This book is a gift for the mind! I always enjoy reading Marilynne Robinson -- I love her thinking! And this collection of essays was food for my own thinking -- it challenged, affirmed, and enlightened! These essays push boundaries -- warning off complacency by encouraging engagement in our world -- a world with its myriad challenges!
I guess my biggest takeaway is the importance of staying informed -- of receiving information from primary sources and not accepting sound bites that diminish meaning. She warns us that the ideas which informed and emboldened our founders and shaped our nation have been diminished and erroneously summarized through the years. We should not trust the conventional wisdom we learn of thinkers like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards but we should take responsibility by reading what they actually had to say! Robinson bemoans our willingness to abdicate responsibility for the health of our environment as well the spiritual health of our citizens.
"The assumption of present responsibility for the present state of things was a ritual feature of life in this culture for two and a half centuries, and is entirely forgotten by us now."
I'm always stretched by the thinking of Marilynne Robinson -- and I'm especially happy that I found my way back to this book via our TBR challenge!!!
Sue Monk Kidd has a talent for dredging up the rawest of emotions, both in her characters and in this reader. How come I had never heard of the Grimke sisters, two abolitionists from the early 1800's? They were among the forefront of the movement to free the slaves. Call it what you want...audacity, courage, fierce belief in their cause...these two Southern white women faced unbelievable odds. Not only did women not have the vote, they barely had a voice. I wanted to stand and cheer when I read what Sarah told her male colleagues: "Do what you have to do, censure us, withdraw your support, we'll press on anyway. Now, sirs, kindly take your feet off our necks." I'm sure there were several dropped jaws and rolled eyes in the room.
Hetty, aka Handful, was my favorite character in Kidd's novel. Although she did exist as a real slave to Sarah Grimke, Kidd created a longer life for Hetty in the novel. When Sarah taught Hetty the basics of reading, I knew their bond would be lifelong. Their relationship is depicted well in this quote from Hetty,
"People say love gets fouled by a difference big as ours. I didn't know for
sure whether Miss Sarah's feelings came from love or guilt. I didn't know
whether mine came from love or a need to be safe. She loved me and pitied me.
And I loved her and used her. It never was a simple thing. That day, our hearts
were pure as they ever would get."
In my reading of other accounts of America's history of slavery, both fiction and non-fiction, I don't recall feeling such compassion as I did with Kidd's, The Invention of Wings. Maybe it was more powerful because she did such an excellent job of depicting the painful truth of the time in all walks of society, both in the South and in the North.
I also loved her metaphor of the quilt as a story of life, and the black triangles depicting birds' wings. I read in a review of the book that Kidd broke down in tears after she had written the last sentence in the novel. I understand why.
"When we left the mouth of the harbor, the wind swelled and the veils round us flapped, and I heard the blackbird wings. We rode onto the shining water, onto the far distance."
