{"id":144489,"date":"2020-04-21T15:52:16","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T19:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=144489"},"modified":"2020-04-21T15:52:16","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T19:52:16","slug":"redux-suspension-of-disparate-particles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/04\/21\/redux-suspension-of-disparate-particles\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: Suspension of Disparate Particles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Marilynne Robinson.<\/p><\/div>\n

This week at The Paris Review<\/em>, we\u2019re embracing hermitism. Read on for Marilynne Robinson\u2019s Art of Fiction interview<\/a>, Rick Bass\u2019s short story \u201cThe Hermit\u2019s Story<\/a>,\u201d and Karen Solie\u2019s poem \u201cA Hermit<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>\u00a0and read the entire archive? You\u2019ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. And for as long as we\u2019re flattening the curve,\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>\u00a0will be sending out a new weekly newsletter, The Art of Distance, featuring unlocked archival selections, dispatches from the\u00a0Daily<\/em>, and efforts from our peer organizations. Read the latest edition\u00a0here<\/a>, and then\u00a0sign up for more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marilynne Robinson, The Art of Fiction No. 198<\/a>
\nIssue no. 186 (Fall 2008)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

When you were little, what did you think you\u2019d be when you grew up?<\/p>\n

ROBINSON<\/p>\n

Oh, a hermit? My brother told me I was going to be a poet. I had a good brother. He did a lot of good brotherly work. There we were in this tiny town in Idaho, and he was like Alexander dividing up the world: I\u2019ll be the painter, you\u2019ll be the poet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

The Hermit\u2019s Story<\/a>
\nBy Rick Bass
\nIssue no. 147 (Summer 1998)<\/em><\/p>\n

An ice storm, following seven days of snow; the vast fields and drifts of snow turning to sheets of glazed ice that shine and shimmer blue in the moonlight as if the color is being fabricated not by the bending and absorption of light but by some chemical reaction within the glossy ice; as if the source of all blueness lies somewhere up here in the north\u2014the core of it beneath one of those frozen fields; as if blue is a thing that emerges, in some parts of the world, from the soil itself, after the sun goes down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

A Hermit<\/a>
\nBy Karen Solie
\nIssue no. 218 (Fall 2016)<\/em><\/p>\n

Experience teaches, but its lessons
\nmay be useless. I could have done without
\na few whose only by-product is grief,<\/p>\n

which, as waste, in its final form,
\nisn\u2019t good for anything.<\/p>\n

A helicopter beating all night above the firth,
\na Druid shouting astrology
\noutside the off-licence will eventually
\nput the Ambien in ambience<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Our culture is best described as heroic.
\nCourageous in self-promotion, noble
\nin the circulation of others\u2019
\ndisgrace, our preoccupation with death<\/p>\n

in a context of immortal glory truly
\nepic, and the task becomes suspension
\nof disparate particles \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you like what you read,\u00a0get a year of<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u2014four new issues, plus instant access to everything we\u2019ve ever published.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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