3.08.2006
Little House
I read The Age Of Innocence by Edith Wharton, which I liked more than the Ambersons but didn't love as much as Wharton's House of Mirth. I had many scintillating thoughts about Americans and America and Americanism while reading The Age of Innocence but I didn't write any of them down. I'll come back to it. Swear.
I ordered up another round of pulizer winners from the library and while waiting for them to come in had an orgy of Laura Ingalls Wilder reading. Read every single little house book I had in my possession, and even replaced a few that had escaped my clutches. These books may not be masterpieces of literary form, but they are true (which is not the same as being excrutatingly factual) and they are simple and they are books that people love. They make me feel good and want to be better than I am now.
An excerpt from a letter from Laura Ingalls Wilder to school children, written in 1947:
The Little House books are stories of long ago. The way we live and your schools are much different now, so many changes have made living and learning easier. But the real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.
I ordered up another round of pulizer winners from the library and while waiting for them to come in had an orgy of Laura Ingalls Wilder reading. Read every single little house book I had in my possession, and even replaced a few that had escaped my clutches. These books may not be masterpieces of literary form, but they are true (which is not the same as being excrutatingly factual) and they are simple and they are books that people love. They make me feel good and want to be better than I am now.
An excerpt from a letter from Laura Ingalls Wilder to school children, written in 1947:
The Little House books are stories of long ago. The way we live and your schools are much different now, so many changes have made living and learning easier. But the real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.
