Great Expectations -- It Lives Up to Mine!

Just finished Great Expectations. I can't believe I didn't read it before now. Unforgivable, that's what that is! It's definitely in my top 50 best books of all time. I can't commit to a ranking higher than that, but top 50 is dang good. The Victorian period is just a little too... I don't know... contrived? But it had incredible (iconic) characters, fabulous dialogue, romance, intrigue, criminals, and -- Dr. McBratney would tell you -- a bit of cosmopolitanism. (I'll link to his paper once it's published.) I prefer Dickens' original ending to the rewrite his publisher forced upon him. It's more real. And, I think, consistent with the rest of the book. The rewrite gets long and is a little over-the-top. (NOTE: Don't read further if you don't want to know the ending!!) More than a decade since they last spoke, Pip and Estella happen to return to Satis House (the house now gone) on the same day, at the exact same time. They walk out out of the garden holding hands, Pip sure they'll be together. I don't think so. The original ending was coincidence enough -- that they see each other on a city street after two years. He doesn't correct her likely assumption that Pip (Joe and Biddy's boy) is his child, because it simply doesn't matter. Their time has passed. Ouch.

The last graph is killer:

I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering had been stronger than Miss Haversham's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.

I'm reading criticism today -- hope it doesn't ruin it for me. :)

Final recommendation: Buy the Norton Critical Edition. Incredible footnotes and critical essays!

Red Wine Scores Again -- on 60 Minutes!

60 Minutes just did a segment saying scientists have found a substance called resveratrol in red wine that slows down the aging process in mice -- and probably men. (And women.) I didn't catch the whole thing and it's not yet posted on the web site. But the gist was that the guy/company that discovered this just made a gazillion dollars selling it to a major pharmaceutical co. Unfortunately, to have the great effect that they talked about, you'd need to consume several cases a day or something. They're making a pill. Now that takes all the fun out of it! More to come on this topic. But I think we can conclude once again, red wine rocks!

Ace Gets Me Over Book Club Coup

Forgot to mention.... The book club I started with so much passion and hope performed a coup d'etat and I seem to be a casualty. I had to miss November book club; that's when it started. We'd all agreed to read Eliot's Middlemarch. Because it was a large undertaking, we decided to skip book club in December and discuss Middlemarch in January. But certain members of bookclub (now called Book Babes under the new regime) scheduled a meeting in December when I was in Florida. Rhonda also was out of town. So, at that meeting they decided on another "mission" and chose other books to read. I'm still licking my wounds. (Thank God for Roxy, my dog. She's licking them with me. "People, let me tell ya about my best friend...") The ironic -- or, more accurately, aggravating -- thing, is that we'd had a candid discussion about format and book choice just a month or so before. But I guess no one had the balls to tell me what they really thought. "Balls, balls," cried the queen. "If I had two, I'd be king."

Speaking of queens, I aced my paper on Elizabeth and aced 16th century lit. A silver lining to every cloud. God is good.

Fabulous, affordable gift ideas for the wine lover

Son-in-law Mark made us a wreath out of wine corks for Christmas. Very cool. And most thoughtful. I took it down so I could remove the Christmas ribbon and think about a bow for "everyday" use. When I got it down, I noticed it needs some patching here and there. The white Styrofoam mold was showing through. Fortunately, we have plenty of corks. The corks seem pretty easy to glue on. Just takes time and patience -- two things I don't seem to have a lot of. Patching is more fun, cuz I can pick some of my favorite wines and place them strategically on the wreath -- and it takes minutes instead of hours, days or weeks! Mark made Tom (my husband) a really nice, heavy duty bulletin board out of cork a year ago. I love that, too! Great gift idea.

But my advice is:
If you decide to make one of these wine cork items for a family member or friend, be sure to include wine corks that are meaningful to him or her. If you want to keep the gift a surprise, save a few choice spots and tell your loved one that you'll fill in with corks from some of his/her favorite wineries. This way, it really has a personal touch and will bring back memories everytime he or she sees it. Mark knows the wine we like so he did a great job -- and the patching up I'm doing will allow me to customize that much more.