01 January 2005

more on Marilynne Robinson

Here's a recent Marilynne Robinson interview by Meghan O'Rourke in The New York Times.

I'm reading Housekeeping. It's better than I remembered, with sentences like this:

"Say there were two or three inches of hard old snow on the ground, with earth here and there oozing through the broken places, and that there was warmth in the sunlight, when the wind did not blow it all away, and say she stooped breathlessly in her corset to lift up a sodden sheet by its hems, and say that when she had pinned three corners to the lines it began to billow and leap in her hands, to flutter and tremble, and to glare with the light, and that the throes of the thing were as gleeful and strong as if a spirit were dancing in its cerements."

I wonder whether Richard Wilbur read this before or after he wrote his poem "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" about laundry.

3 comments:

  1. I just bought "Housekeeping," and so will be reading it for the first time. I'm looking forward to it.

    xoKat

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  2. It's one of my favorite books and the movie is pretty fantastic as well.

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  3. I've got to read "Housekeeping" Carol. And hi! I'm just figuring this blog stuff out right now. I'll nose around here some more...

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