August Recap and a London Dilemma

Books read: fourteen

Books still reading: one - One Man's Meat by E.B. White

Books reread from my List of 10 - five

Books returned to the library unread: none

I am at a loss as to how to approach my September reading. In honor of the Queen's Jubilee, I was going to spend it reading London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd. I have had the hardcover edition for years (it was published in 2000). I just pulled it off the shelf and see that it contains 79 chapters and 760 pages not including the index and a 13-page Essay on Sources. Whew. That may be the reason I have not started on it.

Do I want to spend an entire month reading one book? Even a book that I apparently paid $45 for?

Well, since I have it at hand there is no harm in beginning it. Be prepared for reports.

Dog Training Made Easy

E.B. White and dachshund, perhaps Fred?

 I have owed dogs and I have owned cats. They both bring their own joys and sorrows and frustrations. Here, from One Man's Meat is E.B. White's take on training his own dog, Fred. These are just the opening remarks. He goes on to discuss puppy shopping (although he writes that he has never had to do that); housebreaking; and dog loyalty.

There is a book out called Dog Training Made Easy and it was sent to me the other day by the publisher, who rightly guessed that it would catch my eye. I like to read books on dog training. Being the owner of dachshunds, to me a book on dog discipline becomes a volume of inspired humor. Every sentence is a riot. Some day, if I ever get a chance, I shall write a book, or warning, on the character and temperament of the Dachshund and why he can't be trained and shouldn't be. I would rather train a striped zebra to balance an Indian club than induce a dachshund to heed my slightest command.

For a number of years past I have been agreeably encumbered by a very large and dissolute dachshund named Fred. Of all the dogs whom I have served I've never known one who understood so much of what I say or held it in such deep contempt. When I address Fred I never have to raise either my voice or my hopes. He even disobeys me when I instruct him in something that he wants to do. And when I answer his peremptory scratch at the door and hold the door open for him to walk through he stops in the middle and lights a cigarette, just to hold me up.

Calculating the Cups

Alexander McCall Smith
Author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
series

Yesterday I ended my post with a question:

How many cups of bush tea will it take before all these dilemmas are sorted out?

The person with the dilemmas is Mma Ramotswe, owner of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency in The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection by Alexander McCall Smith.

When I posed the question about the tea, it wasn't until later in the evening that I turned the page and discovered the very next chapter was called "How Many Cups of Tea...." in which Mma Ramotwe and her assistant Mma Grace Makutsi discuss that very question on their way in the little white van to the edge of the Kalahari to find the matron of the children's orphanage.

They start to count the number of cups of red bush tea that Mma Ramotswe drinks each day. Turns out it is about ten. And that is before the evening tea, so about fourteen cups each day. Mma Makutski quickly calculated and rounded that out to one hundred cups of tea per week.

"One hundred cups," repeated Mma Ramotswe. "That will be doing me a lot of good. One hundred cups of red bush tea, Mma. The bush tea is full of good things. It will be making me very strong." She paused. "I am not ashamed of all that tea, Mma."

"Of course not," said Mma Makutsi. "There is nothing to be ashamed of in drinking one hundred cups of tea a week, Mma. Which is..." She paused again. "More than five thousand cups of tea a year. That is very impressive."

I am happy to report that the tea works; all the problems were sorted out.

Now, I will be drinking tea while waiting for the next installment in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

A Cup of Bush Tea Soothes the Nerves

Things are not boding well for Mma Ramotswe and her people in Gaborone, Botswana. The owner of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency faces many troubles in the latest adventure, The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection.

On a good note, she and her assistant/secretary Mma Grace Makutsi receive a surprise visit from someone they greatly admire and never thought they would meet.

On a not so good note, one of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's apprentices finds himself in a spot of trouble with the law - of course he is innocent, but will the court see it that way? And, the children's orphanage is facing big changes that are not really for the good of the children but perhaps more for the good of the pockets of one of the members of the board.

Oh dear, oh dear. Precious Ramotswe has her hands full. Her spirits are down and it is hot. How many cups of bush tea will it take before all these dilemmas get sorted out?

Ice in the Inkwell

From E.B White's One Man's Meat:

The cat, David, is lying beside me, a most unsatisfactory arrangement, as he gives me hay fever. My sensitivity to cats defeats the whole purpose of a cat, which is to introduce a note of peace in a room.

(Who names a cat David?)


How contagious hysteria and fear are! In my henhouse are two or three jumpy hens, who, at the slightest disturbance, incite the whole flock to sudden panic -- to the great injury, nervously and sometimes physically, of the group. This panic is transmitted with great rapidity; it fact it is almost instantaneous.

(Can you say Chicken Little?)

The first sign of spring here is when the ice breaks up in the inkwell at the post office. A month later the ice leaves the lakes. And a month after that the first of the summer visitors shows up and the tax collector's wife removes the town records from her Frigidaire and plugs it in for the summer.

(I love the image of stabbing a dip pen through a layer of ice to get to the ink underneath.)

Create Your Own Artist's Journal

I spend some of my time outside of buying, reading, and writing about books trying to learn how to paint with watercolors. It is not easy. Believe me, it is easier to get words on paper than paint on paper.

Two years ago, in preparation for my trip to Paris and Italy, I decided to take up sketching and watercolor painting to record what I saw. (I was a bit sick of words at the time and didn't want to keep a written journal.) I had never done either before. I was not artistically inclined that way - according to my eighth grade art teacher. But she is long dead I am sure, so I thought maybe I was safe now in trying to draw and paint without fearing that she would swoop down to record an F next to my name in her grade book.

It has been fun and frustrating. Although I have been taking some private lessons and studio lessons, I recently found a book at the library that intrigued me. It is called Create Your Own Artist's Journal by Erin O'Toole. I spent time this weekend reading it and studying her sketches and paintings of her garden flowers, butterflies and bumblebees, cats and dogs, deer and turtle, farmlands and city streets.

I like her ideas of capturing images for one's journal close to home, then venturing out into the neighborhood, the marketplace, the countryside. She offers good instructions on observing and recording images that make up one's days. The weather, a cat napping, a hummingbird flitting about, a neighbor's iron gate, a family feeding ducks - all just waiting for your attention.

She gives helpful hints and tips for making up a travel kit so you can create art anywhere you go, creating a routine, and page design. And her own watercolors and sketches are helpful studies. She also makes handwritten notes on the pages to add to enhance her sketches. The best of both worlds - pictures and words. I found the book to be most helpful.

She writes:
Cherish your journal time and use it to gather your thoughts, sort out the complexities of life, and quietly observe your surroundings. Filling your books with the life around you, journals become a reflection of the present and, in time, will hold unique glimpses of your own history.

One Man's Meat by E.B. White

E.B. White at his writing table
(Photo by Jill Krementz)

Today I am reading my new (old) copy of One Man's Meat which is #8 on my List of 10. I have a paperback edition with this lovely black and white photo of Mr. White sitting at his wooden writing table in his writer's shed. An open window shows water and coastline in the background. On his desk are a typewriter, what looks to be an ashtray, and some sort of small basket perhaps used to hold pencils or erasers. The photo was taken by Jill Krementz and is included in her book The Writer's Desk (which I wrote about here.)

The new (old) book was published in 1944. It has a green cloth hardback cover. I bought it yesterday at a used book fair. It is smaller in size - 5 inches by 8 inches - and lighter than the paperback which measures 6 inches by 9 inches. The 1944 edition is much easier to hold. The 1997 paperback is stiff and a bit too big to rest comfortably in my hands. It is also perfect bound which means to doesn't want to open flat.

Let's put these essays themselves in context. First, Mr. White was about 40 years old when he wrote them - he was born in July 1899.  They were written right before and during World War II. (There is a note on the copyright page that the book was "manufactured in strict conformity with Government regulations for saving paper.") His first children's book, Stuart Little, wouldn't be published until 1945 and Charlotte and Wilbur of Charlotte's Web wouldn't be born until 1952.

These are really journal musings that Mr. White wrote for Harper's Magazine between 1938 and 1942. They were written from his Maine farm and contain many references to chickens, turkeys, seeds, foxes, dirt roads, dogs, eggs, and other farmish things. There is mention of goings on in the world, but mostly these are the thoughts of a man living the seasons on his farm.

Now why would an urban woman living in the 21st century want to read the thoughts of a man living in the countryside and written over 70 years ago. Well, for one thing, the writing is as crisp and clear as the morning air on Mr. White's farm. He wants to write about chickens? I have chickens living next door to me. He wants to write about the weather? I have experience with rain, snow, drought, and the turning of leaves. He wants to write about his neighbors? I have neighbors; they just live closer than his. He wants to write about war? I read and hear about war - in whatever country the U.S. happens to be fighting in - every day.

Looking at it like that, there don't seem to be many differences, do there?