You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by lelia_t
Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall
4.0
I enjoyed this book very much and only wish it had a little more Margaret Fuller in it. Often Megan Marshall cuts Margaret Fuller's writing up into little 5-7 word phrases, peppering her own sentences with Fuller's words and mediating their meaning for us rather than letting Fuller speak to us directly. Marshall's use of snippets was most noticeable to me in the description of Fuller's mystical experience on Thanksgiving 1831.
Marshall writes: "She wanted to leave her noisy questing 'self' behind in that pool -not by tumbling in, like Narcissus, but by rising up. The answer came to her: 'I saw there was no self; that selfishness was all folly ... that I had only to live in the idea of the ALL, and all was mine.' Margaret rushed home in the moonlight... grateful for this epiphany - this 'communion with the soul of things" - grateful to be 'taken up into God...'"
This is a powerful moment in Margaret's life, but I only recognized its power because of Robert Richardson's Emerson: The Mind on Fire, in which he lets Fuller speak more fully. He quotes her: "How is it that I seem to be this Margaret Fuller? What does it mean? What shall I do about it? ... I saw how long it must be before the soul can learn to act under these limitations of time and space and human nature; but I saw also that it must do it... I saw that there was no self; that selfishness was all folly and the result of circumstance. That it was only because I thought self real that I suffered."
Megan Marshall seems to dismiss this experience as a moment of weakness for Margaret Fuller. Marshall writes: "Could Margaret really hold to her vow not to seek 'a positive religion, a refuge, a protection'? Not on this day."
I see this as a mystical experience that, like many visionary moments, opens to Fuller a glimpse of the ALL, yet also, like many a mystical experience, doesn't prevent her from having to slog through confusion, hurt, drudgery and uncertainty in the future.
I felt also there was a way that Marshall kept Margaret Fuller at arm's length, holding her up to the light and examining her from different angles, without ever creating a sympathetic connection between the reader and Fuller. I contrast that to the way, at the end of Hermione Lee's biography of Edith Wharton, I felt like I'd been Edith Wharton's friend for 40 years.
I wanted to know more about Margaret Fuller and this biography certainly answered the purpose. It's a portrait of a complex and dynamic woman finding her way in a world that didn't allow women the scope Margaret Fuller deserved and carved out for herself anyway.
I finished the book admiring Margaret Fuller and wishing Marshall hadn't let Fuller's primly judgmental friends have the last say in summing up her life.
Marshall writes: "She wanted to leave her noisy questing 'self' behind in that pool -not by tumbling in, like Narcissus, but by rising up. The answer came to her: 'I saw there was no self; that selfishness was all folly ... that I had only to live in the idea of the ALL, and all was mine.' Margaret rushed home in the moonlight... grateful for this epiphany - this 'communion with the soul of things" - grateful to be 'taken up into God...'"
This is a powerful moment in Margaret's life, but I only recognized its power because of Robert Richardson's Emerson: The Mind on Fire, in which he lets Fuller speak more fully. He quotes her: "How is it that I seem to be this Margaret Fuller? What does it mean? What shall I do about it? ... I saw how long it must be before the soul can learn to act under these limitations of time and space and human nature; but I saw also that it must do it... I saw that there was no self; that selfishness was all folly and the result of circumstance. That it was only because I thought self real that I suffered."
Megan Marshall seems to dismiss this experience as a moment of weakness for Margaret Fuller. Marshall writes: "Could Margaret really hold to her vow not to seek 'a positive religion, a refuge, a protection'? Not on this day."
I see this as a mystical experience that, like many visionary moments, opens to Fuller a glimpse of the ALL, yet also, like many a mystical experience, doesn't prevent her from having to slog through confusion, hurt, drudgery and uncertainty in the future.
I felt also there was a way that Marshall kept Margaret Fuller at arm's length, holding her up to the light and examining her from different angles, without ever creating a sympathetic connection between the reader and Fuller. I contrast that to the way, at the end of Hermione Lee's biography of Edith Wharton, I felt like I'd been Edith Wharton's friend for 40 years.
I wanted to know more about Margaret Fuller and this biography certainly answered the purpose. It's a portrait of a complex and dynamic woman finding her way in a world that didn't allow women the scope Margaret Fuller deserved and carved out for herself anyway.
I finished the book admiring Margaret Fuller and wishing Marshall hadn't let Fuller's primly judgmental friends have the last say in summing up her life.