The Joys of Love

I enjoyed reading Madeleine L'Engle's The Joys of Love as an interesting first novel and period piece. Written in the 1940's when Ms. L'Engle was in her twenties, it describes a young woman whose passion has always been the theater. Now she's on a scholarship, spending the summer as an apprentice to a theater troupe, and her life is about to change.

Liz is in love with Kurt, the wealthy young director, and he pays some attention to her but is maddeningly attentive to other women too. Her friend Ben is clearly in love with her but she doesn't perceive it, is barely aware of him as a man even though she can tell him anything and she greatly values his friendship. She's got a best friend among the apprentices, Jane, and there are various other characters, the obnoxious Dottie, the lazy Bibi, and so on. In the background is Liz's aunt, who disapproves of the theater and is grudgingly providing the $20 a week for Liz's room and board, which is not covered by the scholarship.

The writing, to be expected from a woman who later won a Newbery medal for children's literature, is excellent, but the story seemed quite a bit dated to me, and also not so different from several other stories written at much the same time. I'm thinking of Marjorie Morningstar, the overly long saga of a young woman who believes she's destined to be an actress, but in fact will go on to live an ordinary life, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, where Francie falls madly in love with a man who hid the fact of his marriage in order to seek solace from a woman on his last leave before shipping out to the war, and later falls back upon a young man who is much better for her.

Warning: Spoiler


Similarly, in The Joys of Love, Liz's bubbly crush on Kurt bursts when he lures her to his room and tries to seduce her. She realizes she's being used, and flees. It's Ben who emerges as the suitable and loyal lover. This seemed to be a common "coming of age" theme in the forties. The man who wants sex is the bad guy, and the one who is waiting in the wings, loyal even though he's been overlooked, is the true Mr. Right.

While I felt this was a cliched ending, I did appreciate the writing and the characterizations. It was fascinating to read a book by the young Ms. L'Engle before she really won her writing spurs.

Only a Theory

A few days ago I finished reading Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, by Kenneth R. Miller. With my background in anthropology, the story of human evolution has always fascinated me. In fact, I'd read so many books on it as a child that I already knew the first half of my physical anthropology course in college.


Professor Miller leads us through a thorough, scientific debunking of the "intelligent design" scam. I won't give it the honor of calling it a theory. He demonstrates in a number of ways that evolution is the best explanation for the way life and its systems have developed.

The Intelligent Designers (ID as he calls it) claim that there are structures within the cell that are of irreducible complexity, and couldn't have developed step by step. But he shows that in fact, they may have other uses when they are not fully complete. Also: the process of blood clotting, thought by the ID devotees to require a precious layout of proteins in order to work properly, something that couldn't develop by evolutionary means, actually could, because there are animals that lack some of these proteins and their blood does in fact clot to close a wound.

Professor Miller also shows that we clearly have kinship with the great apes. Chemically it can be shown that whereas our closest relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, have 48 chromosomes, while humans have only 46, it's clear that a pair of chromosomes somehow became fused with another, reducing the number but not the corresponding genetic material. Further, while many other animals can create Vitamin C within their own bodies, humans have lost this ability and have to eat fruits and vegetables that supply this essential nutrient. So have the great apes.

Professor Miller gives the ID notion serious scientific scrutiny as if it were any other scientific theory, and finds it wanting. Rather than produce hard science to prove their point, the ID'ers simply claim that anything they can't explain is the work of "intelligent design," which boils down to a supernatural creator. Furthermore, their own proponents have admitted that they've not found any scientific proof for the idea of intelligent design.

But that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. There have still been school boards trying with varying success to force public schools to teach kids an unproven idea, and arguing for "fairness" as if science depended on fairness rather than hard evidence of who is right and who is wrong. What's more, from the writings Professor Miller has uncovered, the underlying aim is not just to bring religious ideas into the public schools on the evolution issue, but to drive a wedge into the whole idea of rational, scientific research, and bring it down, replacing it with an establishment of religion and a "science that serves Christianity."

How long before school kids would be studying that the Sun and planets revolve around the Earth?

This is an excellent book for humanists and traditional religionists alike to read. Professor Miller also addresses the idea of a grand design in the universe, and finds it not incompatible with evolution. He counts himself a Christian but does not confuse religious beliefs with hard scientific facts. More power to him!

Pig Candy

Pig Candy by Lise Funderburg is a memoir about, "Taking my father south, taking my father home." Somehow just from reading that subtitle, I knew that the father in question was going home to die. I was right. Ms. Funderburg's father George's last years as he slowly succumbs to advanced prostate cancer are the subject of this book. But there's more to it, much more.

It's a book about growing up and being the adult child of a difficult, controlling and demanding father who nonetheless loves his daughters, even though he is highly critical of them. It's a book about being the biracial child of an interracial marriage in America, and about the social codes George grew up under down South. Those codes defined him as "colored" even though he was extremely light-skinned, and defined the way he was treated.

In the tiny town of Monticello, Georgia, George indulges his farmer fancies, buying all sorts of farm equipment, animals and so on. He's donated money for a park to be named after him, and suspects illegal delays in getting it built. His many enthusiasms show him to be a man with a zest for life that's not diminished until a stroke dulls his thinking and flattens his emotions.

The title refers to a special type of pig roast in a "Caja China" that turns the pork and the skin so sweet that it is called "pig candy." This is George's latest enthusiasm as the book opens, and he purchases a Caja China and a large pig with which to celebrate with his family. It represents George's lust for life, even in the face of his terminal illness.

Lise Funderburg brings her father to life again, describes him and the other family members as well as townsfolk they interact with, with a skill that reflects her journalist background. She has a keen sense of place as she conveys the farm and the town of Monticello in great detail. I enjoyed this book and recommend it highly.

Read more about Pig Candy here.

Summer Reading

I've been lazy and haven't written in 2 weeks. So before I get back into real posting, here's my upcoming reading list:

Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, by Kenneth R. Miller. If I take notes, this might be the basis for a future program with the Brooklyn Humanist Community.

Chosen Forever, a memoir by Susan Richards

Pig Candy, a memoir by Lise Funderburg

The Joys of Love, by Madeleine L'Engle, written in 1941 and published posthumously this year. Ms. L'Engle lit up my childhood with her prize-winning Wrinkle in Time, so I'm curious to read this early work of hers that has been a sort of "lost novel" until now.

I'm in the middle of Stephen King's Lisey's Story, in which one of the central characters has been dead two years, but is a "puffickly Huh-uge" presence. (That's one of his expressions).

Earlier this summer I've read a great deal of historical/paranormal romance (Highlanders from other centuries are apparently the hottest, though the deadest hunks in the known universe), and a number of detective thrillers by James Patterson, John Sandford, and the Kellermans. I also read Peony in Love which was also a sort of paranormal love story by Lisa See. A few months back the BHC Book Club discussed Lisa See's more famous Snowflower and the Secret Fan, so I was curious to read another of her novels. Peony in Love wasn't quite as good but it was still quite interesting, and the theme of women's writing and its importance, as well as disastrous failures to communicate, was the same as in Snowflower.

If anyone's read these books please feel free to comment.

Show Them the Money

We're in the middle of a frustrating situation. Jason received a gift certificate last year when he graduated high school. Today we tried to use it to order him some items, and the website is not accepting it.

Gift certificates in general are a mistake. A large percentage of recipients forget about them and never cash them in. Therefore, they are a gift to the store, not to the person. So when we know most of them go unused, why do people buy them instead of just handing over a few crisp greenbacks?

Somewhere people got the idea that giving cash is tacky. It's not a good enough gift. It shows you didn't take the time to think about the person receiving the gift and tailor your purchase to his or her particular personality and interests.

So how is a gift certificate any different? It really isn't. Just because a person likes to read, and you buy a certificate to a bookstore, that doesn't show any deep thought either. Let's face it, cash would work just as well. You can give a gift of cash and say, "Here, buy yourself a book you've been itching to read."

I'm never going to buy a gift certificate again. If I don't have the time or energy to pick up a personalized present, then cash will do just fine. It's the right color, it is always the right size, and best of all, it has no expiration date.