July 24, 2007

• Penny Plain

   
  

  

  The first book from PaperBackSwap arrived and has posed a perplexing problem. 

  This is 100 to 1 my favorite book to sit down and read in an evening or two.  It is a romance, but not at all the tawdry, gauzy stuff that is classified today as romance.  It is the kind of romance that C.S. Lewis would have enjoyed.  In my mind O. Douglas is a 20th century Jane Austen.

  O. Douglas is the pen name for Anna Buchan, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and sister of John Buchan, a Scottish novelist and all around Renaissance man.  I used to call Penny Plain my favorite cotton candy book, but that is misleading.  It is sweet but substantial, soothing but strengthening — a solid joy.  Literary and biblical allusions abound making it such a joy to re-read: Oh! now I get that one that slipped by me before. 

  Here are a few random quotes to give you an idea without giving away the story.
  
  

  She did not offer to help, for she knew that every
  man knows best how to pack his own books…
  
  You see, Biddy, I quite suddenly saw myself growing
  old, saw all the arid years in front of me, and saw that
  it was a very dreadful thing to grow old caring only for
  the things of time. It frightened me badly. I don’t want
  to go in bondage to the fear of age and death. 
  I want to grow old decently,
  and I am sure one ought to begin
  quite early learning how.
  
  She is the most happy change from the ordinary, modern
  girl.  Her manners are delightful – not noisy, but frank and
  gay like a nice boy’s. She neither falls into the Scylla of
  affection nor the Charybdis of off-handness.  She has been
  nowhere and seen very little; books are her world, and she
  talks of book-people as if they were everyday acquaintances.
  She adores Dr. Johnson and quotes him continually.
  
  He won’t read a book that contains love-making
  or death-beds. ‘Does anybody marry?’ 
  ‘Does anybody die?’
  are his first questions about a book,
  so naturally his reading is much restricted.
  
  “It’s a beastly business putting away a dog,” said
  Lewis Elliot. “I always wish they had the same lease
  of life as we have.  Three score years and ten.
  And it’s none too long for such faithful friends.”

  What do I do with such a treasure?  The book is rare but not impossible to find. Fetchbook.info shows a few copies.  I’m thankful that this edition is large print.  I’ll need that when I grow old.  In the meantime, I think I’ll start a one book lending library.  If you would like to borrow this book to read (no due dates), please send me a message with your address.  I’ll keep a list in my journal and send it out to you as it becomes available.  I’d love to share this treasure with as many as would like to read it. 

   

  • 12:22 pm
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