Caribbean Culture and British Fiction in the Atlantic World, 1780-1870 Book

I hadn't read any works by either Charles or Mary Lamb prior to reading this biography of their lives together. Brother and older sister -- which one was the true caretaker of the other? Mary, who murdered their mother? Charles, who forgave Mary and even excused her? Mary, who may been bipolar? Charles, who spent many an evening with literary colleagues...and liquor? A very fascinating and tragic story.

Passages and my reflection...

...Charles Lamb speaking of friend, John Rickman: "the finest fellow to drop in a nights about nine or ten oClock, cold bread & cheese time, just in the wishing time of the night, when you wish for someone to come in, without a distinct idea of a probable anybody." (p 112)
"In and out of the scene wandered Samuel Taylor Coleridge...he was prone to 'Coleridgizing,' as Charles Lamb liked to say, dominating all conversation with his fascinating self-referential, transcendental monologues." (p 113)
...from a letter written by Mary Lamb: "I have lost all self confidence in my own actions...I never feel satisfied with anything I do--a perception of not being in a sane state perpetually haunts me...which as I am so sensible of I ought to strive to conquer." (p 153)
"She cycled into irrationality, 'sadly rambling,' as Charles put it...only loosely connected to the people and world around her." (p 256)
...Charles, writing about Mary: "When she is not violent, her rambling chat is better to me than the sense and sanity of this world. Her heart is not obscurred, not buried; it breaks out occasionally; and one can discern a strong mind struggling with the billows that have gone over it." (p 262)

This story, so fascinating and yet so tragic...how different it might have been for Mary today, with mental health treatments being advanced. And yet that last quote reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend whose son suffers with schizophrenia. This year, I will walk with her -- the annual Walk for Mental Health on Santa Monica beach. We will walk, we will talk -- and we will pray for those whose lives are "sadly rambling."

More Quotes:

"Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Fairy Queen for a stopgap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewes' sermons ?

Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, had need bring docile thoughts, and purged ears.

Winter evenings -- the world shut out -- with less of ceremony the gentle Shakspeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale --

These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud -- to yourself, or (as it chances) to some single person listening. More than one -- and it degenerates into an audience.

Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness." (from DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING, Charles Lamb)