"If I Were a Boy"

Ah, Birdy. She is girl after my own heart. She is another kindred spirit. Since I last spoke of my friend, Birdy, she has cursed the love of her Uncle George and her friend, Aelis, set the privy on fire while a suitor was inside, mourned the death of a young man who died and worried for another who had gone missing in a snow storm.

Birdy is the kind of girl that I would love to call my friend. She is courageous, she is thoughtful, and she is funny. She doesn't do what is expected, just because it's expected. Rather, she wants to try new things, even if they turn out to be different than what she imagined. One day, for instance, she was excited to go to a public hanging of two thieves. She envisioned two rough and cruel men who glared and frightened the crowd and virtually dared the executioner to hang them. Instead, she found two boys, barely twelve years old, who were frightened themselves. She couldn't watch, but ran away and wondered how their mothers must feel.

I also admire her curiosity. Fancying herself a songwriter, she wonders,

     Why aren't fingers equal lengths?
     What makes cold?
     Why do men get old and bald
     And women only old?
     When does night turn into day?
     How deep is the sea?
     How can rivers run uphill?
     What will become of me?

The last line is quite telling, actually, for she has no more control over her own life than the woman has control over getting old or the river has control over whether it goes uphill or down. Birdy's frustration with being born a girl is also evident in a list she made of everything boys can do and girls cannot:

     go on crusade
     be horse trainers
     be monks
     laugh very loud
     wear breeches
     drink in ale houses

     cut their hair
     piss on the fire to make it hiss
     wear nothing
     be alone
     get sunburned
     run
     marry whom they will
     glide on the ice

What is truly heartbreaking about this list is that many of these things are activities we take for granted today. None of us would think to refuse to allow our daughters to have a haircut or run. The image of a girl gliding on the ice invokes a sense of pure freedom, and it's sad to think Birdy couldn't experience that. Just as thought provoking, however, is the idea that she couldn't marry whom she chose. It was the standard of the day, but it's still so shocking to think that men chose husbands for their daughters based on who would offer the most money or bring them the most prestige and power.


I have often said that I am glad I was born where I was born and in the time I was born because I absolutely love having running water and an indoor bathroom. What Birdy has reminded me, though, is that I am also grateful that my daughters are not "in danger of being sold like pigs at autumn fair."

I'll keep you posted.

Little Birdy

Ahh... I feel so much better now that I've made a new friend.

I am actually amazed that I never met Catherine, Called Birdy when I was young. It's the story of an adolescent girl living in medieval England. It's written in the form of the girl's diary, offering a more personal glimpse into her life. I would have loved this book when I was a kid! I loved books that featured girls my age, regardless of their situation. I loved Anne Shirley and Emily Starr, orphans living on Prince Edward Island, Canada in the 1800s. I loved Jo March, who was strong, and balanced her ambition with her love for her family, and Polly Milton, who exhibited the ideals of

 

charity and humility even among her friends, who were more interested in material, superficial things than they were the quality of their character. I loved Claudia Kincaid (and her brother Jamie) and envied her adventures in Metropolitan Museum of Art. I considered Susan and Lucy Pevensie (and their brothers Peter and Edmund) to be my dear friends and enjoyed their journeys to Narnia as though I had been there myself. Somehow, though, Catherine, Called Birdy escaped my attention.

How I discovered her wasn't really typical. Usually I get suggestions from my mother, a friend, or pouring over reviews on Amazon or Goodreads.  Karen Cushman's novel, though, I found because I liked the name Birdy and I wanted to know what formal name could be given on a birth certificate if a parent wanted to call their child Birdy.

Perhaps I should have prefaced this post with a small fact about myself. You see, I love names. It's an extension of my love for words, and began in my personal Bible study when I was a teenager. Knowing that Benoni (what Rachel named her youngest son just before she died) means "son of my sorrow," but that Benjamin (what Jacob re-named Benoni) means "son of my right hand" is somewhat telling. The names of all of Jacob's twelve sons are significant, in fact. When I realized that Nabal (1 Samuel 25) means "fool," however, I became fascinated. It wasn't as though Nabal wasn't foolish. "Fool" perfectly describes Abigail's first husband. I just couldn't fathom a mother naming her son "Fool." This sent me on a journey, where I met Henri Daniel-Rops through his book, Daily Life in the Time of Jesus, and became familiar with books written by Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz, and later with their website, Nameberry. It is on this site that I came across references to my new friend, Catherine, otherwise known as Birdy. So I suppose, in a round about way, I did meet Birdy through friends, albeit author-friends.

But I digress...

As I said, Catherine is the daughter of a minor knight in 13th century England. She is the youngest child, and the only girl, having three older brothers. Her best friends are a young goat hearder with one leg longer than the other and a girl who takes a shining to Birdy's beloved Uncle George, who has been away fighting in the Crusades.

Birdy is somewhat resentful of the expectations placed upon her. While her mother insists that she spend time learning to sew and embroider, her father attempts to find her a husband so that he might add to his own wealth. Birdy does her best to escape her family's plans for her, attempting to run away with the Jews who have been banished from England, and contemplating disguising herself as a boy so she can join a monastery like her brother, Edward.

It is this part of Birdy's life with which I can identify, and with which I would have identified as a teenager. Having grown up with the expectations of my family and with those of my church, I can understand her frustration. Although I wanted nothing more than to travel the world and to go to college and study history, art, and  literature, my family and my church expected me to marry young and be a stay-at-home mother to my many, many children. I succumbed to my predestined life, at least for a time. In hindsight I wonder how my life might have turned out differently if I had been brave enough to follow my own path, but I wouldn't change the path that I took for anything. (My children are far too wonderful!) I am enjoying spending time with the less submissive Birdy, though, and I am looking forward to seeing how her life turns out.

I'll keep you posted.

Moving On...

I don't think I was ambiguous when I discussed The Man Who Was Thursday last week. I readily admitted that it was slow and laborious reading. I marched on, however, hoping that the story would carry me through the antiquated language and the dry wit (I was never quite sure as to whether it was supposed to be funny or not).

I cannot tell you how many Amazon reviews I read, claiming this book was among the greatest ever written. Perhaps it is. Perhaps I am among the minority who just doesn't get it. After all, it is a terrific story in theory. It is the story of Gabriel Syme, the average joe, who stumbles into a position with the police to stop the dreaded anarchists in their plot to destroy government, and humanity along with it. Over the course of the book, he discovers that more than half of the counsel that he infiltrates is also among the police. As they remove their disguises, the reader can't help but be less and less surprised with each false nose or pretended limp.

I truly gave it my best shot. I read it faithfully over lunch breaks at work, before bed, and spent two hours reading it today as my children played Monopoly with my parents. At the end of the two hours, I realized that for the first time in my life I didn't care how it ended. I only wanted it to be over. I believe that this realization might have shocked me much more than it does you.

I have never in my life given up on either a book or a film for fear that it will get better and I will have missed it. (Full disclosure: part of my reasoning is also the slightly obsessive compulsive need to see a situation resolved.) I have muddled through John Bunyan's allegorical Pilgrim's Progress and sat through the entirety of The American staring George Clooney. I may have complained a lot, both during and afterward, but I never, ever quit.

Until today.

Mr. Syme and his cohorts will have to foil the anarchists without me. I must, for my own sanity, find another friend with whom to spend my time. Having said this, I have to say that I have, indeed, made a friend in the last few weeks. I haven't talked about her because I met her through a book I was required to read in a class I am presently taking. I only mention her now because I plan to take some of her advice, and I thought I might share it with you.


Donalyn Miller, teacher and author of The Book Whisperer, recommends that adults, and teachers in particular, should read children's books. I am going to take my children to the library with me tomorrow, and I plan to spend my time with them in the children's and young adult sections, rather than in looking for the usual mystery or historical novel to which I usually gravitate.

My son has recommended the Deltora Quest series, by Emily Rodda. He is currently reading Dragon's Nest, the first in Rodda's second Deltora series, Dragons of Deltora. My eldest daughter recommends anything by John Green, which I immediately reject. I rethink my position, though, knowing that this isn't what I would want for her to do. I want my children to keep an open mind about authors and genre. My younger daughter wants me to read a series by Nick Bruel entitled Bad Kitty. She says they're hilarious. I am put off by the title. My other son swears by a series called Bone, by Jeff Smith. They are graphic novels, to which I am not opposed, having read V for Vendetta my freshman year in college.  I suspect I will check out several different types of books by several different authors. I am excited to read books that have been recommended by my children, and that I in turn may one day recommend to my students.

I'll keep you posted.

My Pal Thursday

Okay, so it's a little early to determine if Thursday and I will be pals, but I couldn't resist the title. It hearkens back to the film His Girl Friday, staring the incomparable Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and  My Gal Sunday a book by Mary Higgins Clark that was made into a television movie of which we will not speak. While His Girl Friday is a romantic comedy (one of the rare films that is both romantic and comedic), and My Gal Sunday is a collection of four mysteries solved by an ex-president and his congresswoman bride, The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton is not at all romantic, and while it is comedic, it is a witty humor rather than a silly humor. I'll be honest and say that it is a more difficult read than the other books I've blogged about. It was written in 1907 and has a style that reminds me of Kate Chopin or Robert Louis Stevenson.

      "Then may I ask you to swear by whatever gods or saints your religion involves that you will not reveal what I am now going to tell you to any son of Adam, and especially not to the police? Will you swear that! If you will take upon yourself this awful abnegation, if you will consent to burden your soul with a vow that you should never make and a knowledge you should never dream about, I will promise you in return... "

     "You will promise me in return?" inquired Syme, as the other had paused.

     "I will promise you a very entertaining evening." Syme suddenly took off his hat.

     "Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined."

 Like Chopin and Stevenson, Chesterton's novel is one with both entertainment value and social commentary, although the message is not quite the same. While Chopin spoke eloquently of the humanity of women and the black population, and Stevenson spoke about the duality of mankind and respect for differences, Chesterton's novel comments on the battle between good and evil and the failure of mankind to truly understand the universe.

The story surrounds Gabriel Syme, a man recruited by Scotland Yard's secret unit to undo the anarchists headquartered in London. Through a series of coincidences (or are they?), he manages to get himself elected as one of the seven member High Counsel of Anarchists who are known as the seven days of the week. As you may have guessed, Syme is referred to as Thursday.

When I first began my journey with Thursday, his story felt old-fashioned and irrelevant, even though it was well-written and entertaining. The deeper I get into the plot, however, the more relevant it seems. It is perhaps more relevant now than it was when it was written more than a hundred years ago. Instead of fighting anarchists, now our police force (and our military, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, etc.) are fighting terrorists. While the philosophies of the rebels may have changed, their methods have not. Both anarchists and terrorists use death and mass destruction to make their point, and there are many brave men and women who work every day to bring the plots of the destructors to naught.

I hope I will be able to count Syme as a friend. He may talk a little funny, and may even look a little strange with his pointed beard, but he seems like a really great character. He manages to be intelligent, funny, and wants to make the world a better place. That sounds like a good friend to have.

I'll keep you posted.