{"id":314,"date":"2010-07-30T08:59:51","date_gmt":"2010-07-30T08:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/what-im-reading-the-blind-contessas-new-machine-by-carey-wallace.html"},"modified":"2010-07-30T08:59:51","modified_gmt":"2010-07-30T08:59:51","slug":"what-im-reading-the-blind-contessas-new-machine-by-carey-wallace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/what-im-reading-the-blind-contessas-new-machine-by-carey-wallace.html","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Reading: The Blind Contessa’s New Machine by Carey Wallace"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"blind<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Imagine a feast. Actually, no. That would be too much.
\nImagine going to your favorite restaurant. Starting with your favorite soup and
\nproceeding to eat the perfect amount of your favorite entr\u00e9e, leaving just
\nenough room for dessert.<\/p>\n

Or imagine a visit to the Louvre and being the only person
\nin the room with the Mona Lisa. Imagine being able to soak it all in–the
\ndetails, the richness of the textures and colors and lines. <\/p>\n

I probably shouldn’t be comparing a first-time novelist to
\nDa Vinci, but here goes. The Blind
\nContessa’s New Machine<\/a><\/i> is a scrumptious book. The story is wonderful–a young
\nwoman in Italy many centuries ago finds herself going blind just as she marries
\nand moves into a new home. I won’t go into all the details (I was annoyed with
\nthe jacket cover for giving too much away), but suffice it to say that the plot
\nheld my attention, which is one of my criteria for great writing. The story is
\ngreat, and based on historical facts. But the writing is even better. And it
\nwas the beauty of the prose that makes me say this book is like touching
\nvelvet, eating delicacies, viewing a work of art. <\/p>\n

I’ll give two examples, chosen at random:<\/p>\n

“A pair of butterflies balanced on a branch. A chrysalis
\nhung below them. Inside the translucent casing, she could make out the large
\neyes and cramped legs of the altered insect, its wings folded like lengths of
\nbrocade on its back. The adults above it were faint blue, paler than the sky,
\ntheir lacy wing tips fading to a rich cream, broken here and there by irregular
\nbits of black, as if their maker had flicked a paintbrush after them as they
\nescaped.” <\/p>\n

“The blindness had cured her of superstition about the
\nsecret qualities of darkness, the dread that things shifted and became strange
\nwhen not governed by a human eye. Through long association, she had learned
\nthat the darkness had no power to alter what it hid. Her hairbrush or pen might
\nbe obscured by the blindness, but when she reached for them, they were the same
\nas they had always been. As a result, shadows no longer held any magic for her.”\n<\/p>\n

A beautiful, haunting love story written with excellence.
\nEnjoy. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine a feast. Actually, no. That would be too much. Imagine going to your favorite restaurant. Starting with your favorite soup and proceeding to eat the perfect amount of your favorite entr\u00e9e, leaving just enough room for dessert. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}