Little Altars Everywhere

After finishing The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, I managed to find Little Altars Everywhere, also by Rebecca Wells. I actually didn't expect it at all to be about Thorton, Louisianna still, but it was nice to go back into the world of the Ya-Yas.

I believe Little Altars Everywhere was written before The Divine Secrets but, I'm not sure. It's not like you need to read one before to understand the other. You're kind of thrown en medias res in the both of them.

Little Altars Everywhere is different because it's written differently. There are little vignettes from the different people in the stories. And they're each told as how old they are during that time. So Sidda in 1963 is very whiny and know-it-all instead of the struggling 40-year-old that she was in The Divine Secrets. Also, so far I've gotten to see things from Sidda's little brother Baylor and her father Big Shep. And it's really interesting to get respective on little people perspectives, but also Big Shep. He was rarely seen or heard from in the Divine Secrets, mostly because it's out of character for him to be seen or heard, but just reading his perspective on Vivi and young Sidda and the Ya-Yas was great. Even seeing what he grew up like and stuff. Ahh, so great I really do like Rebecca Wells. And I just looked on Wikipedia to see which book was published first and this one was. But there's another one, Rebbeca Wells has actually written two more books, so I'll difinitely be checking them out when I finish this one.

So far I don't see in overall plot, but we'll see what happends I guess.

Something I would have never guessed about Lewis Carroll was that he taught school, and not only that, but he taught math.

I've always associated him as being the man who wrote about Alice. Who wrote books, not solved equations. I'd heard/read rumors of drug influences and stories of pedophilia (which I haven't read about thus far in this book) but I NEVER ever knew that he taught math, or that he was good at math. I need to let it set in I guess.

Well, Lewis Carroll was a genius, I know this much so far. He loved math and all of his colleagues and former teachers found him very good at it. He had a difficult time teaching undergraduate at college though. He found teaching fun when he moved on to teach a younger set of all girl pupils who wanted to learn. He thought of easy ways for them to learn.

After a while though he became tired of math and became more interested in logic. Making him a Logician. (new favorite word? yes.) He made up riddles for magazines, friends, family, students and they all tried to solve them. I don't really understand them all. Many of the ones in The Mystery of Lewis Carroll are written as verse but, there's suppose to be some pattern that helps you figure out what exactly the riddles are. The pattern has something to do with the second word's third letter in each odd line or something along those lines and I'm really not sure. And I don't think others are, because there were about four in the book that people hadn't figured out. I wonder if there is some sort of hidden answers page or key somewhere. If there is, hopefully it wasn't lost for ever.

It's crazy how, well rounded I guess Carroll was.

Ya-Ya-No

I've finished the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. And I'd rather not be done with it. I'd rather be reading it right now. But I finished it, so I figured I might as well blog about it.

So, while most of those little bits about Vivi's childhood and teenage years were the same as the movie. The bits with Sidda and Vivi and the present were a lot different. There were awkward, frustrating phone calls and brief letters so that the mother and daughter could communicate. The Ya-Yas did come and visit dear Siddalee in Washington which was lovely.

The biggest difference I think between the book and the movie was seeing the rest of what was going on. Mainly in the movie there is a lot of emphasis put on the relationship between Sidda and Vivi. But in the book, you see Sidda and Vivi, but you also see how others helped them out, whether it was the Ya-Yas or one of the Ya-Ya husbands. You see the church and Buggie. Caro takes Sidda to the movies. Vivi gives Willetta a fur stole. You see not only Vivi's struggle over the loss of Jack, but his mother, Giniveve as well.

One thing I don't think I'll forget about this book is when Vivi's mom, Buggie sends her to reform school run by nuns. It is so terrible for Vivi, because she really hasn't done anything wrong. Her mother is just driven crazy by her husband and mother. But the nuns at the school who you would assume to be sweet, loving and caring are not. Except for the nurse nun. She saves Vivi. After her terrible time. Anyways... I think we might have another Rebecca Wells book somewhere in this house, so maybe I can find it.

YAYA

The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells is my more recent fiction read since I cannot find Deadline lately, but no worries, I will get around to finding and finishing it...eventually.

I've had this one on my stack for quite sometime. I've seen bits and pieces of the movie on TBS, and definitely remember some of the buzz about it that I heard when I was little. Even though I was four or five I think. I remember seeing it everywhere, or at least on my moms night stand. Or at the Castles house.

When I first started it a couple of days ago, it reminded me of the movie exactly. Vivi is upset with Sidda because of the NYT article that portrayed her as a terrible mother. So I was totally expecting all of the YaYas, minus Vivi to show up in Seattle (I think it's New York in the movie) and take Sidda back to Louisiana and explain to her everything.

But alas, that has not happen yet? Perhaps it will. Though so far I can still see bits of the movie weaving in while I read. Mostly its from Vivi's perspective, because in the book, Sidda's in Washington state.

So far, I am really liking it. Which is interesting because my mom says that it's not something that sticks out in her mind as being a GREAT book. She did admit though that she and her friend, Leisel did fashion their Thursdays at the pool with drinks after the YaYa summers at Spring Creek. So I guess she liked it enough for that.

If I could do anything that I wanted to, it would probably to find a way to travel back in time and see how things were, meet people who existed in the past etc.

So many things that happened, no one knows about now. Which is strange if you think about how much we're able to know about pretty much ANYONE nowadays. And everything today is documented.

In Jenny Woolf's The Mystery of Lewis Carroll she notes that not much is known about him simply because it either wasn't written down, and if it was, then the record was lost. Several of his diaries from his teenage years are noted as having "disappeared." UGH.If only I could go back and figure out things and witness what life was like for Lewis Carroll. Woolf does her best to make assumptions based on what she has, so I've got a decent picture of what his family like.

Lewis Carroll was the eldest son and third child of his parents' eleven. He and his siblings were very close. Three of them got married, two of those were boys. His father worked as a clergyman and did the best he could to properly support his family. Carroll loved his mother and was not quite fond of nurses. At school it was likely that he was bullied, because bullying went on in public schools like Rugby where he attended. And it was only at last minute when the professors intervened. He did not like his time at Rugby, but enjoyed learning and was thought of highly by his teachers. But other than that there's not much that Woolf has managed to find out.

She did surprise me though. She found his bank account records, which I thought was ingenious. That definitely points her in a direction...

Mr. Patton every once in a while will give us an excerpt from some book and we read them and it's interesting because usually it's usually one little occurrence that happened to no one special, but based on what happened to that person or in that occurrence is dependent on what the historian who wrote it used as information. And reading this biography reminds me a lot of those articles.

Matthew 20 1-16

This parable is kind of bothering me. We're working on it for my church's Youth Sunday. And luckily I get to write a homilies on it... (note the sarcasm in my words please) Normally it is the seniors who write the sermons, which I would be fine with for next year when I am a senior, but this year, I am not a senior, so it's just stressing me out...

Anyways, the story goes that "The kingdom of heaven is like this:..." And then Jesus goes on to tell a story of a vineyard owner who hires these people at the beginning of the day and agrees to give them a days wages for their work, at midday he hires more hands and then again and again later on. Then at the end of the day he pays the people he hired last first and the people he hired first last, and they all get one silver coin. The people who began working first are enraged. The owner of the vineyard basically tells them to shut up, it's his money and he can pay everyone equally if he wants right? And then Jesus comes back and says the first shall be last and the last shall be first and then it's done.

So hmm... what does this mean? Why is everything so equal, but yet still seems unfair? What do I write my sermon on??? It is an interesting passage though, is it not?

It's such and interesting story I think, but it's so difficult to understand. Writing about this will be a challenge for sure. The Bible is filled with parables that seem SO SIMPLE in Sunday school when you're five. And they mean what they're written as, but know we have to read between the lines and figure it out for real. Hmm, but I guess that's the same in all I read.

Charles Dodgson

Today I visited Borders because I had $5 in Border's Bucks that were about to expire at the end of January. I browsed several bookshelves, fiction, nonfiction, stationary, bargain books, calendars etc. But one that I found appealing just from the cover and title was The Mystery of Lewis Carol by Jenny Woolf. The problem was it was a brand new hard back that would ring up at about $30. (UGH. The price of books.) So I decided to see if my mother was interested in getting it. "Oh, I was looking at that and it looks good," she said. She decided that we'd pick it up at Barnes & Noble on our way home because she had a gift certificate there... ASIDE: There was a shooting at Edgewood's Retail District and I was walking into the store when I heard the gun shots. SCARY.

So, alas I've got a Lewis Carroll biography which is GRRREAT!!!! Last semester I remember going to Wikipedia one night and reading about him there, but the book is proving to be a better experience for me, and less straining on my eyes. On Wikipedia there are not reference of Lewis Carroll's journals and all of those fun things.

So far, so good. I trust Woolf more than Wikipedia and more than Crutcher (Deadline). Carroll grew up as a clergyman's son. It's funny because their church in Oxford is really famous, but not because it's where he went to school, but because it's where the film some of the Hogwarts scenes for Harry Potter.

Lewis Carroll is really a mystery. And I can't wait to get past the basic early life information to the good stuff like his muse for Alice etc.

(Sorry, I've been really ADHD with books lately, I just seem find something and want it, until the next thing comes around...so I've got these ones for a while.)