Books of 2019 - January to April

Happy Easter to all! Hopefully everyone's was wonderful (and nobody noticed my bowing out). Ahem. I know that my blogging has been rather sporadic lately - I apologize.
Anyways, as usual, when I cannot think of anything to blog, but have been neglecting the old thing, I blog about books. So - here are some books (reviewed in brief) that I have read so far this year. (And if anyone is curious why I rate the endings of fiction - as someone did ask about this last time - it's because I cannot stand good books with bad endings personally, or badly-done endings, probably more so than any other part of the book being done badly.)

The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength)

by C.S. Lewis

This was one of the best books series/trilogies I have ever read. It was enjoyable. It was intense. It was light and comic. It was profoundly allegorical. It had such lovable characters. It had such gripping plot. It had settings like I'd never seen anywhere before, and described so vibrantly so as to almost arouse a physical taste and sight and smell of them, truly. When I heard it was a space story, I suppose it would be like every other space story - dark and stars and spaceships and weapons and military and alien civilizations and all the sorts of boring black and silver tech aesthetics that accompany most space stories now. But was I wrong. The first two particularly had such well-developed settings that I was almost drowning in qualia.

For the plots, Perelandra easily wins the crown - all of them had good plots, but Perelandra's was great. The first one's plot seems like nothing to get excited over if you just read a summary of it, but in the book it is quite splendid and leads you on quite well. The last one took some time to get started up on its plot, that's for sure, but once it finally did, its plot might have been better than Perelandra even.

The characters were great, particularly the recurring link, Professor Elwin Ransom (who, by the way, I now have a stuffed owl named after). The Scot in the third book (don't ask me to spell his name, please) would be a candidate for one of the most amusing characters in classic literature I've read. And the characterization of Merlin in the third book was quite fascinating and definitely unexpected.

My Favorite Character - Prof. Ransom, of course.

Writing Style - I'd say a pretty easy 5/5 stars.

Morality - 4/5 stars. It's definitely for adults because of certain discussions therein, but they're quite enlightening and definitely profoundly insighted.

The Ending - 4.5/5 stars. It was quite a close, and the scene at Belbury near the end was utterly terrifying. Not to mention, the resolve of the main character's family conflict was such a relief after a whole book of back and forth stress over it.

Overall Rating - About 4.5/5 stars as well. I would actually give it that fifth star if not for a rather slow beginning in the third book (which was good anyways... just a bit less enthralling than the first two books and their beginnings).

The Lost Arts of Modern Civilization

by Mitchell Kalpakgian

This book was a collection of essays detailing some beautiful traditional cultural practices that have disappeared in modern days. Some of the subjects focused on included dressing well, letter-writing, courtship, pleasing people, and hospitality. It was definitely enjoyable, but it was rather sad because everything in it was, I'm afraid, rather true - so many practices have been neglected for no good reason nowadays, and those practices helped society and the next generation blossom. It really is a shame. But anyway, the book was very good if you enjoy the essay style (I like it well enough, though I would have probably preferred a full-on book rather than short essays collected together).

Writing Style - 3/5 stars. I really wish the book was longer.

Morality - 5/5 stars.

Overall Rating - Probably 4/5 stars.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

by Baroness Orczy

Unlike the others above, I had actually read this one before - numerous times. And it is probably my favorite book, if I had to pick just one. The allegory, the romance, the setting, the characters, the writing style, and the sheer beauty of the book (plus the wonderfully pleasant scarlet and gold binding on our copy) is just sigh-inducing, like a melodic overture to an opera or something poetic like that.

My Favorite Character - Sir Percy Blakeny, Esquire.

Writing Style - Absolutely amazing - 5/5 stars at least for my personal preferences, and still at least 4/5 for technicalities.

Morality - Only 4/5 stars for minor swearing.

Overall Rating - 5/5 star. It is possibly my favorite book, after all.

Anyone who has read and wishes to see a movie of The Scarlet Pimpernel should really seek out the  B&W Leslie Howard version - it's really the only one that's true to the story.

The Power of Silence

by Cardinal Sarah

I'm still reading this one in addition to My Imitation of Christ, but it's quite a book. It really makes one stop and think - as it's supposed to. The book chronicles how one can truly find inner potential, particularly spiritual potential merely by closing off the noise and distraction of the outside world for sessions. It is, as Cardinal Sarah points out, nearly impossible to have a tenable relationship with God in a world as loud and rushed and ours is, so silence is really necessary to maintain any sort of spiritual motivation or progress, particularly in developing the virtues and prayer life. It's been a very good book so far, and I hope to finish it soon after Lent.

Writing Style - 3/5 stars for my personal preference (I don't really like the interview style), but the efficiency and technical prowess of it is more like 5/5.

Overall Rating - So far, 4/5 at least, but I'm not terribly far in.

Overall, so far this year has had nothing but very good, very formidable, and very high-ranking books in my own opinion. I definitely encourage the reading of them, particularly The Space Trilogy and The Power of Silence. What did you think? Have you read any of these? Do you want to? What are you reading right now? What's on your list for the future? How was your Easter-Tide?

Silence and Beauty - A Lenten Meditation From Cardinal Sarah

Finally - the Lenten meditation post I promised. Hopefully it's worth something, because otherwise, I have failed in quality as well as timing and length thereof, I'm afraid... for which I apologize. Anyways, though, I mean (and meant) to make these posts a tradition, but obviously I kind-of failed last year. Here is the original Lenten post that I did (concerning the song of Violetta Valery and Lenten sacrifice).

It's very strange sometimes how much one word can do. Oftentimes, we human beings can become as distraught or as fluttery as anything just because of one word. But sometimes it's less than one word that does the most.
Silence is a strange thing. It's not noiselessness or noise, and it can sometimes be sound. Silence is, perhaps, best defined as the real quieting of oneself to truly appreciate a thing. Who can concentrate on Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae whilst working out math problems? Who can gaze at the Sistine Chapel when a vaudevillian is dancing away beside them? Who can possibly speak and still hear the last, heart-rending tones of Verdi's La Traviata as they should be heard? As Cardinal Sarah points out in his amazing book, The Power of Silence, without silence, there is nothing we can enjoy; at best, we can placate or numb ourselves with half-attentive entertainment that is shallow and light enough for us to take without proper concentration. How much more is this so for things more consuming than recreation?
Silence is the voice of God, for it is all beauty, and without it beauty is pointless, it is all truth, for nothing is more real and true than deep silence, and it is all goodness, for, without it, no one has a hope of prospering in virtue. There's not too much that's harder to accomplish, though. Meditation has always been a difficulty for me, at least, and I know many people who feel the same way. When you are expected to give everything you have - body, mind, emotions, everything - to only one thing, it is so hard. In this day and age, it is an accomplishment even to be half-invested in something. To exercise our every power towards one cause seems, well, sometimes unbearable. But this is what silence is; in fact, this is what God is: the whole of a thing, uninterrupted and unblemished, lacking in nothing. God is existence itself, the fullness of all three eternal goods, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. So it seems strange that He should dwell in silence - isn't silence just a lack of sound? Isn't it just nothing? How can God, He Who Is, by His Nature have anything to do with silence?

Silence is not the lack of sounds. Silence is unification of everything one has towards one cause. Christ Himself points out that a cause which is divided won't get anywhere. So we have to be devoted to something. That thing will either be nothing - all the meaningless noise and distraction that infiltrates us constantly - or it will be God, the full unification of everything that is good - silence.
So... maybe there was some rambling getting to it, but my point is that we need to distance ourselves via silence for a little while, especially in this Lenten season. If everything is pointless without God, then we need to listen to Him by quieting ourselves.
If we cannot give even our silence to God for Lent, then how can we expect to give our souls?

The Crusade - A Poem

My apologies for both lack of my usual Lenten Meditation post (I will try to post it soon!), and for the rather militaire rather than penitential nature of this particular poem - hopefully it is not too contrasting with the season...

***

Oh, how the cross's trumpets rang;

Hear what they had to say -

"Come over hill, come over dale,

Come march, we march away

To battle vice and win for Christ

Jerusalem, we pray -

Jerusalem, we pray!"

"As crimson as the blood we pledge

Is the red cross we bear -

Oh, come over hill, come over dale,

Come into the Eastern air,

To give your all for glory or fall

To give to our Host-King fair -

To give to our Host-King fair!"

Oh, have you heard the clarion call

That did so long ago

Come over hill, come over dale

To let all Christians know

Their time was for a godly war

Against all sin and woe -

Against all sin and woe?

And did you know that, although Time

Has since that holy ring

Come over hill, come over dale,

It still to all Christians sings:

"Standard unfurled, go purge the world

Of any unholy thing -

Of any unholy thing"?

And since, commanded, we must do

As we have thus been told,

Come over hill, come over dale,

Your courage and effort unfold

'Til our war-band may, hand-in-hand,

March into the gates of gold -

March into the gates of gold.