Spending Time in the Growlery

My keep-track-of-books for 2018

I've recently been inducted as a member of the Nibs bookclub. My membership constitutes 1/3 of the roster, and I'm related to all the members. We vary in age from 16 to 62, and have agreed meetings will be held every other month, at which time we will consume pizza or chili or such, and talk about a monster of a classic book.

I'm enjoying the feel of a book in my hands for this one

The first up is Bleak House by Charles Dickens. One of the very best things about being in a bookclub is that one is generally forced to read something out of their comfort zone. Bleak House is not one I would have EVER tackled, but I'm not the one choosing the reading list, so there it was, sitting on January's to do list, all 830 pages of it. That's two books plus some for most books written these days.

To get myself ready, I watched the entire series on TV first. Dickens is known for his colorful characters, and Bleak House doesn't disappoint. When my grandson (one of the best read people I know) heard we were reading Bleak House first up (he's one of our three members) he told me, "Grammy, you HAVE to read Great Expectations first."

So I spent the month of December doing just that. And I LOVED it. As soon as I finished reading it, I went searching and found the series had been done by PBS, so I was able to watch it too. It was SO good! If you haven't ever read it, give it a try. It's worth the work to get to know Pip and the amazingly creepy Miss Havisham.

I wondered if watching Bleak House before reading it would spoil it for me; instead, as I'm plodding along through the musty pages, I love putting faces to Esther, Mr. Jarndyce, Mr. Krook, Mrs. Jellyby, Lady Dedlock and others.

Bleak House as a TV series was great, but of course, as is almost always true, the book is better. So many sections were left out of the movie; like nuggets they pop up as I read through, encouraging me to forge ahead.

The last few days, coming back from a cruise with Cub Sweetheart, we must have been tired. Or ship lagged. Or something. Anyway, we were both a bit snippy and short with each other. Had I known within the pages of Bleak House was the perfection solution, I would have added a corner somewhere in this house as we were building it a year or so ago. Surely we could have set aside a mere 6' x 6' somewhere?

"Mr. Jarndyce called me into a small room next to his bed-chamber, which I found to be in part a little library of books and papers, and in part quite a little museum of his boots and shoes, and hat-boxes. "Sit down, my dear,' said Mr. Jarndyce. "This, you must know, is the Growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here." "You must be here very seldom, sir', said I. "O, you don't know me!' he returned. 'When I am deceived or disappointed in - the wind, and it's Easterly, I take refuge here. The Growlery is the best used room in the house. You are not aware of half my humours yet."

A few weeks ago I visited the home of one of my neighbors, and was struck that she had the builders add a teensy, tiny little room right off the front of the house. Furnished with a bookshelf and a rocking chair, it was her 'prayer closet'. A room where she goes daily for her prayer time. My prayer time is generally spent walking the sidewalks of our neighborhood, rambling to God about whatever is on my mind. I don't expect God has much of a preference, but rather is just happy that we bothered to show up.

But a Growlery? That might have been a good addition to our home. Perhaps yours also? Pure brilliance on Dickens' part. A permanent 'time out' spot would likely have been put to constant good use in a household with ten children.

Trying to finish over 700 more pages in the next week, the book is my constant companion, reading in snippets as I find them, and an hour long soak in the tub every night. Perfect end-of-winter read, right about the time many of us could use a Growlery in our houses as we're all a bit weary of cold and wet and snow and gloom.

Post apologies, forty plus years delayed, to my high school Literature teacher; she likely would have enjoyed a bit of my enthusiasm for reading classics to have spilled into her classroom. How about you? Do you belong to a bookclub? And do you ever tackle what I refer to as a 'big book'? There's something to be said for pulling one of those musty doorstops off the shelves of your local library, and letting it come to life again. It's been said, 'the best time to plant an oak tree is fifty years ago, the next best is today.' I'm planting :-)