Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg

I thought I would lighten up my reading a bit. I came across Texts from Jane Eyre in my library's ebook collection. Since I had just read Jane Eyre I decided to give it a try. I had no idea what it was. A modern retelling of Jane's story? Its cover led me to believe it might be funny. 

Well, I hadn't read the small print - And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters - so little did I know that it really is a book of text messages. We hear from William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Lord Byron, Virginia Woolfe, and a host of other literary stars. Then there are the imagined text conversations between fictional characters: Jo and Meg from Little Women, Catherine and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, Our Miss Jane and Rochester, Elizabeth Bennett and her mother from Pride and Prejudice, and Scarlett and Ashley from Gone with the Wind. Nancy Drew and Ned also make an appearance. 

Some entries are short while others go on for a little longer. The punctuation, spelling, and abbreviations are spot on - at least 21st century-wise.

Here is an example - an exchange between Thoreau and Emerson:

im going to the woods ok

okay

im going to live deliberately

with essential facts

im going to suck all the marrow out of the

trees

okay

so dont follow me

how long are you going?

i dont know

however long it takes to live deliberately

so maybe a few months

or maybe forever gonna live in a cabin

well

i'm happy for you

can i use your cabin

you want to live in my cabin?

well i dont have a cabin

i need to be self sufficient

so i need to use your cabin

***

This cracked me up. 

These chats are imagined by author Mallory Ortberg and even the ones from books I haven't read (Sweet Valley High, The Baby-Sitters Club) I found to be amusing. They range along the literary timeline from Gilgamesh to Harry Potter.

To really get into the spirit of things, I read this book via the Kindle app on my phone because after all, it is a collection of texts...

Literary lads and lassies, rejoice. It won't change your life, but if you want a gentle chuckle or two, this is your book.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Many years ago, I took my first solo road trip. I was very proud of myself for mapping out a route that took me through the western part of Kentucky and Indiana. I ended my trip with two nights spent at one of Kentucky's many lovely state parks, Pennyrile, near Dawson Springs.

I tell you this because for some reason during my stay there I decided it would be a fun experience to hike one of the park's many trails.  It was my first experience with solo hiking (or really any hiking for that matter) and one that I won't be doing again. I took off on a very, very gentle quarter-mile loop through the forest. Soon after entering the woods it occurred to me that I was so alone, that no one knew where I was or would miss me if I didn't return to my room (at least until checkout time) and that if there was an axe murderer in the vicinity, he was probably just behind that tree! I told myself not to be silly and continued on stumbling over tree roots, tripping on the smallest rocks, swatting insects, and listening intently for that axe murder. Or even a bear...

Let's just say I couldn't see the forest for the fears.

I survived, of course. But I kept thinking of that experience as I read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, an account of his attempt to hike the entire 2100-plus mile Appalachian Trail that stretches from Georgia to Maine. 

What was he thinking?

Mr. Bryson is one of my favorite authors and I would follow him anywhere - even along the grueling AT, as it is called.

As is his way, Mr. Bryson not only informs but entertains and causes one to smile, chortle, and laugh out loud at his shenanigans. He had a much worse time of it than I did on my little 1320-foot trek. 

He sets off one fine spring day in March with his childhood (and terribly out of shape) buddy, Steve Katz. Soon, spring has turned to winter and they find themselves slogging through knee-high snow. They meet other intrepid hikers along the way. They despair of aching muscles, noodle dinners, soaking wet clothes, struggles with expensive and unwieldy equipment, a million irritating insects, rushing streams, a possible nighttime visit by a bear (never actually confirmed), and a multitude of other horrors that are to be experienced in the deep, dark woods.

And this was just the first day.

To be fair, every now and then along the way they were rewarded for their efforts with a fine view or a shower and a good meal when the trail happened to cross near a town. But most of the trip sounded totally exhausting. And, really, not all that much fun although Bryson makes it sound enticing in a masochistic sort of way.

I read A Walk in the Woods to further prepare me for reading Walden. I was amused to read Bryson's jab at Thoreau:

The American woods have been unnerving people for 300 years. The inestimably priggish and tiresome Henry David Thoreau thought nature was splendid, splendid indeed, so long as he could stroll to town for cakes and barley wine, but when he experienced real wilderness, on a visit to (Mount) Katahdin in 1846, he was unnerved to the core. This wasn't the tame world of overgrown orchards and sun-dappled paths that passed for wilderness in suburban Concord, Massachusetts, but a forbidding, oppressive, primeval country that was "grim and wild...savage and dreary," fit only for "men nearer of kin to the rocks and wild animals than we." The experience left him, in the words of one biographer, "near hysterical."

I feel your pain, Henry.

In Which I Experience a Literary Coincidence

About two weeks ago I was browsing about in the public library's DVD collection and came across two literary finds. One, which I will tell you about today, was a PBS American Masters film Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women written by Harriet Reisen.

I finally got around to watching it last night and was highly entertained by the likes of Louisa and her family - parents Abigail and Bronson, and three sisters - with guest appearances by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. 

The film features a combination of Louisa (played by Elizabeth Marvel) reflecting on her life experiences through her writings, commentary by Alcott scholars, author Geraldine Brooks's nod to Ms. Alcott's influence on her own choice to become a writer, and shots of the Alcott homes and the scenery in and around Boston and Concord.

It was a fascinating look at a strong, vibrant and free-spirited woman who practically worked herself to death to keep her family in food and clothing. Her father, Bronson Alcott, was not a very good provider and Louisa was determined to make money through her writings. 

In her lifetime, it was said, she earned over $100,000 from her books and stories which would make her a millionaire in today's economy. Many of her stories were published under pen names and scholars are still discovering them in dusty files. She also worked as a nurse in a Washington, D.C. hospital during the Civil War until she herself contracted one of the fevers - typhoid? scarlet? yellow? I don't remember which - but in any event it put an end to her war efforts.

I have three of her novels - Little Women, Eight Cousins, and Under the Lilacs - that belonged to my mother and that have wonderful illustrations and color plates which so add to their enjoyment.

But here is the coincidence. I don't know what made me decide to watch this DVD last night - it has been sitting on my desk for almost two weeks, but it turns out that yesterday, March 6, just happens to be the date in 1888 that Ms. Alcott died at the age of 55. 

(Cue Twilight Zone music...)

Pretty weird, wouldn't you say?