The first eight years of our marriage were years sans television.  We did a lot more listening than watching in those days. Friday nights would find us laying on the floor in the dark and listening to radio drama.  PBS audio broadcasts of Star Wars and BBC dramas swept us into other galaxies. 

I was reminded of those evenings this week when an audio version of Beowulf arrived in the mail.  I’ve only read one translation, Seamus Heaney’s, and thrilled in his grasp of the greatness of language.  [I'd love to have another son, so I could name him Seamus (SHAY mus)].  We will soon re-read Beowulf and Lynne gave me the idea of listening to this epic.  The great Nobel prize winner reads his translation with his native Irish brogue. 

We sat down and listened to one section, submitting our whole attention to the poem.  My husband, who was not familiar with any part of the story, was captivated and stirred by the language.  So even if you don’t know this classic, you will delight in hearing it.  The muscular potency of Heaney’s translation is unrivaled in the world of literature.  Anglo-Saxon poetry stressed alliteration (matching sounds at the beginning of words) instead of rhyme (matching sounds at the end of words).  Heaney brings this across in his glorious translation:

The DVD Beowulf and Grendel is available at Amazon.  It may or may not be worth watching.  At any rate, it ought to be a crime to watch the DVD without having read (visual or audio) the book. But this audio book could very well be one of the best listening events of the year. 

Even better: combine two senses by reading along while listening.         

One of my favorite lines:

After a rich and glorious weekend of celebrating Curt’s 50th birthday, there is a natural let down this morning.  I would love more than anything to tune out; to curl up with Dr. Thorne, a blanket, and a cup a tea, and finish the last 100 pages.  

One of the difficulties of being home is governing my impulses.  I’m getting some help this morning from a little red Lutheran Prayer Book published in 1941.  I picked it up at a book sale last spring and it has picked me up many mornings since.

Here are some snippets from prayers for Monday Morning:

Amen.

Discovering a new favorite author is one of the joys of the reading life.  It’s like receiving a box of chocolates which should last several weeks, but tastes so good that it is rapidly disappearing. 

Trollope is my chocolate.

The locus of the first two books in Trollope’s Barset Chronicles, The Warden and Barchester Towers, is a cathedral city. The conflicts of diocesan appointments, the juxtaposition of humble clerics with self-serving ecclesiastical climbers, and the quest of three very different men to marry a wealthy widow carry the narrative along. 

The setting in Dr. Thorne is out in the countryside where landed gentry struggle to maintain the purity of their class connections and suffer from want of money.  To this strata of society every potential marriage is evaluated by the ability of the person marrying into the family to provide either increased prestige or an infusion of cash.  One phrase surfaces repeatedly:  “Frank must marry money.”   Unfortunately, the woman Frank loves does not have money; therein resides the conflict to be resolved.

Opposite the gentry are the merchants, manufacturers and professionals who insist they are equal in dignity to the Earls, Counts and Baronets.   Wealth is a passport into the aristocracy, but a man like Dr. Thorne holds stubbornly to his right to enter into the society of anyone regardless of  his own birth or wealth.  Class consciousness is everywhere in this novel.

Trollope writes with humor, grace and insight.  His portrayal of the ebb and flow of an alcoholic written in 1858 rings true today.  Little gems like this pop up:

The expectation of some people that doctors should work only from altruistic motivation made me laugh aloud:

The Victorian Web is a good resource to learn more about Trollope.  Contributors include P.D. James, Antonia Fraser, Paul Johnson, Maeve Binchy, and Louis Auchincloss.   P.D. James has written an introduction to Dr. Thorne here.

Hawthorne’s quote on Trollope mirrors my thoughts:

Such a treat last night – a concert held in a gorgeous church by the excellent Williamette University Chamber Choir. 

My favorite piece was Felix Mendelssohn’s Richte Mich Gott (Psalm 43). You didn’t need to know German to tell, by the music, when the choir came to these words. 
 

Professor Robert Greenberg, of The Teaching Company, on silence after a performance (transcribed from his series Great Masters:Haydn – His Life and Music):

One must always wait for an appropriate amount of silence.  Silence is the frame that surrounds any given piece of music.  We do not clap before the piece begins because we need to frame the beginning with absolute nothingness; and I trust that nothingness also includes no gagging, hacking, coughing or other tubercular signs of respiratory illness.

Likewise the end of the piece should be followed by an equally appropriate pause, that the music may exist within its own space.

Anything that disturbs that space disturbs our perception of the new world we’ve been transported to and has a terribly, terribly dislocating effect in the heart, ear, spirit and mind of the listener.

So let us not be that person who must applaud first.

What we brought to church:
   

What we brought home: