... working on Artemis galley sheets ...
May 25, 1999
5:23 a.m.
There are places on the earth that make you feel things. You know what I mean. You can't go to the Kennedy Space Center without an ozone-flavored chill crawling up your spine. Standing on the outside of Stonehenge brings the faint echo of ancient powers. You can't sit on a porch swing during a soft summer rain without breathing deeply and feeling the earth slowly spinning below you. And you can't stand on the lip of the Grand Canyon without feeling how truly large the world is. We drove to Louisville Sunday night to pick Brigid up. The airport was filled with transition. Sleekly decorated, wide open spaces that said we're glad you were here, go well on your way. The gate had a feeling of anticipation all to itself, resonating with excited hugs and celebrations of arrival. I think it's interesting, don't you? Occasionally, there are books that are like that, too. They draw you in somehow, and by their end they leave you with a tingling momento to take away with you. These are few, I think, and they are far between for someone who reads as sparsely as I do. They are treasures. I started to read Stephen Leigh's Speaking Stones in the middle of last week. I got twenty pages into it the first day--and another twenty the next. That's my normal method of reading these days, twenty pages at a whack. Maybe that's why I'm a better short story reader than a novel reader. Saturday, I picked up where I left off, planning to do another twenty pages then sit down and write. Four hours later, I was done with the book. I sat curled up on my couch, and lay the book on the floor. It was quiet. Lisa was downstairs working, the ceiling fan circled silently, blowing air over me. I took a deep breath and I closed my eyes, letting the story settle. And for a minute I swear it felt like I was standing inside the Lincoln Memorial. That's what this book feels like. It feels like I'm standing beside the white marble Abraham Lincoln and craning my neck up and reading the Gettysburg Address carved into the side of the vast stone wall. It smells like marble. It's theme echoes deeply like wind through a huge seashell. This realization surprised me, really. The book is not about slavery, or servitude, or emancipation. But it still rings with an essence that I very much associate with Abraham Lincoln in general, and the memorial in specific. The book is about union, I think. And it's about how individuals affect the greater whole--how individuals create the collective whole. It's about family. Lisa is a descendant of the Lincoln family, by the way, so maybe that's why I associate with that place so strongly. I don't know. I just know that the Lincoln Memorial is a powerful structure, and that it's placement between those of Thomas Jefferson and the Vietnam Wall seems to be an important coincidence of history. I lay on the couch for a long time Saturday, feeling stretched on the inside, wishing the story wasn't done, but feeling something great had just occurred.  I don't know how anyone else will feel. I would never claim to speak for the world, but to me this is an award-class book. Yes, take it with a grain of salt that I know the author. Perhaps I'm biased. Take also that this is one of the few books that I've read in a single sitting lately--an act that always makes things the best they can be. But know also that I'm speaking from the center of my heart. Read this book.   Might want to pick this one up, first:   Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"THERE ARE THREE: Those who seek nothing Those who know not what they seek Those who have found it." Angelsaiye KoPavi, Nasituda 27, Grouping A: "The Threes" |
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