Jinjer 31: Books, Books, and More Books

[Palimpsest]

24 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

Then again, a top of the line editor is going to be really hard on her writing, and I don't know how open she is to that. I get a whiff of the Maxwellian solipsistic superiority about her.

Love that word!  

Lady B can be a bit of a self-involved and conceited snot, but I think her world view is far wider than any Maxwell.

I was just catching up on her now and found to my surprise that she does have an editor.  No idea how professional said editor is - but it is labor intensive work.  That, and the length of her book, would certainly make the costs add up.  Here she is on reacting to feedback.  Poor little snowflake.

 http://ladybibliophile.blogspot.com/2017/08/how-to-deal-with-shame-in-receiving.html

I do have a soft spot for Lady B.  She's really working hard on on this book and trying to be a good writer.  It is a pity she didn't start with smaller projects to get her feet wet, but I hope her tome is not a complete disaster.

[Carm_88]

I hate Wuthering Heights but I loved Jane Eyre. Mr. Rochester is definitely an unlikable character and I don't know why Jane puts up with him, but she does. I quite need to get my massive book of Jane Austen out again and read through those. I could swoon over Mr. Darcy all day. 

[Hashtag Blessed]

1 hour ago, Feministe9000 said:

Here we see the real Jeremy, underneath all the oh gosh humor and large vocabulary, he is the iron hand inside the velvet glove.

Yep. This is the vibe I have always got from him. I still hope I'm wrong, but he's always given me the creeps. Aggressively charming men, especially those who praise "meekness" women, will always give me Psycho Vibes. 

Jinjer deserves to live her life according to her own rules and desires, it is great that she's being allowed to expand her horizons but damn. I still feel sad for her that she requires permission at all. 

[Thorns]

Oh, books! I've always been an avid reader (to the point were it adversly affected my social skills - why socialise when you can read instead?), and I still love it. I've started collecting the books I loved as a child, so together with my more adult love of young adult novels and all my university reading , it makes for a interesting display  And cartoons! Cartoons everywhere.

I also love fantasy!

Oh, Mercedes Lackey, Raymond E. Feist, Robert Jordan.... Right now I'm enjoying historical romance of the housewife  Easy peasy entertainment that does not take to long nor a lot of brainpower! Waiting more or less patiently for more Lackey books...

I've never been one for the classics though, do not really know why.

[nickelodeon]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

Villette (also by Charlotte) I ploughed through without much enjoyment.  It was well ahead of its time with Lucy's rathery sexy thoughts though.

 

Kate Millett (RIP) said that Villette was the first book to admit the fact that women can find men physically beautiful :') Go Charlotte B!

[justoneoftwo]

On 19/9/2017 at 4:55 AM, curlykate said:

My oldest is seven and has been struggling with reading, despite having a love of books. It has broken my heart to see him so eager to read but then so frustrated that he can't. We've been working really hard, and I'm happy to say that he's not too far behind now. 

 

Try not to worry about your 7 YO.  I didn't read until I was 9, then started reading high school level books.  Just keep reading aloud to him so he gets the good stories and keeps up the love.  

[curlykate]

@justoneoftwo That's what I'm doing. I won't stop reading to my kids until they ask me to. And then I'll likely still try to force them to listen to me. 

i was worried last year when he was so far behind, but he's making some good progress now so it's making me worry less. 

[justoneoftwo]

Just now, curlykate said:

@justoneoftwo That's what I'm doing. I won't stop reading to my kids until they ask me to. And then I'll likely still try to force them to listen to me. 

i was worried last year when he was so far behind, but he's making some good progress now so it's making me worry less. 

My family stopped the reading allowed together thing when I (the youngest) went to college. . . Still miss it.

[tabitha2]

I was reading perfectly by six because I was read to every night  but typical. Story books were boring to me...all I ever wanted to read from early childhood  were history themed books. I read every single biography my school library possessed, with books about historical women my favorite From Ethel Barrymore to Juliette Gordon Low.  Then all I wanted was To read about Ancient Egypt or About the life of a Medieval peasant.  

 

 

[Toothfairy]

One year later and Jinger isnt pregannt. In duggarland that means something is wrong. In the real world Jinger should do what she wants. 

[CoveredInBees]

1 hour ago, Thorns said:

 

Oh, Mercedes Lackey, Raymond E. Feist, Robert Jordan.... Right now I'm enjoying historical romance of the housewife  Easy peasy entertainment that does not take to long nor a lot of brainpower! Waiting more or less patiently for more Lackey books...

I've never been one for the classics though, do not really know why.

Fantasy is my type of fiction. My brother got me into it  

I was stood at the bookcase (full of his books, because he's the reader in the family  ) and he appeared and asked my what I was doing "Looking for something to read because I'm BORED"

He handed me the first book in the Belgariad and off I went  David Eddings led to Terry Prachett and Raymond E Feist and many others. 

I gave him a Terry Pratchett book for every Xmas for most of our adult lives........ we were both sad when that tradition came to an end.

 

[melon]

20 hours ago, louisa05 said:

I second watching the initials. I have a deceased cousin whose initials were B.A.D. and another cousin has a child whose initials are A.P.E. 

Neither set of parents realized it until after they were born and birth certificates were filed. 

I had a friend,and her family is Jewish.She told me her parents almost gave her sister,a hebrew name for her given name.They realized what the initials would spell,and her mother wisely said no child should have those initials.A.S.S.

[Carm_88]

16 minutes ago, Toothfairy said:

One year later and Jinger isnt pregannt. In duggarland that means something is wrong. In the real world Jinger should do what she wants. 

It's not quite a year yet. It will be a year on the 5th of November.  

[singsingsing]

5 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

It's not quite a year yet. It will be a year on the 5th of November.  

Haha, I was just going to say... don't tempt fate!

[GotCaughtDancing]

All this talk of books made me load up my calibre for the next week.

I wasn't shocked by Jeremy's behavior over the coffee. I was however surprised he showed that part of himself while filming. I have always felt something is off with him. Something that he hides under polish and charm. I think he is just as or even more controlling than  JB. It appears Jinger has more liberal freedoms, but really all the stuff she is being allowed to do , dressing, reading, museums, etc. are things that fit into making Jeremy look good in the eyes of those he is trying to manipulate through his ministry.

[backyard sylph]

3 hours ago, AprilQuilt said:

@Palimpsest ugh I hated Villette. It made me so uncomfortable - not just bc it's a peculiar book, but it felt too much like she was living out the love story she'd like to have had, which I think always makes for awkward fiction. She was so crap and Charlotte-like at dealing with her crush on M. Heger IRL, I actually feel really sorry for him. He didn't ask for any of the attention that was turned on him when people started taking an interest in her life.

Shirley's been on my to-read pile for ages. I really need to get to it.

I used my copy of Villette as a table evener, and various other abuses for several years, then an online friend explained some things about it to me that I hadn't previously considered. I made myself reread it and felt like I had a completely different experience.

Sometimes being "self-educated" has its drawbacks. I had a great high school education in terms of writing and literature. I've continued over the past 34 years to read and study and think through context, etc. and developed my understanding of world history. But sometimes expert knowledge lifts me several points past where I might have remained stuck. Anyway. I can't tell you just what she said about Villette, but I find myself recommending it now, and also it forced me to think about why I don't like certain books, and whether they deserve better examination.

[Feministe9000]

8 minutes ago, GotCaughtDancing said:

All this talk of books made me load up my calibre for the next week.

I wasn't shocked by Jeremy's behavior over the coffee. I was however surprised he showed that part of himself while filming. I have always felt something is off with him. Something that he hides under polish and charm. I think he is just as or even more controlling than  JB. It appears Jinger has more liberal freedoms, but really all the stuff she is being allowed to do , dressing, reading, museums, etc. are things that fit into making Jeremy look good in the eyes of those he is trying to manipulate through his ministry.

This 100%. This is at the heart of what I was trying to convey earlier. I am surprised he let the aw shucks mask slip in front of the TLC cameras, and then they didn't edit it out....?   Weird.

 

 

[SassyPants]

Jer- Why do you think the coffee will spill?

Jin- PHYSICS- maybe she's not anti-science!

What a dick he was in that scene.

[justoneoftwo]

If she actually said physics was why thats great.  It also sounds like she talked back some.  But don't they have cup holders?  This all seems so illogical.  

[FleeJanaFree]

While we're on my favorite thread drift (and I formally vote book drifts become the new Nail Polish subject changers while we're at it) any suggestions to get me to appreciate the classics? I read non stop, honest to God hours a day recreationally. I know some people will say it's just good to read, and read what you like. But i want to enjoy classics. Naturally, I completely struggle with it. I find the men to be obscenely misogynistic and the storylines move oh so slow. I decided to force myself to read them and thought over time I'd grow to like. In the last year I've read most of the Bronte sisters collection, several Austen's, Great Expectations, 1984, etc. I'm currently reading Moby Dick (100Ish pages in and they're only just now taking off for sea) and absolutely loathing Leaves of Grass.

is it even possible to like em? I feel like I've given them a real fair shake. most are just 'ok' to me.

 

[tabitha2]

Of course it's what she is being allowed to do. She regards Jer her leader and presumably the leader of the future family they may have. I want to say he is no autocrat and they may discuss things but she will always abide by his final decisions.Honestly  If he said he prayed and was guided to tell her it was ok or he wanted her to wear bootie shorts she probably would do so as well regardless of her own feelings. This kind of marriage is common among even among regular conservative Christians.   

[PennySycamore]

@FleeJanaFree,  nobody is saying that you have to learn to love the classics, but it might be good if you at least know some of the plots and, in some cases the actual lines.  For instance, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,  James Kirk was gotten a copy of The Tale of Two Cities for his birthday.  He quotes "It was the best of times; it was the worse of times" which is the first line from the book and, at the end of the movie, quotes A Tale of Two Cities again -this time the final lines after Spock's heroic sacrifice "It is a far, far thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far. far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."  (Except I think that Kirk misquoted Dickens in STII: TWoK).  I won't tell you why Kirk says that particular line though.  You need to read at least a good synopsis of A Tale o Two Cities.  As for Dickens, I'd start with the aforementioned A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol or David Copperfield  before I tackled Great Expectations.    Many classics are written in a more complex style; these writers were not afraid of compound sentences.  Expect to spend more time reading a classic than a modern novel -you can't speed through most of them- and don't feel like you've failed somehow if you need Cliff Notes.  I couldn't have gotten through The Unvanquished by William Faulkner if not for Cliff Notes.  

I will admit that I found Jane Austen's referral to Mr Wickham being of ____shire Regiment in Pride and Prejudice a bit off-putting at first but I got used to it and loved the book.  There can be quirks in classic novels like that you just have to accept.

[SapphireSlytherin]

1 hour ago, FleeJanaFree said:

I know some people will say it's just good to read, and read what you like. But i want to enjoy classics. Naturally, I completely struggle with it.

If there's anything I've learned in my 50 years (47 of them as a voracious reader - I had read all the Little House books before I started first grade, for example), it's that you can't force enjoyment of any one particular book, regardless of genre.

I see all those "must read" book lists, and some of them make me cringe. I've never been able to get past the first few pages of The Hobbit, War & Peace, Jane Eyre, Anne of Green Gables,  and others. Life is way too short and there are way too many really good books to be read, instead. I forced myself to finish The Great Gatsby and I still regret wasting those hours of my life on a truly awful book.

[Palimpsest]

1 hour ago, FleeJanaFree said:

But i want to enjoy classics. Naturally, I completely struggle with it. I find the men to be obscenely misogynistic and the storylines move oh so slow. I decided to force myself to read them and thought over time I'd grow to like.

You've made a good start.  I think part of the problem is that the "classics" tend to be older books set in bygone ages.  You have to read them partly in that context.  And it is also perfectly OK not to like a "classic."  And it is more than OK to be critical of  them.  To whit,  JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is a piece of garbage.  So sue me.

I strongly second the recommendation for David Copperfield as a starter book for Dickens.  There are so many wonderful, kooky, and funny characters (along with some magnificent villains) in there it moves the story along.  I had to write a paper on Dickens that I remember kicking out of the park.  It was something like: "Dickens' novels have rotten architecture but magnificent gargoyles.  Discuss."  And I did!

Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is also a good starter read.  But it should be read in the context of - if this is an accurate depiction of of the situation then - how far have we come?

I crapped out about 50 pages into Moby Dick - so you are doing much better than me there.

[nst]

1 hour ago, SassyPants said:

Jer- Why do you think the coffee will spill?

Jin- PHYSICS- maybe she's not anti-science!

What a dick he was in that scene.

I thought he was passive aggressive and just seemed like a douche to the ninth degree.

Like he was trying to put her in her place.  He has to look good in his eyes all the time and the constant touching on her end drives me nuts.