The Life and Adventures of Nat Love****

The book I'm reading now is The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, the autobiography of a former slave. After the War, Nat's father rented land from the "old Master" and the family started farming and raising tobacco. But after a year or so, Nat's father and older sister died, leaving him a young boy as head of the rest of the family. At age 15 he took off up the old Chisholm Trail to become a cowboy, Indian fighter, rodeo champion, and towards the end a Pullman conductor.

But Nat Love tells of life as a slave before he started all those later adventures. One way the slave children had fun was staging rock fights, in which two groups threw rocks at each other until one side ran away. Reading about that reminded me of something I think of now and then: Doug and I engaged in at least one rock fight that I remember.

Some of the Walker children hid behind a big sheet of roofing tin, up on the bank between their house and our storm pit, and piled up their rocks to throw. Doug and I hid behind a big metal wheelbarrow beside the well, across the clay road from the Walkers' bank, and gathered up some rocks to throw. I don't think anybody got hit. I was just practicing trying to throw hard enough to hit their tin barrier, but I dimly remember accidentally hitting someone who was out in the clear. Or maybe I dreamed it.

Jim and Doug and I used to catch tiny little fish in a creek and cook them over an open fire creekside. What fun we had!(?)

Circe, by Madeline Miller****

This is a novel based on mythology, set in the period of the Greek & Trojan wars.. Circe, a goddess and a sorceress or witch, is the least favorite daughter of Helios (the sun). Some of these characters were Titans, or children of Cronos (those whom he didn't eat), and the others were Olympians, descendants of Zeus. Circe and her family were Titans, who were not very friendly with Zeus and his descendants.

Because she tried to help Prometheus when Helios had him flayed and bound to a rocky crag, Helios burned her to a crisp, but being immortal, eventually she healed and was restored to her former self. The next time she displeased Helios, he exiled her to a deserted island, where she lived for many thousand years and had lots of lovers and adventures.

She cultivated many plants for her potions, and some of the plants, fungi, etc., are known today for their healing properties. Circe healed a lot of people as well as turning others into pigs and monsters. Her healing spells and medicines are called pharma in the book, which reminded me of something the evangelist Jack Van Impe said once. He said that in the Bible, where it says that in the last days a lot of people were doomed because they wouldn't give up their sorceries, that the original Greek word was pharma. Van Impe said that this indicated that modern people wouldn't stop taking drugs, which sounds reasonable. Jack Van Impe is still living, a very smart man in his eighties. He had memorized some thousands of Bible verses, though Wikipedia says that various illnesses and old age have made him forget some and have to struggle to remember some others.

In an addendum the author gives a list of the characters and tells who they are and their places in the Trojan wars. A lot of these gods and goddesses have counterparts in Roman mythology. I believe Chronos, Circe's grandfather, was the equivalent of Saturn in Roman myths. Hermes, the messenger, was Mercury, and the Greek Herakles was Hercules in Rome.

Very interesting book.

The Humans, by Matt Haig****

This is the selection for our next book club meeting. I read it over the weekend. It's sort of a tear-jerker, which is to say I gave up and started shedding tears on page 100. The extraterrestrial messed  up a marriage and shirked his mission, and the old Riemann theory got put on the back of the stove without a solution, again. The E.T.'s teen-aged "son" is an appealing character and worth saving from falling off the roof. All in all, the book is very good reading. The other Matt Haig book we've read was How to Stop Time, also a good book.


Tonight is supposed to be dark and stormy.

Jed spent the weekend in New York, visiting friends.

Tomorrow is mid-term election day. It's almost scary, thinking what if the current administration wins again.

Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus,by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley****

I had never read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It's very good, more like science fiction than horror. Shelley wrote this book when she was nineteen years old, and the grammar, syntax and story development are near perfect.

On Saturday, 10/27, Jed, Pat and I went to the Alabama State Poetry Society meeting in Birmingham. I hadn't entered any of the contests, but Pat did. She won a third place prize, and glory be! She won the big contest, the ASPS first prize for her poem "Rain Crow!" Made us all proud!

Carrie the nurse came yesterday and discharged me from rehab. Pat phoned and reminded me that our poetry group is hosting the Birmingham Arts Journal staff at the Leeds Arts Center. So I got ready quickly and went to the meeting. An email from Joan had told me to bring a poem to read, so I read "Lost Roads" at the end of the meeting.