3.25.2010

Spinning, spinning, spinning

I've been reading (keeping my creative promise!). Now. Usually, when I pick up a book to read over a vacation I know just what I'm getting into, but this time I was completely surprised.

I must have read the book jacket hurriedly. I saw the National Book Award insignia on the cover and "check," off I went ... or something ... because I missed the book's major themes until I was deep into the story.

Let the Great World Spin is fictional, but it's based on a tightrope walker who teetered over Manhattan in 1974, crossing from one World Trade Center tower to the other. It's about the human desire for hope and recovery, about many characters' unique experience of a certain moment. And in the end, it's obvious that we're all balancing some kind of highwire. It's a human condition to do so.

Maybe a little heavier than I normally go for a beach read? Um, yep. Worth the surprise? Uh huh.

I'm a word junkie, but I won't bore you with cool phrases I circled in its pages (e.g. "Revolving doors pushed quarters of conversation out onto the street." Sigh. Yes, nerdy). But I will share this excerpt from the author's afterword. I'll share it because I think it's beautiful and true and because it makes me want to read another book, tell another story:

"A book is completed only when it is finished by a reader. This is the intimate privilege of art. In fact, it's the intimate privilege of being alive."

5 comments:

  1. Sarah,
    Did you write that about "a book is only finished by its reader" or whom?
    I like.
    Cheryl

    ReplyDelete
  2. From one word nerd to another word nerd, it's a pleasure to read the words of nerd who is not afraid to break off from the herd to follow the song of her own bird. Keep writing and enjoy the fine weather now that your tree swing is finally pointing in the right direction. see you this weekend at the ITAS chapter meeting. Love, Dad

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi! I'm behind you.
    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMay 22, 2010

    worst blogger ever.
    post something already! jeeze. :-P
    <3 Anna

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sarah- I think you must be working too hard. Take a break and post something!
    Your coworker and blog reader, Mary Jo

    ReplyDelete