It's a Blue Monday (on a "throw-back Thursday") as I just finished re-reading, by way of hearing,
A Spool of Blue Thread, by Anne Tyler. I read the hard copy back when it was brand new and a 7-day book at the library. Now my book group is reading it, I am the host (in early February), and I knew it would be wise to re-read it. The hard copies were out, so I tried it as an audiobook, read aloud by Kimberly Farr, a Broadway actress who, I see from her bio, "created the role of Eve in Arthur Miller's first and only musical,
Up From Paradise, which was directed by the author." Neato!
I think she must have been in the
University of Michigan staging of it in Ann Arbor, to have
created the role, so to speak, because someone else plays Eve in the
New York Times-reviewed version that has Len Cariou as God and Austin Pendleton as Adam. (It looks like it was
a flop, as was
The Creation of the World and Other Business, the non-musical version of Genesis by Arthur Miller, but I do remember that being a big hit in speech tournaments around that time!) Sigh... Making a living in the theatre is hard.
Anyhoo, back to the spool of blue thread. I was so glad I listened to the book, for now the image of the actual spool of blue thread, used for mending a dashiki shirt, is salient in my mind. So is a Swedish blue porch swing, and all the kinds of love and forgiveness we might witness or long for in the world. I love Anne Tyler. I remember how an excerpt from
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant first wowed me. Oh, and that reminds me of fried chicken, made by more than one woman in more than one generation in
A Spool of Blue Thread. But, most recently, in my mind (and ears), Nora. As the host, I might conceivably make fried chicken for my book group, but I think we will all be better off if I don't.
Now, stop reading to avoid a spoiler, but I am also going to try to avoid it by not telling you who did what and why.... Instead, I'll ask this blend of an interpretive question (as it applies specifically to a character and action in the book) and an evaluative question (as we might apply it in our lives): When is it (or is it ever) a good idea to "pretend not to see" the deep emotion of one of our fellow passengers in life? And why, or why not? If and when you have read the book, you will know why I am asking, and you can answer for this character as well as yourself!
Can you make teeny tiny porch swings from popsicle sticks and paint them Swedish blue? That was one of my fave books this year.
ReplyDeleteGood question. I think there are often times when pretending not to see is the right thing, but more in order to spare the other person something than to spare ourselves. Not, of course, that I would presume to say that I follow my own advice.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of the teeny tiny porch swings! This swing is perhaps more Caribbean than Swedish blue...but colors look different on the internet....
ReplyDeleteThanks, dears, for reading and commenting on the post. And, yes, Seana, the book brought me to the lovely insight, through one character's identification and empathy with another, a stranger, that sometimes not seeing is exactly what the other person might need most at that moment...OR so we think...and that's why the book is so wonderful. We can keep asking, at every important in the book, and in our lives, whether it might have been best to acknowledge the emotion...or, instead, "pretend not to see." When did one's choice either block or facilitate love? And so on.....