Maecenas
and
menhir
Two words? you may be wondering. Or maybe just plain, What the heck language are you talking? Well, if you were watching the finals of the National Spelling Bee last night, you'd know these were the words that tripped up the second- and third-place finishers, leaving a 13-year-old Kansas girl to win with the word Laodicean (which my Webster's defines as "lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics, taken from the reproach of the Laodiceans in Revelations).
I watched the last six rounds of the spelling bee, and I have to admit that of the last 21 words, I only could spell two of them: Caerphilly, a Welsh cheese, and guayabera, a type of Latin American shirt. Even worse, I only even recognized two of the other words that were used.
One of those words was menhir, which means "a single upright rude monolith, usually of prehistoric origin." I think I've actually seen one, near Goonhilly Downs in Cornwall, but I couldn't think of the correct spelling before the TV flashed it on the screen. If pressed, I might have gotten it, but the French origin might have thrown me.
As for Maecenas, meaning "a generous patron, especially of literature or art," I went the same way as the kid who misspelled it, starting it m-y-c- instead of m-a-e-c. I hadn't heard of this word, but I recalled the Mycenaean people of the Bronze Age Mediterranean. Maecenas is from Latin, though, so that should have been a tip-off. It would have been for the winner, who clearly knew her word derivations, and used them to get the right spelling even if she didn't recognize the word.
Perhaps if I hadn't been affected by nerves during my own middle-school spelling bee, I would have thrown myself into studying word origins and language roots. But after winning the eighth-grade division, nerves led me to stutter during the all-school bee, and say an extra letter when I didn't mean to. Tragedy! Or maybe not; now looking at words is a fun distraction for me, and not the focus of study and stress and competition. I'm amazed at all the kids who competed, and hope the love of words lasts them a lifetime.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Janespotting: Eliza's Daughter by Joan Aiken
I was eagerly anticipating getting into this take on the characters from Sense and Sensibility, because Joan Aiken (1924-2004) is an author I remember fondly from my childhood. She wrote the historical adventures The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (hmmm, Willoughby?) and Black Hearts in Battersea, among many many other novels and stories, including mysteries, period romances, fantasies, supernatural, for children, young adults, adults—well over 100 books in all. These include six novels based on Jane Austen's works, including this tale that follows the daughter Willoughby sired (and abandons) on Colonel Brandon's ward, Eliza.
The novel opens with Eliza (named after her mother) telling her tale with the story of her birth and childhood in Byblow Bottom, a village where many "unnatural" children of well-born men are fostered. Because Eliza is recounting her story in the first person, already we have a very un-Austenish tone, and as the story progresses, it becomes almost Dickensian: children (especially orphans, or may-as-well-be-orphans) at the mercy of unfeeling adults, trying to get out of scrapes and making a way for themselves. (It has been a very long time since I read Aiken's children's books, something I shall have to remedy, but I do recall a similar tone to them.) I point this out not as a complaint; I was quickly swept up into the story, and Eliza is an engaging narrator, but it does make for a very different kind of read. Did I mention that Eliza was born with an extra finger? Again, different.
As Eliza grows up, she encounters the writers Coleridge and Wordsworth, saves a stolen infant, and is taken into a wealthy family as a child's companion. Of course, this shelter does not last, and she is briefly taken in by Edward and Elinor Ferrars, serving in place of Colonel Brandon, who has taken his wife and left the country on military assignment. She is sent to school in Bath, where Marianne Dashwood teaches, and develops her own musical skills. Eventually she is forced to move again, tricked by a young dandy who offers friendship but ruins her name. She goes to London and is taken in by a duke who had once loved her mother—which comes as a surprise to Eliza, who was told her mother died shortly after giving birth. She tries to find out more about her birth father, but finds little until she makes a journey to Portugal, hoping to rescue her childhood companion, who has been severely affected by an attack. There she finds more answers, as well as a way to financial independence, which comes in the form of an inheritance from Colonel Brandon, which concludes her story.
I was fascinated by Eliza's story, if not completely satisfied with how Aiken revisits the characters from S&S. Uniformly, they are almost all worse off: Elinor and Edward are horribly poor, with Edward's pride compounding the problem until Elinor almost dies of fever; Marianne appears bitter over Brandon's support of both Elizas, and is rumored to have refused him her bed, driving him back into the service; Margaret is slaving away as a teacher with no other prospects; even Mrs. Dashwood is going senile. Not a very pretty picture, although it does compound the Dickensian air of the story.
Still, I was well pleased with Eliza's story, and her very modern insistence on finding her way in the world—at least, I was until the last page. There Eliza reveals that she is expecting a child, one which will not need to fight for her freedom. This rang false to me, after an entire book with the character taking little interest in romance, even when an arrangement with a fond childhood friend might have brought her financial security. But this is a minor quibble; I was otherwise very diverted by this novel, and I find myself intrigued to find out if Aiken took a similar approach to her other Austen sequels. Those will have to wait until I move on to other Austen novels, in a few weeks.
The novel opens with Eliza (named after her mother) telling her tale with the story of her birth and childhood in Byblow Bottom, a village where many "unnatural" children of well-born men are fostered. Because Eliza is recounting her story in the first person, already we have a very un-Austenish tone, and as the story progresses, it becomes almost Dickensian: children (especially orphans, or may-as-well-be-orphans) at the mercy of unfeeling adults, trying to get out of scrapes and making a way for themselves. (It has been a very long time since I read Aiken's children's books, something I shall have to remedy, but I do recall a similar tone to them.) I point this out not as a complaint; I was quickly swept up into the story, and Eliza is an engaging narrator, but it does make for a very different kind of read. Did I mention that Eliza was born with an extra finger? Again, different.
As Eliza grows up, she encounters the writers Coleridge and Wordsworth, saves a stolen infant, and is taken into a wealthy family as a child's companion. Of course, this shelter does not last, and she is briefly taken in by Edward and Elinor Ferrars, serving in place of Colonel Brandon, who has taken his wife and left the country on military assignment. She is sent to school in Bath, where Marianne Dashwood teaches, and develops her own musical skills. Eventually she is forced to move again, tricked by a young dandy who offers friendship but ruins her name. She goes to London and is taken in by a duke who had once loved her mother—which comes as a surprise to Eliza, who was told her mother died shortly after giving birth. She tries to find out more about her birth father, but finds little until she makes a journey to Portugal, hoping to rescue her childhood companion, who has been severely affected by an attack. There she finds more answers, as well as a way to financial independence, which comes in the form of an inheritance from Colonel Brandon, which concludes her story.
I was fascinated by Eliza's story, if not completely satisfied with how Aiken revisits the characters from S&S. Uniformly, they are almost all worse off: Elinor and Edward are horribly poor, with Edward's pride compounding the problem until Elinor almost dies of fever; Marianne appears bitter over Brandon's support of both Elizas, and is rumored to have refused him her bed, driving him back into the service; Margaret is slaving away as a teacher with no other prospects; even Mrs. Dashwood is going senile. Not a very pretty picture, although it does compound the Dickensian air of the story.
Still, I was well pleased with Eliza's story, and her very modern insistence on finding her way in the world—at least, I was until the last page. There Eliza reveals that she is expecting a child, one which will not need to fight for her freedom. This rang false to me, after an entire book with the character taking little interest in romance, even when an arrangement with a fond childhood friend might have brought her financial security. But this is a minor quibble; I was otherwise very diverted by this novel, and I find myself intrigued to find out if Aiken took a similar approach to her other Austen sequels. Those will have to wait until I move on to other Austen novels, in a few weeks.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Photo of the Week--5/18/09
Leave it to me to go to New York and find the spot with the most water and trees together. I've said before that fall is my favorite season, and this glorious day did nothing to change my mind. World-class museums, fantastic live entertainment, and 843 beautiful acres of parkland in the middle? No wonder people ♥ New York!
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