Jane Case > Recent Status Updates

Such a lovely book. Thoroughly enjoyed getting to know these characters better. Chuckled out loud a few times. When Emily accidentally embraces the man on the sidewalk and says - “Things like that don’t happen… they are foreordained.” Or when Great Aunt Nancy tells her to not worry about school so much and just show her ankles.

Occasionally I get glimpses of Emma Lion in Emily. A delightful pairing.

“Everybody who has ever lived in the world and could string two rhymes together has written a poem on spring. It is the most be-rhymed subject in the world-and always will be, because it is poetry incarnate itself. You can never be a real poet if you haven't made at least one poem about spring.”

Her exchange with Father Cassidy is wonderful. I love real people who see others as real people. What a beautiful moment.

And I love when Cousin Jimmy tells Aunt Elizabeth that no person should ever have to kneel in front of another person other than God.

“My father was a very, very rich man,” said Emily deliberately.
Rhoda stared.
“I thought he hadn’t a cent.”
“Neither he had. But people can be rich without money.”

Love the chapter on boredom and childhood imagination. That’s one of my biggest draws for reading this book. I want to foster that imagination and creativity and freedom of thought as much as I can.

“Boredom is a scary proposition because we are already at our wit's end. We are splintered off from family and from community and bear the brunt of burdens that were meant to be shouldered by many others. The joys were meant to be dispersed as well. A society in which children are sequestered misses out on daily sparks of joy, curiosity, and youthful energy.”

I like that she reads French Kids Eat Everything and tried to eliminate snacking from the daily routine and realized that wasn’t going to work for their family so they went back to reasonable snacking. Or tried to not do screens on long car rides and then realized it was better for everybody to just watch a movie on the long car rides. Feels much more real life.

This book is incredibly unique. Novel, journal, poetry, scripture, memoir, stream of consciousness all mixed up in one. Thought provoking.

“Marilynne Robinson didn’t just “write a man”; she wrote a mind at rest, a consciousness allowed to wander without performance. You’re not reading a character study. You’re eavesdropping on a soul learning how to say goodbye.”

To be a woman writing entirely in a man’s voice, to make it feel like his genuine stream of consciousness flowing from one random idea or memory to the next whether it’s connected or not, to seamlessly write of a time and place and experience not your own… she really pulls you in.

Loved the story of redemption in this one and the dad’s sermon about being a baseball player. God is good!

Three acts of stupidity