Blog, blog, blog

Today I joined an (In)courage Writer's Group on Facebook. When you join a group full of bloggers, you realize you should probably start blogging more. About what I'm still trying to figure out. Sure, I have tons of thoughts. But as I have no readership, I don't know what is readable. :) But one girl said that she needed to start blogging even if no one reads it. That's good.

I also realized that if I'm going to join a group like that, I should probably make time to read the blogs of those in my new community! Which made me want to share what I HAVE been reading.

I just finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Wow. Written in 1943, it shows amazing insight into, well, humans. The authoress, Betty Smith, doesn't need to have written anything else (I don't know if she did) because A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in my inexpert opinion, is a magnum opus. She was so thorough. I came across one loose thread never brought to its end--Francie and Neeley got a live Christmas tree and decided to keep it and water and manure it. Towards the end of the book I thought, "Hm, she never said what happened with that. But I guess no book can perfectly close up all loose ends." Hah! She did. Bottom of the last page. :)

See, I'm wordy. Another reason why I'm not sure what to blog about, because I could go on and on about this book. :) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the life and family of Francie, a girl living in the immigrant area of Brooklyn. In the beginning of the book I thought, and told others, "This book has no plot. It's not going anywhere. But it's interesting." And it just got more and more interesting until I've decided I think it's one of my favorite books. Minus the language. Went through it with a black pen for future readings' sake. And it's not really a family book either.

Hm, I wasn't planning on blogging about that book. But thus it happened. So I will include my two favorite quotes from the book and be done with it.

After spending a chapter on Francie's mother's side, and then a chapter on Francie's father's side, the book then outlines Francie's similarities to both, and then how she was made up of more, the flower in the brown bowl, the books she read, her quarrels with her brother, etc. Then,

"She was all of these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommelys nor the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only--the something different from anyone else in the two families. It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life--the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike."

 

And near the end of the book, when Francie was 15 years old,

 

"'I need someone,' thought Francie desperately. 'I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.

 

'But it isn't an Aunt Sissy thing [carnal] because there's this understanding that I want almost more than I want the holding.'"