Book Review- Austenland by Shannon Hale

Austenland: A Novel by Shannon Hale

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Jane Hayes has a problem-- she is in love with Mr. Darcy-- specifically the Colin Firth Mr. Darcy from the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. Next to him, no man is good enough. A long-lost auntie leaves her an inheritance-- three weeks at Pembrook Park, a Regency-era reenactment estate in England, where she must dress, speak, and act as if she is a character in Jane Austen's England. There, in character as Jane Erstwhile, she must confront her fears about love and determine if she wants to live forever in her fantasy or take a chance on the real thing. The book ends in the spirit of Jane Austen with a suprise twist on what is actually real, and true love prevails. This was a quick, fun summer read. I read that at one point Hale was developing this as a screenplay, and it would make a great romantic comedy.


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The Importance of Words

This is a subject about which I have a constantly running inner monologue.

That is, the importance of words in our development as human and spiritual beings. Words seem insignificant-- we use them all day, every day. We use them to describe everything, from the most mundane aspects of life to the most sublime. And often when it comes to those most sublime moments, we lack the words to describe our feelings about them. However, under the surface of that, it is (at least for most of us) through words that we come to understand and experience the world. It is no coincidence in my view that God said that he created the world by issuing forth his word. And it is also no coincidence that one of the names God gives himself is "The Word." It is through words that we can draw near unto Him when we pray, and it is through words that we make sacred covenants together with God. He defines our relationship with him through the words Father, Son, Child, Holy, Divine, Brother, and Savior.

From the time we are tiny infants, we have a strong need to develop language skills to help us to gain more information about our environments. We use words to name things, to label them, to give them a story that matches our understanding. Through language we can express our wants and our needs. We also come to understand ourselves through a narrative. At least in my own experience, I have a need to have a life's story. I need to understand myself and I can only do so by examining my past narratives. What do I choose to retain? How do I choose to define myself in the words that my language and culture gives me? What stories about myself do I hold on to as being my stories? Are these the right things for me to hold on to?

We do the same with others, assuming that the words that we use to describe them (even to ourselves) are true, often without even questioning the veracity or charity of the words we select to describe them and the narratives that we place on people's lives. And then we sort ourselves in relation to others based on these words and narratives.

My challenge to myself is to examine this part of my mind and heart and think about the "self-talk" I have going on constantly. I desire to recognize the need to be charitable and to see myself and others the way God does. If only we could believe in the vision and perception God has of us as individuals and families, how different would we be? What language would we use if we truly viewed each other as "Beloved spirit sons or daughters of heavenly parents...each [with] a divine nature and destiny?" (From the Proclamation on the Family)

I have thought lately that while there is much to be learned from the Book of Mormon, and it is possible that the most important lesson that the Book of Mormon has to teach us is that perfect charity is possible. After the time when Christ visited the Nephites, Mormon recorded,

"And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people...and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God." 4 Nephi 1: 15-16

The love of God dwelt in the hearts of the people because they came to understand themselves through Christ's teachings. Note throughout 3rd Nephi how often the references are made to "words."

In the April 2007 conference, Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland spoke on this subject with much eloquence. He stated, "Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity, the three great Christian imperatives so desperately needed in the world today. With such words, spoken under the influence of the Spirit, tears can be dried, hearts can be healed, lives can be elevated, hope can return, confidence can prevail."

The Lord's Mysterious Ways

First of all I want to say that it is really uncomfortable to me to share some of these things on my blog, but I feel inspired to do so. The reason for the discomfort is not so much that I don't want to share my thoughts, but perhaps a little worry about what others might think of them, and experience with getting completely flamed on the web for having the audacity to have statements influenced by religious beliefs enter the public discourse.

Inspiration and Revelation

I just love the way the Lord hands out inspiration in little bits here and there. Over the past several weeks I have had so many wonderful things occur to me and they are all seeming to be on a related theme. Right now I'm not really sure where they are leading me, but I am curious and enjoying the journey. My theory is that one function of the Holy Ghost on the mortal is to build a literally more spiritual brain through constant exercise of the neural pathways related to spiritual thinking and experience. Putting that theory into practice has been an interesting experiment. I'm starting to try to link these many events together so I guess I'll cover them in several entries:

Temple and Family History Work
My current calling in my ward is Family History Consultant, which means I am called to help people do their family history and temple work. It is a challenge because of my natural shyness to try to reach out to people to convince them to let me come over and help them do something they are already feeling reluctant and guilty about. However, I am excited about this calling. I have been working on my own family tree as well as doing Family Search Indexing. Family Search Indexing is the process of viewing an old document and typing the information into a form that makes the document searchable. What I find is that each person becomes so real to me as I type their information. It drives home to me how much our Heavenly Father loves each individual person. For example, I typed in a death certificate of an unidentified military airman who died when his plane crashed in LA during WW2. I wondered if his family ever found out what happened to him in this accident. But the Lord knows who this man was and has a plan for him. In Alma 40: 10, Alma states, "God knoweth all the times which are appointed unto man."

Family history and temple work gives you a whole new sensitivity to the joy and love God has for each of his children. I find myself grateful for a sense of wonder that I experience when I walk down the street and see each individual person as a beloved child of God-- my own sister or brother. And mind you, I am walking down the street at the Gateway mall where the people have some serious issues. In one course down the mall you can see several homeless people, folks who have tanned, colored, surgically altered, and fashioned themselves to the point of being unrecognizable, as well as the gothic gender-benders with multiple tattoos. Yet, I echo Louis Armstrong and "think to myself, 'What a wonderful world.'" (Okay, I have a running soundtrack in my mind sometimes, especially when walking down the street.)

Another thing about family history work is it allows me to see a life in its whole context from beginning to end, and to a degree, in its eternal perspective. When I learn about an ancestor, it is wonderful to learn about how they became the people they were, how they overcame obstacles, and one thing that always stands out to me is that they take nothing with them but who they become. Ultimately all the temporal things that they have worked for fall away and become not meaningless, but history. So the value of temporal pursuits really gets placed in a different perspective. Temporal pursuits create value in the way that they force you to serve, to grow, to learn. Realizing that the word temporal is an adjective meaning related to time, and reflecting back on Alma 40 (verse 8), "all is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men."

I find myself changing my thinking (perhaps this is due to reaching a more mature phase of life- I am after all hitting middle age full-stride) and making more measured decisions about the things I choose to do and say and think with this new, more spiritually-influenced perspective.