Jinjer 31: Books, Books, and More Books

[sawasdee]

I was extremely lucky. My sister is 11 years older than I, and taught me to read at three. We went to the library weekly. My first book from there was Thomas the Tank Engine - I still remember how excited I was.

My sister has always been a bookaholic, and spent her pocket money on the classic books then available from Woolworths - just two shillings (10p). I graduated to at first, books like What Katy Did, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables. Then onto most of Dickens, Ivanhoe, Lorna Doone, The Black Arrow, and my then favourite, Baroness Orczy and the Scarlet Pimpernel, all of which she owned.

When I changed schools at the age of eight, they asked my mother to come in at the end of the first week. They felt I had a problem with lying, as I claimed to have read Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations...they thought I had probably just seen the films. My mother had to tell them that yes, I had read those books. The headmaster then decided that he would make sure I was given books way above my age - he started me on H E Bates and Flora Thompson at 9! And, @Palimpsest, he lent me Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles!

All my life books have been vital to my sanity. If I haven't a book -or nowadays a fully charged Kindle - in my bag, I panic. I live surrounded by books, with bookshelves in every room. They are my biggest expense, outside utilities and food.

And my sister grew up to be a librarian.

I truly cannot imagine a world without books.

ETA @SuffolkNWhatStanley makes me think of the book Holes! Stanley Yelnats.....

 

[Audrey2]

I'm on team Flat Stanley, myself. How many of us have received one to take on adventures, based on the kids in the book who had the bulletin board fall on him?

 

I'd love to see revival of Frank (not Frances) and Glenn.

[Jana814]

My mother reads all the time. Me not so much. Certain authors yes and I could read it in one sitting. 

[AprilQuilt]

23 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

I'd love to see revival of Frank (not Frances) and Glenn.

Frank is having a bit of a revival in the UK. My friend just named her twin boys Frank and Max, which I think is adorable. 

I love the name, but my partner has nixed it for the son we are yet to conceive. He likes Bert. BERT.

Lots of old-person names in the UK right now. Stanley, of course, Archie, Alfie (I think this is cute af but it's everywhere). Some hipsters of my acquaintance named their kid Ozias. 

There is an 8yo Agnes in my close family. It's pretty trendy. I loathed it at the time she was born but it's grown on me. All her classmates have old lady names like Iris, Dotty, Ivy, Stella, Elsie etc. Like a bingo team. It's kind of funny.

I think Gus is adorable for a kid. I just read The Gustav Sonata, which is a lovely book and made Gustav rather an appealing name to me.

[socalrules]

I love to read bound books, books on kindle, newspapers, magazines and looking up random things on google. Randomly googling stuff usually leads to another book.

If Jinger is reading because she enjoys it and it's what she, not Jeremy, wants to read, that's great. I won't give her accolades if she is reading because Jeremy loves it and reading what Jeremy likes. It's just another form of a fundy wife making herself into what her husband wants you to be. Call me when Jinger is doing something Jinger loves unrelated to Jeremy, even if it is something he doesn't enjoy. Then I will give her credit. I don't even know if she truly loves photography because it's one of the few things she was allowed to do as a female in fundy land. Let's see her embark on something that is just Jinger focused and not Jeremy determined/approved. I just can't with a woman who will love anything her husband loves because that is the way she was raised. 

We have all gone to concerts, movies or events we didn't like to support our spouse/significant other. They have done it in return. It's just what you do. What many of us won't do, myself included, is automatically say I love something because someone else loves it. I am a diehard Dodger fan, I will never love someone enough to wear any Giants item or ever say I even remotely like it. I hate soccer but I will go to a game because my loved one wants to go. I won't suddenly love it because I love the person. To me, it seems Jinger has just found another man to lead her on his path and has yet to do anything to create her own. Wearing pants and reading are great, but if you are doing it because your husband "allows" it, you have not in any way moved the needle forward in your life. You are still stuck with the same limited mindset you had when living with you parents. 

[SamiKatz]

My mother was a huge reader and taught my sisters and I to read before we started school.  We  had a steady library of Harlequin romances while I was growing up (which is funny 'cause I don't think my Mum actually read them). She also let me read F. Scott Fitzgerald books, which was interesting.

She is super Christian now, goes to church every Sunday and a couple of nights a week, is always telling me I should read the bible and that I'm probably going to hell - but she loved the whole Outlander series and gave me all of the books to read.  I said to her "It's a little racy, Mum", and she sniffed at me "Well, people do have sex you know"!

 

[MamaJunebug]

22 hours ago, 2manyKidzzz said:

I really think Jinger hit the big time. She has her hot husband she is crazy about, she lives 10 hours by car from the FamilyGaggle, she has HER OWN HOUSE, which I think is incredible. They travel and she has new clothes, purchased for her, perhaps new, which fit her well. Her life made an about face. 

She must be over the moon. 

I was thinking last night that a decade (?) of us and others saying "free jinger" may have resonated somewhere somehow. Can we consider the next beneficiary of our combined energies and contemplate changing our name & rallying cry to FREEJANA?

(Only partly kidding...!)

[MoonFace]

9 hours ago, Percy said:

When my girls were little we had sticker charts for when they did something above and beyond my expectations, like doing a poo in the toilet( we had some potty training issues) or helping with dinner without being asked.

When they got to 20 stickers they got a treat, generally a book.

Now I have one avid reader and one who does not read books at all.

You win some, you lose some. 

I also reward my granddaughters with books.   

[Knight of Ni]

I remember when I was on a summer break in college and talking to my then boyfriend on the phone. He was talking about how bored he was at his parents house. I said read a book. He said that there weren't any books in his house. I was shocked. Until then it had never occurred to me that a house wouldn't have books. It's probably why it wouldn't have ever occurred to him to read a book for fun or to look up information because he was curious. It made me feel very sad for him and others who have missed out on access to books.

My mom grew up very poor and she said as poor as they were her mother could usually find enough to buy new books on occasion. 

[Palimpsest]

34 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

And, @Palimpsest, he lent me Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles!

Where did I mention those?  The Boyer Sisters, My Lady Bibliophile, or both?  My Lady B has a real knack for liking a naughty classic - and then positively standing on her head to try to justify why they can still be Godly enough for her to read.  Well, if read with caution and oodles of white-out for language (naughty words) and making sure to skip all the bits that "aren't very nice" or challenge her beliefs.  In Limberlost, it was OK that Elnora defied her mother and went to ebil public school because she submitted to Wesley's authority and Elnora's mom was obviously possessed by the debil.   She's hilarious when she justifies reading Dickens.

Another avid and very early reader here.  I don't remember not knowing how to read.  I've probably read all the classic girl's books from either side of the Atlantic.  I could also probably win a trivia contest on Jennings and Biggles books  - because I read all my brother's books too.

My parents never limited my reading unless the books gave me nightmares.  Like the Waterbabies, when I was around 6, and Treasure Island when I was 7.  I have a BA in English Lit. and it was a case of re-reading Dickens, Hardy, and the Bronte sisters.  I went through most of what they wrote before I was 11.  And Wuthering Heights is a most unsuitable book for children!  It is horrible.

I'm still never without at least a book or three in progress.  

[JordynDarby5]

I live on books. History books, mystery, crime stories, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, there's so many books and so little time to read them all. I have tons of books. I always have a book or my kindle with me wherever I go.

[sawasdee]

@PalimpsestBiggles! My favourite was Biggles of 266 Squadron - when he went home on leave, and wasn't wearing uniform, and someone gave him a white feather. But I really loved Worrals - wanted to be her when I grew up....

And I still quote The Waterbabies - Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby, and Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid. I think a lot of fundies could benefit from reading it. But bits were scary.

And I read Wuthering Heights at about 8. Didn't quite get it then, and, to be honest, don't quite get it now. Every relationship is fucked up to a greater or lesser degree.

I  wasn't all classic lit as a kid - loved Enid Blyton Famous Five and Adventure series (hated Secret Seven), and absolutely adored Malcolm Saville Lone Pine books. Never really got into Arthur Ransome - the disconnect between their lives and mine was just too big. Was always and still - a great Kipling fan. Stalky is one of the best school books ever! Puck of Pook's Hill sparked my lifelong interest in history. And that makes me think of Rosemary Sutcliffe  and Anya Seton...

And I now have a very long rereading list.

[Audrey2]

At this point, I'd even be okay with it if Jinger tried reading because Jeremy liked it, then she independently decided she liked it too (not because Jeremy does, but because she read something she enjoyed), and branched into things she liked to read.

[MadameOvary]

I think it is so so important to get into the habit of reading, even if it is dubious theology, self-help, trashy novels or whatnot. It's a start. Somewhere along the line she will come across a story that will speak to HER and open up the wondrous world of imagination. Her horrible parents did their best to kill her imagination, but I want to believe it's still there - stunted and in hiding, but recoverable with some nourishment.

[apandaaries]

This thread has made me realize that my Swedish great-grandfather was a Gustav, and my American great-great-grandfather was an Augustus.  Somehow I've lived many decades without connecting that. 

Thread drift on books is my favorite!  Wuthering Heights is one of the strangest ones out there.  I first encountered it in high school, where I found it oddly romantic.  Reread it in college and was horrified by it.  Actually, that's similar to my experience with Jane Eyre.  Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester were terrible male characters, just awful.  Yet I didn't even notice that until I'd matured more...frightening to think that initially, I liked Heathcliff. 

@MadameOvary (perfect name for this thread drift, btw), I agree.  I hope Jinger still has some imagination waiting to be revived and that reading helps stimulate her curiosity.  Wouldn't it be lovely if she ran into some memoirs by women who'd escaped cults while cruising a used bookstore? Clearly the thought of Jinger reading gets MY imagination going! 

[SapphireSlytherin]

Can someone explain the "naming angles" in triangles thing? Because I have zero recollection of that even happening.

[Rachel333]

@Palimpsest You inspired me to check in on Lady B. Apparently she's doing movie reviews now. Here's how she deals with bad words in movies:

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So whenever possible, I watch the movie, write down a list of keywords that will remind me where to mute, and then do my best to mute the instance whenever I watch the movie again. That system has worked pretty well in addressing the problem for me, because I like to think of muting the words as a way of signaling to my mind "this isn't ok". It's the same as using white-out in books.

and sex scenes:

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Obviously I don't watch sex scenes. That should be a given. If I'm watching a book-to-movie adaptation that has a brief scene of a married couple in bed together, (The Young Victoria, for instance) I fast-forward. If there's a bad piece of statuary, and I'm watching it on my laptop, I cover it with my hand or find another place on the screen to look. If someone makes a crude comment, I mute it out. Again, it's another way of enjoying a good and profitable film while still training your eyes that modesty is important and to be maintained. It's not couch potato time.

"a bad piece of statuary" 

On the positive side, she reviewed the book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and said that "Racism is a blot on the church." Maybe not much, but that's a lot more than a lot of fundies are willing to say.

[FleeJanaFree]

I was so thrilled to be able to give my nephew the first Harry Potter book, in the illustrated Jim Kaye format. I honest to God teared up. I wrote in the card a quote from A Very Potter Senior Year (on YouTube, people!) "Now you get to go to Hogwarts. now you get to go to school. Now that you get to go to Hogwarts, I hope you find that swimming pool. Off to witches and wizards and magical beasts, to goblins and ghosts and to magical feasts. It's all that I've loved, it's all that you'll see. At Hogwarts. Hogwarts. Man, I'm glad you get to go. "

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[MadameOvary]

@amandaaries Yes, I have often wondered how they would react if presented with an escapee's view of their own cult, or a different cult altogether. Would they recognise it as applying to their own situation?

Wuthering Heights is one of my favourites! I read it for the first time when I was much too young and didn't get it at all, but when I read it again as an adult it really hit me with full force. It is strange and horrible, and just incredibly wonderful. E.M. Forster has a great description of Emily Brontë's writing in the 'Prophecy' chapter of his Aspects of the Novel, and if any of you have seen Mike Leigh's Career Girls, you will recall how the prophetic aspect of the novel was interpreted in that great film. I will admit to trying it… and it was scary.   

[Palimpsest]

12 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

"a bad piece of statuary" 

On the positive side, she reviewed the book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and said that "Racism is a blot on the church." Maybe not much, but that's a lot more than a lot of fundies are willing to say.

My Lady B never ceases to delight me.

It is so frustrating because I always have a soft spot for book lovers and I think she is quite bright.  She has to be bright to think up all these justifications and fancy maneuvers for watching and reading whatever she wants.  Fast forwarding, muting "language," and training her eyes to maintain modesty.  Hee!

On a more pessimistic note:  I don't think it inconceivable that she could say both "Racism is a blot on the church" and "slavery is fine because it is Biblical" and see no contradiction whatsoever.  Sad.

[Rachel333]

2 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

On a more pessimistic note:  I don't think it inconceivable that she could say both "Racism is a blot on the church" and "slavery is fine because it is Biblical" and see no contradiction whatsoever.  Sad.

True. A lot of people like to point out that in the Biblical era slavery wasn't necessarily race-based, which is true but is often used to minimize both racism ("White people have been slaves too!") and slavery ("Biblical slavery was okay because slave owners weren't racist!").

[Palimpsest]

47 minutes ago, amandaaries said:

Wuthering Heights is one of the strangest ones out there.  I first encountered it in high school, where I found it oddly romantic.  Reread it in college and was horrified by it.  Actually, that's similar to my experience with Jane Eyre.  Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester were terrible male characters, just awful.  Yet I didn't even notice that until I'd matured more...frightening to think that initially, I liked Heathcliff. 

Exactly.  Wuthering Heights is a horrible story of inter-generational violence, mental and physical abuse, and obsessive and destructive passion that doesn't really have anything to do with love.  It may be a brilliantly written book, but Heathcliff is not a romantic hero.  Unfortunately he is still depicted as such in many film versions.

Mr. Rochester, another anti-hero.  Jane could only marry him when he had been suitably punished by physical disability a common device.  And a device also used by du Maurier in Rebecca for Maxim De Winter.  She made Maxim impotent.  "There will be no children."

I still say Jane Eyre is one of the first feminist novels.  It is worth re-reading the part when she refuses to run away with him and be his mistress, his toy, his plaything ... he had to lose his house, his fortune and be dependent on her.

@sawasdee, I was in the middle of a long response to you earlier but my laptop burped and I lost the whole thing.  A shorter version is - we have the same taste in books!  I liked Arthur Ransome but wasn't bothered by the disconnect.  Not many books connected with an MK's experiences in Africa, after all.  

For children's books, I'll add Noel Streatfeild, Narnia (of course), the Pullein-Thompsons (ponies galore and I did connect with them), and all the boarding school books, especially Mallory Towers, the Abbey School, and the Chalet School books.  And Just William.  I loved Geoffrey Trease books.  I always liked history.

Yes, Sutcliffe and Nora Lofts, especially the Suffolk books.  Anya Seaton is well worth re-reading and I think they are coming back into print.  I'm astonished by the historical accuracy of The Winthrop Woman and the Hearth and Eagle.  When I first read them I had no idea that I would ever live in MA.  Also Elizabeth Goudge.  Green Dolphin Country was a huge favorite.  I re-read The Little White Horse fairly recently.  I loved that book as a child but found it revoltingly sexist as an adult. 

  

[apandaaries]

4 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

I still say Jane Eyre is one of the first feminist novels.  It is worth re-reading the part when she refuses to run away with him and be his mistress, his toy, his plaything ... he had to lose his house, his fortune and be dependent on her.

Yes, that's a wonderful part! But I still want to slap Rochester most of the time.  We also get an amazing depiction of the madwoman in the attic, which allows for Wide Sargasso Sea later on...which is an incredible way to fill in the missing pieces and keep the literature alive.

[Palimpsest]

4 minutes ago, amandaaries said:

But I still want to slap Rochester most of the time.

Indeed.  Almost all the time.   I also want to slap St. John Rivers though.  Fucking missionaries. 

[sawasdee]

@Palimpsest Just YES! You remembered ones I had omitted - Streatfield, Narnia, Mallory Towers, Chalet School - and I was an East End slum kid, boarding school was not really on my map!

Norah Lofts - another yes. And my favourite Anya Seton is Katherine - it sparked an interest in John of Gaunt, and that whole period of history. And she is the ancestor of an entire royal line! (The Tudors, through Margaret Beaufort).

William and Jennings - yes. Did you ever come across "Sixth Form at St. Dominic's"?

I've never found anyone else who knows Malcolm Saville. Please say you do! He was my No. 1 for about three years...

I was allowed adult library privileges from the age of ten (thanks to my headmaster), as long as the librarians could vet my books. 

I used to play hookey , go to the library, take out 6 books - the limit - and sit on the Circle line all day reading - getting on and off at Sloane Square, the only station with an on platform loo. I carried a forged dental appointment card to show to ticket inspectors, and my school travel pass did the rest!

Just remembered another favourite - The Secret Garden. A rather strange book in retrospect...but optimistic in the end.