Reading Journal - Entry #43
Beowulf, Around the World in 80 Days, and The Green Ember
Welcome back to the Reading Journal! This week, I finished Douglas Wilson’s translation of Beowulf, started Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, and continued reading S. D. Smith’s The Green Ember. The December essay for Notes from the Fray was published on Monday, so if you haven’t already read that, you can find it here. As of right now, I do plan to continue to post on the regular schedule over Christmas and the New Year but will post something short if any of that changes. With that, let’s dive in!
Beowulf
I finished this book just after last week’s entry was published, so I don’t have too much to add; just a few concluding thoughts.
This work has a lot of lessons to teach its readers. The one that struck me this time through was Beowulf’s dedication to go and fight the dragon in spite of his old age. He knows that he is not as strong as he once was, and that he may not come back from this battle. However, he also knows that it’s his duty, as king of his people, to go and defend them against the dragon. His faithfulness to his duty up through his death was inspiring. He lived for his people, defending them and winning glory for them in battle against enemies and wild beasts like the dragon.
As I mentioned last week, I’ll need to revisit this work for a slower, in-depth reading at some point but, for now, I’m glad to have at least become acquainted with it.
Around the World in 80 Days
This book has been fun to read so far. I haven’t read it before so it’s a similar situation to The Green Ember, in that I’m coming to it with no preconceived ideas or expectations. I read Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea around my sophomore year of high school, but haven’t read anything by him since.
The story follows Phileas Fogg and his valet, Passepartout, as they try to make a journey, you guessed it, around the world in 80 days. Fogg, a mysterious and eccentric man, is a member of the Reform Club. One afternoon at the club, while playing whist, his friends bring up that a newspaper has calculated that, with the completion of a new rail line, someone could conceivably traverse the world in 80 days. One of the card players says that seems impossible, while Fogg, a precise and exacting man, insists that it is. They make a wager and, later that day, Fogg sets off with Passepartout, whom he had hired earlier that day.
Another important detail is that there had been a bank robbery in London not many days before Fogg sets off on his journey. A detective in Suez believes that Fogg matches the description of the bank robber given to him by his superior and begins following Fogg to try and apprehend him. He follows him as far as India, which is British soil at this time and a place where the detective can arrest him provided he has a warrant. However, when Fogg lands in India, the warrant hasn’t arrived. I have yet to see how that scenario plays out.
Fogg, thus far, has gained a couple of days in time. He’s off to a good start but I’m sure there are some major hiccups ahead.
The Green Ember
This book has continued to keep my attention. It’s slowed down a little, with Picket and Heather arriving at a kind of underground community of people still loyal to a collapsed kingdom. The community lives in and on Cloud Mountain, where they’ve managed to learn to grow plenty of vegetables for themselves and remain mostly hidden. They’ve met some interesting people, among them Emma, a doctor-in-training. She helps Picket with a wound he received during their flight from the wolves.
Picket has been dealing with bitterness and anger toward Smalls, who seems to him to be arrogant and a bit of a show-off. Wilfred has spoken to Picket about this but it’s still something that comes up frequently. Picket is also upset at being injured.
Heather has made fast friends with Emma. While Heather and Picket have more questions than answers at this point, they have seen the large community and are beginning to put together some pieces of what the world outside of their home in Nick Hollow is like. They learn that everyone in this community serves the community through a trade, but that there are also guilds for arts like storytelling. Uncle Wilfred and Smalls have been busy with other things since they got to Cloud Mountain, so they haven’t factored into the story much in what I’ve read this week.
I was glad for the pace to slow down a little bit and to see some seeds planted in the characters that I think will take longer to develop. I appreciate the action scenes and recognize that, with the book being primarily intended for a younger audience, it needs to be fast-paced; however, I’m also hoping for some long-term character development.
That’s everything for this week! If you know someone who’d enjoy or benefit from this content, please share it with them. Also, let me know in the comments what you’re reading, what you think about this week’s entry, or if there’s anything you’d like to see from either the Reading Journal or Notes from the Fray; I’m always interested to hear feedback. Of course, as always, thank you for reading!
In Him and for His Glory