England, researchers found that the majority of those surveyed were affectively illiterate. What does this mean? Affective illiteracy is to have a "limited vocabulary to express the emotional quality of [one's] response to the world" (Called to Love, Anderson and Granados, 20). To put it another way, these young people were content to simply "go with the flow" rather than plumb the depths of their experiences. Sadly, this epidemic is not confined to youth (though, at 30 I still do consider myself in that hallowed category :). When asked why we like or don't like a certain thing, many of us struggle to find the words to adequately express ourselves.

So, in an effort to combat my own affective illiteracy, I declare March "Affective Literacy Month." Over the next few weeks, I hope to reflect on my favourite books, movies, places and people. So, without further ado, here are my favourite books (Part One)!

Heather's Favourite Books

(In no particular order)

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: This novel literally changed my life! It was a reintroduction to fantasy, a genre I'd thought one grows out of like a child puts off training wheels. How wrong I was! Reading Tolkien's mythology made me see the "real" world with greater clarity. I discovered that fantasy's power is to allow you to approach everyday, common, ordinary life as if you were coming at it from a new perspective (an idea whose necessity Chesterton would gladly support me on, I'm sure). Suddenly, a tree was not just a tree, it was a species kept watch over by Ents; it had the power to come alive, if necessary. It was a living, breathing part of the cosmos. Suddenly, heroes took on delightful new proportions. Heart and not stature could change the world. The vivid characters, the entire sub-created world of Middle-Earth, the time and effort Tolkien infused into his work, the dedication to detail, the wonder of getting lost in his world only to rediscover my own....For all these reasons, The Lord of the Rings ranks as one of my favourite, if not my absolute favourite fictional book of all time! Ultimately, when its thick volumes are laid back on my shelf, what remains with me like a living memory is the renewed awareness of my own dignity as a human being, and the promise (if not the realization) of the hope (often deeply buried) which sustains me on the darkest days. Yes, good literature can do all this!

The Book of Ruth: This short book from the Old Testament captivates me with the simplicity of the language which, nevertheless, expresses profound love. I've always admired Ruth's courageous choice to follow her mother-in-law, Naomi, to a foreign land, leaving everything she knew behind her to enter a life of uncertainty, hardship, and marginalization. Her words---which are often read at weddings---spoke of her boundless hope in the God of her dead husband. I can just imagine Naomi's gratitude when Ruth took her hands and pleaded with her: "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God." Having lost everything---children, husband, home, livelihood---Naomi was alone in the world, but Ruth's pledge of solidarity gave her strength to face returning to her own people. The odd courting of Boaz and Ruth still puzzles me, but their obvious love for each other and the lineage which springs from their union is fascinating. Ruth---an insignificant foreigner---becomes the ancestress of the Messiah!

Le Morte D'Arthur: I read Sir Thomas Malory's tome in university. Although the course was a little tedious, I remember getting absorbed in this book. The characters stayed with me, along with gorgeous Medieval words like "all to-brast" (meaning "shattered") or "to-rent" (meaning "torn apart"). It is a gruesome book full of people being shattered and rent to pieces. On almost every page, you will find a dark, forbidding forest; a hermit; a fair damsel; and, of course, a knight. Sometimes, the scenes got blended in my mind and I'd find myself forgetting which knight had slain who. But the names! Oh, they're wonderful! Sir Bors de Ganis, Sir Gareth of Orkney, Sir Gawain, Sir Bedivere, Sir Kay, Sir Geraint, Sir Tristram. Those names hold a magical quality for me. Just saying them opens up the world of Arthur. The spiritual, often eerie, visions and prophecies create a world so unlike our own---more fantasy!---and yet the men who ride off on quests are very familiar. Malory's ability to bring every man's moral struggle to the page in such a vivid manner---at time when characterization was, arguably, quite flat---is a triumph. And, lastly, the fact that Malory, himself, was such a scoundrel of a  man is fascinating. That someone who had descended so low morally could produce a sort of ode to morality is, for me, a visible sign of the longing every person has for Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. I highly recommend this book. But, if you can't stand the Middle English, Roger Lancelyn Green's book for children, based on Le Morte D'Arthur, and entitled King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, is also well worth the read!

Persuasion: I know that most people will argue that it is Pride and Prejudice which is Austen's best work---and I would probably agree---but it is Persuasion which touches me deepest every time I read it. I suspect it is because it is Anne Elliot with whom I feel closest. She is not the strong, bold, witty Elizabeth. Quite the opposite: Anne is reserved, even-tempered, shy, and yet she is also very intelligent and she feels deeply. She is looked over and passed up, but her quiet ministrations for her family and friends enobles her. She has loved once and has been persuaded to leave off love, but that love, rooted in the depths of her heart is like a seed planted in fertile soil. As she says near the end of the novel, it is Woman's lot to love longest when all hope is gone. How sad! She makes me want to cry everytime I read how unassumingly she goes about her life. She feels that love has passed her by, that Captain Wentworth cannot possibly ever look upon her with friendship, let alone affection again, and she feels that (in all this) he is justified. She is so confirmed in her beliefs that she totally fails to comprehend Wentworth's deep and deepening attachment to her. Each time I read this novel, I find myself wondering if Wentworth will ask for her again and, every time, I rejoice with Anne at the end!

Our Mutual Friend: This was one of Charles Dickens's last novels. Like Little Dorrit, it's quite dark. I read somewhere that Dickens was going through a difficult period near the end of his life and so, perhaps, these later novels express a bit of the frustration---even jadedness---he was experiencing at this time. However, for all that, Our Mutual Friend earns the spot as one of my favourite fictional stories because of its memorable characters and its stunning descriptions. Dickens is one of the only authors who moralizes on almost every page but who does it with so much grace that you hardly realize you're being preached to! He's often criticized for drawing his characters with broad strokes making them more caricatures than flesh-and-blood characters. I have never shared this view. Certainly, he often presents types, but he always manages to infuse originality into each person so that they stand out on the page as being, on the one hand, a generalization and, on the other hand, someone utterly unique. And the humour! I read most of Our Mutual Friend while travelling to and from work on the bus (it took me over six months to read!) and there were many times I almost rolled off my seat with laughter, but had to hold it in or risk being considered crazy. The nobility of the main characters---even the restless Eugene Wrayburn---charmed me. This was my first Dickens book after David Copperfield. I love it! And the BBC movie is a beautiful portrayal of Dickens' original story.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Learning to Teach Like Don Bosco

Teaching grade 7 students how to knead bread

The point of teacher's college was, for the most part, to set aside a year to reflect upon the great task of being an educator. We sometimes grumbled and groaned over the seemingly endless journals we were forced to produce; the justifications for why we would assess a student in one way rather than another; the critiques of our own and our colleague's practices, etc. But, looking back, the art of reflection I learned during my one year of preparing to be a teacher was invaluable! I still find myself questioning my practice often. The weight of assuming to guide another person is a great responsibility. It requires constantly evaluating and re-evaluating what one is doing. I think every teacher must form his/her own "little mandate" (to borrow a term from the Madonna House apostolate). It should be a kind of "rule of life" which governs how that teacher wishes to conduct him/herself in the vocation of caring for the minds, hearts, and souls of students. Ultimately, being a teacher has nothing to do with the books and the tests and the essays. It has to do with unlocking and discovering, with your students, who and what they are: gifts in themselves and to each other. This is, at least, my goal as a teacher.

Today, I came across something which encapsulated the little mandate of a great teacher and saint, Don Bosco. I would like to share the passage because it contains a description of the things which were closest to his heart and should, I think, form part of every educator's heart. Of course, we may not all embrace the Catholic doctrines inherent in his mandate, but that shouldn't dissuade us from considering what lies behind what Don Bosco was trying to do: which was, I believe, to re-instill in the hearts of his students that they are of immense value! And, if you're a Catholic privileged enough to teach in a Catholic setting, then perhaps his focus on the sacraments will help raise the dignity of your own teaching practice up to heavenly heights. I hope you enjoy the excerpt below:

Don Bosco mending shoes

"Don Bosco's method of study knew nothing of punishment. Observance of rules was obtained by instilling a true sense of duty, by removing assiduously all occasions for disobedience, and by allowing no effort towards virtue, how trivial soever it might be, to pass unappreciated. He held that the teacher should be father, adviser, and friend, and he was the first to adopt the preventive method. Of punishment he said: "As far as possible avoid punishing . . . . try to gain love before inspiring fear." And in 1887 he wrote: "I do not remember to have used formal punishment; and with God's grace I have always obtained, and from apparently hopeless children, not alone what duty exacted, but what my wish simply expressed." In one of his books he has discussed the causes of weakness of character, and derives them largely from a misdirected kindness in the rearing of children. Parents make a parade of precocious talents: the child understands quickly, and his sensitiveness enraptures all who meet him, but the parents have only succeeded in producing an affectionate, perfected, intelligent animal. The chief object should be to form the will and to temper the character. In all his pupils Don Bosco tried to cultivate a taste for music, believing it to be a powerful and refining influence. "Instruction", he said, "is but an accessory, like a game; knowledge never makes a man because it does not directly touch the heart. It gives more power in the exercise of good or evil; but alone it is an indifferent weapon, wanting guidance." He always studied, too, the aptitudes and vocations of his pupils, and to an almost supernatural quickness and clearness of insight into the hearts of children must be ascribed no small part of his success. In his rules he wrote: "Frequent Confession, frequent Communion, daily Mass: these are the pillars which should sustain the whole edifice of education." Don Bosco was an indefatigable confessor, devoting days to the work among his children. He recognized that gentleness and persuasion alone were not enough to bring to the task of education. He thoroughly believed in play as a means of arousing childish curiosity — more than this, he places it among his first recommendations, and for the rest he adopted St. Philip Neri's words: "Do as you wish, I do not care so long as you do not sin" (Catholic Encyclopedia,  http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02689d.htm)