A New Year: 2018, A blog of books, creativity and cats

As we all know, we live in what are called "interesting times." My friend Ellen Moody has blogged aptly on them at https://misssylviadrake.livejournal.com/157499.html and naturally, they frame our thoughts as well as what we might be able to accomplish as the year unfolds.

Nevertheless, I will blog on the light, bright, and sparkling as we enter a New Year: on books, creativity, and cats.

Nancy on the Trollope list recommended an out-of-print Christmas book I had never heard of, published in 1928, called "The Goldfish Under the Pond," by Christopher Morley, a prolific and once well-known author. Thanks to the internet, I was able to buy a copy easily and inexpensively. It duly arrived, and I most enjoyed this original and humane children's book.

The story is told from the point-of-view of a compassionate dog named Frisky who wants to warm up a goldfish he thinks is freezing under the ice of a pond on Christmas Eve

A page from the book showing illustrations and some social history--apparently, in 1928, children were already wearing bunny slippers, a perennial favorite. The book reads as very old-fashioned, even though written in the 1920s: two maids even come down from the attic to witness the mayhem Frisky has caused. 

I am also reading Virginia Woolf's only book-length biography, of her friend the artist (and Quaker born) Roger Fry, and Jonathan Franzen's Purity. 

A relaxed Roger Fry in a Bloomsbury home.

Roger Fry's "Barns and pond, Charleston." Charleston was the home of Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf's sister and Fry's lover.

Naturally, the year couldn't go by without a full immersion Jane Austen. Amid much scholarly reading for a paper published in Rhizomes--and, of course, the novels themselves--I was thoughtfully gifted with a Christmas volume, The Prayers of Jane Austen, and, earlier in the year, had a chance to read a book of delightful Maggie Lane essays called On the Sofa with Jane Austen.

The prayer book brings up questions, because I can't believe Austen wrote any of these three prayers, and, as I understand, scholars rightly question the attribution, something the book fails to address. These wooden prayers have not one micron of her wit--and Austen was at her wittiest when dealing with moral issues. Also, the lavish illustrations don't connect in a direct way with the novels--for example, the one below doesn't  depict any scene I can remember:

In contrast, I can highly recommend Lane's solid book of essays on the details of Regency life--any hardcore reader will instantly identify the scene pictured below in the book:

On the Sofa with Jane Austen: a book you can have faith in.

Perhaps channeling Austen, creativity was much on my mind as I entered the Christmas/holiday season, and after much thought, I asked for watercolors. Those, too, duly arrived, thanks to the ever wonderful Roger. I have enjoyed my one foray into getting to know my colors and brushes and am hoping I have time for this hobby. Books, naturally, drove me over the line as I wavered between desire and despair that I would ever have time to do this. I found myself wanted to paint scenes from my favorite books--and that tipped the scales. The question will become, as the busy-ness heats up, will I find time? And why are we Westerners so obsessed with this issue?

A full array of brushes and paints.

And even an easel. Perhaps I can set up by the lake when the weather is good.

As serendipity would have it, my 96 year old mother-in-law has also been painting in watercolors and one of hers won an award and earned a newspaper article. What encourages me to think she is happy in her assisted living home is that this painting and another she had framed, a whimsical, lopsided, smiling jack-o-lantern, both look happy.

My mother-in-law's award-winning landscape. Not bad for age 96!

On New Year's Eve, we decided to eschew the champagne and the ball dropping watched on a computer screen. We drank a glass of chardonnay and timed the New Year for ourselves after watching a quirky film called Colossal. These were small gestures against convention, but they felt like a creative start to what I hope will be a creative new year for all of us.

Like elsewhere, it has been very very cold, and snow covers our yard.  Seasonal, but ... brrr. We are glad to have Nick with us, glad Sophie is in the relatively warm Austin, and we hope Will is surviving in the arctic temperatures in Vermont with his girlfriend, Liv.

We can't start the New Year without mentioning Andre, our elderly cat, who has bounced back from a period of not feeling well at all.

He's old, but the baby in him never dies.

 Happy New Year to all.