Book: Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah
Basic Information:
Author: Charles King
Edition: epub on Libby from the Mountain View Public Library
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 9780385548267 (ISBN10: 0385548265)
Start Date: November 10, 2025
Read Date: December 7, 2025
352 pages
Genre: History, Biography, Music, Book Group
Language Warning: Low
Rated Overall: 3 out of 5
History: 4 out of 5
Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Thoughts):
The first part is a mini-biography of Handel. King takes us through his time in his native Germany. Then how he became acquainted with oratorio in Italy before coming to England where he was a modest success with competitors.
The full title includes The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah. King takes us through those troubled times for about two-thirds of the book. Intertwined are the characters which influenced Handel’s composing the music for the Messiah.
King also takes us through the part Jennens played in putting together the words for the Messiah. Then how the Messiah turned from being a ho-hum affair into what it is today, the most sung choral piece.
Cast of Characters:
- George Frideric Handel-composer of the Messiah
- Susannah Cibber-singer, actor
- Thomas Coram-ship captain, iron industry captain, philanthropist
- Ayuba Diallo-slave
- Charles Jennens-compiler of the words which Handel used in the Messiah and other works. Also a collector of various works. A nonjuror.
- John Arbuthnot-Queen Anne’s physician
- Queen Anne
- Thomas Bluett
- Colley Cibber-theater owner
- Michael Dubourg-principal violinist, concert master
- John Gay-poet
- King George I
- King George II
- Aaron Hill-early theater production person who put Handel’s works on stage
- William Hogarth
- Edward Holdsworth-Jennens closest friend. Suffered various maladies which caused him to travel to places for treatment.
- Alexander Pope-poet
- John Rich-theater producer
- Thomas Sheridan
- William Sloper-wealthy heir of WIlliam Sloper, Sr. Lover of Susannah Cibber
- John Christopher Smith-A German, he changed his name to an ENglish sounding one, Handel’s copist.
- John Smith II-John Christopher Smith’s son and a person whom Handel would take care of.
- Jonathan Swift-author and dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin
- Nonjuror-a member of the English clergy who refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary in 1689, of which there was several still in England during the time of Handel, including Jennens.
- Recommendation: Barb in Book Group
- When: February 2025
- Date Became Aware of Book: February 2025
- Why do I want to read this book: Book Group book and I enjoy Handel’s Messiah
- What do I think I will get out of it? The story of how the Messiah came into being
Thoughts:
I think that King brings more of a humanistic view of the effects of the Messiah to the book than a religious one. He does not delve into the religious nature of the music, nor its message. When I have heard this music, I am uplifted beyond just the beauty of the piece, something which I think is more spiritual.
King never mentions why Handel did not marry or even was he interested in women.
Wikipedia for Handel.
Prologue
Opens with Charles Jennens. Lived a rather unambiguous life at Gospall. He was rich. He was also a collector of works, including commentaries, compositions and other items.
Introduction
This book grew out of my search for this deeper Messiah. King takes a look at how this book was born-out of the despondency of the January 6 riot and the Pandemic. These were times of modern life which thrust the nation into uncertainty. The music of the Messiah has resonated during times like these. The music reflects anguish and promise.
Listen closely enough to the words, and what emerges is a set of linked meditations on the proper way of seeing the human predicament. Every performance begins with a promise. “Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,” a tenor sings in the opening aria, the words again drawn from Isaiah, “and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.”
He goes through how The Messiah has been performed to what is accepted as the way to do it now. because the music seems so deeply familiar, it is easy to miss the Messiah’s sheer weirdness. It does not have a story plot, its cadence is not consistent, early performances were for secular audiences, and whatever theme there is is more for Easter than Christmas.
This last thing I think is true. But in a lot of ways, it is appropriate to remember why we celebrate Jesus’ birth. It is the coming of the Messiah, God With Us, into a broken world. But that is only the grand entrance, not the finale. The finale starts on Good Friday and rises to its heights at the Resurrection.
But King is not concerned with the religious message but the message in the context of social turmoil. He thinks the message of hope comes through without the religious overtones. Is this through the music? Certainly not through the words which are deeply religious and Christian.
He notes that Martin Luther King, Jr uses the same texts as what the Messiah uses in his speeches. I thought it was because of the shared text which Jennens/Handel and King used rather than King’s message was a derivative of the Messiah.
If the words, images, and ideas that Handel wove together in the 1740s still seem resonant today, it is in large part because all of us—you, me, and the Messiah—are products of that same era, just not in the way we might think.
One way to retrain ourselves to understand the Enlightenment, to see it as complex history instead of our own idealized prologue. He thinks it can be done through how the people did their art, music and shows. In speculative treatises and stage plays, paintings and works of music, one of the Enlightenment’s overlooked preoccupations turns out to be the practical grounds for remaining hopeful when the everyday evidence seems to point in the opposite direction.
When audiences stand at the “Hallelujah” chorus or belt out their parts in an amateur sing-along, they are participating in some of the foundational problems of the eighteenth century and ones that, in various ways, we still face today. He looks at the Messiah as a way in which a society is working out its social problems.
He thinks that the Messiah and its popularity is not just because of the genius of Handel, but others like Jennens, Susannah Cibber, Thomas Coram, Ayuba Diallo and the influences of his time.
Part I: Portents.
"The famous Mr. Hendel"
Starts this chapter with the scene where Handel’s Water Music was played in 1717 for a promenade King George I had on the Thames.
Talks about Handel’s life. King talked about Handel’s life in Italy. He notes that Living in the artistic realm that Italians had created meant accepting the existing order of the world while also undermining it. What does King mean by this? You start out by imagining the normal world but then viewing it differently. Such as men singing and playing women's parts. It made your players unsexed. Talks about life in Italy then the start of life back in Germany.
"An undertaking so hazardous"
The state of England from the 1600’s into the early 1700’s. In 1711 Hill had Handel create a score for a production of one of his plays. A little bit about Queen Anne.
Jacobites
Success line for Queen Anne. But this also included Sophia in Germany who was married to the benefactor of Handel. Since Handel spent so much time in London, he was able to report back to his benefactor, even though he was dropped as the official musician from that court. James II was Queen Anne’s half-brother. James III was his son and rival for the English crown. James in Latin is Jacobi. George, Sophia’s son, became king of England upon Anne’s death. George did not seem too interested in the affairs of government, but his son George II was.
Grub Street
The book looks at the misery and suffering of London during the 1600 and 1700’s. The rise of newspapers: For the first time ever, it became possible to earn a living just from having something to say. The word “hacks” describes them. Grub Street is where they seemed to congregate.
Theater productions started to be a “for profit” venture with shares being sold rather than relying on a single person or benefactors.
Handel becomes a naturalized citizen of aa England by King George’s decree. King George died and his son, George II became king. Handel’s Zadok the Priest was performed at his coronation. This has played at every coronation since then.
Yahoos
Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires, / Why should not we be wiser than our sires?” Pope wrote. “In every public virtue we excel; / We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well.” The comparison between Ancient Greece and England of the 1700’s.
Scriblerus Club-included Gay, Pope, Arbuthnot and Handel.
For many philosophers of the era, the remedy to fear was to start with a sober expectation that bad times weren’t permanent—that is, to cultivate hope. Isn’t that true of all human culture? Those who are not in power wait their turn and the downfall of those in power. the common view was that being hopeful was essential to everything from civilized governance to individual survival. King talks about the source of hope: passion, virtue or reason. He seems to not include religion in this mix. Later he asks where can you get hope from if you are in despair? He then talks about the Christian hope, but discounts it as for life after death, not a current hope. That would not be how Christians would see it. (Colossians 1:27-To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.)
King points out that the word optimism did not appear until 1759 where it meant more of a person who refused to face his troubles and wished them away.
In a time of war, political division, and conspiracy, along with everyday cares such as disease and natural disasters, the whole point of studying the inner workings of law, politics, and morality, even the effects of art and music, was remedial—a way of fixing a world out of joint.
Talks about Handel’s contemporary, Jonathan Swift and how he was very satirical and always on the edge of getting into trouble. Hester Johnson was Swift’s companion-he called her Stella. Interesting-King calls her Hester while Wikipedia is Esther. Swift noted when Gulliver was among the Yahoos, The only truly shameful thing was to take pride in one’s worst qualities
Part II: Sorrows and grief.
The hyp and the prodigious
Satire worked only because real people lived the things that came into the satirist’s line of sight. A society that prized poking fun was also a society working to define the things really worth believing in. It does not work when there is a sense of self-righteousness, where being made fun of is cause for revenge rather than self-examination.
Jennens brother Robert commits suicide. A distant relative would become famous for dying without a will. The contest for his fortune was wiped out with lawyer’s fees. Dickens in Bleak House talked about it in Jardyne vs Jardynce. Jennens was 50 years old when his father died.
Talks about Jennens and his propensity for depression. Introduces us to Jennens friend Holdsworth. Also talked about how he became a nonjuror-a person who thought the Stuarts should be king. Governments were owed one’s allegiance, nonjurors believed, but only so long as they behaved prudently and in principled ways, not by quashing dissent and then calling the result loyalty. This is the focal point of current US politics. When Obama or Biden were President certain people would not say they were their President. The same with Trump-on Facebook I see a lot of “not my President.” OK if you are saying not my preference, not OK if you refuse to acknowledge he was elected properly.
Oratorio
Talks about Gary and Rich’s comedy, The Beggar’s Opera. King notes that it was an astounding triumph, people quipped, had made Gay rich and Rich gay.
Interesting where the oratorio comes from: Oratorians, of St. Philip Neri in Florence. The more I hear of Neri, the more impressed I am. The idea was to go around the Catholic ban on plays during Lent.
Introduces Susannah Arne Cibber.
"Dying by inches"
Story of Susannah Cibber. Not a pretty one. She had talent, not great as a singer, not great as an actor. But related well to audiences who believed in her roles. She married Theophilus Cibber. He gambled, then serially sold his wife to pay his debts. By this way she met Sloper. After a time, Susannah and Sloper started meeting without Cibber’s consent. This turned into a scandal which Cibber tried to benefit from. King rehearses the whole scandal and seems to relish providing details.
King makes this statement: If women later seemed sparse in the historical record, lost amid generals on the battlefield and savants thinking up Western civilization, it was because male historians worked very hard to miss them. He seems to think this is more or less an established fact which he does not need to substantiate.
A design for rescuing
The senior Sloper was the one who got the charter to colonize Georgia. The scandal his son was engaged with came at a bad time for this project. This was a brain child of Thomas Coram
Yet within a few years, all their lives would turn out to be braided together in the most unexpected way, through yet another of Coram’s many schemes—“my Darling Project. Which was to establish a place where impoverished children, foundlings, could live and learn a trade. From the dates, it looked like a 30-50 year undertaking to get it established
The Book of Job
Story of Ayuba Diallo. King goes through England’s slave trade and how it was woven into society. But even in this sense, he[Handel] was in much the same category as anyone of means at the time. This is concerning the Royal African Company which handled much of England’s trade, including slaves from Africa.
This enterprise was backed up by evangelizing Christianity and the presumed logic of science, both of which located the origins of slavery not in history but outside it, in the will of God and the timeless facts of natural hierarchy. While I could believe it was true, I have not heard this about the Royal African Company. One of the things he does not say is that it was also the Evangelicals of this day, the Wilberforces and Newtons which drove the anti-slavery movement.
Traces the route of Ayuba Diallo from Africa to Maryland then to England where he was able to co-mingle with notables. While in England, he was freed by a group who were in England. Eventually he was brought back to Africa where he became the interface between the Royal African Company and the Africans in that area.
Interesting that King does not condemn Diallo for enslaving other Africans, even after he was released from slavery.
Why was Ayuba Diallo’s story told in this book? It seems like he had only a parallel in time to Handel.
Scorn
Handel was affected by the plight of some of his musicians. He and others started an organization called the Fund for Decay’d Musicians which eventually would continue on today as the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain. Through concerts and donations, they raised money to carry an unlucky violinist or organist through illness or a financial downturn.
Talks about the relationship between Jennens and Handel. How Jennens was in awe of the music Handel produced which could drive away Jennens’ despondency. It appears that Jennens sent Handel the words for his music unsolicited and without ever having met Handel. Several of Jennens’ works made it into Handel’s music.
When King talks about :the book” he is referring to the words which accompanied musical works, not just Handel’s.
The trial of Cibber’s husband against Sloper for stealing his wife created a sensation.
Foundlings
The chapter is about Coram's efforts to fund his charity. Coram found himself once again confronting the perennial complaint that helping foundlings was, in fact, a sop to immorality.
He used his own resources to create the medallion for his own organization which showed Pharaoh's daughter rescuing Moses.
The phrase which describes him, relentless sense of possibility, is so good. Projects optimism-not what is described above-but the thinking that this can be done. Then the relentless aspect of a person who does not give up, even if things look dark.
He was also a man of principle. When the Board of Governors would not allow action to be taken about a scandal, he resigned his position on the Board. Even with this, he advocated for a permanent, larger facility for those children in need.
The return of a prince
Diallo returned to his home area to find his father had died, knowing he was returning. He had made an arrangement that the enslavers would exchange aa Muslim slave for two non-Muslim slaves. Apparently Diallo only was against enslaving those like him, not other humans.
King thinks that Diallo and Jennens were in close proximity to each other and probably noticed each other, but there is nothing which mentions them together or commenting about each other.
Jennens had an eye for suffering and its remedies, but he tended to express his generosity close to home. He used his time to help friends with things, particularly with managing finances. He also supported various charities and Christian endeavors.
King has him being pretty devout with an eye for classic writing as well as the sacred. Swift felt that the King James text were seen as a kind of ideal—a demonstration, sentence after sentence, not just of what language could mean but of what it could do.
Jeennens felt that institutions were put in place by God for us to govern our well-being, that is why they should not be overthrown. That was why he was a Protestant, but was a nonjuror. He felt that if you Take away the mystery, and what remained was chaos.
A carving on his fireplace mantel showed Daniel in the lion’s den. Jennens saw that your beliefs could lead you to suffering, but it also provided a way out of the suffering.
Between 1739 and 1741 Jennens turned to his library of theological works and started to build a liberotto. He would eventually send this to Handel. He stitched together texts. Then in July 1741 he sent it to Handel. He told his close friend, Holdsworth, about it, saying “The Subject,” he wrote, “is Messiah.”
Part III: Resurrection.
To the Hibernian shore
Handel had worked on the Messiah that Summer without telling Jennens and then left for Ireland. For unto us a child is born,” which Jennens had selected from the book of Isaiah, Handel repurposed a duet he had written earlier that summer. King talked about other areas which Handel worked on the piece, such as the Hallelujah chorus. On September 12, 1741, Handel had completed the oratorio, some 130 pages.
The Ireland trip was because he had received an invitation to put on a series of concerts in Dublin.
Fishamble
Interesting: I had thought that Dublin was always a Catholic city. But King said that up until this time, Protestants were the majority-shortly afterwards, it would go decisively Catholic.
Fishamble is a street in Dublin
Handel’s initial concerts were a great success in Dublin. But Swift, who was the dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin after this, forbade his singers from participating in Handel’s secular shows.
Susannah Cibber had retreated to Dublin to get out of the English spotlight of her relationship with Sloper. Handel recruited her to sing for the second session.
While in Dublin, Handel continued to work on the Messiah. The piece was to be performed before Easter in a hall rather than a church. Swift changed his mind and allowed his singers to perform in a secular setting. The proceeds from the performance was to go to a charity, including paying off the debts of paupers. The first performance after a couple of delays was April 13th in Dublin.
King goes into a description of the music/concert. For the chorus of Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. He notes that it is not as a solemn declaration delivered by a wizened seer but as an erupting chorus. When Cibber sang about being rejected and suffering, the audience knew about what she had been through and it was like she was embodying the role.
"Hope is a curtail dog"
Handel was probably Swift’s last visitor before he died. Handel came to thank him for allowing his singers to perform. Swift was buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the place, just as he had predicted, he was destined never to leave.
On the way back to London, Handel stopped at Gopsall to thank Jennens. Jennens was not there, so Handel wrote to him and let him know how it had been received. It was the last time nearly anyone would refer to their joint creation as something other than Handel’s alone.
Cibber went back to London and instead of facing scandal, she was welcomed back. Her husband now was in disgrace and fighting losing battles.
I liked this: For my part, [oratorios] give me an idea of heaven, where everybody is to sing whether they have voices or not,” noted the dyspeptic Horace Walpole.
Jennens did not feel that this was the Messiah he had envisioned. He distanced himself from the work by calling it Handel’s alone. There were concerns about using sacred works as a drama, performing works like this in a secular setting, or that it was religious and should not be outside of church.
While the concerts were accepted in London, they were not overwhelmingly accepted like they were in Dublin. Various squabbles between Handel and Jennens, and nitpicking by critics. Then ill-health by Handel and Jennens. Once health returned, Handel did some changes, a lot of it based upon the musicians available.
On the political front, there were wars between allies aligned with the French and those with England. Then Charles of the Stuart line landed in Scotland, rallying the Scots and made his way through England. He threatened England. But then backed off, giving British troops a chance to regroup and do battle. When battle came, the British were ready and defeated Charles’ army. Charles retreated back to the continent and the Stuarts never attempted to take England again. This was in 1746.
At the end of 1746, Holdsworth, Jennens friend, died.
Anthems and choruses
In 1747, to celebrate the victory, Handel composed Judas Maccabaeus, with the idea of patronizing King George II. As a note: I first heard the Hallelujah chorus from this as a senior in high school at the San Jose Christmas Choir festival. Another high school sang this and I was taken by the "Hallelujah, Amen”.
There was a nine hour national celebration. Handel had been commissioned to write a composition for the start of the celebration. When Handel first came to Britain, its unified Parliament was only three years old and its rightful royal line in dispute. Now the kingdom was forging a public story that cast Britons not just as subjects of a common king but as members of an emerging nation, defined by some combination of official Protestantism, naval power, a global empire, and most important not being French. King also said His position as his adopted country’s premier public composer was unrivaled,
Holdsworth’s death caused Jennens to withdraw and stop contributing.
But the Messiah, it was, if not the least of his creations, then by the late 1740s among the least performed. … Handel had never performed it before: a church. The charity and its irascible founder would be the unlikely vehicle for making the work—and its composer—close to immortal.
Coram had hit upon the idea of making charity a fashion. The governors of the foundlings did the same thing and enlisted Handel to do a concert for them. Handel composed a piece which ended with the Hallelujah chorus. It was successful. A second concert in the chapel a year later was scheduled and the Messiah was played then to a thousand people. Each year afterwards, it was played. It was afterwards consecrated to the service of the most innocent, most helpless, and most distressed part of the human species. From that time on, the Messiah was the piece most played of Handel’s compositions.
Exalted
Goes through the lives of the main people whom King does a biography on.
Handel died on April 14, 1759. The Messiah became more prominent, even rising to sacred music 25 years after Handel’s death.
Talks about Jenens and his life. He still had mixed thoughts on Handel, both worshipping the genius and disagreeing with him, even after death. He places a memorial to his friend Holdsworth on his property Gopsall. He died in 1773. He had collected all of Handel’s works. Then tried to make a collection, along with notating all of Shakespeare’s works, making enemies of those who differed with him.
Thomas Coram-His most notable quality, a friend remembered, was that he had “lived above the Fear of every Thing but an unworthy Action.” This is a good thing to be remembered by. The foundation did fall into some degeneration after Coram, but it still exists today, being more true to his vision as the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children.
Susannah Cibber-her Messiah performances were an experience notable not for what she did onstage but for what she did to an audience. It was noted that whatever character she portrayed, she had the extraordinary power to make the low into the high, a debased character achieving, by the final curtain, some measure of victory.
Ayuba Diallo-He worked for a while for an English Corporation. A biography was written about him by Bluett. This biography was one of the things which helped bring down slavery. I still do not understand why this biographical sketch is made in conjunction with this book.
Epilogue.
Recaps the Messiah’s debut in Dublin as showing despair to a people in despair, but then giving hope. King then takes us to Coram, who had nearly resigned himself to being a voice crying in the wilderness, would soon have proof that a single life really can repair a corner of the world. He talks about Diallo who was made a slave and then freed.
King’s conclusion was that It took a universe of pain to make a musical monument to hope. It is not misplaced optimism which will save, rather, that The cynics are wrong, but so, too, are the naive optimists, a point that Jennens emphasized over and over again in his selection of scriptures. He says that Jennens response is that the way out of darkness is not to retreat from it. But the path out of it is toward it.
But Jennens life does not seem to back up King’s conclusion. He battled depression over his entire life along with a propensity to pick fights.
King thinks that the Messiah is one part of the cure, to remind us that there is an end of things and that end is a better tomorrow. That as the Messiah starts with the words Comfort ye! So we should take comfort.
Illustrations
One illustration of Jonathan Swift has a caption of: People who knew Swift thought of him and Handel as similar personalities: witty, sarcastic, and talented at making ordinary things seem strange and new.
Evaluation:
Take note of the sub title: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah. Much of the book is about both how Handel developed, but also the status of England in the 1600 and 1700’s. Somewhere in the second part of the book, I started wondering, why do I care about all of these people who the author is introducing us to?
The author is interested in showing that times in which Handel’s Messiah was written had a similar amount of dysfunction as our own. He thinks that the anguish and promise of this piece can address our current society, even if we treat it as a secular piece, after all that is where the Messiah was first performed. Even though the times are rough, you can hope for a better tomorrow is the message King wants us to take from this book.
Maybe a good way to read this book is to start with the 18th chapter called Exalted. There King gives brief summaries of who the main characters are. Then you are prepared for who is important to the story and what is providing insight into the times before and during Handel’s time in England.
If you have ever heard the full Messiah, then this is a book you will most likely be interested in at least skimming to find the parts you are interested in. It is a book long on background, not necessarily about the composition itself. You do not need a lot of understanding about music composition.
I, for one reject, that Handel’s Messiah can work without the Christian element of it and the hope which Christianity has embedded in it, else we are left with only an unsupported hope for happiness.
Notes from my book group:
This book is not about the music of the Messiah rather about the background to its composition.
How many of you have either participated or heard all of Handel’s Messiah? What were your impressions of it as you went through it? What sections moved you?
For my part, [oratorios] give me an idea of heaven, where everybody is to sing whether they have voices or not,” noted the dyspeptic Horace Walpole. Is this how you felt after hearing the Messiah?
What other Handel pieces have you heard, either live or recorded?
What did you find out about the Messiah which you did not know before?
King opens the book with This book grew out of my search for this deeper Messiah. Do you think he accomplished that?
Does King think that Handel’s Messiah is a religious, social or political piece?
King says because the music seems so deeply familiar, it is easy to miss the Messiah’s sheer weirdness. What is this weirdness which he talks about? (Lack of plot, irregular cadence, …)
Living in the artistic realm that Italians had created meant accepting the existing order of the world while also undermining it. What does King mean by this?
King points out that there are certain words which both the Messiah and Martin Luther King, Jr’s message shares. Why does King think they share those lines? Why do you think they do?
He looks at the Messiah as a way in which a society is working out its social problems. How does he think this happens?
Do you think Handel’s Messiah has a message for our world? If so, is it a religious or some other message? What do you think King thinks the message is? What are your thoughts?
The author talks about the music reflecting anguish and promise. How does the music reflect these? Why does the author think this is important to understand both the music and the times the music was written in? King also says that It took a universe of pain to make a musical monument to hope. What do you think about this statement? Is it true?
King says If the words, images, and ideas that Handel wove together in the 1740s still seem resonant today, it is in large part because all of us—you, me, and the Messiah—are products of that same era, just not in the way we might think. How are we similar to the 1740’s? Is the similarities enough to make this kind of statement?
Could the story of the Messiah have been told without much of the background which King gave us? If so, what would King have needed to include? Why do you think he included what he did? If not, what would you have been wondering about if he had left it out?
One of the obstacles faced was that Coram was confronting the perennial complaint that helping foundlings was … a sop to immorality. What gave rise to this concern? Is there a modern day parallel thought?
Thomas Coram is described as someone who had a relentless sense of possibility. Also that he had “lived above the Fear of every Thing but an unworthy Action.” How would you like to be remembered?
Why was Ayuba Diallo’s story told in this book? What connection did he have with either Handel or the Messiah? What sympathies did you have concerning him as a slave? What did you think of him when he was willing to sell non-Muslims into slavery?
Discuss this idea, not so much in terms of today’s politics, but as a principle: Governments were owed one’s allegiance, nonjurors believed, but only so long as they behaved prudently and in principled ways, not by quashing dissent and then calling the result loyalty.
The cynics are wrong, but so, too, are the naive optimists, a point that Jennens emphasized over and over again in his selection of scriptures. He says that Jennens response is that the way out of darkness is not to retreat from it. But the path out of it is toward it. Is this true? What type of thinking does this represent? Did Jennens’ life reflect the truth of this?
When you read Biblical text, how does the meanings and impact differ if you read it, hear it, or have them sung? Does it matter who does these?
How do you want your life to change because you read this book?
Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.
Why the title of Every valley?
Does this book work as a history?
Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?
Which character were you most sympathetic to?
Which character did you identify with?
Which one did you dislike?
Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?
In what context was religion talked about in this book?
Was there anybody you would consider religious?
How did they show it?
Was the book overtly religious?
How did it affect the book's story?
Why do you think the author wrote this book?
What would you ask the author if you had a chance?
What “takeaways” did you have from this book?
What central ideas does the author present?
What evidence does the author use to support the book's ideas?
Is the evidence convincing...definitive or...speculative?
Does the author depend on personal opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence factual—based on science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?
What implications for you, our nation or the world do these ideas have?
Are these ideas controversial? To whom and why?
Describe the culture talked about in the book.
How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?
What economic or political situations are described?
Does the author examine economics and politics, the arts, religious beliefs, or language?
How did this book affect your view of the world?
Of how God is viewed?
What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?
Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?
What was memorable?
New Words:
- defenestration-the action of throwing someone out of a window.; the action of dismissing someone from a position of power or authority.
- clavichord-a small, rectangular keyboard instrument producing a soft sound by means of metal blades attached to the ends of key levers that gently press the strings, popular from the early 15th to early 19th centuries.
- Nonpareil-having no match or equal; unrivaled.
- epicure-a person who takes particular pleasure in fine food and drink.
- infelicities-a thing that is inappropriate, especially a remark or expression.
- rastrum-a five-pointed writing implement used in music manuscripts to draw parallel staff lines when drawn horizontally.
- sinfony-the Italian word for symphony
- crotchets-a note having the time value of a quarter of a whole note or half a half note
- demisemiquavers-
- shcauntrel-a thirty-second note.
- soite-A set of matching items
- Hyp-or hipp, short for hypochandria. In the time written about, it meant melancholy or depression
- A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe
- A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke
- A Tale of a Tub,
- Dunciad by Alexander Pope
- An Essay on Man
- An Essay upon Projects
- A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume
- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon
- Essays of Theodicy
- Paraphrase and Annotations upon the Books of the Psalms by Henry Hammond
- Help for the More Easy and Clear Understanding of the Holy Scriptures by Edward Wells
- Commentaries on Hosea, Joel, Micah, and Malachi by Edward Pococke
- Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer by William Nicholls
- Historical and Critical Dictionary
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
- Trivia; or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London by John Gay
- Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel by John Mainwaring
- Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African
- Leviathan
- Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
- Universal Etymological English Dictionary by Nathan Bailey
- Persian Letters
- Roots by Alex Haley
- Second Treatise of Government
- Some Memoirs of the Life of Job, the Son of Solomon, High Priest of Boonda in Africa
- Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn
- A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
- The Non-juror
- Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
- Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa
- Zara by Voltaire
- Candide; or, Optimism by Voltaire
Good Quotes:
- First Line: Some days he would wander the manor house in a blank stupor, barely able to lift a foot
- Last Line: Comfort ye.
- Prologue
- Introduction
- Part I: Portents. "The famous Mr. Hendel"
- "An undertaking so hazardous"
- Jacobites
- Grub Street
- Yahoos
- Part II: Sorrows and grief. The hyp and the prodigious
- Oratorio
- "Dying by inches"
- A design for rescuing
- The Book of Job
- Scorn
- Foundlings
- The return of a prince
- Part III: Resurrection. To the Hibernian shore
- Fishamble
- "Hope is a curtail dog"
- Anthems and choruses
- Exalted
- Epilogue.
References:
- Publisher's Web Site for Book
- Author's Web Site
- Wikipedia-Author
- Amazon-Book
- Amazon-Author
- Barnes and Noble
- GoodReads-Book
- GoodReads-Author
- New York Review
- Washington Post Review
- The Guardian’s Review
- Literary Review
- Kirkus Review
- YouTube
- APNews
- Dear, Strange Things blog
- Kirk Center review
- Patrick T Reardon review
- Church Times review
