November Update

Late this month because I didn't have a computer on Sunday and then I had to rush to put up something about the election on parent blog on Monday, and then I got caught up in the election on Tuesday. So here it is:


A List: Between books, again.


I just did a bunch of short stories from the 1910-1940 era for this list.


B List: Sholem Asch, The Apostle..............................................................312/754


C List: Maria Augusta Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers......148/312


The Apostle is a novel about the life of St Paul, written originally in Yiddish, though never published in that language, appearing publically for the first time in an English translation in 1943. There is much about it and its author that I find interesting. Needless to say I will do a big review of this when I have finished it.


The Von Trapp book is indeed the source material on which The Sound of Music is (loosely) based. It is a charming little book. Maria would probably be considered a simpleton by most book people nowadays, but she really seems to have been one of those energetic positive people who never whines and makes things, such as her marriage into the Austrian aristocracy and the family's international music career, happen, by her account without intentionally seeking them but in the course of celebrating and honoring God's creation. The book was the selection of the Catholic Book Club for December, 1949, and the tone is devout and pro-Catholic Church. Most of the book takes place after the family moved to the United States, the Austrian portion made famous by the play and movie only taking up about the first third. The captain is a much softer touch than he is depicted as being in the film, though the bits about the whistles and the insistence on formality at all times were taken from the book. The von Trapps had lost most of their fortune during the crash of the 30s prior to the Nazi invasion, though they were able to keep their castle/palace by taking in boarders, mostly priests and students. Also Maria had married the captain way back in the 1920s--in the movie the Nazis arrive just as they are getting back from their honeymoon. The edition I am reading notes that the baron and baroness had had to give up their titles and the use of the 'von' in their names upon coming to America. I had thought this was a rule that American citizens could not possess or demand to be called by titles, but I feel like this has been relaxed in recent years. One of Hillary Clinton's good friends, Lady de Rothschild, who was born in New Jersey, seems to use her title socially in the United States without encountering a lot of indignation from democratic types.


The Gallery


I was going to put up some personal pictures with Von Trapp themes, particularly from a visit we made to their lodge in Vermont around 2004, but I have not been able to find them. Which is too bad, because there were some very nice pictures. We had just the two children at that time, and we were younger, and the pictures of my wife that day were especially pretty, and I remember that now as a happy time for me, though I am sure all manner of troubles were causing me to be miserable that have been forgotten now. So I will have to find other pictures.