Tuesday’s Meme Things: What’s in a name and where I am this Tuesday

For this week’s Weekly Geeks (click on button for full details), we were to explore the meaning of a favorite character name.

Of course, immediately I thought of the book I was reading at the time I first saw this week’s topic on Saturday. The book was Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie, and the character Hercule Poirot.

According to Think Baby Names, the name originates from…you might not have guessed this on your own…from the Latin form of the Greek god Herakles, the son of Zeus. It also says the name meant “Hera’s glory.” Baby Names World has a slightly more illuminating definition: “grandiose gift.” Baby Names.com adds that the name is…and I bet you never saw this one coming either…”associated with strength and power.”

So does Christie’s character exhibit this? But, mon ami, of course. One  has only to use the little gray cells and one can deduct it is so.

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Raidergirl3 at an adventure in reading asks every Tuesday where you are in your reading. This week is no different (click button to see where raidergirl3 is this week as well as others who participate in this meme).

This week I’m in a Catholic parish somewhere in England with Fr. Hugh Kennedy in Edwin O’Connor’s The Edge of Sadness. So far, I’m only 30 pages into the book and it’s living up to its title. Fr. Kennedy is on his way to a birthday party for the father of a friend. He is accompanying his friend, who didn’t invite him to the party. His friend is a priest at a neighboring parish, which is thriving, while Fr. Kennedy is at a parish that is dying. For some reason, Fr. Kennedy has been relegated there, but we don’t know the reason yet.

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Miz B. at Should Be Reading asks participants of the meme Teaser Tuesdays each week to: Grab your current read, let the book fall open to a random page, share two “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. Also share the book from which you are reading so if others are interested, they can seek it out as well (click the button to see what books others are “teasing” this week).

This week’s book is Edwin O’Connor’s The Edge of Sadness, mentioned above.

Page 280:

But there also comes a change of atmosphere. Here the stillness of the night seems to have quite another quality from the stillness of the day; something far more positive than the mere absence of noise; there is a sense of solitude which is immense, boundless; one suddenly feels the consecrated space.