Few books arrive with the quiet confidence of Cathedrals of Ordinary Time. From its first page, the author writes as though the only honest sentence is the one already on the table.
An issue from the Hudson archive — essays, verse, and review of the season's most necessary books.
Plot, in the conventional sense, is almost beside the point. What propels the pages is closer to attention — the writer's, then ours — turning over the ordinary until it gives up its odd, persistent light.
The Weight of the Quotidian
The dialogue is doing several jobs at once. It tells us where we are. It tells us who is listening. And, more rarely, it tells us what the silence between two people actually costs.
“There is no false note here, only a writer working at the full reach of her instrument.”
The dialogue is doing several jobs at once. It tells us where we are. It tells us who is listening. And, more rarely, it tells us what the silence between two people actually costs.
Plot, in the conventional sense, is almost beside the point. What propels the pages is closer to attention — the writer's, then ours — turning over the ordinary until it gives up its odd, persistent light.
Listening to the Margins
There are passages in this book that ask to be read twice, not because they are difficult, but because the first reading is too occupied with surprise to register the music underneath.
What lingers, after the last page, is not a verdict but a temperature. Cathedrals of Ordinary Time leaves the room a few degrees warmer, a few degrees more honest.
