I was trying to catch up on some old NEW YORKERs I never read and came across a wonderful Louise Gluck poem. Just in case any of you missed it, here it is. I can't seem to get it spaced as printed in the magazine. The stanzas should be single spaced. Nevertheless, the poem still works for me. Hope it does for you.
Marriage
by Louise Glück New Yorker October 22, 2007
All week they’ve been by the sea again
and the sound of the sea colors everything.
Blue sky fills the window.
But the only sound is the sound of the waves pounding the shore—
angry. Angry at something. Whatever it is
must be why he’s turned away. Angry, though he’d never hit her,
never say a word, probably.
So it’s up to her to get the answer some other way,
from the sea, maybe, or the gray clouds suddenly
rising above it. The smell of the sea is in the sheets,
the smell of sun and wind, the hotel smell, fresh and sweet
because they’re changed every day.
He never uses words. Words, for him, are for making arrangements,
for doing business. Never for anger, never for tenderness.
She strokes his back. She puts her face up against it,
even though it’s like putting your face against a wall.
And the silence between them is ancient: it says
these are the boundaries.
He isn’t sleeping, not even pretending to sleep.
His breathing’s not regular: he breathes in with reluctance;
he doesn’t want to commit himself to being alive.
And he breathes out fast, like a king banishing a servant.
Beneath the silence, the sound of the sea,
the sea’s violence spreading everywhere, not finished, not finished,
his breath driving the waves—
But she knows who she is and she knows what she wants.
As long as that’s true, something so natural can’t hurt her.
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I have found someone to do the Web site and I hope it won't be too long before it's up. Meanwhile, in case your groups would like to read along with us, here is a list of the books our groups will be discussing this spring.
SNOW COUNTRY by Yasunari Kawabata and LINKS by Nuruddin Farah (in one group)
SHADOW OF THE POMEGRANATE TREE by Tariq Ali
and
FEAR OF STONES by Kei Miller (the other two groups)
All three groups:
OLD FILTH by Jane Gardam
THE GATHERING by Anne Enright
PEOPLE OF THE BOOK by Geraldine Brooks
Janet Maslin has written a review of PEOPLE IN THE BOOK by Geraldine Brooks in today's NEW YORK TIMES. She writes that Brooks's contemporary story thread is unnecessary. I agree with her, but I think the bulk of the book, the trail and extraordinary survival of the Sarajevo Haggadah, bolstered by Brooks's research, makes the book worthwhile reading. The criticism reminds me of the ending of Sebastian Faulks's BIRDSONG, which had a contemporary "wrap the story up." I wish he hadn't done it, but some of the people in my groups liked the ending. Few books, like few or no people are perfect. If authors and publishers waited to print the perfect book, not only wouldn’t there be agreement, there would be no books on library shelves. If a book has faults, it still may be good reading. I think PEOPLE OF THE BOOK will be read and I think it should be.
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE and THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE are more positive and enthusiastic than Maslin is.
Posted by Harriet
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