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fbroom's review against another edition
5.0
I mean I just love her prose. It’s so poetic. I’ll read anything by her seriously.
"no longer consumed by the question: What if? What if I hadn’t noticed the infinitesimal seizures? What if Jacob hadn’t fallen down the stairs? What if I hadn’t noticed the seizures before Jacob had fallen down the stairs? What then? In how many ways would I have blamed myself for hiring the wrong babysitter, moving to Brooklyn, living in a four-story home, having a staircase? What if the drugs hadn’t worked? What if M. and I had disagreed on a course of action? There were choices to be made. What if M. and I had seen all this differently?"
"I feel M. next to me on her sofa. His body is my home. Yet lately, I have had flashes, unbidden moments in which I wonder who the hell he is. I secretly fear that I’ve been wrong about him."
"We walk—arms wrapped around each other—downtown. The romantic dinner, candles dripping, his East Village apartment, the two of us tangled up in his bedsheets. The tiny wedding; the Provençal honeymoon; the birth of our baby; the close call. The raising of him, the reveling in him. The Brooklyn town house, the Connecticut saltbox. The lung cancer, the Alzheimer’s. The bar mitzvah. The triumphs; disappointments; terrors; risks. The books; films; teaching; travel. The smart moves; the idiocy. The sheer velocity of it all. I want to bless that young couple as they cross Union Square. I want to deliver some kind of benediction upon them as—drunk on love—they meander the narrow streets of Alphabet City. I want to suggest that there will come a time when they will need something more than love."
"The years. They ran through my open fingers like a trickle of water, streaming faster, faster. On my twenty-fifth birthday, I wept in the outdoor garden of a café on West Seventy-First Street that no longer exists. I was sure my best years were behind me. At thirty, my second husband threw me a party in our apartment high above Madison Avenue. I wore a blue sparkly minidress. I left him two months later. At thirty-four, I walked into the crowded party near Gramercy Park. At thirty-seven, I gave birth by emergency cesarean section. At thirty-nine, I left New York City. At forty, my mother died. And then a long, merciful stretch of ordinary days. What will be next on the list? There has always been more time."
"The journals—I understood at once—were dangerous. If I read further, I might never write the memoir. I had no sympathy for the girl I once was. She was boy-crazy, insipid, ridiculous. I was certain she didn’t deserve a book. I didn’t want to capture her voice. I packed the whole lot of them back in the box, taped it shut, and hauled it down to my car. I pushed her as far away from me as possible."
"We talked about the interest in a book proposal that would have required him to spend months in West Africa. Where would we be now if he had taken the assignments, chosen to write the book? It could have happened. / It had to happen. Instead, he has walked a long way down this road with me. The house, the yard, the wife, the boy, the dogs, the schools, the quiet countryside. I believe he doesn’t regret it. But still, has being with me stopped him from being him?"
"Some things that definitely won’t happen: We won’t have more children; we won’t host big family reunions; we won’t own a compound where generations will spend summer weekends playing badminton and roasting s’mores. Jacob won’t grow up in the city. I won’t enroll in a doctoral program to become a psychoanalyst, nor will I go to rabbinical school. M. and I will not move to Nairobi, where he will be based as a correspondent. He will not accept a job offer from the CIA, or the World Bank."
"“You know,” my aunt says, “I once had a terribly difficult period that lasted twenty-four years.” Wait. Twenty-four years? “And it was so important to realize that I didn’t know what was on the other side of the darkness. Every so often there was a sliver of light that shot the whole world through with mystery and wonder, and reminded me: I didn’t have all the information.”
"no longer consumed by the question: What if? What if I hadn’t noticed the infinitesimal seizures? What if Jacob hadn’t fallen down the stairs? What if I hadn’t noticed the seizures before Jacob had fallen down the stairs? What then? In how many ways would I have blamed myself for hiring the wrong babysitter, moving to Brooklyn, living in a four-story home, having a staircase? What if the drugs hadn’t worked? What if M. and I had disagreed on a course of action? There were choices to be made. What if M. and I had seen all this differently?"
"I feel M. next to me on her sofa. His body is my home. Yet lately, I have had flashes, unbidden moments in which I wonder who the hell he is. I secretly fear that I’ve been wrong about him."
"We walk—arms wrapped around each other—downtown. The romantic dinner, candles dripping, his East Village apartment, the two of us tangled up in his bedsheets. The tiny wedding; the Provençal honeymoon; the birth of our baby; the close call. The raising of him, the reveling in him. The Brooklyn town house, the Connecticut saltbox. The lung cancer, the Alzheimer’s. The bar mitzvah. The triumphs; disappointments; terrors; risks. The books; films; teaching; travel. The smart moves; the idiocy. The sheer velocity of it all. I want to bless that young couple as they cross Union Square. I want to deliver some kind of benediction upon them as—drunk on love—they meander the narrow streets of Alphabet City. I want to suggest that there will come a time when they will need something more than love."
"The years. They ran through my open fingers like a trickle of water, streaming faster, faster. On my twenty-fifth birthday, I wept in the outdoor garden of a café on West Seventy-First Street that no longer exists. I was sure my best years were behind me. At thirty, my second husband threw me a party in our apartment high above Madison Avenue. I wore a blue sparkly minidress. I left him two months later. At thirty-four, I walked into the crowded party near Gramercy Park. At thirty-seven, I gave birth by emergency cesarean section. At thirty-nine, I left New York City. At forty, my mother died. And then a long, merciful stretch of ordinary days. What will be next on the list? There has always been more time."
"The journals—I understood at once—were dangerous. If I read further, I might never write the memoir. I had no sympathy for the girl I once was. She was boy-crazy, insipid, ridiculous. I was certain she didn’t deserve a book. I didn’t want to capture her voice. I packed the whole lot of them back in the box, taped it shut, and hauled it down to my car. I pushed her as far away from me as possible."
"We talked about the interest in a book proposal that would have required him to spend months in West Africa. Where would we be now if he had taken the assignments, chosen to write the book? It could have happened. / It had to happen. Instead, he has walked a long way down this road with me. The house, the yard, the wife, the boy, the dogs, the schools, the quiet countryside. I believe he doesn’t regret it. But still, has being with me stopped him from being him?"
"Some things that definitely won’t happen: We won’t have more children; we won’t host big family reunions; we won’t own a compound where generations will spend summer weekends playing badminton and roasting s’mores. Jacob won’t grow up in the city. I won’t enroll in a doctoral program to become a psychoanalyst, nor will I go to rabbinical school. M. and I will not move to Nairobi, where he will be based as a correspondent. He will not accept a job offer from the CIA, or the World Bank."
"“You know,” my aunt says, “I once had a terribly difficult period that lasted twenty-four years.” Wait. Twenty-four years? “And it was so important to realize that I didn’t know what was on the other side of the darkness. Every so often there was a sliver of light that shot the whole world through with mystery and wonder, and reminded me: I didn’t have all the information.”
angelamichelle's review against another edition
4.0
I’m always a little perplexed by books like this. On the one hand, isn’t it cheating to just plop random thoughts and quotes and anecdotes onto pages and call it a book? And the self-absorption of describing what you were wearing, what you bought in vacation, what your digs are doing. It makes me itchy.
On the other hand, I love the attempt at describing marriage in its long-form. From the honeymoon through the years of family drama and the years of slow aging and failure to meet expectation. To me, what’s fascinating about marriage is the accumulation of years, and she digs into that. I also found lots of mental grist about writing.
On the other hand, I love the attempt at describing marriage in its long-form. From the honeymoon through the years of family drama and the years of slow aging and failure to meet expectation. To me, what’s fascinating about marriage is the accumulation of years, and she digs into that. I also found lots of mental grist about writing.
toniclark's review against another edition
5.0
A wonderful book that I read much too fast. I couldn’t stop myself. But I will read it again. And I highlighted liberally. There’s so much to savor and think about. I especially enjoyed the musings on marriage over the long term, and the parts about the many selves within us, how they all contribute to the present moment. I love to think about the tricks that time and memory play, how memories evolve, how a life is shaped and lived and relived. A glorious read. Below are just a few of my many highlighted passages.
“How do you suppose time works? A slippery succession of long hours adding up to ever-shorter days and years that disappear like falling dominoes? Near the end of her life, Grace Paley once remarked that the decades between fifty and eighty feel not like minutes, but seconds. ”
“I've become convinced that our lives are shaped less by the mistakes we make than when we make them. There is less elasticity now. Less time to bounce back. And so I heed the urgent whisper and move with greater and greater deliberation.”
“Years vanish. Months collapse. Time is like a tall building made of playing cards. It seems orderly until a strong gust of wind comes along and blows the whole thing skyward. Imagine it: an entire deck of cards soaring like a flock of birds.”
“You know,” my aunt says, “I once had a terribly difficult period that lasted twenty-four years.” Wait. Twenty-four years? “And it was so important to realize that I didn’t know what was on the other side of the darkness. Every so often there was a sliver of light that shot the whole world through with mystery and wonder, and reminded me: I didn’t have all the information.”
“How do you suppose time works? A slippery succession of long hours adding up to ever-shorter days and years that disappear like falling dominoes? Near the end of her life, Grace Paley once remarked that the decades between fifty and eighty feel not like minutes, but seconds. ”
“I've become convinced that our lives are shaped less by the mistakes we make than when we make them. There is less elasticity now. Less time to bounce back. And so I heed the urgent whisper and move with greater and greater deliberation.”
“Years vanish. Months collapse. Time is like a tall building made of playing cards. It seems orderly until a strong gust of wind comes along and blows the whole thing skyward. Imagine it: an entire deck of cards soaring like a flock of birds.”
“You know,” my aunt says, “I once had a terribly difficult period that lasted twenty-four years.” Wait. Twenty-four years? “And it was so important to realize that I didn’t know what was on the other side of the darkness. Every so often there was a sliver of light that shot the whole world through with mystery and wonder, and reminded me: I didn’t have all the information.”
asurges's review against another edition
5.0
Written by a memoirist at the top of her game. Shapiro's voice--one I've always enjoyed, for its attention to artful, thoughtful but not overwritten prose--narrates not only a marriage but also time and the many people we are and were and still might be or still might become. Beautifully written and one I'll be revisiting for its many layers.
kategci's review against another edition
Dani Shapiro is a gifted writer who has written several memoirs. I was going to attend a pop-up book group with her in NYC so I picked up a copy of her latest. Work intervened and I was unable to attend which is really okay. She writes honestly and intimately, but her anxieties and irritations are different from my own. Despite being born in the same year and loving The Bridge on Sirius XM, I was unable to connect with her. This, of course says more about me than her and my lack of affection for most memoirs. I believe she discusses her marriage honestly and this is a worthwhile read, but just not for me.
lizaroo71's review against another edition
4.0
Shapiro gives a look into her marriage of eighteen years. This is written in vignettes, so it isn't a linear narrative highlighting each milestone.
I liked the jagged snapshots. We get snippets of life in the present and then the past and back again.
A quick, but thoughtful read.
I liked the jagged snapshots. We get snippets of life in the present and then the past and back again.
A quick, but thoughtful read.
deniser821's review against another edition
3.0
It was very well written but I just couldn't relate.
pattydsf's review against another edition
3.0
“Oh, child! Somewhere inside you, your future has already unfurled like one of those coiled-up party streamers, once shiny, shaken loose, floating gracefully for a brief moment, now trampled underfoot after the party is over. The future you’re capable of imagining is already a thing of the past. Who did you think you would grow up to become? You could never have dreamt yourself up. Sit down. Let me tell you everything that’s happened. You can stop running now. You are alive in the woman who watches you as you vanish.”
I don’t know exactly what I was expecting from this short memoir. I really liked Shapiro’s Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life, but I knew this wasn’t going to be like that book. Still Writing is about craft and Hourglass is about her marriage. I think both books are excellent, but I was in the right mood for Still Writing and I should have put Hourglass aside until I was in a more thoughtful mood.
I am not sorry I read Shapiro’s tale of her marriage because she gave me something to think about in my marriage. Shapiro quoted Donald Hall about his marriage to Jane Kenyon. Hall and Kenyon are among my favorite poets and I was glad for this insight into their marriage:
”Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention. Lovemaking is not a third thing but two-in-one. John Keats can be a third thing, or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or Dutch interiors, or Monopoly. For many couples, children are a third thing. (This is originally from this essay: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/60484/the-third-thing)
I am so happy to have these words about third things. For many years, our children were my husband’s and my third thing. Now our third thing includes our grandchildren, but we have always had a “thing” about hospitality. I just never knew what to call it. Thank you Dani Shapiro and Donald Hall.
I look forward to another book by Shapiro. My sister is insisting I read Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love and I assume I will get to it soon. Even if I didn’t find Hourglass the perfect read, Shapiro is an excellent writer.
I don’t know exactly what I was expecting from this short memoir. I really liked Shapiro’s Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life, but I knew this wasn’t going to be like that book. Still Writing is about craft and Hourglass is about her marriage. I think both books are excellent, but I was in the right mood for Still Writing and I should have put Hourglass aside until I was in a more thoughtful mood.
I am not sorry I read Shapiro’s tale of her marriage because she gave me something to think about in my marriage. Shapiro quoted Donald Hall about his marriage to Jane Kenyon. Hall and Kenyon are among my favorite poets and I was glad for this insight into their marriage:
”Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention. Lovemaking is not a third thing but two-in-one. John Keats can be a third thing, or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or Dutch interiors, or Monopoly. For many couples, children are a third thing. (This is originally from this essay: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/60484/the-third-thing)
I am so happy to have these words about third things. For many years, our children were my husband’s and my third thing. Now our third thing includes our grandchildren, but we have always had a “thing” about hospitality. I just never knew what to call it. Thank you Dani Shapiro and Donald Hall.
I look forward to another book by Shapiro. My sister is insisting I read Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love and I assume I will get to it soon. Even if I didn’t find Hourglass the perfect read, Shapiro is an excellent writer.