Thomas Robert Malthus, b. 1766. “Population increases in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increases in an arithmetic ratio.” Some still consider this ratio problem to be insoluble, a conundrum of impending doom for humanity; others have come to see an opposing problem.
Anne Manning, English writer, b. 1807. Wikipedia says she wrote a book called The Household of Sir Thomas More, “a delightful picture of More’s home life told in the form of a diary written by his daughter Margaret.” Eldest Daughter, who detests More, should get a copy of this book for April Fool’s Day.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American author and essayist, b.1879. For children, she wrote Understood Betsy, the story of an orphan girl who lives with her relatives around the turn of the century. You can read it online with illustrations here.
Bess Streeter Aldrich, b. 1881. Nebraska author of A Lantern in her Handand many other books and short stories. I read a description of her writing as “cheerful realism.”
Robert Newton Peck, author of Soup and others in the series, b. 1928. At his website, Peck says that the character Soup was based on his best friend, Lester Wesley Vinson. Soup grew up to become a minister. Peck also says a lot of other things that indicate to me that he’s read and agrees with Malthus.
“Earth, our beautiful planet today has only one problem. Excess human population. This dreaded disease, human pregnancy, is the mother lode which spawns disease, poverty, litter, crime, animal annihilation, and war. Not to mention traffic, or din. Because of this mire of people, which I dub peoplution, our animals are dying.”
It sounds just like the propaganda I heard when I was in high school. Nevertheless, the Soup books are lots of fun.
Chaim Potok, b. 1929. Rabbi and author of The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev. “I would prefer to say that the universe is meaningful, with pockets of apparent meaninglessness, than to say it is meaningless with pockets of apparent meaningfulness. In other words I have questions either way.” (Potok in Christianity Today, September 8, 1978)
Ruth Rendell, b. 1930. Author of detective fiction and also other non-detective fiction using the pseudonym, Barbara Vine. “I think that most writers have these two opposing feelings co-exist. One, this is the most wonderful work of art since War and Peace, and also this is the most awful trash, and why did I ever write it?” I feel that way about almost everything I write–especially the latter feeling. Does that mean I’m a real writer?
Here’s a post from Cathy of Poohsticks on Ruth Rendell. I read Tree of Hands by Ms. Rendell last year, but never got around to reviewing it. It was a rather disturbing story, but worth the time.
It was just a library thing when I stumbled into the work of Bess Streeter Aldrich. Her novels are for a female audience, but luckily I began with her short stories. Yes, ‘cheerful realism’ can be the adjective, but there is more. Aldrich allows you to step back into time and live with those you know by story from your mother or grandmother, but not by human contact. Despite the tribulations of late 19c Midwestern life (often Nebraska) about which she writes, the subjects of her tales remain buoyed by an unseen (Christian) optimism. That’s great! We do dwell in an age of drenched pessimism, so a visit to this different time, of sturdiness and self sufficiency, yet undaunted spirit, is a worthy tonic. One can never really tell where the Aldrich tales will go, but it’s a great trip. Some we would call sentimental, for they belong to that writing period; many were written for women’s magazines. Yet they are a look into the hearts, and minds, and lives, and homes of our ancestors, indeed as if their visit had just been yesterday. So I would opine Aldrich should be read, at least from her short stories, as part of background popular regional American literature. She should be read, for these Americans, her Americans, matter. We are the richer for them, their lives and living, and for Mrs. Aldrich’s capturing them so well.