Navigating The Finite: February 2013

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Book Review: Her Knight in Black Leather

Her Knight in Black Leather by J.M. Stewart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Stewart's best book to date. It has the usual elements of romance the back and forth, drawing in closer, pulling away, the pain of parting and the realization that they can't live without one another. Love conquers all.

There were a couple of themes that Stewart dipped her toes into that I would like to see her develop more fully in future novels. One is the spirituality of sexual union, the meeting of Souls. It was very brief, a casual mention in a few sentences on the first time the couple made love, but it got my attention because I fully parallels my experience in life. Making love to my wife has elements of Sacred spirituality. It is something well beyond simple sex. I hope she explores this in deeper detail.

The other aspect that she hinted at ever so slightly but again paralleled my experience with my wife and grabbed my attention is the idea that marriages are really made in bed not at weddings. I consider my real wedding with my wife was the first time we made love. It was then that I committed to that woman for the rest of my life. It was also a ceremony that was attended only by those who genuinely loved us. Can't say that about the church wedding 2 years later. Stewart's love scenes are erotic and sexy yet not vulgar or over-flowerly. They mix the perfect blend of eroticism with love and allow the idea that this is not simply a hookup. There is a wholesome quality to Stewart's love scenes that puts one far more in mind of a wedding than sweaty lust. This is another theme I hope she will expand on in the future.

The other thing I liked about this novel was that there were no silly overblown fights based on dubious misunderstandings between the protagonists. They both seemed destined to face their destiny apart with stoic sadness, not petty anger. It seemed to me more of a reflection of an adult love and respect for each other than some romances where the main characters act like they are in junior high school.

This book had great character development. The characters had believable problems in their past and an interesting shared family history. I really enjoyed this book.

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Quotes

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide for those who have too little.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Second Inaugural Speech

Being Irish he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” W. B. Yeats

"In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time."

Edward P. Tryon

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." Bertrand Russell

“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”
― Harry S. Truman

"Grant, O God, that we may always be right, for Thou knowest we will never change our minds."

Old Scottish Prayer

“If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won’t."

Admiral Hyman Rickover

"The feeling remains that God is on the journey too." St. Teresa of Avila

"Wisht I knowed what all the sins was, so I could do ’em."

Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
- Douglas Adams

Trust those who seek the truth. Doubt those who find it.
. . . From The Bumper Sticker.

Religion is belief in someone else's experience; spirituality is having your own experience.

Source unknown. Passed on by Olga

ESCHEW OBFUSCATION
. . . From The Bumper Sticker

On taking your time & paying attention to details:

"Few, if any, of the world’s problems can be solved with a mere twenty minutes of attention, and yet here, in the complex sociopolitical landscape of the bedroom, we have an opportunity to create bilateral satisfaction."

Ian Kerner

"We humans are destined to live with our feet on the earth and our heads in the heavens, and we can never be at peace because we are pulled both ways."

Kent Nerburn

I am an old man now, and when I die and go to Heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightement. One is quantum electrodynamics and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids. And about the former I am rather more optimistic.

Sir Horace Lamb 1932

Quoted in Computational Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer, by Anderson, Tannehill, and Pletcher, 1984.

Well, you know the definition of right and wrong constantly changes, but the definition of honesty never does. NPR, interview with Jim Garrett.

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.”

Ted Hughes

The older I get...

the better I was.

From The Tee Shirt.

My head is firmly up my ass, and it is the 1950s in there.

Sextant in an email to a friend.

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

The H1 (Humvee) will be marketed to "RUGGED INDIVIDUALISTS". These are people who are irreverent and daring and want to be seen that way by other people, Mr. DiGiovanni said. "The rugged individualists are people WHO REALLY SEEK PEER APPROVAL...."

Source unknown.

The Next Page / Memo to: Grandchildren. Re: Life

After his life was saved by air bags and serendipity, Ray Werner got to thinking: What wisdom can I write down for the kids?

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Werner’s article:

ARROGANCE is a blindfold on your talent and makes you deaf to the wisdom of those who believe in your brilliance.

DESTINY is not a matter of chance but a matter of choice.

TO MOCK YOUR CHILDREN is to make them the heirs of an idiot.

SOMETIMES GOD SENDS US something to slow us down so that we can do more with the time we have.

LIFE is not measured in years but in moments.

A MAN’S PASSION proclaims his destiny and anchors his life. So fall in love with something. It will decide everything.

PIttsburgh Post-Gazette, The Next Page, Memo To Grandchildren, RE: Life, Sept. 2, 2012