Frank Kermode’s The Genesis of Secrecy is the book form of his Norton Lectures in 1977-78. He says in the lectures that he is not a man of faith, but he takes up the gospels of Christ for an extended meditation of the work of the translator and interpreter of ancient texts. Here he is below on Mark’s gospel; Kermode sees this widely recognized first and source text as underrated, literarily speaking, compared to Luke or John:
[Corrected link] Now this is a great commencement speech. I’m still smarting from the extremely silly choice of speaker my institution made this year. May more go forth and be like Angelou, here in her prime.
thirty one years ❤️
my daughter’s further lino print adventures
I will never tire of conversion stories in all their many forms, and this from @mbattles is especially memorable: You know how it’s been for me since last June, when I stumbled into a stretch of the Damascus Road that runs secret along the Victoria Line of the London Underground. I mean that shift of gravity that I can only call by the name “conversion.” You’ll remember me recounting how suddenly I was struck, amid the swaying and banter and laughter of a group of Italian schoolkids as they came tumbling aboard—struck by the shine of their souls big enough to fill the universe, by the radical precious value of creatureliness in each one, and by the unassailable force that holds these together, which can only be called love.
Currently reading: Dust and Light: On the Art of Fact in Fiction by Andrea Barrett 📚
Andrea Barrett, from Dust and Light: Here’s a passage from a letter Anton Chekhov wrote on December 9, 1890, to his friend Alexi Suvorin, describing his journey back from Sakhalin: When we left Hong Kong the ship began to roll. The vessel was empty and made thirty-eight-degree swings, so we were afraid it would capsize. I am not prone to seasickness—that discovery came as a pleasant surprise. On the way to Singapore the bodies of two people were thrown into the sea.
Currently reading: A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken 📚 Inhaled this. McCracken is my queen.
Mary Ellen Mitchell: They may not know, but I should tell them, that Carol delivers me breakfast every Monday morning and then cleans the shelter; Amber prays for me whenever she passes MaryEllen street, which she does a lot, because it intersects with the street she lives on. Jeannette texts me weekly to let me know she’s thinking of me, in between doing legal favors for Lydia’s House, because she’s an attorney.
16 yr old son musing after dinner: If LOTR didn’t exist, I think I’d actually be a different person?
pickles, various
Many neighbor chats are still about the whole World Cup unlikely-patriotism borne of tourists' reported love for all things USA. True where you are?
I have central air for the first time in my adult life, and it is a MAJOR upgrade.
I should give up YouTube shorts, but the Caitlin Clark clips make it SO hard.
I’m sure it’s pure coincidence that I’ve become completely obsessed with the robin family awaiting babies in the tree outside my window in the summer before my daughter leaves for college
Got some new stickers for my office from Sight Study.
KYE discussion with Jack Hanson on Magnifica Humanitas is excellent.
Finished reading: Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout 📚 More tales in the diaspora of Olive Kitteredge. Strout can generate so much from very little.
Every interview with Christian Wiman is chock full of poetry and aphorisms to think with, and this one is no different. Especially grateful for this, though: Simone Weil says, “There are two atheisms, of which one is a purification of the notion of God,” which can be helpful. Years ago I said that sometimes God calls a person to unbelief so that faith can take new forms. I think faith is always trying to take new forms.