Basking in Ink

Summer is usually the time when people first eye the tremendous stacks of books they have been meaning to read, then eye the calendar and the somewhat-less-hectic months, and set themselves reading goals. I don't have a set reading list, but I do hope to be able to bathe in ink this summer as much as possible - reading books, writing letters, and writing White Sail's. There will probably not be half as much ink this summer as I should like, but oh well! At least there will be some.

In honour of the ink-theme of summer, and because I don't have a list of all the books I hope to read in three months, I thought I would do a writeup of books I have already read - my top ten. It was a bit difficult limiting it to ten, but I managed it, and so here they are (in no particular order).

1. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. This is a rather surprising choice for a favourite, since it was a book assigned to me in American Literature and I have little to no love for the classic literature on this side of the Pond. I slogged through the first chapters, grumbling about it as I went, until I discovered a little ways in that the storyline and the characters are made of pure Awesome. Not, I admit, a highly sophisticated analysis, but true nonetheless.

This book has two people in it that made it onto my list of top twenty fictional characters - not Hawkeye, although I liked him, but Uncas and Cora. Uncas I adore, and if he is not my absolute favourite character, he at least makes it into the top five. I also love Cora's strength and faith (although I would not go so far as to call it a Christian novel).

2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Who could not like Jane Austen's classic novel? I have read all of her works, but this one still takes the cake with its delicious wit and array of characters. It needs no explanation.

3. The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall. A children's book, to be sure, but one that can be enjoyed at any age. I love everything about it: the whimsical writing, the characters (particularly Muggles), the land of the Minnipins - oh, everything! It is just the thing to curl up with on a blue day when you want to read something cheery. The Gammage Cup is a classic, and ought to be better known than it is.

4. The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff. I'm not as big a fan of Rosemary Sutcliff as some people. Because of the emotion she elicits in her writing, I have to be in the right mood for Sutcliff's books; they aren't ones that I can pick up any rainy day. But I do enjoy many facets of her writing and am steadily pulling together a larger collection of her works, and this first book of her Dolphin Ring Cycle is absolutely fantastic. The setting, the quest, the "this is just the beginning" atmosphere all combine to give me a tight-throat feeling while I read it. But the characters are what I especially love. Marcus, Esca, Cub, Cottia, Uncle Aquila - they are all unique and wonderful.

5. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer. I seem to be especially fond of books with "of the" in the title. This work on the attributes, or perfections, of God has more meat between its covers than you would expect from so thin a book, but it is also written in a style easy to follow and understand (as easy to understand as such a subject can be) and should be a part of any Christian's library. A simply splendid book.

6. Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace. Positively the best book set in the time of Christ's life on earth. I cannot express adequately how wonderful this novel is - strong, profound, rich, thrilling, satisfying... This book is all of the above and more. It has a fantastic hero, a fantastic villain, and a fantastic heroine, too, and treats with reverence the true Hero of the story: Christ.

7. The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis. Yes, yes, I do realize this is three books and that I'm cheating, but how am I expected to choose a favourite? Many people have only read Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, but while that is an excellent series, stopping there will leave you with the mere milk of his writing. Though he was by his own admission no theologian, his fiction and nonfiction are brilliant with truth. Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength are his contributions to the realm of science fiction, but as with most of Lewis' writing, he delves into the glory of Light and Goodness and the truth of fairytales.

8. The Iliad by Homer. Crazy choice, I know. But I happen to have a soft spot for Achilles (not shared by many) and I always experience a thrill when I read about him. And the opening line is one of my favourites: "Sing, O goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus..." I have no other excuse to offer.

9. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Because, in case I haven't mentioned it before, Lewis is awesome. This novel was his last and his favourite, and though many people struggle with it, it has just as many riches to be mined as any of his other works. He takes the Greek myth of Psyche and Cupid and retells it in a vastly different light; it is an allegory, but not after the style of Bunyan. It is so deep and so thought-provoking and so evocative that, as with Rosemary Sutcliff's novels (and more so), I can't just pick it up any old day and read it. But that doesn't make it any less fantastic.

10. The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal. I have only read this little book once so far, but it is so rich with truths that I expect to return to it many times. Written in the 1600s, it was originally a letter of encouragement and edification to a friend; that friend was so blessed by it that he subsequently published it. Like The Knowledge of the Holy, it is a must-read. This is perhaps my favourite quote from it: "They know by experience that true religion is a union of the soul with God, a real participation of the Divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul, or, in the apostle's phrase, 'it is Christ formed within us.'"

I have many other books that I love, but these, despite being a motley collection, are the cream of the crop. These are the ones at the mention of which I either go shaky with happiness or become warm and content. These are my favourite sources of Inklight to bask in.

Words in Time

I don't know about you, but a stranger looking at the search engine history of this computer on a day that I can devote to writing would probably be (to understate the point) befuddled. In case you don't believe me, take a look at some of the things I researched yesterday alone.

Dutchman's breeches - Not to be confused with the saying that when there's enough blue in the sky to make a Dutchman a pair of breeches, it won't rain. Don't ask me who came up with that anyhow.

Richard Valentine Morris - One of the commodores sent to the Mediterranean during the First Barbary War. This one at least makes sense.

Mangelwurzel - I blame Jenny entirely for that one; it had nothing to do with The White Sail's Shaking.

Lunch - I needed to know when the term came into use in America as the midday meal.

American Naval Register - This is me trying to find a decent collection of records for American ships in the 1800s.

Raincoat - Yes, I looked up raincoats. I couldn't think of the word I wanted, which turned out to be "slicker."

Bulldog - How does one describe a man who looks like a bulldog?

Buck up - When did this phrase come into use?

Dark horse - When did this phrase come into use?

An odd assortment, indeed. Quite interesting, but definitely odd. Such is the case with many authors' fields of research; my friend likes to tell about the time she asked her mother how long it would take someone to die who had been stabbed through the chest with a spear. It is particularly so, however, with those who write historical fiction, since with contemporary novels the writer does not have to worry about the use of idioms and the dates of invention of various articles. Unfortunately, this business can seem very tedious to writers and is often skipped or forgotten, which is sad in the days of fast information-finding via the internet. But accurate speech is just as important to provide depth to a story as solid facts; it's hard to stay with an author whose pre-1800s character uses "Okay" and other modern slang. Glaring mistakes like that will ruin the historical feel of any story.

The process of phrase- and word-checking varies, however, from era to era. Several people who had not yet read The Soldier's Cross asked me how I tried to maintain an authentic feel in the speech, and whether I used the language of Shakespeare. The answer to the latter is no, I certainly did not, because people in the early fifteenth century had regretfully not heard of Elizabeth I and therefore didn't speak in the Queen's English. In fact, they all spoke French. Henry V was the king who re-introduced the English language to the English court; prior to that, the upper classes (being Norman themselves) spoke French. Naturally, I couldn't write the story in French, and even if I could have it wouldn't have been the same French that they spoke in the 1400s. I had to stick to English - modern English.

This necessity gave me more freedom than I have in The White Sail's Shaking, since the very fact that the novel is written in English requires a suspension of disbelief on the reader's part, and one which I don't think anyone has trouble making. I therefore didn't spend time looking up phrases like "buck up" and searching for raincoats. I also didn't eliminate all contractions and whatnot, since that gets quite irritating for the modern reader. I simply kept the dialogue slightly formal, free of slang, and included oaths or phrases that were popular at the time, which is enough for a novel set in the Middle Ages.

But with The White Sail's Shaking, being accurate to the speech of the period is a little more taxing. (Not surprising, since it seems that everything about White Sail's is more taxing than my two previous novels!) They did speak English, and they spoke it a certain way and without certain idioms. One of my characters used the expression "a dark horse" and I was preparing to move on, happy with the sentence, when it occurred to me that maybe that phrase wasn't around in 1803. I anxiously checked and found that I was right - it's a racing term that came about in the 1820s and 30s. Granted, few people would notice if I left it in. In fact, it's likely that no one would notice at all. And yet it would not be in keeping with the era I'm portraying, and if anyone did happen to be a horse-racing connoisseur, they would notice the slip. I regretfully cut it and rewrote the sentence.

Minute research isn't always an easy task, even with the internet (although Dictionary.com is an excellent resource). On the other hand, if you want to find the silver lining on the dark cloud, checking the etymology of idioms and slang is an interesting business and provides the searcher with a collection of strange and possibly useful facts. For instance, I now know about when "lunch" came to be used in reference to a midday meal. I also know what mangelwurzel is, and that's not something you get to lord over people everyday. So even paying attention to the little things has its rewards.