I just read "The Things That Matter," having seen it on my library's shelf and picked it up out of curiosity. I loved this book not only for its content but for the timing with which it showed up for me to read. My brilliant-at-math-and-science-stuff child was having a challenge with English Lit class; this book has given me a way to relate to them the value of novels to real life stuff, especially thinking about how "universal ideas" in life play out in personal actual life.
I found Mendelson's critical reviews of "What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life" timely and well written. I highlight below several points that struck me.
. I have never, never, NEver realized the intricate complexities of "Frankenstein" til I read Mendelson's analysis. I had heard that the authoress (Mary Shelley) was brilliant and accomplished and connected in her time, but to be honest all I could image in my mind prior to this book was the film treatments of a) Boris Karloff, and b) Mel Brooks. Suffice it to say I have a whole new appreciation of the rich ideas and paradoxes Shelley wove into her story!
. Mendelson does a fine job of weaving seven stories into seven Stages of Life (Birth, Childhood, Growth, Marraige, Love, Parenthood, The Future). Never mind the excellence of each chapter's analyses; the crafting of the whole book, and its demonstration by example of its meta-theme that "things that matter are written about in great literature," excite my professional admiration for a job of craftsmenship and talent well done.
. Further exciting my admiration are several points mentioned in the preface and in the essays as Mendelson distinguishes "universal ideas" that these authoresses (Mary Shelley, Emile Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf) present in their narratives:
1) He chose all woman authors because "it has nothing to do with any fantasy that women have greater moral and emotional intelligence" but rather "a woman writer [in the 19th and 20th centuries] had a greater motivation to defend the values of personal life against the generalizing effect of stereotypes." This is still an issue today for ALL of us, I think, whatever our personal circumstances or lifestyle choices.
2) That opposite life principles may be equally true, that what is publically espoused may be privately doubted. Or said colloquially, "The opposite of a Great Truth may be in itself a Great Truth." Examples include, in "Frankenstein," the espoused principle that a good upbringing of a child will result in a good character of an adult. But: "The opposite may also be true."
To read Mendelson's "take" about these works and their authors has made me feel more acquainted with seven "tastes of greatness!"
