I finished reading Ann Patchett's "This is a Happy Marriage" last night. It's selections from her magazine articles over the years, and some are more interesting than others, but I did end up with a strong sense of who she is as a person, and her loyalty to friends and family. It was a good glimpse into a writer's life, and how she manages to write and still be engaged in the world around her. And I was intrigued by her struggle to not repeat her family's divorce tradition. She did marry young and then divorce. Then is avoided marriage a second time. Then she was involved with someone for eleven years before agreeing to marry him. Her determination to not have children never faltered. Did that help her have the time to write? It does seem very nineteenth century, to give up marriage and children to be able to have a creative life. But it is also true that having both is challenging, and many of my successful writing friends waited until they had a couple of books under their belt before they had kids. It's clear Patchett thought the two were incompatible for herself. Her last piece is about a nun, and one suddenly sees how Catholicism, renunciation, and devotion have shaped her life. She could have been a nun, she was a kind of writing nun for many years. She admires the good and the simple, while being neither herself, and needs to believe in the honor of sequestering. I'm sure I will think quite a bit about the book.
Her formula for a happy marriage? She said when she was young a woman told her: Ask yourself if you are a better person with him and he with you. She has lived by that measure.
No comments:
Post a Comment