22: At Home in Mitford

I always feel like reading a book that I’ve already read somehow doesn’t count.

But the thing of it is — there are several books that I own that I’ve read multiple times. Invariably, the books I read in a year are going to include at least one of those books — either one of the books in this series, the Mitford books by Jan Karon, or one of the Mapp and Lucia books by E.F. Benson. But you know what…? I’m going to go ahead and count At Home in Mitford. (Especially since reading a longer book like this one has already dramatically slowed down my count of books for the year, and made it less likely that I’m going to reach my goal of 40…)

The Mitford books are a light-hearted, comfortable (and overtly religious) series of books starring the pastor of a small, Episcopalian parish in a little town in South Carolina — Mitford. In this, the first of the books, Fr. Tim has just reached age 60 and suddenly experiences a number of dramatic life-changes that knock him out of the comfortable rut he’s been in — 1. He discovers he’s diabetic. 2. A huge, overly-friendly dog claims him.  3. He becomes the guardian of a child. 4. A pretty lady moves in next door.

My least-favorite part of the story has always been the “pretty lady moves in next door” part. Firstly, as a Catholic, it’s just multi-layered weird for me when a Priest has romantic feelings for somebody. (He’s an Episcopalian Priest, so it’s okay — they’re allowed to get married, but even while I’m telling myself that in my brain while I’m reading it — I still find it slightly unsettling.) Second, while I’m reading the book, I find myself preferring the parts that the pretty lady isn’t in — I like Fr. Tim rattling around in his house by himself, with his dog, with his boy — those parts are more fun to me. Maybe because when he’s alone, you, the reader, find yourself wanting to be there, wanting to spend time with him. Or maybe it’s just because it makes it easier (as a lady) to put yourself in his character’s shoes if he’s not waxing poetical about some lady (since waxing ladies in any sense is not my bag).

Or maybe it’s just that I find his attractive neighbor kind of uninteresting. (Niceness is good… but she’s TOO NICE. I find her characterization in this first book to be the best because the author does her best to give her faults — she’s klutzy and forgetful and burns the roast and leaves curlers in her hair by mistake — but she’s just angelically nice all the time. Not that I’d like her to be a mean, but… especially later in the series… she’s just so perfect and lovely all the time that she’s rather dull.)

Also, it must be said — she’s a thinly-disguised author surrogate. When I look a the picture of Jan Karon on the back of the book, I cannot not picture her as this character.

So, does the uber-nice, lovely neighbor/author surrogate ruin the book for me? OBVIOUSLY NOT, as this is something like the fourth or fifth time that I’ve read this book, and I’ve been through (the majority) of the series at least twice. (The exceptions to that rule are the two spin-off solo “Fr. Tim” novels — which I really didn’t care for — and the last three books, two of which I didn’t realize existed until significantly after their publishing, and the final book, To Be Where You Are, which just came out last year. That was very exciting as that was the first of her books that I’ve been able to anticipate. I actually got to pre-order that one. And then I cancelled that order when I discovered a different establishment allowed you to pre-order an autographed copy. What a delight!)