Meditations From A Movable Chair: Summary and book reviews of Meditations From A Movable Chair by Andre Dubus, plus links to an excerpt from Meditations From A Movable Chair and a biography of Andre Dubus.
Meditations From A Movable Chair
by Andre Dubus
Hardcover: Jun 1998,
210 pages.
Paperback: Apr 1999,
255 pages.
For Andre Dubus, "the quotidian and the spiritual don't exist
on different planes, but infuse each other. His is an unapologetically sacramental vision
of life in which ordinary things participate in the miraculous, the miraculous in ordinary
things. He believes in God, and talks to Him, and doesn't mince words. He believes in
ghosts . . . He is open to mystery, and of all mysteries the one that interests him most
is the human potential for transcendence."
So wrote Tobias Wolff seven years ago, about Andre Dubus's Broken Vessels, and that
insight describes perfectly the twenty-five pieces in this powerfully moving new
collection, a continuation of Dubus's candid, intensely personal exploration into matters
of morality, religion, and creativity. Since that first book of essays, written after the
1986 accident that cost him his leg and, for a time, the ability to write, Mr. Dubus has
published Dancing After Hours, a unanimously heralded book of stories "at once
harrowing and exhilarating" (Time).
Here is Dubus on the rape of his beloved
sister, his first real job, a gay naval officer, Hemingway, the blessing of his first
marriage, his dear friend Richard Yates, his own crippling, lost autumnal pleasures,
having sons and grandsons, his first books, meeting a woman who witnessed his accident,
the Catholic church, and, of course, his faith.
New York Times Book Review
A writer of immense sensitivity, vulnerability, and thoughtfulness--a master at the
height of his talent--whose work is suffused with grace, bathed in a kind of
spiritual glow
The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Susan Salter Reynolds
These essays are beautiful as a view is beautiful, or a child, or a
righteous struggle with a victorious ending.... The essays on his life
unblinkingly reveal what injury can do to body and spirit, what the greatest
sorrows are.
Reminds us that life is not to be taken for granted but to be lived fully with zeal, curiosity, and gratitude. That is a powerful message in itself, but it is the messenger who gives it its full resonance.
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