Feb 15, 2011

I Love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to choose two sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.

I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

.... the artists of the chi, mostly women, Chinese
women, were moving, dancing the air/the wind/ energy/life, and getting the world turning.... They played with the chi, drawing circles in the sky, lifting earth to sky, pulling sky
to earth, swirling the controllable universe. Then walked off to do their daily ordinary tasks. (p. 61)

From I Love a Broad Margin to My Life, a verse memoir by Maxine Hong Kingston, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Jan. 18, 2011.

Description from Goodreads: "In her singular voice—humble, elegiac, practical—Maxine Hong Kingston's ....swift, effortlessly flowing verse lines feel instantly natural in this fresh approach to the art of memoir, as she circles from present to past and back, from lunch with a writer friend to the funeral of a Vietnam veteran, from her long marriage (“can’t divorce until we get it right. / Love, that is. Get love right”) to her arrest at a peace march in Washington....
 
On her journeys as writer, peace activist, teacher, and mother, Kingston revisits her most beloved characters: she learns the final fate of her Woman Warrior, and she takes her Tripmaster Monkey, a hip Chinese American, on a journey through China, where he has never been—a trip that becomes a beautiful meditation on the country then and now, on a culture where rice farmers still work in the age-old way, even as a new era is dawning. “All over China,” she writes, “and places where Chinese are, populations / are on the move, going home. That home / where Mother and Father are buried. Doors / between heaven and earth open wide.”
 
Such is the spirit of this wonderful book—a sense of doors opening wide onto an American life of great purpose and joy, and the tonic wisdom of a writer we have come to cherish." (Goodreads)

8 comments:

  1. What a great image! I have two this week. My YA teaser is from The False Princess by Eilis O'Neal and my adult teaser is from Game for Anything by Bella Andre. Happy reading!

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  2. This one sounds fascinating...I love memoirs, and the style of telling the story, circling from past to present and back, is a style I enjoy.

    Thanks for visiting my blog.

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  3. Interesting teaser!

    http://fredasvoice.blogspot.com/2011/02/teaser-tuesday_15.html

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  4. wow--that was a great teaser. I wonder how the book is? Kaye—the road goes ever ever on

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  5. Enjoyed my visit to your blog. Great teaser. Thanks for visiting my blog this a.m. Belle

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  6. What a lovely visual in this quote. Can just see graceful women of all ages practicing chi before getting on with everyday life. Kingston seems like a very wise writer and memoir is always a favorite genre.

    My TT is for "Rose in a Storm" by John Katz. If you like dogs, especially very smart border collies, this book may appeal to you. Link: Summit Musings

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  7. Sounds like a great book.I'm marking it as TBR...as the book relates to teacher.
    Thank you for visiting

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I appreciate your comments and thoughts...

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