Frustrated with itunes as I merely opened it to listen to a sermon I missed by Jeff Manion and instead have to wait for it to download endless updates, I find myself here, reflecting. Taking up a recommendation by a friend of mine to read "Still Life with the Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins, I wasn't sure what to think at first. An overly cynical, but fantastic writer Robbins took a little while to get used to. The story is most literally "a sort of love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes." I'm not going to explain the story to you--read it if you want--but that is the best description I can give. There's a quote in the end that I particularly liked, about the two main characters (and lovers) Princess Leigh-Cheri and the outlaw, Bernard Wrangler. It reads:
"But having acquired a taste for solitude, each of them spent days separate and alone, Leigh-Cheri in the attic, Bernard in the pantry. Funny how we think of romance as always involving two, when the romance of solitude can be ever so much more delicious and intense. Alone, the world offers itself freely to us. To be unmasked, it has no choice."
It's a powerful quote, especially with the surrounding context. Just to think how busy we try to make our lives when sometimes solitude is a great way to understand the world and even more so God. On an unrelated note, the book also deals wonderfully with the idea of objects and how animate objects (people) can form such intricate relationships with them. It's quite interesting. And, the book will have you wondering, "what did ever happen to the golden ball?"
1 comment:
I stumbled upon you blog, and fell in love with it. I have yet to read the book. I though you might like the following poem by La Dispute. "one"
It's on the "Here, Hear" album.
When you have listened tell me what you think.
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