Skimming through Marilynne Robinson's nonfiction today, I found some interesting thoughts. I guess that means I found some ideas that reverberate with me, things I agree with, or things I have thought and not been able to articulate before. Then again, some of my favorite "interesting thoughts" from writers are ideas that blow me out of the water and change my perspective...but eventually they, too, are things I agree with. Until I change, again.
"I want to overhear passionate arguments about what we are and what we are doing and what we ought to do. I want to feel that art is an utterance made in good faith by one human being to another. I want to believe there are geniuses scheming to astonish the rest of us, just for the pleasure of it." --Marilynne Robinson, "Introduction," The Death of Adam
I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who hopes this. I wait for the geniuses, I like to think that they surround me quietly. I know one does--I married him.
"Reading, above the level of the simplest information is an act of great inwardness and subjectivity, and this is why and how it had such a profound meaning while it did--the soul encountered itself in its response to a text."--Marilynne Robinson, "Introduction," The Death of Adam
I dislike her use of past tense here; I understand it, still dislike it. Reading can still have such a profound meaning--but literacy has opened into other "texts" be they online or otherwise. Literature, in its various forms still enables the "soul to encounter itself and respond."
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