Ganseys

It's lovely when a book is stewing on the back of the stove, so long you almost forget the details and then one morning, something catches your eye, a vital ingredient that would never have been included if you'd eaten the soup the first day. Dutch ganseys, for instance. Traditional knitted fisherman's sweaters. Patterns passed down by oral tradition. Intriguing.

My heroine is the daughter of a Dutch fisherman, in a home where knitting is forbidden, and painful to mention, because of her mother's nightmarish past. The story is my own pattern, flowing from the old fairy tale about the swan brothers, and the sister who must free them; I hope to blend elements of Mrs. Rochester, locked away in her attic; that Meldrum novel, Madapple, which I never read but the cover and premise appealed to me; the can't-put-your-finger-on-it deliciousness of We Have Always Lived in the Castle... this is sounding like quite the gothic novel, but that's not my goal. Anyway, knitting plays a big, big part in the plot, and now to discover this element of ganseys, well. I'm pleased.

(Does this mean I'm writing again? Well, I'm thinking about it... :)

ala travesty

Okay for Now doesn't even get a nod in this morning's Newbery results.

"Dead End in Norvelt," written by Jack Gantos, is the 2012 Newbery Medal winner. Two Newbery Honor Books also were named: "Inside Out & Back Again," written by Thanhha Lai and "Breaking Stalin's Nose," written and illustrated by Eugene Yelchin."

 "Where Things Come Back," written by John Corey Whaley, is the 2012 Printz Award winner."

I was so pleased with the 2010 results. Now I have two years in a row of what had become (pre-2010) my typical reaction to the ALA's taste. Eh.

La vita è bella

Buried at the bottom of a lecture playlist, someone recommended La vita è bella.

Watched it last night, haunted by the fullness, the beauty, the suffering, world without end, of a chosen people, just and unjust. When tempted to lay all at the feet of judgement, or to decry such pronouncements, I remember

If you think you understand, it isn't God.--St Augustine

Cuts both ways.

But what is God
and where is God
when his face is turned away?

He is both justice and goodness, in perfect fullness, a ring of pure and endless light, too complete for the crescent human mind to contain.

The Psalms are a comfort. He does not silence when we cry, how long?

When he slew them
then
they sought him
and they remembered that God
was
their rock
and the high God
their redeemer

So we will not go back from Thee:
quicken us
and we will call upon Thy name
Turn us
again
O Lord God of hosts
cause Thy face
to shine
and we shall
be saved

And yet, life is full, and life is beautiful.