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A review by pattydsf
Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage by Dani Shapiro
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.