I just came across this list of quotes about reading on George Grant's blog. Great quotes!
I just finished reading Josh Harris's Dug Down Deep. Can I say that I was pleasantly surprised? I don't know why I had low expectations of it but I enjoyed skimming through it. I think it would be a great book for a new Christian or someone who says that they don't like doctrine. He does a really good job of making it real and practical without leaving out any of the essentials.
I read The Great Gatsby for the first time. My son is reading it for a class so I picked it up. Quite depressing and the ending was predictable. I'm wondering why it's considered a classic? However, I do think if I read it again for the writing and not for the story (isn't that what the first time through a book is for - the story?), I would appreciate it more. It does show the futility of pinning all your hopes on one person, however.
And now for the poetry. Rebecca posted this poem today and it made me cry.
De Profundis
by Christina Rossetti
Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.
I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.
I never watch the scatter'd fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:
For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.
"And catch at hope." That's the line that gets me every time. I am so thankful to God that He gives me hope.
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Juanita, if your copy of *Gatsby* has the cover with the nighttime cityscape, you have a clue to the effectiveness of the novel--to evoke an atmosphere, an era. The writing style is absolutely the most valuable part of it, I think, since the people are unlikeable, their actions mostly reprehensible--but that's part of the atmosphere, too. The passages describing Gatsby's shirts, the filmy curtains blowing about the room (which were well depicted in a movie version I saw once)--these are worth re-reading for.
I found a class of junior-high students almost ganged up on Nick, despising him for not helping his friends out of their headlong rush into sin. Interesting . . . As an adult I took Nick matter-of-factly, as a narrator. They thought of him as a friend to the others and a "real person."
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