yeah for me! I am part of a book club!
I have wanted to be a part of a book club for years and years. Finally, my friends and I just created one. I am hosting the first get-together and I got to pick the first book. I picked "The Scarlett Letter".
My friend Teresa inspired the choice. In one of my blogs, I wrote a description of Sawyer. The next day, Teresa asked me if I had ever read the Scarlett Letter, since my description of Sawyer reminded her of the one of Pearl in the book. I hadn't read it, but my interest was now piqued. I put it on my to-do list.
Once we had the book club put together, I knew it would be my first choice. Everyone (so far) seems on board with it.
I also started a Virtual Book Club at work. Since I am running both of them, they are both reading the same books. Makes my life easier that way.
I am cheating a little and listening to the audio of the book while I work. But don't worry, I am also reading it at home at night. :) So far, I like it. I really do!
And as for the description of Pearl...You tell me who this reminds you of...
Her nature appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety; but--or else Hester's fears deceived her--it lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. The child could not be made amenable to rules. In giving her existence a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder, or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered.
Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit at that epoch was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but, later in the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind.
Mindful, however, of her own errors and misfortunes, Hester early sought to impose a tender but strict control over the infant immortality that was committed to her charge. But the task was beyond her skill. After testing both smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any calculable influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside and permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little Pearl might or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment. Her mother, while Pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiar look, that warned her when it would be labour thrown away to insist, persuade or plead.
It was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable, perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help questioning at such moments whether Pearl was a human child. She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness and intangibility: it was as if she were hovering in the air, and might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know not whence and goes we know not whither. Beholding it, Hester was constrained to rush towards the child--to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began--to snatch her to her bosom with a close pressure and earnest kisses--not so much from overflowing love as to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood, and not utterly delusive. But Pearl's laugh, when she was caught, though full of merriment and music, made her mother more doubtful than before.
Yep. That's my girl.
Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for "new books!"
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