Monday, February 11, 2008

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I am not a literary critique by no means but I LOVE to read and enjoy a great story. I spend my quiet/down time before bed reading & when I don't have a good book on the nightstand, it's a hard time to fall asleep... so with that I must share my latest read, Four Souls by Louise Erdrich . Aside from Fleur ( the main charactor), some chapters told about the relationship between Margaret and Nanapush... I laughed for them (and cried too). Margarets story about the making of her medicine dress really got to me, made my heart know what "Margaret" was feeling about her stitching mission.

On the copyright page it said I could quoate in a review mode so here goes...

From page 176 of "Four Souls" by Louise Erdrich......

"To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this. They see the whole but they don't see the stitches. They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a womans eye can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only a women can hear the prayer.

So the medicine dress wanted me to make it. A privilege I might have had no use for twenty years ago. Or forty. But now that I have lived upon this earth and seen what I have seen, I was ready. And so I began where all things begin-with the death of something else."


Ahhhhhhh...
And the making of the medicine dress begins .... If you want a good story, give Four Souls a try... Fleur is a determined charactor as well.


4 comments:

Barbara Hagerty said...

I understand this! It is something universal to stitchers. I sometimes pick up a UFO, and stitching it again will take me back to some of the same thoughts I had when I last took it up, as if the stitches themselves contained the memories! Thanks for sharing this passage from your book!

Allison Ann Aller said...

This is a beautiful passage, Jane. Thanks for quoting it.
Love your RR blocks! It is so cool to see a CQ with such an unusual theme.
Good luck with your internet adjustments (having DH home and online). Fighting over bandwidth does occur in my home too occiasionally!

JK said...

Hi Darlin...what beautiful words posted there...

Thanks so much for visiting my blog so many times...I enjoy hearing from you..

I think that is Mark's Lapinski's work, but don't take my word for it...HA! I'm just stitching on it..

Susan said...

I love the opening line. Is that the first line in the book? It's a good hook for women, at the very least. =)