Grace Paley:
Books Column Number Four
by Dean "Just Visiting, Thanks" Bonzani 2.2.01
Okay, now THIS is the stuff.
Evan Midling and Pat Uding, the owners of Starrlight Books, 15 N. Leroux Street, were (as always) kind enough to let me sit quietly in the sunlit corner of their old/used/rare/brand-spankin'-new bookstore to gently read some Grace Paley. Leaving "Enormous Changes At The Last Minute" and "Just As I Thought" on the shelf, I nestled in with "The Collected Stories" and "Begin Again— Collected Poems."
Wow.
Shunning simile and metaphor, I'll just say, "wow." Go hear this woman speak. Read her work. It will do something for you, that much is guaranteed. What effect she'll have on your insides is up to who or what you may be, but something is bound to happen, should you come into contact with what she exudes.
Why do we, as a species, desperately need artists like Grace Paley? It could well be that our very survival depends upon her thoughts, feelings, and insights, and those of others like her. What she distills and delivers through her words is stunning, brilliant, undiluted, and overwhelming in its potency. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to discover what the substance of her work contains. It leaves me with a horrendous tangle of emotion in my chest, and a dull headache. When I read works like Grace Paley’s, it leaves me having to take a very long walk in the woods, sans Terriers. Mind you, this is a good thing. It’s good to have a brave, articulate soul split your ignorance wide open, leaving you to sort through the wet rubbish of your misconceptions.
When you’d rather crawl inside a vapid television show, or finish off a bottle of Scotch, sometimes what you really ought to do is crack a book like “Just As I Thought,” and then, when the dendrites are crisping in your skull, take a solemn, thoughtful walk through the aspen and pine. I’ll meet you out there.
©2001 by Dean Bonzani. All Rights Reserved