The MopPhil Book Club

My absolute favourite blog series feature is from our very own DaniBP and her wonderful Mop Philosophy Book Club.  I sent Dani an email lobbying for Middlemarch to be her next selection and then knowing how busy she is with her renovation project and move I told her I would be more than happy to help in any way should she be too overwhelmed with everything else going on.  As it turns out she has accepted my offer so your GSL will be assisting Dani for the next Mop Philosophy Book Club to be held on Saturday, November 22nd.  Dani read Middlemarch when she was 15 and I am hoping circumstances allow her to reread this classic so we can hear her perspective nearly 3 decades later.  Dani always writes a superb preview announcing the selection and her Book Club introduction is always insightful and beautifully written.  I only wish I had read Dani's brilliant introduction for To Kill a Mockingbird prior to reading the book as I found the young narrator tough going likely due to starting TKAM the day after reading a book with a much older British narrator.

'George Eliot' pen name of Mary Anne Evans
Aged 30 by the Swiss artist Alexandre Louis François d'Albert Durade (1804–86)
from wikipedia

Why Middlemarch? I periodically skim the British papers and came across the Daily Telegraph's list of 100 best novels which had Middlemarch ranked at the very top.  Also, I read where both Martin Amis and Julian Barnes (he's my favorite living author) have called it the best novel in the English language which shocked me as I had never heard it mentioned in the top rank with Tolstoy, Stendahl, or Jane Austen.  Also, I think Martin Amis is a brilliant nonfiction writer and nobody writes better about writers and writing but am always puzzled why I find most of his novels so deeply unsatisfying. 

I am hoping Dani gets a large turnout for her book club as we at The Den feel duty bound to see that it becomes a huge success since that is what we are all about. The Den is a champion of women of merit. The Den is a champion of literary excellence. The Den is about promoting more active engagement with The Arts as it leads to a more fulfilling life.  My children's book series is specifically designed to be a shared experience between caregiver and child. It is a little overwritten for it's target audience to help build vocabulary and promote discussion with a little moral instruction. I want these children to grow up loving the art of language, storytelling, and have deeper literary connections to those they share these early reading experiences with.  My goal is a parent and child who begin with reading one of my stories together will one day read a book like Middlemarch together.  I think of all the mediums of artistic expression, a novel is the form you become the most deeply involved with.  I will never forget meeting my best friend's mother for the first time. My friend assured me that his mother and I would connect right away as she was the lone serious reader in a family of doctors, engineers, and lawyers. We were at brunch and it just so happened that we had both recently finished The Professor and The Madman which is actually a superb work of creative non-fiction that steals your heart. When I saw her face light up, I knew we were dear friends for life.  When I was in Iraq, she had her granddaughters load an ipod with Christmas music and sent it to me just after Thanksgiving.  Great literature makes our lives more meaningful.

Pearls Before Swine...

If diamonds really are a girls best friend they'll tell MM she looks better in these.

Today is my 50th Birthday and this digital age has much that vexes me but there are also enormous benefits I must learn to take greater advantage of.  For instance, in a matter of seconds I can listen via youtube to T. S. Eliot reading The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock and hear how "the women come and go talking of Michelangelo" or an interview with the fascinating Orson Welles, and often happen upon new subjects that intrigue and then being quickly able to feed my curiosity.   Also the internet has allowed me to connect with kindred spirits from all over the world and share a little bit of ourselves that those closest to us may not even be aware of.  The trick of course is to make these internet and other digital age on-demand conveniences enhance our lives and facilitate actually meeting those kindred spirits and getting out and engaging with those interesting people, places, and things we have stumbled across online.

Ladies, Vermeer & GSL know a thing or 2 about beauty.

Oh yes back to pearls, they are my absolute favorite piece of jewelry. They always look good on a woman and tell me she's someone I would find interesting.  I can't tell the difference between real or fake pearls and don't care either way.  I am not big on jewelry and of course never wear any but the one gift I'd purchase for my Immortal Beloved would be a single strand of pearls.

Mum around age 20.

The Old North State

DRL, Mum, and GSL Westport, CT 1967

I am in North Carolina this week visiting my Mum and brother with only sporadic internet access.  The Lion's Den will be back with a vengeance on Monday.