Fire and Knowledge

Canon EOS 20D and preview: Digital Photography Review

Looks very nice. Even some new lenses coming. Canon is certainly the leader right now in digital photography.

For those interested, I’m selling my Canon 10D D-SLR on eBay.

Overall, I came away with a good feeling about the book. Huck Finn had an especially good effect on me, making me conscious of my lack of sympathy for those who have had a rough set of circumstances. To be hospitable to them and be an encouragement in hard times is something I desire to do more.

Selfishness and the Desire to be Worshipped

One thing I noticed quite a few times with Tom Sawyer is his selfishness and desire to be worshipped by everyone around him. Now, that is quite normal for a boy (and humans in general), but it struck me quite a few times that I feel compelled to mention it.

They felt like heroes in an instant. Here was a gorgeous triumph; they were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account; tears were being shed . . . and best of all, the departed [the boys] were the talk of the whole town, the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety was concerned. (pg. 110)

Lest you think this is just me, Aunt Polly confirms my suspicions later in the book: “You never think of anything but your own selfishness” (143). A good observation, ma’am, and one which I hope will not rise any more in my own wretched soul.

Memorable Quotes

“. . . in order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” (pg. 17)

“The choir always tittered and whispered all through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago, and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in some foreign country.” (pg. 40)

“Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of.” (pg. 41)

“Church ain’t shucks to a circus.” (pg. 60)

“As usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took Muff Potter to its bosom and fondled him as lavishly as it had abused him before. But that sort of conduct is to the world’s credit; therefore it is not well to find fault with it.” (pg. 172)

“Lookyhere, Tom, being rich ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. It’s just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the time.” (pg. 254)

Note: All page references refer to Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Canada Limited, Toronto: Modern Library, 2001). This work was originally published in 1876.

Ladies and Gentlemen… Boys and Girls… and other things.

I now present to you the new Desiring God website. CSS-based layout, new logo, new colors, and a new (updated) name. I know it still has some kinks in it, but they should be ironed out by next week.

Now it’s time to roll up the sleeves and start the even bigger monster–getting all of these files into a CMS and put in some nice features. One milestone down, but so many more to go!

Okay, so not that it is worth telling, and it’s not thought out as well as I’d like, but Amanda has coaxed me into giving my theory away, so here it is:

Austen published Sense and Sensibility in 1811, which many claim is the “first modern novel.” I’m not quite sure that I agree, as Cervantes (Don Quixote, 1615), Bunyan (Pilgrim’s Progress, 1684), and Swift (Gulliver’s Travels , 1726) are crying out from the ground. First modern novel, indeed.

Persuasion, which is the novel I just recently finished by her, is considered by most Austenites her most esteemed novel:

Just as Jane Austen is the favorite author of many discerning readers [gag], Persuasion is the most highly esteemed novel of many Austenites . . . [it] has a greater maturity and wisdom than the “light, bright, and sparkling” earlier novels . . . . In other words, Persuasion has often been seen as the thinking reader’s Pride and Prejudice.
Introduction to B&N edition of Persuasion, xiii

They might be right that Persuasion is her best novel. But that doesn’t mean it’s good. I don’t want to be too harsh on Austen—I think she is a good author, but just not as good as people say she is.

However, if they are correct about her being many discerning reader’s favorite author, and Persuasion is the height of her literary ladder, then I put forward the following theory on why this might be.

Jane Austen lived in the 1800′s, and was an educated woman (mainly due to her father’s persistence, position, and wealth) in a time where a majority of women could not have written a novel if you paid them five hundred pounds—Many women were illiterate, and had not the refined skills to write a novel.

So Austen had the skills, and she wrote quite a few novels. They were published, and people read them. The men read it to see what a woman had to say and see how she said it. The women (the ones who could read) read it for two reasons: 1) it was written by a member of their sex and they wanted to support it and 2) the romance in the novels.

So as time went on, more and more women read it and gave it to others to read. I would dare say that a man well versed in literature would not find Austen all that remarkable, other than the fact that she was a woman writing in a time where most women did not write novels and subsequently get them published.

Now, today, the Feminists try to twist Austen into a feminist like themselves. The introduction I read to Persuasion was atrocious and most of the writer’s assertions about Austen were based on pure speculation with no backup for her claims. She was trying to make Austen fit her image of feminism and miserably failed (she says on xvi that the “prissy, quaint, modest, humble” Jane Austen is a myth, yet fails to produce one shred of evidence why). So these feminists push Austen for all to read, to show that feminism was alive and well in the early 1800s! Well, it’s a lie, but they did succeed in keeping Austen’s image high.

And thus explains her popularity today, at least in part. Crazy? Maybe. Maybe not. This isn’t something I would die for, but it seems to be the only explanation why Austen is one of the most popular English novelists to me. But if you have a better idea (other than “She’s an incredible author!,” because that would be, in news-speak, a double untruth), I’m open.