Any Would Be If

" without love no quirks," writes Norman Fischer in the midst of any would be if. One might add: without quirks, no life, as in this book Fischer proceeds " by ellipsis," and suggests that living, noticing, even drinking tea, manifests in similar fashion. Indeed, " the teacup told us how to hold it," provides one of many delightful and slightly puzzling, or perhaps uncanny, moments in a book full of moments. Moments of thought, moments of action, moments of light, moments of language, moments through which " we pull ourselves into now." If one wants a book to show the world, not in its grandeur (or, maybe that, too) but in its process, in the betweenness we all inhabit, then this is the book one wants. I know I am glad to have it, and to return to it, often, " to be." Charles Alexander