Our
tan is hard won, but we know it will soon fade as the days grow shorter and the
words of that curmudgeonly scold Jeremiah pierce us once again: “The harvest is
past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
Yet
college football returns and the metrosexual in us wonders if pleated khakis
are making a comeback, given the overpaid coaches we see spouting jeremiads of
their own about “execution” and “we need
to make adjustments” to attractive lady reporters on the sidelines at halftime. Perhaps all is not lost. It is little things
that keep us looking forward to the autumn sunshine and 20-foot putts drained.
But
we have been touched by our summer reading beyond the Holy Bible, so we’ve got
that going for us (see “Caddyshack”).
George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” is one of those books we should have read
many years ago, but we just found her this year, and have trembled. Gotta tell you, dear reader,
we love this gal. OK,
we’re a sensitive guy. The heroine dreams of accomplishing great things, but a
lot of other things happen on the way; yet she remains authentic through a
misguided marriage, widowhood and eventual union with the man she loves and who
loves her. Eliot says this about her:
“…for
the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that
things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to
the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
We
expect our tomb, and probably yours, gentle reader, will remain unvisited as
well.
The
plot of “Daniel Deronda,” another Eliot masterpiece, is flawed by unlikely
coincidences, but the portrait of the heroine Gwendolen is so affecting that it
reminded us of our struggle to be “good” when our first instinct is to think of
our superior selves:
“Those
who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of calamity as what
happens to others, feel a blinding credulous rage at the reversal of their lot
and half believe that their wild cries will alter the course of the storm.” If only Donald Trump could learn to read.
We
have long been a Civil War buff, having visited battlegrounds from Pea Ridge in
the west to Gettysburg in the east, so we were inspired by the events in
Charlottesville and Confederate monument brouhaha to take a stab at Jefferson
Davis’ ‘Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.” We recommend it for those interested in
arcane legal arguments over the legitimacy of secession, but a page turner it
is not. We all know how it ends.
Far
more illuminating is James M. McPherson’s “Embattled Rebel,” a surprisingly
sympathetic view of Davis
We
performed our annual re-reading of “Hamlet,” and discovered that we are more
like the gas bag Polonius than we would like to admit. We are very good at tut-tutting. We have an opinion on everything and are
convinced we are wise, despite our track record.
Our
favorite read was a collection of Scott Fitzgerald stories that somehow have remained
buried, “I’d Die for You and Other Lost Stories.” Some are weak, but the tales of love won and
lost have a special attraction for us.
Our favorite was “Trouble,” the nickname of a heroine who reminded us of
an old girlfriend. Which was nice.
