Poetry Friday, But This Is Prose

April 24, 2009 @ 10:58 am | Filed under:

A passage for the commonplace book:

I saw a bubble float past my window, fat and wobbly and ripening toward that dragonfly blue they turn just before they burst. So I looked down at the yard and there you were, you and your mother, blowing bubbles at the cat, such a barrage of them that the poor beast was beside herself at the glut of opportunity. She was actually leaping in the air, our insouciant Soapy! Some of the bubbles drifted up through the branches, even above the trees. You two were too intent on the cat to see the celestial consequences of your worldly endeavors. They were very lovely. Your mother is wearing her blue dress and you are wearing your red shirt and you were kneeling on the ground together with Soapy between you and that effulgence of bubbles rising, and so much laughter. Ah, this life, this world.

—from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Sherry, you were so right; this novel is exquisite. I’ll have more to say, much more, in posts to come.

Here’s a link to Sherry’s Semicolon post on Gilead, which is where I first heard about this gorgeous book.


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Comments

4 Reponses | Comments Feed
  1. sarah says:

    I was wading through the paragraph, thinking, well this is all a bit ordinary really … and then that last line. It gathered everything up and breathed on it and turned it all to gold.

    Gorgeous indeed.

  2. hopeinbrazil says:

    This book caught me totally by surprise. My expectations were very low (after all it was highly acclaimed by lots of book bloggers and I assumed it would not appeal to my finicky tastes.) I’m so glad I read it.

  3. Beck says:

    I LOVED that book. It was just enchanting, every word of it.

  4. Karen Edmisten says:

    You keep making my tbr pile grow ….