The Lacuna - A Short Book Review

I finished it.  At 12:15 p.m.  The book took me longer to read because of my obsession to hold onto significant quotes, vivid word pictures, and short quips to think over another time.

Barbara Kingsolver did not disappoint me in any of those categories.  And so I began by jotting down page numbers.  Then short statements.  Scrap paper filled up with notes.  I feel somehow responsible to share a few examples with the world and any would-be readers (or would-NOT-be readers).  Here are a few from at least 50 I had noted--helplessly and fretfully selected lest they not adequately represent the remarkable craft of this gifted author.

• "Mother had to bow her head a little as she crept past it, sins dripping from her shoes as we walked around the nave, leaving invisible puddles on the clean tiles." "The story is told a little each Saturday, so you'll have to buy another paper.  But when the people finish, you can pick it up from the sidewalk for free.  Yesterday's heroes fall beneath the shoes of the city."  
• "People ask without wanting to know."
  
• "He who does not block the way helps a lot." 
• "They (book reviewers) are the wind in their own sails."
• "...a picknick (picnic) from your worries...."
• "The only importance is beauty."
• "'Dance for the crowd' is the new order, with newsmen leading the politicians like bears on the leash.  Real convictions would be a hindrance.  The radio is at the root of the evil, their rule is No silence, ever.  When anything happens, the commentator has to speak without a moment's pause for gathering wisdom.  Falsehood and inanity are preferable to silence...The talkers are rising above the thinkers."

There definitely is a political bent to this novel (no surprise, if you've read Kingsolver before).  But I found the book fascinating in its composition, art, historical setting, and locations - two of which I have personally visited.

Now, on to my next read.  A Sue Monk Kidd collaboration with her daughter.