Here's my message today, loud and clear, from The Paris Review Interviews, vol 1, p 103, a book which I just happened to pick up from the floor of my study, intending to slide it back onto the bookshelf but...the book tumbled, splaying, beckoning. Saul Bellow apparently had something to tell me:
"I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness that characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction." -- Saul Bellow, 1965
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Hello, Ms. Friddle. I very recently picked up your novel, "The Garden Angel," from one of my various towers of books to reread and I decided to check out your web site again (I recalled visiting it several times when I first read your inaugural book) and felt I encountered something of a serendipitous discovery seeing your blog link.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to offer you my appreciation and admiration for your artistry of words. I eagerly anticipate the joy of savoring your new novel in May.
As for your particular post here, I for one have a strong propensity to believe with hope that such a “stillness” can and will speak, if the moment is conducive for granting such a grace. I pulled out my most cherished book, one that indeed is an oracle for me in so very many ways, and the passage I randomly fell to didn’t bless me with any apropos message. Then again, as I mentioned, I have the strong suspicion that one must be prepared for such a moment. I venture to say that one may even need to be in a given state of pause, coming up for air, if you will, to appropriate such a moment. I work a truly maddening schedule in a well known company in corporate America and, frankly, it literally devours such moments. Maybe next time. :)
Thanks for the kind words...and here's to stillness and the space between words.
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