The Paper Garden

I returned to The Paper Garden last night, and finished it this afternoon. It was a bit of a chore, because the structure of the book didn't feel sound. Molly Peacock seems to have done a credible job of distilling a great deal of material into a clear biography of an extraordinary woman, but she injected too much of herself into it, in two ways: first, she chronicled her own journey in the process of the book in a way that was jarring; and second, she made far too many jumps of interpretation of Mrs. Delany's  flowers. I think Mrs. D would be shocked at what her work is assumed to mean. Also injected was quite a bit of biography of others, notably Ruth Hayden, a relative of Mrs. D's, who wrote her own biography, Mrs. Delany, Her Life and Her Flowers, published in 1980. Other famous figures take their place in The Paper Garden, to the point of intrusion.


That said, there is hope in the tale. Mrs. D came to her work (perhaps not at 72, but 73) after a four-year recovery from the death of her husband. I'm not even finished three years and barely getting a hold on anything and besides he didn't die, which makes it harder. But to think that there is still time for me, that there will be vitality, energy to create even if in a small way, is hopeful. 


For a book I really didn't like much, I marked quite a few passages - all of them relating to my own experience, hopes and dreams and not so much to Mrs. D's.


"It is a privilege to have, somewhere within you, a capacity for making something speak from your own seared experience."


"You might not be able to draw a conclusion from what overwhelms you, but if you describe it, you will come to know it. And when you come to know it, you are less afraid of it. And when you are no longer afraid, you have balance. And when you have balance, you have the poise that is control." (I'm not sure about the control part, but the poise is longed-for.)


"Without the communication of a real friend, sorrow would sink one to the lowest ebb... the compassion a friend affords one... is like opiate to one in racking pain." (In writing, I assume any reader to be a real friend.)


Peacock's quotation from Gerry O'Flaherty, a Joycean in Dublin, "Don't take another picture of people! Photograph the dishes on this table. It's pictures of people's everyday lives we need!" (And in writing, if we can capture the everyday-ness of our own lives, or of the lives of the people we write about, then we can have that "communication of a real friend.")


"One of the antidotes to depression is actually doing something, provided you can manage the energy to put one foot in front of the other." (This last in speaking of Ruth Hayden.),


I've put the Hayden book on my wish list.


ps
As to my brief discussion of Northern Lights, I read (in Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt) that this series is of an anti-Christian nature and is in opposition to C.S. Lewis, Tolkein, and Rowling, according to Christopher Hitchens. I must say that in none of these books do I recognize most of the allegory. My failing, I'm sure.


What to read next? Your Life as Story, Tristine Rainer, recommended by Judith Nies who wrote The Girl I Left Behind.