:: peace like a river/pages 1-18 ::

[drinking: rishi vanilla black tea. Photo by me.]

OK, I'm already in love with this book. Do y'all share my initial enthusiasm? With only two chapters under my belt, this story is a page-turner. Many novels take their sweet time building up to a major event, but in the first chapter of Peace Like a River, we have a dying newborn and his father, Jeremiah, pacing outside, praying. Suddenly, Jeremiah runs inside to command his ashen child, "Reuben Land, in the name of the living God, I am telling you to breathe." Reuben obeyed. My eyes bugged open.

Not only that, but at the end of the second chapter, another significant miracle occurs. When Jeremiah Land walked on air (while again praying), at that precise moment in my reading, the light bulb in a nearby lamp burnt out. I gasped. Leif Enger's writing created such a vivid picture that I was immersed. I could see the moonlight (no matter the sunlight in Houston), hear Jeremiah's footsteps on the flatbed, then "his feet noiseless, hitting nothing." A miracle occurred right in front of my eyes, just as plain as day, without any flowery prose.

You should know that most days I fully expect to see miracles. I am that idealistic, though in our society, miracles don't generally occur, or at least no one talks much about the supernatural. They're often scoffed if they do. So, as I read about Jeremiah's air-walking while my light bulb eerily snuffed itself out, I gasped with both joy and fear. For as young Reuben Land said, "A miracle contradicts the will of the earth." I long for wonder, but I'm sure accustomed to this earth, aren't you?

This brings me to a few paragraphs which grabbed hold of my attention:

"Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it’s been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal. Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week - a miracle, people say, as if they’ve been educated from greeting cards. I’m sorry, but nope. Such things are worth our notice every day of the week, but to call them miracles evaporates the strength of the word.

Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It's true: They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying orders and climbing up out of the grave - now there's a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time. When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of the earth.

My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear miracles because they fear being changed - though ignoring them will change you also. Swede said another thing, too, and it rang in me like a bell: No miracle happens without a witness. Someone to declare, Here's what I saw. Here's how it went. Make of it what you will."
[page 3]

Obviously we're reading fiction, but I took these paragraphs to heart, nodding up and down. And clearly, right away, there seems to be an assumption of the miraculous. It's a big theme. Do you believe in miracles? If not, did the author catch you off guard; convince you at all with the above quotes or miracles?

I also love Enger's writing style. His prose is often sparse, yet poetic. I admire how he can paint so much with very few words. I jotted down lines such as:

"I was gray and beginning to cool. A little clay boy is what I was."
[page 2]

".... let me say that a miracle is no cute thing but more like the swing of a sword."
[page 4]

"Davy was sixteen then, a man as far as I was concerned, with a driver's license and a knockout four-inch scar down his right forearm and Dad's own iron in his spine."
[pages 5-6]

"The sky spat ice and water."
[page 6]

"We hunted again that afternoon, under skies so cold frost paisleyed the gun barrels."
[page 11]

This style goes along perfectly with a story combining stark realities and glimpses of the supernatural. Very quickly, ominous foreshadowing and tension appear (a nagging sense of dread to me), yet also the beauty of prayer, miracles, and the possibility of what the characters will do.

And Leif Enger has written very intriguing characters. Jeremiah Land is a janitor, most likely overlooked by many, but he is intensely faithful and performs miracles. Reuben is growing up, observing everything, witty, vulnerable, and older than his years at times. I have my eye on him because he was allowed to live for a quite a purpose, I'm sure. Swede is a young girl, but drawn to typically un-ladylike things: hunting, gutting birds, playing with a dead goose's feet, and reading about heresy. Davy is odd to me. I can't put my finger on it in two chapters, but he seems dangerous or something, not quite right. I have my eye on him, too. What is your perception of these characters?

I could easily write more - I have so many thoughts - but I'll stop here for now. My several thoughts are rather jumbled today as I battle health issues, so please bear with me. This is my first book discussion to take part of, and thank God it's not all up to me! Along with answering my questions, I'd love to hear about anything else you noticed, loved, or disliked. Even if you disagree with my opinions, share that, too. I expect to feel healthier each following week, and likewise, I expect for this blog to smooth out into a wonderful discussion.

Comment away.