Friday, November 9, 2007

Small Wonder

Last week I also finished reading Small Wonder. Unlike my previous rant, THIS book was a book to be cherished and explored. I have many things to say about it and quotes to share and so forth, but unfortunately this is one of those times when my to-blog pile has become too large for me to do each book justice. Rather than having them start hanging over my head as a to-do list and actually, snort, feeling guilty for not blogging about them, I'm going to accept that I do not have enough time to give this gem a proper analysis and review. Suffice to say this was a glorious read and that I adore Barbara Kingsolver. She is one of my very most very authors and I love her books. This book was a collection of her essays about "small wonders" of our own backyards and how they can be expanded to the larger culture. This book was written after 9/11 and that theme runs strongly throughout. It was interesting to me how "past" that felt and in many of her writings the immediate anguish of the events are still so strong.

A stellar analogy about television that I wish I had had available to share during my argument with that guy at the UU church in JC:

"Having a sieve up there on the roof collecting wild beams from everywhere does seem poetic, but the image that strikes me as more realistic is that of a faucet into the house that runs about 5 percent clear water and 95 percent raw sewage. I know some people who stay on guard all the time and carefully manage this flow so their household gets a healthy intake; I know a lot more who don't."

1 comment:

Mimi said...

It doesn't get much better than Barbara Kingsolver, does it?

I think a lot of that writing happened right after the attacks, I remember reading them at that time and being thankful that I wasn't the only one thinking what she was thinking.