October 2023 Tradition

"Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as... as... as a *fiddler*--on the roof!"

October's theme is tradition! There are endless possibilities: cultural traditions, familial traditions, holiday traditions, marriage traditions, and institutional traditions. Webster's defines tradition as an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (such as a religious practice or a social custom) or a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable.

Some possibilities:


Other possibilites:
Anna Karenina
The Joy Luck Club
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Kite Runner
North and South
The Keeping Quilt
A Suitable Boy
Soul Food Sunday
Braiding Sweetgrass
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
Pachinko
Hillbilly Elegy
Twas the Night Before Christmas

Both fiction and non-fiction books are acceptable.

What can you recommend? What will you be reading?

Here is the link to the Wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Reading_Through_Time_Challenge

I am planning on reading The Good People by Hannah Kent. Set in 1820s Ireland the story revolves around a herbal healer, Irish traditions and superstitions.

I think I will try The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood) as a myth is an oral tradition.

Interestingly, October's topic of Tradition could tie in with November's topic of Indigenous Peoples, considering that indigenous societies are often highly traditional. I have quite a number of books on Samoa (Margaret Mead's and the fiction of Albert Wendt) but I'm going to hold them for November.

To get another Big Fat Book and also a Library of America under my belt, I think I'm going to do the LoA's American Conservatism: Reclaiming an Intellectual Tradition compiled and edited by Andrew Bacevich, the founder and Board Chairman of The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, the leading anti-interventionist foundation.

I also have, somewhere around the house, Bradley Birzer's Russell Kirk: American Conservative, but I don't know if I can find it. Russell Kirk, the leading traditionalist among his contemporaries, was the intellectual father of post-WWII American conservatism; and (ignoring the warnings of his friend T.S. Eliot) he signed on as one of the founding editors of National Review. A consistent anti-interventionist (he voted Socialist in 1944 for the antiwar-leaning presidential candidate Norman Thomas), Kirk drifted away from National Review during the Vietnam era because of Kirk's opposition to that war.

I like the idea of the patchwork quilt,I might just start there. And may have to reread the original fiddler on the roof by Sholom Aleichem, its been a while. Also interested in Sephardic Jewish culture (they come from the middle east and spain as opposed to Ashkenazi who came from europe, and russia) I know some basic history but Im looking for some novels to explain so one I found was Kantika Also, rather serendiputous, a friend gave me bread givers by an author who grew up in a very strict orthodox family in the 20 and how she managed to break away.

This theme is so wide it's hard to know where to start thinking....

>6 john257hopper: When in doubt, I start by doing a search on tags, and they'll show a check mark for books that you have catalogued and are perhaps on your shelves but not yet read. Try this and then explore the sub-tags further.

Also, next month's topic is Indigenous Peoples, and indigenous peoples tend often to be people of tradition so there might be some overlap between this month's books and next's.

>7 CurrerBell: Thanks. "Tradition" is not a tag I use, or would ever consider using really, but I will give my choice some deep(ish) thought.

>8 john257hopper: John, that kind of tag search doesn't target tags that you use. It targets tags used widely by LT members. I don't use "tradition" as a tag either, but I enter "tradition" in the LT search box (this is the main search box, not the search box for your library) and this gives me lists of books tagged by LT members. The check mark will indicate books that you have catalogued.

When you enter/search "tradition" in the LT search box, you'll first get a list of books with the word "tradition" in the title. Go over to the left column and click on tags and that will take you to the page listing the various "tradition" tags. Or just click on this link: https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=tradition&searchtype=tags

oh my just came back from that link with a thousand ideas. I thought Jewish traditions then saw a book about sitting Shiva, and thought I might look at the jewi sh tradition of grief and loss. Still reading bread givers but might go this route instead

>9 CurrerBell: Thanks for the explanation, CurrerBell.

You can also mash two (or more tags together), using the same info that CurrerBell gave you. Put your two terms in the search box separated by a comma, hit the search, click the tags link in the left column, then on the resulting page, there will be a ribbon that says, "see a tagmash of". Click that and it will narrow down the results to a more specific search. My Reading Through Time tagmash searches seem to always be - Whatever the monthly theme is, Historical fiction, Whatever the quarterly time period is. I tagmash search OFTEN! It's a very useful tool!

I have actually decided to count against this topic I book I have read this month for a different motive, Robin Hood: The True Legend by Sean McGlynn as Robin Hood is a very important part of traditional English literary and cultural tradition. The book is an exploration of the potential true historical origins of the legend of Robin Hood, covering when, why and how the legend arose and the identity of possible "real Robin Hoods" who may have inspired it. The legend was first referred to in the mid 13th century, though the earliest surviving stories and ballads date from a full two centuries later around 1450. There is little firm basis for many elements of the story such as the Sherwood Forest location, while Friar Tuck and, in particular, Maid Marian were much later additions to the legendary corpus. The element of robbing the rich to pay the poor is also quite a late development and less prevalent than in all the modern filmic and literary portrayals and, while he is a heroic character in many ways, he is also a man depicted as being capable of acts of great violence, and not always against people who might be said to deserve it. The author covers a number of potential candidates as inspirers of the legends as well.

Managed to finish bread givers but it was a struggle. Book is important beccause more of a memoir of the author, writing about her life on the lower east side in an ultra orthodox jewish home. The father spent his time studying Torah and did not work, almost causing his daughters to starve. I wanted to read it as a witness to what she suffered and how she succeded. But there were way too many melodramatic moments, and felt that the characters werent fully develped. Excellent look at traditions taken to the nth degree, and at the struggle for young people to hold on to them, while aching for the life of the new world. The prelude and intro tells the authors story, and how this book when from being out of print to being a best seller, becuase a few people noticed it. A good book for this theme, but really hard to read. Rating it a 5 for her description of that traditional life, but a three for writing style,with might be more indicative of the time written. so a 4* I guess but tbh a 3.5*.

Although quite a dark read, The Good People by Hannah Kent really shone a light on Irish traditions of believing in fairies, changelings and curses.

>4 CurrerBell: i just finished mine for this month only to realize it could very well have also fit into November's theme!

This Place: 150 Years Retold / Misc authors
3.5 stars

This is a graphic novel consisting of several short stories by different authors. In its totality, it covers colonization of Canada/Turtle Island, but from the perspective of the Indigenous peoples. There are stories of Metis and Inuit included, as well as ones that focus on specific people and events. It goes in chronological order.

As with many short story anthologies, there were some stories I liked better than others. I wasn’t as interested in the first couple. There were a few I just didn’t understand and a couple that didn’t really end; that is, they just abruptly stopped (I thought). I really liked the stories of the WWII Indigenous soldier, Meech Lake/Oka, the Sixties Scoop, and the environmental one of the pipeline running through Dene Territory (the NorthWest Territories). The illustrations were in colour, and again, I liked some more than others.

I read The Home-Maker (1924) by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. From what I've read, it was well-received and in the top best-sellers for the year. Canfield Fisher is best known today for her children's book, Understood Betsy.

Mrs. Knapp is the ultimate home-maker, known for her spotless home, sewing marvels and her 3 (mostly) well-behaved children (who are somewhat afraid of her). Mr. Knapp is an accountant in the town's largest department store, a job he loathes. He'd rather be reading poetry. When Mr. Knapp has an accident and cannot work, Mrs. Knapp decides she must get some sort of work and applies for an entry-level sales clerk position at Mr. Knapp's (former) department store. Here she thrives, where her eye for fabrics and fashion make her an asset. She loves her job and is soon promoted.

Back at home Mr. Knapp recovers enough to use a wheel-chair and with the help of the children, learns to cook and clean. While doing the household chores he recites poetry to the children, but more importantly spends time listening to them and they thrive.

In the book Mr. Knapp in particular goes over in his mind what "Tradition" means and how he can (or cannot fit) into society's proscribed roles for a male "head" of the family.

This was a very interesting read, and the discussion of what makes a "home-maker" is still valid today. I didn't like the way the author resolves the situation, but it was probably necessary in 1924. Overall, I did enjoy the book and appreciated its far-thinking look at nontraditional roles for men and women within the family and society.

oh that sounds really good considering when it was written! on the list it goes

>18 kac522: Goes on my WL

I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe for this challenge. I finished it earlier this month, but I was out of town without Internet access, so I wasn't able to report it until now. It's one I've been wanting to read for a while now, so this was a good opportunity to finally get to it.

It tells the story of a village in Nigeria and we learn about their lives and traditions. Eventually, European colonialists move in and try to remake the country in their image. The clash between the local culture and the European culture is extreme. They are so different that it is hard to see how they can ever reach accommodation.

I had no knowledge of what Nigerian tribal life was like, so reading about their lives was enlightening. I learned a lot. Also, coming from a Euro-American-centric background, it was really good to see the European invasion of Africa from a different point of view. I understand why this book is so highly recommended.

>21 atozgrl: Yeah! It's terrible that Achebe never won the Nobel.

The title of course comes from Yeats's The Second Coming and the book is the first of a trilogy, the second being No Longer at Ease (the title coming from Eliot's Journey of the Magi) and the third being Arrow of God. The three are published as a single volume in Everyman as The African Trilogy. Things Fall Apart is also available as Things Fall Apart (Norton Critical Edition), though it doesn't show up on the Norton website so it may be out of print.

>22 CurrerBell: I had heard that it was the first book in a trilogy. I'll have to look up the other two books and read them as well. I saw Things Fall Apart in Barnes and Noble a couple of months ago, and picked it up then since I wanted to read it. Then this challenge came along, and it was the perfect time to go ahead and read it. I didn't see the other books at the time I purchased it, nor did I see a single volume with all three of the books.

I am very glad to have finally read it. It will stick with me for a long time.

I was a bit at a loss to find something for this theme, but I think Invitation to the waltz fits, as it describes the very traditional life of two girls immediately after the First World War, attending their first ball. I liked the writing very much.

In a bit of an odd choice (but it does fit into the "traditions" category), I just last night finished Russell Kirk's Ancestral Shadows: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales, a collection of "supernatural" stories with a Christian twist (similar to the "supernatural" novels of Charles Williams, the "Third Inkling").

Kirk isn't well known for these stories. His significance is as the intellectual father of post-WWII American conservatism, with his book The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana (in subsequent editions, subtitled From Burke to Eliot). He was the author of numerous other works, among the most important being Eliot and His Age and Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered; and Ancestral Shadows includes quite a number of references to Eliot.

Like T.S. Eliot, Kirk was of the "traditionalist" school of conservatism, and his friend Eliot warned him to stay away from Bill Buckley, that Buckley would turn him too political; but Kirk signed on as a senior editor at the founding of National Review. Though not a pacifist, Kirk was a pre-Pearl Harbor "America Firster" and remained a lifelong anti-interventionist (he voted Socialist for Norman Thomas in 1944 out of a dislike for both Roosevelt and Dewey and appreciation for Thomas's anti-interventionist leanings), as a result of which he drifted away from Buckley during the Vietnam era. Kirk's books also included a work on the "traditionalist" conservative and anti-interventionist Robert A. Taft.

Ancestral Shadows is an interesting book, and I'm giving it 3½*** partly because of its value as part of the Kirk canon, but the stories themselves are of varying quality, which is probably standard in any anthology of this sort. This is a book I've had wish-listed for years but that I've never been willing to cough up the ABE pricing of a minimum of well over $200. Then I stumbled across it in a used book store for $65 in superb condition just a couple or three weeks ago!

Decent read and a few of the stories are quite good, but overall not up to the quality of Charles Williams's novels.

Thats a very interesting take on traditional, and I like it! Never heard of Kirk, I always thought of bill buckley as the 'father' of american conservatim. Wonder how both of them would respond to todays version of it.

>26 cindydavid4: Kirk was the intellectual father; Buckley was the promoter. Kirk was an academic while Buckley was a journalist. In addition to being the promoter-in-chief, Buckley was also the self-appointed commissar for ideology and, in that capacity, purged the Birchers (Buckley: Eisenhower isn't a Communist, he's a golfer), Ayn Rand (Buckley deputized that job to Whittaker Chambers), and anti-Semites (Buckley taking that job on himself). Not saying that these folks shouldn't have been purged, but Buckley did have a certain wise-guy arrogance to his style.

As to what Kirk would have thought about current-day conservatism, note that Kirk was never a "Buckley conservative" on an anti-Communist crusade (though Kirk certainly didn't like Communism). Kirk was an "Old Right" Taft Republican, and note that Bob Taft was opposed to NATO, which he feared would be unduly provocative to the Soviet Union. Kirk was also sharply critical of libertarians, whom he described as "chirping sectaries," though he did have respect for classical liberalism.

Kirk was also hostile from the very beginning to the neo-cons, which led Midge Decter to accuse him of anti-Semitism – Decter equating Judaism with neo-connery, an equation that Kirk absolutely never made. Kirk was a consistent anti-interventionist who just didn't like getting involved in other peoples' wars.

Kirk was an academic. He taught briefly but only for a couple years, preferring writing to teaching (though his complaints may have been addressed more to the emphasis on athletics over liberal arts). His conservatism was the "cultural conservatism" of Eliot, not the political conservatism of Buckley.

ETA: By the way, you are aware, aren't you, that the youthful Buckley spent some time in Mexico as an undercover asset for the CIA? Buckley was a fluent Spanish-speaker and his cover was that he was a businessman trying to recover some of the oil wells that his father had lost during the Mexican revolution. Buckley's case officer was Howard Hunt.

thanks so much for that additional information! no i didn't know about Buckleys foray into spying. Howard Hunt? why does that name sound familiar?

>28 cindydavid4: Watergate. The Plumbers.

It went way beyond a "professional" relationship. As I recall, Hunt made Buckley guardian for Hunt's minor children after Hunt's wife was killed in that plane crash and Hunt was looking at serious jail time. As I also recall, Hunt at some time or other had converted to Catholicism and Buckley had been in some way involved in that, I think maybe as a baptismal sponsor (godfather) to Hunt's children. I did a quick google on William Buckley Howard Hunt and got a number of hits, then added Catholicism to the search string and got some hits as well, but I didn't bother reading the material.

When Hunt's wife died, Buckley came out with a "limited modified disclosure" (or whatever you want to call it), realizing the whole situation was blowing up in his face and he'd better get some kind of control over public perceptions of what was a very serious journalistic conflict in his own reporting/commenting on Watergate. As the years went by, I think he made further disclosure when he wasn't on the immediate hot seat of journalistic ethics.

Aaaah, what a wilderness of mirrors. It's been a lot of years, and I knew all this stuff way back when.

oh right, I do remember him now, didn't know about the conflicts for buckley thanks for that

I still haven’t completed my read of The History and Traditions of the Isle of Skye, the book which I decided to read for October’s challenge. It’s a slim volume but written in 1871, so paragraphs can be pages long and there are many, many names in it. Still, it’s an interesting book especially as I’m now reading about how Bonnie Prince Charlie got out of Scotland after the failed rebellion.

>31 Familyhistorian: Going to put this one on my WL. I got interested in parts of Scottish history when reading the Outlander series, which began with the Battle of Cullloden. Bonnie Prince Charlie has appeared several times throughout the series.

>32 Tess_W: There are other books written on the subject, Tess. The clans lost power after Culloden and were repressed by the British. I have a lot of books about Scottish history because of family history. Among them is Trevor Royle's Culloden: Scotland's Last Battle and the Forging of the British Empire. I haven't read it yet so can't tell you how it reads.



A lone piper at Culloden Mor

>33 Familyhistorian: What a great pic! Thanks for the BB...it's now on my WL!

>34 Tess_W: :)