tinkers

...the secrets gathered in the shadows at the tree line that rustled and waited until he passed, and which made the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end and his scalp tighten when he felt them flooding, invisible, the road around him, were dispelled each time he turned his direct attention to them, scattered to just beyond his sight. The true essence, the secret recipe of the forest and the light and the dark was far too fine and subtle to be observed with my blunt eye--water sac and nerves, miracle itself, fine itself: light catcher. But the thing itself is not forest and light and dark, but something else scattered by my coarse gaze, by my dumb intention. The quilt of leaves and light and shadow and ruffling breezes might part and I'd be given a glimpse of what is on the other side; a stitch might work itself loose or be worked loose. The weaver might have made one bad loop of whatever the thread might be wound from--light, gravity, dark from stars--had somehow been worked loose by the wind in its constant worrying of white buds and green leaves and blood-orange leaves and bare branches and two of the pieces of whatever it is that this world is knit from had come loose from each other and there was maybe just a finger width's hole, which I was lucky enough to spot in the glittering leaves from this wagon of drawers and nimble enough to scale the silver trunk and brave enough to poke my finger into the tear, that might offer to the simple touch a measure of tranquility or reassurance.

I just finished this book, tinkers by Paul Harding. It's beautifully written, like a poem. The plot is slow/sometimes seemingly pointless, but the imagery and language are beautiful. In a nutshell, the book is a collection of the thoughts of a dying man. The best way I can describe it is if postmodern Faulkner and Wordsworth had teamed up to rewrite Nabokov's Speak, Memory (it's even got a lovely allusion to Nabokov's stained glass imagery).

The book feels very wintery -- I imagined all of the scenes from the past happening in the cold all the time. But then I went back and realized that most of it is set in springtime, so I guess I'm just a sucker for cover art (an undeniably wintery scene of white sky and white landscape with bare, fading trees and one small person), or the recent snowstorm is getting to me. Anyways, it was a pleasant read that made me wish for a fire in the fireplace.