Book of the Semi-Month Club

Like my first pick (see the July 1 post), The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart is our second visit with a group of four children. Best friends since their first adventure, three out of four are, or were, orphans, and all strikingly intelligent in their individual ways. Reynie has great insight into people. Sticky possesses a photographic memory and can quote endless passages after seeing them once. Kate can accomplish any physical feat with her amazing speed, strength, and well-stocked bucket, and Constance seems perhaps a step behind them all -- until we find out she is three. In the first volume, the kindly but odd Mr. Benedict called on them to help save the world from evil in the form of his own identical twin brother, and in the process each of the orphans found a home. The present story opens with the children eager to reunite with each other and Mr. Benedict after a well-deserved vacation. Mr. B has devised a world-wide scavenger hunt to entertain and challenge them. Trouble is, they barely make it to Mr. B's house before they find out he's been kidnapped, raising the stakes far beyond a mental exercise. Is the evil twin at it again? Can there be any doubt?

Some books with a rollicking plot skimp on character development. Not this one. Each character takes another step forward in growth. Reynie must decide if his accurate hunches about people's motives will turn him cynical. Sticky learns to rein in his tendency to show off by reciting way more than anyone wants to know. Kate struggles with the idea that the one person in the world who is a better spy than she is her father, and up to now she's always called her own shots. And Constance, not quite the eternal crabpatch she was since emerging from the terrible twos, begins to get along with people and even to love them -- and to find out she can somehow predict events before they happen. Another strength is this book's ability to be tongue-in-cheek, over the top -- for example, Mr. Benedict's faithful assistant is a pencil-thin woman with a tuft of reddish-brown hair who wears yellow clothes and is called Number Two -- yet our willingness to suspend disbelief is never in question.

Though the last third of the book slows down compared to the first two-thirds, the puzzles, feats, ingenuity, quirkiness, and good-old-fashioned adventure combine to make a rousing tale.

Like a Well-Watered Garden

At the heart of gardening there is a belief in the miraculous. Mirabel Osler

Early this morning found me at the flowerbeds, watering can in hand, nightgown teased by a fresh breeze, flawless blue canopy overhead. My thumb is only light-to-medium green, yet every time I round the corner of the house these beauties steal my breath a bit. Every time a seed takes root and sends up stem, foliage, flowers, fruit, seeds abundant, I see again how God brings life out of earth. And if I let God plant me where He chooses, even if that planting seems like death and burial, what might I become?

On Character, Mine and My Characters'

Got a personality or temperament test for me? I'll probably take it. When the 4-temperament theory that labeled us sanguine, choleric, melancholy and phlegmatic was making the rounds, I identified myself as a phleg/mel. But then I met my favorite system, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, which identifies me as INFJ, the Counselor Idealist, Idealist being the broader category and Counselor the specific type of Idealist. While only 7 or 8 percent of the population are Idealists, and INFJ's are really rare birds, as writers we abound! Keirsey's book, Please Understand Me II, which describes Idealists, Rationals, Artisans and Guardians, has been pivotal in my understanding of myself, those around me, and for creating realistic characters it's been a boon! When I read his detailed analysis of the INFJ -- and he spends just as much time on the other fifteen types (there are four main types with four variations in each category) -- I think "How do you KNOW my deep, dark secrets?" This is the system I've found to be "right on" about me, and as a whole it rings true to me. Among many other things, I learned from Keirsey that I'm the type who -- yes, the type who cares what type I am.

This very day the Ennegram Type Indicator came to my attention. I took the free online test that gives a tentative result (you can take the full test for a fee) and found that I'm likely Type 4, the Individualist. I read the description, and it sounds like these guys have my number, too: instrospective, romantic, self-aware, sensitive, reserved -- guilty as charged! And this SO nails it: "Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living." I love when they can capture the dichotomy so well. Heh-heh.

HOWEVER, my second-highest score was a tie between FOUR other categories (there are nine) -- the Reformer, the Helper, the Investigator, and the Peacemaker. They are all partly "me," too. And in the end, that's why I still prefer Keirsey. His system integrates me rather than scattering me hither and yon. That's why my favorite companion when creating characters is Please Understand Me II. It's a guide to what combinations of traits occur in real, live people.

Wanna play? Keirsey, Enneagram