Mom/Mim: Al Gore (aka Gilderoy Lockhart) vs. Jane Austen

Well, I only got a few pages into the Global Warming stuff before I was totally fed up with the whole subject and with that "veil of stupidity." It seems like it's our human nature to say the sky is falling whenever saying it will get us something we want. People believe what they want to believe! So my apologies to Lynness and Rae H who seemed most interested in what I would be learning. You both learned more about current events than I did this month. In fact, I think I've been away somewhere in the wrong century!

I did read the first several chapters of Jane Austen's Emma during January. So I thought it was interesting that Lynness watched PBS movies of Austen novels and read some Jane Austen. We're reading Austen novels for our Relief Society book group. Actually, the truth about my reading this month is that I've hardly wanted to read or do anything other than family history all of a sudden!

Now it may seem that I'm going off on a tangent with this blogpost about family history, but hang on, because it all relates. What sparked the family history was a prompting where I re-discovered a bunch of letters from our Yorkshire relatives, some of whom were living when Jane Austen wrote Emma in their own environs. Reading the letters and the novel at the same time helps me envision our ancestors as families in their own households.

For example, a cousin of ours named Jenny writes to her cousin in America, Esther Lillian Poulter Andersen, in 1900. They're both rather newly wed and she writes to Esther during the time that her husband Julius is away from his wife, serving his mission to Denmark. (I have some of the letters between Julius to Esther, too!) Jenny is excited to tell Esther how much they're enjoying the visit of her (Esther's) father, Wilson Poulter, who has finally returned to England to see the family after having emigrated to Utah about 35 years earlier. And I have a few of Wilson's letters written to his son after he arrived in England.

So it's not really the right century--the older two generations of Poulters are the ones contemporary with Jane Austen--but their activities and expressions certainly fit with Austen's gentle characters and their refined entertainments. Jenny's obviously smitten after meeting her uncle, and she describes his reception by the family: "He came to my mothers door asking her if she wanted to buy any cloth mother knew him in a minite. After that there was some kissing & loving going on mother couldnot eat any dinner for crying . . . . Uncle came to my house on Saturday & we had such a jolly evening. Aunt Sarah Ann & three of my cousins & two of their young men . . . . We had Uncle saying Pat & his Leather Britches & singing to us telling us of America."

Well, obviously global warming was irrelevant to my life this month, and I think that's a key to our dilemma over nonfiction and fiction. It seems that those of us who've commented about nonfiction just want it to be engrossing and relevant. I certainly don't want to read any less nonfiction. Maybe we could find more relevant reads if the criteria were more specific? We could read nonfiction that relates to a hobby we all share (like we did in the music month), or Rae could give us some criteria in categories of narrative nonfiction or suspense nonfiction so we wouldn't want to put the books down. Some nonfiction could be sort of practical, like humor or how-to stuff, maybe? Young adult nonfiction might be interesting . . .

I do love having this book blog/club and I love each of you. I'll see some of you soon! Warning: don't ask me about our family history if you only have five minutes to listen. Love, Mim/Mom