Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

So, I finally finished it. It took me practically the entire month of January--a little longer than I would have liked, but things don't always work out the way I want them to.

Without giving anything important away, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is about two dueling English magicians at the beginning of the 19th century. Mr. Norrell is the foremost magical in England--he assists the government with their ongoing war against Napoleon Bonaparte, and helps to prevent various natural disasters around the island. As a result, he becomes on of the most desired men about town. About half way through the book Jonathan Strange makes his appearance. He is a naturally gifted magician who comes under the tutelage of Mr. Norrell. Eventually the two quarrel and part ways--taking very divergent paths in their pursuit of furthering English magic.

The general consensus about this book is that it's a little too wordy--too much superfluous description. I thought when I began reading, what literature lover ever criticizes Dickens for being too wordy? OK, well maybe a lot of people do, but I generally find that a certain amount of wordiness adds to the charm of a novel. Detailed description helps invoke time and place. Perhaps this in only true for books that are written contemporary to the time in which they take place. One could have a brief ( ;) ) but interesting discussion about that. Anyway, it's my feeling that anyone picking up this book could skip the entire first section, entitled "Mr. Norrell." Mr. Norrell's rise to fame as a magician is pretty boring, and rather unnecessary to the rest of the story. I think any important information could be easily inferred from conversations and narrative printed later in the book.

As an English major, I find it difficult to read a novel simply for enjoyment. For me everything I read should have some sort of lesson to be learned. I'm not sure that Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell does much by way of teaching anything about life--but let me dig a little. Perhaps one could glean from it to not interfere with forces and powers that are out of one's control and understanding. But then again, aren't we supposed to try to gain understanding about things that we don't understand? What is the aim of education if not to break away from the teacher and try to expand upon the accepted knowledge? Would any learning be valuable if it did not lead to further thought and work? Strange ultimately rejects Norrell's teachings about magic. He believes that his teacher's views are too narrow. He wants to explore things that Norrell shuns. In the course of the book, we find that Norrell possessed wisdom from disastrous experience that he was too proud to admit to his pupil. Perhaps this is a story about the dangers of being too proud. Norrell could have prevented all of the tragic events in the book had he not been beguiled by those who would stroke his ego and make him think that he could do no wrong. Of course, then there wouldn't have been a story. But this is the problem of most novels and stories. We have the benefit of being detached from the events enough to analyze them and realize that they are totally preventable if any one of a string of bad decisions had not been made.

So, would I recommend this book? If the person I was suggesting to was a fan of fantasy or was curious to read the book that has been called "Harry Potter for adults" then yes. Definitely. Otherwise, this is not a book for most.

Up next: The World Below by Sue Miller
And for those who are interested my page count for the year is 1741. Don't worry--I'm going strong until the end of June, but then I'm going to be spending my time figuring out how to take care of two children and still remain sane.

A Typical Day

OK, so this is going to be really embarrassing, but I'm going to outline my typical day, and then I'm going to tell you about today.

7:30 Wake Up, make Kaitlin her bottle, turn on a Baby Einstein or Wiggles movie
7:40 Eat breakfast while reading my book
8:00 Tear myself away from my book and make Kaitlin's breakfast.
8:05 Sneak away from the table, sit down on the couch, read, get tired, lay down on the couch and take a short nap while K finishes eating.
8:30 (Yes, her cereal is very soggy by now, but she doesn't care!) Wake up to K yelling, "Done!", wash her hands, get her down, begin a new movie and pray that she'll sit quietly and watch it so I can resume my nap.
9:00 Kaitlin is obviously not going to cooperate with the movie plan, drag myself off of the couch to answer the phone. It's my sister. Talk for an hour, while trying to placate K.
10:00 Kaitlin and I take a shower. When I'm done, I put her in the bathtub to play with her bath toys until I'm finished putting on makeup and blow drying my hair.
11:00 Play with Kaitlin until my hunger overpowers my desire to mother, and I have to eat lunch.
11:30 Make lunch for myself and Kaitlin. Eat and read.
12:00 Only 1/2 hour to go until nap time. Play
12:30 K goes down for nap. Retire to my craft room to read blogs, read Two Peas in a Bucket message boards, email, and play Mah Jong Medley. This is totally addictive, especially since there is this one puzzle that I've played 119 times, and I still can't beat it! If K is still asleep, do a little something creative.
2:30 Either K wakes up or I wake her up. Do every puzzle that we own. Kaitlin can't get enough of puzzles.
3:15 Start thinking about straightening up the house. Do dishes, start laundry, think about what to make (or order) for dinner.
5:00 Begin making Kaitlin's dinner.
5:30 Kaitlin eats, and we begin wondering what time Jeremy's coming home.
6:00 Only 1 1/2 hours until Kaitlin goes to bed. Play until Jeremy gets home (about 6:30) then play some more.
6:45 Begin getting Kaitlin ready for bed. Bath time, brush teeth, and take vitamin with Daddy. I take over to read three stories and pick out a stuffed animal for Kaitlin to sleep with. Go to the top of the stairs and call Jeremy up for prayers.
7:30 Kaitlin is in bed. Do the bare minimum to clean up for the evening and settle in to watch TV for the rest of the night.
10:30 Go to bed, read for a few minutes. Turn of light by 11:00 (if I'm being good).

So, looking at this typical day, I realize a few things. One, I'm lazy. I'm never going to be the kind of person I want to be if I can't get myself going in the morning before 10:00. Two, Kaitlin really gets the shaft in all of this. What kind of mother am I when all I can think about is when the next nap is, or how much longer I have to wait until Kaitlin goes to bed? We don't play that much, I don't take her out to do fun things. We go to Target a lot, and occasionally I take her to a scrapbooking store. But really she hates that. Three, I'm lazy. OK, so I mentioned that already, but that one really rankles!

Today I broke the mold. I did read at breakfast, but that was the limit. I cleaned out my refrigerator and washed the containers that all of the leftovers were in. I cleaned up the breakfast dishes, and washed the table. I made my bed, started two loads of laundry, showered and got ready for the day. I still took a few minutes to see who had posted a new blog entries, but this was just a short detour while I was upstairs getting Kaitlin's hamper. I did puzzles with Kaitlin, made us lunch, continued on with the laundry, and did a few more puzzles. Then I got Kaitlin ready for her nap and I'm sitting here in front of the computer taking a short break until Kaitlin falls asleep so I can continue to be productive! The thing is I have so much more energy than normal. The idea of laying down to take a nap isn't even a temptation to me today. I have no desire. Is this the secret of a child's boundless energy--the more one expends, the more one has? Maybe we don't have to find a miraculous way to bottle energy. Maybe it's the worlds most quickly renewable resource!

PS The photo has nothing to do with this post. It's just better to have something to look at!

Reading

Jill's post about reading (sorry Jill, I still don't know how to do a link!) reminded me of something I saw while sitting at a stop light in Salt Lake on Friday night. It was a couple sitting on their couch reading. No TV, no DVDs, just books. I was so impressed. Jeremy and I never read together although it's something I know I would love to do. Kaitlin and I read together all of the time, but we're reading The Listening Walk, Never Babysit the Hippopotamuses, or any of an assortment of Charlie and Lola books. Fun stuff, but they just don't seem to lead to any sort of conversation. I am the first to admit that my rigorous TV schedule keeps me from accomplishing so many things, reading included. Jeremy suggested that we give up TV in favor of reading, but really, can I live without knowing what will happen on 24, or if Rory and Logan will get back together, or who will be exiled first on the next installment of Survivor? Ok, yes, I can. But do I want to?

Our Weekend Adventure

Friday morning Jeremy called me to tell me that he was planning a little surprise for me. Originally he'd intended to just come home from work and whisk me away for the night, but he knows me better than that. A night away takes preparation--especially when I don't have any food in the house and we're going to have an overnight babysitter! He'd arranged it all on Thursday--a dinner at Fresco Italian Cafe in Salt Lake and then a night at the Anniversary Inn. We haven't had a night together away from Kaitlin in about a yeat, so it was a very nice surprise.

We had a 6:00 reservation at Fresco, so we dropped Kaitlin off at my sister's at about 5:15 and off we went. If you ever want to taste heaven on a plate, go to Fresco and order the butternut squash ravioli. Yes, it's only one ravioli, but. . .well, my mouth is watering just thinking about it! It's wonderful--a dollop of pureed butternut squach between two pieces of pasta, drizzled with brown butter sauce, chopped hazelnuts and gorgonzola cheese. the waiter let us in on a little secret--they make an entree size. Too bad we'd already ordered. The rest of our meal was just as delightful. But really, the adventure was just begining.

We arrived at the Anniversary Inn, and since every room is equipped with a 42' inch plasma television (what man can resist that?), Jeremy brought a selection of my favorite romantic movies to watch. I chose Shakespeare in Love (sigh) and we watched. When it was time to turn off the lights, we discovered the dirty little secret of the Anniversary Inn Suite, the room where we stayed. Although it was a very inviting looking room, it is probably the loudest and brightest room I hace ever tried to sleep in. You notice I say tried? At 10:30 I turned off my bedside light. After watching the headlights on the wall, and listening to the cars speeding up and down 700 East and South Temple for 2 and a half hours, Jeremy and I had had enough. Add to that the front desk guy getting the morning's breakfast ready in the kitchen right across the hall from us, including breaking up the ice in the ice machine, which produced a very loud metallic clanging sound, and we'd had enough. We were laying in the bed, staring up at the ceiling,%2

Perfect Bed Head?

Is there such thing as perfect bed head? In Kaitlin's case, I think so. Unfortunately if her hair continues to be as thin as it is currently, I think she'll come to disagree with me. Poor thing. I keep looking at the kids in my nursery class at church, comparing their hair with hers. Will it ever get thicker? All of the kids in my class have pretty good hair. But they do have a little under a year to a little over a year on her. So I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Until then I'll just continue to celebrate the state of her hair in the mornings when she wakes up--a sight which supplies me with no end of mirth! I took this picture this morning when she was eating her second breakfast or canned peaches. This is her version of a pretty smile, which I think complements her bed head quite nicely.

By the way, I'm currently reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I have about 300 pages to read until I finish, so keep checking back for a review!