Books I've Read [Northanger Abbey]

For some time now, Jane Austen's Persuasion has been on my list of must read books. Several friends have had high praise for it, and it doesn't take much for me to read an Austen novel.

So, the other day, I went to the library in search of Persuasion. For whatever reason, they didn't have it. Perhaps it's not popular enough to have lots of copies (like Pride and Prejudice, for example). Or maybe it's so wildly popular that the library can't keep any copies in stock.

Either way, they didn't have it.

What they did have was Northanger Abbey.

In my experience, this is not one of Jane Austen's more well-known works. There are multiple film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, Emma (I equally love the movie with Gwyneth Paltrow as well as the mini-series!), and the ever-classic Sense and Sensibility.

With Northanger Abbey, however, I never even knew a movie existed... but there is one! And it is incredibly close to the book. The heroine and hero are both lovable and feel like the characters I imagined when reading.

Of course, the book is well worth the read. I found that it went very quickly—probably because I was enjoying it so much.

As Jane Austen's first published novel, Northanger Abbey really established her style. All the wit, charm, and unexpected characters in her other classics can trace their roots to this story. For that reason alone, I think it's a perfect read for any Jane Austen fan.

One of my favorite parts of the book was how Jane Austen described the heroine, Catherine, as a good and plain girl. The author confides to the reader that had Catherine not so clearly expressed her affection for the hero, he would have never seriously considered her.

The ending quip, when Jane Austen makes a comic attempt to provide her reader with a moral of the story, was possibly my favorite moment of the book. The movie did get this in at the end also, but it was missing the full context as it had in the book.

Overall, this is definitely a book and movie I would recommend.
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Crime and Punishment

"They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other." —Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

As this beautiful excerpt shows, Crime and Punishment is a story of two sinners and their redemption. Perhaps one of my favorite books, it illustrates the life of Raskolnikov, an impoverished Russian student on the brink of following through with his theory of murder. According to his idea, murder is justified for those who are of a different moral "class" than regular people. Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, was a figure who transcended the moral code that regulated most people. Because of this, he creates a test for himself; in this way, he will discover if he is of the super class as Napoleon. The test is whether or not he will commit a murder willingly as Bonaparte did.

Throughout the story, the reader sees the phrase "ideas have consequences" coming true. What started out as Raskolnikov's idea that men are not all bound by the same laws of morality soon grows into his murder of two people. Ultimately, living with a burdened conscience and the foreboding shadow of the law finding him out, he turns himself in to the police.

Even still, now in a Siberian prison, he does not quite recognize himself as a sinner. Rather, he continues to view his actions as merely the outworking of his theory rather than as the murder of innocent lives.

Finally, his redemption comes when he realizes that he loves Sonia. All along, she has been showing him that redemption does not come by focusing inward; it comes by surrender to Christ. The story ends wih Sonia reading to Raskolnikov from the New Testament.

To me, Crime and Punishment illustrated a few important truths: all ideas have consequences and that redemption is only by Christ. For some more thoughts on the story, you can see the article from Break Point.

It was certainly one of my favorite books, and it was well worth the hours I spent reading it. Its well-written and beautiful storyline both make it a book that I'll always consider a classic worth reading.

Comparing Work

An illuminated text, which had hung on the walls of the sitting-room ever since she could remember, somehow attracted Ruth Sewell's attention on the particular evening when our story commences. It was strange that it should do so, old, faded, fly-specked, and familiar as it was. For at least ten years of her life it had hung there preaching its sermon, but never exciting a thought or emotion among its young auditors, simply because its message had been so silently delivered. No new thing had happened to it that night. The time-stained card-board was, if any thing, dingier than ever; and the fitful gleams of the wood-fire, as they for a moment illuminated its surface, failed to restore the brilliancy of coloring and gilding which had long ago departed. Nor was there any thing new in the words which the firelight thus brought into momentary prominence:--
To every man his work.
And yet, during that almost instantaneous flash of light, they came to Ruth as a revelation fresh from heaven, instinct with spirit-life and replete with food for thought.

—Margaret E. Winslow, The Sewells

Recently, I read The Sewells by Margaret E. Winslow. It was a delightful story about a motherless family who had to work together to make it through tough times. The phrase "to every man his work" was a saying the Sewells had hanging in their living room. The character in the quote above, Ruth, was troubled because she didn't know what her "work" was—she felt that she should be doing something more important and influential than taking her mother's place in many ways and caring for her brothers and invalid sister. By the end of the novel, she realized that although it wasn't what she had in mind, God had assigned to her that specific work to do with all her strength.

Her sister, Orphah, on the other hand, had the distinct impression that she was not assigned any specific work. Instead, she did whatever she pleased. Her ideal life's "work" was the lack of work. The end of her story was similar to Ruth's. She ended up discovering that she had a purpose to fulfill, which included lots of hard work. Both Orphah and Ruth followed the same principle in the end ("to every man his work"), but their specific roles were very different and certainly not what they had expected.

As I read the book, I realized how I tend to look at others' applications of Biblical principles instead of prayerfully applying Scripture in my own life. Orphah and Ruth each observed each other's work and thought her work would be the same. But it wasn't. Something I've been trying to work on is not assuming my plans for the next few years must exactly match someone else's.

Although God has laid out clear commands for living, it doesn't mean that each believer's effort to fulfill those will work out in the same way. God has allowed for much liberty and diversity within the body of Christ. I need to stop searching for a cookie-cutter mold that will tell me what college to take classes from, where to work, and how to organize my day. It's taken me this long to realize that there is no such mold. Instead, we have Scripture, which is sufficient for determining my life's purpose and direction.