May Reads

Much like the members of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a happy astonishment of my life has been how one book leads to the revelations of another.  I prefer to think of the linkage of character's lives to mine as fate, destiny and explanations unfolding as they should, rather than coincidence or mere noticing.  Such was the world and thoughts of Isabel Dalhousie, protagonist of Alexander McCall Smith's Sunday Philosophy Club series.  On the heels of A Column of Fire, the history of the Scots was familiar and made revealingly relevant.  But it was the musings of Isabel herself that gave me pause, and smiles, in the way the best characters bring.  Her view of Jimmy Carter as a human too good to be terribly successful in the political scrum.  Her appreciative notice of the prickliness of mahonias.  Her ready acceptance of the fox in her garden as an integral part of her world.  The way she allowed her breath to be taken with the fullness in her heart when touched by her abiding love for her dear ones.  

Relatively light reading that, at least for me, held so much more.  In May, I read the entire series and made note of quotes I especially enjoyed ~

The Sunday Philosophy Club

              “She was tuned into a different station than most people and the tuning dial was broken.”

              “There were two classes of persons upon whom a duty of virtually absolute confidentiality rested:  doctors and lovers.”

              “There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one.”

Friends Lovers Chocolate

              “But don’t we often lie to people we love, or not tell them things, precisely because we love them?”

              “But that’s exactly the problem…  We’re all stuck with the same tires and trusted ideas.  IF we refused to entertain the possibility of something radically different, then we’d never make any progress – ever.”

              “She had been seized with a sudden existential horror.  The house had white carpets and white furniture and, most significantly, no books.”

              “There were countless injustices and difficulties in this world, but small points of light too, where the darkness was held back.”

The Right Attitude to Rain         

              “When you are with somebody you love the smallest, smallest things can be so important, so amusing because love transforms the world, everything.”

              “We never realize how transparent we are.”

              “The azalea was next to a mahonia bush, with its yellow flowers and those spikey leaves.”

The Careful Use of Compliments

              “Our possessing of our world is a temporary matter:  we stamp our ownership upon our surrounding, give familiar names to the land about us, erect statues of ourselves, but all of this is swept away, so quickly, so easily.  We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters on it.”

              “Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course.”

The Comfort of a Muddy Saturday

              “We like to think that we plan what happens to us, but it is chance, surely, that lies behind so many of the great events of our lives - - the meeting with the person whom we are destined to spend the rest of our days, the receiving of a piece of advice which influences our choice of career, the spotting of a particular house for sale, all of these may be put down to  chance, and yet they see how our lives work out and how happy - - or unhappy - - we are going to be.”

The Lost Art of Gratitude

              “Gratitude was a lost art, she felt.  People accepted things, took them as their right, and had forgotten how to give proper thanks.”

              “…virtues are best cultivated in discretion and silence, away from the gaze of others, known only to those who act virtuously and to those who benefit from what is done.”

The Charming Quirks of Others

              “Anger disfigured…  We are disfigured by anger and must avoid it.  We must, no matter how much we seethe.”

              “Gravity was there, and we felt it, but did anybody, other than theoretical physicists, actually understand it?  What if goodness were the same sort of force:  something that was there, could not be seen or tasted, but was still capable of drawing us into its orbit?  Perhaps we understood that, even if we acted against it, even if we denied it.  And that force could be called anything, God being one name people gave it.”

The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

              “She would never accept things as they were.  That was what made her do what she did…and what made her, and everybody else who thought about the world and its unkindness, do battle for understanding, for sympathy, for love, in small ways, perhaps, but ways that cumulatively made a difference.”

              “Cads, as they used to be called, do very well.  They thrive.  They live happily ever after.  It was enough to make one want to believe in the place below, where they’d get a good roasting for their efforts.  It would make the rest of use feel so much better, wouldn’t it?”

The Perils of Morning Coffee

              “Time, she felt, made quite enough claims on us, without our conniving in its relentless tyranny."

The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds

              “A single word, a phrase, a sentence or two could have such extraordinary power; could end a world, break a heart or, as in this case, consign another to moral purdah.”

              “The physical world—the world of stone and brick—is indifferent to our suffering, to our dramas, she thought. Even a battlefield can be peaceful, can be a place for flowers to grow, for children to play; the memories, the sadness, are within us, not part of the world about us.”

              “She liked a conversation that went in odd directions; she liked the idea of playfulness in speech. People could be so depressingly literal.”

              “…all the good things that we have in life are on temporary loan, at best, and can be taken away from us in an instant.”

The Novel Habits of Happiness

              “That was what counted, she told herself: those unexpected moments of appreciation, unanticipated glimpses of beauty or kindness - any of the things that attached us to this world, that made us forget, even for a moment, its pain and its transience.”

              “Biscuits are trivial, but lies are not.”

A Distant View of Everything

“Remember what you have and the other person doesn't. It was simple--almost too simple--advice and yet, like all such home advice, it expressed a profound truth.”

The Quiet Side of Passion

              “I know that we’re encouraged these days to make much of victimhood, but I believe in bouncing back.  And I don’t think we should allow people to make use miserable – that gives the victory to them.”

              “They held one another gently, as we should all hold those whom we love, as we should all hold the world.”

The Geometry of Holding Hands

              “Perhaps it was only a prolonged education, coupled with the security it brought, that encouraged nuanced thinking.  Isabel sometimes wondered whether liberalism was most enthusiastically practiced by those who could afford it:  you could be generous to others if the likelihood of your ever wanting for anything was remote; you could be kind to asylum seekers if they would never take up resources you would need yourself; you could be tolerant of crime if there was not much of it in your neighborhood.  And so on…”

              “He opened the book at random and found what he was looking for.  Three figures, in a typical Celtic circle, held hands with one another, arms in a complicated pattern of intermingling. “I love that,” he said.  “I think it says everything there is to be said about helping one another and loving one another and being part of…well, I suppose of being part of something bigger than oneself.”

              Isabel looked.  “The geometry of holding hands,” she said.”                                                           ______________________________________________                                                                           

I miss her.  ~ les