The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)

Written in the 1380s, The Canterbury Tales may be one of the earliest tales to popularize the Middle English vernacular (vs. Latin or French) in written form.  Thus, it's not surprising that some view the author, Chaucer, as a tremendously important figure in the development of our modern tongue.  To this end, GK Chesterton called him the father of the English language.  That's why it's important- but what is it about?

In The Canterbury Tales, a group of religious pilgrims from all walks of society (to include a knight, cook, nun, priest, merchant, reeve, and so on) gather outside London to do a pilgrimage to Canterbury, to the shrine of Thomas Becket.  The host of the inn where they gather decides that they should entertain each other with stories along the way, with the best storyteller being granted a free meal at journey's end.  After this introduction, we're taken right into the sequence of tales.  Originally, the host states that everyone in the party should tell two stories- one on the way out, and one on the way back- but the book ends without everyone telling even one tale (24 are told in total), and before arriving at Canterbury, for reasons I don't know.  Some of the tales went unfinished, so perhaps Chaucer didn't have time/desire to see it out.  Almost all of the tales are told in rhyming verse- impressive.

The tales themselves are pretty good.  Some are more interesting than others, which is to be expected when you have this number of "sub-stories" in a volume.  There's a nice mix of tragedy, cautionary tales, fables, comedy, etc.  The wisdom contained in some is decent and timeless.  Overall, they're entertaining.  I was a bit surprised by the raunchy nature of some of the tales, but I shouldn't have been.  Humans have always been inappropriate, no matter what stereotypes exist of a given age.

One final thought: reading a work over 600 years old means, even though it's in English, it's not really in English we can understand.  Thus, the translation becomes important.  I chose to read the "Oxford's World Classics" version (pictured).  I'm no expert on the different versions available, but I found this one excellent.  Where possible, the translator retains the original rhyming scheme, and modernizes the English.  Purists might get angry at this, and insist on reading a more literal, less readable translation- but I found this take fantastic.

Rating: B

Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne)

I do sometimes wonder why certain things are considered classic . . . and that's the case with A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh, published in 1926.  It's a collection of 10 tales about Pooh bear, a lovable "bear of little brain" who lives in the hundred-acre wood with his friends Rabbit, Piglet, Owl, Kanga, Roo, and Eeyore (Tigger isn't mentioned in this, the first book in the series).  From the start, it's made clear that these characters are based on stuffed animals owned by the only child in the story, Christopher Robin (named for Milne's son), and it's equally clear that Milne got wrote some of the tales based on watching his boy play with his toy animals.  He probably copied some dialogue word-for-word, because there are parts of each story that just don't make any sense- and that's what bothered me.

I'm all for silly, crazy, and wild in any medium- but there needs to be a degree of coherence.  Most of the time, that exists here, but in each tale, there would be a series of dialogue that came out of nowhere, didn't make sense, and served only to distract.  Other than that, the tales are silly stories that a boy might make up, and mildly entertaining, generally involving pooh making some amusing mistake (like knocking at his own door and wondering why nobody's answering).  I remember enjoying the Disney cartoon as a child, and that series (from what I can recall) retains the spirit of the books, so it's not a pointless venture; it's just not all I thought it would be.

Rating: C+

Patton on Leadership (Alan Axelrod)

Love him or hate him, few will deny that General George Patton was an excellent leader.  Responsible for amazing victories in North Africa and Europe in WWII, he had a lot to say on leading men in all situations- especially in hostile environments.  In Patton on Leadership, Alan Axelrod selects 183 lessons or concepts from Patton directly or from the men who served under him, categorizes them, and expounds upon them.  As you'd expect with so many, there's overlap- and valuable concepts can be repeated.  But, that's never bad, and this book gives a lot of helpful advice on what it means to lead.  With so many lessons, it's choppy at times- good for reading a bit at a time, bad for overall cohesiveness- but it's valuable nevertheless.  Note that this is not a biography on Patton- each lesson presented puts Patton in a good light, and this may irk his detractors, who are quick to point out his very public flaws.  So, don't read it for history- read it for leadership lessons.

The leadership points presented here that resonated the most with me are presented below.  I took several similar lessons or quotations and put them together in a category.  I want to start doing this with every leadership book I read.  I won't expound on things below- they're just summaries to jog my memory.

Information
Get the facts.  "No decision is difficult to make if you get all of the facts."  Learn from the facts.  Face facts and be honest.  Firsthand information is always best.  Know, and don't neglect, the details.  Hit the books (of history- there's nothing new under the sun).  Demand difference of opinion.  Consider the source. 

Communication
Share Information.  "No man can do anything without knowing what he is doing . . . Generals and staff officers don't win wars!  Soldiers win wars!  The soldier must know what he is doing at all times.  He must know the objective."  Communication is key!

An Example
Always lead from the front.  Be an example.  Don't treat yourself better than your men.  Managers should not be invisible.  Loyalty must be mutual.  People are your business.  Everyone is expendable- train your replacement. 

Decisiveness
"A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances."  Fit plans to circumstances.  Know the letter of the objective- but lead based on the spirit, or intent, of the objective.  And, whatever you do, decide.  "When a decision has do be made, make it.  There is no totally right time for anything."  Wars are not won by defensive tactics.  Accent execution, not ideas.  "Victory in the next war will depend on execution not plans."  Always follow through.


Rating: A

The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson)

One way to get your annual book total up fast is to read 24-page children's books.  While most would agree this is deceptive, I felt The Gruffalo important enough to include in my reading list.  I've read dozens of books to my daughter, and the award-winning Gruffalo stands out as one of our all-time favorites.  It's a story of how a mouse evades the predators of the forest by warning them of the imminent arrival of a "gruffalo"- a horrible creature of the mouse's own devising (or so the mouse thinks).  Imagine its surprise when it meets just the creature it's been imagining!  Then, ingeniously, the mouse uses the presence of the creature to scare the other predators away, while making the gruffalo believe the other predators are in fact scared of the mouse, not the gruffalo.  In the end, mouse turns this second deception on the gruffalo itself, which flees in fear, leaving the mouse all alone to enjoy his meal, which is all he wanted.

The story, rhyming, and artwork are excellent here, and in general I really enjoy Julia Donaldson's stories.  When you read 3 stories or more to your child each day, you may as well enjoy them. 

Rating: A+

A Highland Christmas (M.C. Beaton)

 

Well, that wasn't what I was expecting.  One of the mystery writers on my British reading list is M.C. Beaton- a prolific writer who's penned over 80 books in her time.  I chose A Highland Christmas because it was short.  I didn't realize it would also be disappointing.

A Highland Christmas is a Hamish Macbeth mystery (about 29 have been written to date).  Hamish lives in the Highlands of Scotland, and is the police constable of a stereotypical, off-beat small Highland village.  In it, as you'd expect, are quirky highland folk, each with lovable, amusing, or annoying foibles.  I think most of the Hamish stories are murder mysteries, but not this one- this appears to be a "Christmas special" of sorts.  Here, a cat goes missing, a tree is stolen, and some misers learn to "lighten up" and have fun on Christmas.  How dreadful.

At 131 pages, this is a quick one-sitting read, but it's one you can skip.  Beaton is not a mystery writer in the Agatha Christie vein- she's more focused on the lives of the villagers than the mystery itself.  I pictured this as being one episode of a standard, 30-minute TV lighthearted "dramedy," perhaps in the Due South or Northern Exposure veins, for those who remember those shows.  It's like a light soap opera, in a way.  Things happen at lightning speed- so there's little room for good dialogue or character development.  Folks that have been set in their ways for decades suddenly have changes of heart, and everything is magically happy at the end- boring.  Anyway, it's not your typical mystery book, and for the unspeakable disappointment I felt as a result I'm forced to give it a poor rating.

Rating: C-

Droppin' Like Flies

You can't read 'em all- and frankly, you probably don't want to.  That, at least, is my conclusion as I decided to chop seven books off my reading list.  I always hate doing that- I feel as though I'm reneging on a commitment- but in each case, I started the book but couldn't get into it enough for it to be worth continuing.
  While I no longer plan on reading them at this time, I think it is important for me to at least be aware of them, and have a summary in my mind.  After all, I put them on the list in the first place for a reason- they're viewed as classics in their respective genres, and some of them radically changed the world.  As I'm quickly finding out, though, just because they were earth-shaking doesn't mean they're page-turners, or even desirable reads in some cases.

That said, below I present the works I chopped off the list, a brief summary of each, and why they got the axe.

Literature
George Eliot: Silas Marner
A weaver learns that loving people is better than hording wealth when a single man finds a child left at his doorstep and raises her as his own.  The story itself seems good, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't get into Silas Marner.  Many find it (and other Eliot works) highly valuable, but not me.

Religion
John Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress
John Milton: Paradise Lost
Two classics of old (published in the late 1600s), these were fabulously popular religious works in their time (and since).  Pilgrim's Progress is a Christian's journey through their walk with the Lord- through the highs and lows, the ups and downs.  Paradise Lost recounts (and expounds upon) the fall of man in Genesis.  I had the same problem with these two that I did with Shakespeare- I didn't want to invest the time to hack through ye olde English.  I tried- I really did- but I failed.  I may read a modern English translation of Bunyan's famed work at some point . . . but not now.

Science
Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species
Isaac Newton: Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
These are perhaps the two most influential scientific works produced in Britain.  Darwin's account famously postulates ideas like natural selection and evolution, while Newton's classic sets forth calculus and other groundbreaking mathematical concepts.  For the former, I tried to read it, but lost interest.  Thankfully, the last 20-page chapter summarizes the entire book, so I'll read that and call it good.  For the latter, I may read it some day, but not now.  That's almost 1000 pages of mathematical proofs, etc, so it's not a quick or easy journey.


Fantasy
Mervyn Peake: The Ghormenghast Trilogy
Evangeline Walton: The Mabinogion Tetralogy
Peake's work has been called a fantasy of manners.  Set inside a huge castle, the Ghormenghast books focus largely on the interaction between the characters of differing social status.  Meh- I gave up after a chapter or two.  Walton's tetralogy is a re-telling of the Mabinogion- the famous Welsh mythological work.  She tries to bring the original tradition to life by fleshing out the prose.  The bit I read was okay, but just not for me.  In both cases, these authors are considered to rank with Tolkien in the fantasy realm, so some may really enjoy these.  Me, I'll stick with A Game of Thrones or The Wheel of Time series for my next fantasy selections.

Gimme Gimme

Among the many reasons children are blessings are the lessons they teach us.  We, the experienced, should know better, but sometimes it takes the insanity of the young to show us our follies.  Today, as I gave my children a bath, my son Luke gave me just such a valuable life lesson.  As he sat in the water, he spied a rubber ducky- and grabbed it.  He saw another, and took that in his other hand.  He then laid eyes on a toy turtle, and managed to pick that up by wedging it between the two ducks in his hands.  He then sat there for the rest of the bath, doing absolutely nothing other than trying to maintain his hold on what he had, and greedily try to grasp more toys floating in the water.  I couldn't believe it- he was missing out on any sort of enjoyment due to his greed- his insatiable desire for more.  While I chewed on that in my mind, I couldn't help but be convicted of the many ways I'm guilty of just the same thing.

Anyone who follows this blog* knows that I think about materialism in its different forms rather frequently.  That's mainly because I struggle with it so much.  Not just the physical stuff, but the experiences, too- the traveling, the local events, the opportunities life has to offer- it's so easy for me to get caught up in it.  And,  in the last few months, I've become increasingly convinced of just how wrong, yet pervasive, it is.

Our culture is a "collecting" one.  Books, movies, electronics, games, toys, food, and other material things roll into our households all the time.  Some fight back- and perhaps you've seen the "collect memories, not things" slogans circulating on the Internet- but even then, when you dwell on that, you see how our tendency to horde has seeped into such good intentions.  Collect memories- get as many as you can.  See as many places as you can.  Hang out with as many people.  Do as much as you can.  Do, do, do.  Gimme, gimme, gimme.  We are (or at least I am) those people sitting in the tub, hording the toys and enjoying none of them. 

After watching my son and his ridiculous act, I was humbled.  I looked at the games that I own- and realized that I play only 10 of the (probably 30) that we own.  I looked at my books- and see works that have sat on the shelf for 10+ years, while I've purchased others (I own 90 that I haven't yet read).  I looked at my movies, and see dozens that I own because "they were on sale" and "it's nice to watch them now and then," which means I'll see them probably once a decade- and I noticed that I own about 20 that I haven't ever watched, planning to "get around to it one of these days."  Then I looked at my kids' toys- I won't bother elaborating on that mess.  I turned from stuff to experiences, and I saw the same.  We've done so much that it's not uncommon to see a picture and have to think about what country it was taken in.  I think on what we've done in the last two months and hardly remember, because our time is so jam-packed with activities that our existence becomes one of running from one event to the next, with no time to process.  The bottom line is, I'm the one with the rubber duckies.  Holding them, hording them, stressed out because "there's so much to do," while doing nothing for fear of dropping one.  In short, I'm nuts- God be merciful, and strengthen me to live life as I ought.  I can't have (or do) it all, so help me have (and do) what matters.

*if that's true of anyone in this world