Trinity
Earlier today, I was thinking that I’d lose my legitimacy as a bookstore blogger if I always gave a positive review. I actually thought about finding a book I could sink with sarcasm, and, when my boss gave me the inevitable “What the hell are you doing?” talk, I would distract him with an articulate discussion of the varying degrees and forms of honesty. I also planned to offer him a slice of cardamom-pumpkin pie as recompense.
None of this was necessary. At the very beginning of my survey of the fiction space, my search for a terrible, or at least lackluster book, I stumbled upon a literary trinity. As someone who spent two months of her twentieth year truly believing she could uncover an “underlying rhythm of existence” by writing a too-broad research paper that attempted to reconcile religious and scientific patterns, I cannot ignore this grouping. And, though it might suspend my legitimacy for another week, I feel overwhelmingly positive about all three of these books.
Part I: Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog. Author, copy editor, and all-around grammar nerd Kitty Burns Florey has written a book about diagramming sentences. That’s enough to get my blood up, but if you need more, she breaks down the sentences of well-known authors (James Fenimore Cooper, Joyce Carol Oates, etc.) and dialectical expressions (”Youse kids make me tired”).
Part II: Listening is an Act of Love. The somewhat sappy title gives fair warning–this is a potentially heartwarming book, but if you can get beyond that, it’s probably also one of the most populist and remarkable pieces of non-fiction out there. StoryCorps sets up booths in cities, and interested citizens go in and record interviews with each other. This is based on the idea that everyone has a story to tell (a conviction I share), and I’m intrigued by the relationship it’s forging between oral history and our print-heavy (and, increasingly, digital) means of acquiring information. Also, if you find my use of Roman numerals irritatingly pretentious, I remind you that this collection is down-to-earth speech.
Part III: UM Professor Joanna Klink’s book Circadian. I’ve been a heavy Klink supporter since I heard her read at BookFest, and she continues to be an accessibly transcendent writer–with that clumsy phrase, I mean to say that she starts from a phrase or emotional moment that is easy to understand (”Apology”) and then moves it in words and intensity that, alone, the reader had not accessed. She’s much more articulate than I am, so, if you’re interested, just turn to page five. She’s taken on the “underlying rhythm of existence” eloquently with this collection, and the end of “Apology” is an acceptable conclusion to this entry, typed hastily on a day when the snow is melting in Missoula:
“In these hours when snow shuts, it may be we empty,
amounting to something. How could I not
wait for those few words, which we might enter.”
