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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lost and found, truth and fiction, fact and history, June 5, 2001
This review is from: Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship (Hardcover)
This is simply one of the most original and most creative pieces of work I've read in a very long time. I have read reviews that call it plotless and without climax, but I beg to differ. You can debate what a 'plot' is...this book is trying to do many things as once, and I'd say it succeeds in all of its goals. It is an overriding narrative about a visitation; it is a collections of narratives about other visitations (I only found one very minor historical inaccuracy, and Schoemperlen, unlike Timothy Findley in _Pilgrim_, gets Teresa of Avila dead on); in the end it is an examination of our definitions of fact and fiction, and which brings us more 'truth', and what it means to write ourselves a narrative of our lives. And, of course, what Mary means to us. What is most compelling about this work, aside from the amazing linkages between history and physics and fiction and love and scientific method, are the details. I have never seen a book so full of details, minor and major, from the colour of the walls in each bedroom to the recipe for barley zucchini casserole to the beads of water on Mary's white nikes.They're wonderful details; her narrative comes in the details. This book is charming, funny, startlingly thoughtful and even, at one point at least, overwhelmingly profound (she got me to cry over my chinese food in a mall food court.) It isn't a standard novel, and at times you won't feel sure that what you're reading is fiction at all (is the narrator really just the author? Is she telling us about her own life? Is this a history book? Is it some form of non-fiction?) But I think it's that variety and that richness that gives this book it's character. I would definitely recommend it, and I've already lent out my copy, and have had requests from others to be next on the list.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Simple, Moving, Understated, July 7, 2004
This review is from: Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship (Hardcover)
"Will you be able to resist the temptation to go and write a book about [my visit] afterwards? You must promise me that you will use a pseudonym and you will call it a novel. When that book comes out, I want to see in big letters that disclaimer on the copyright page: This is a work of fiction. If you break this promise, divine wrath will be the least of your problems. Divine wrath will not even be necessary. If people find out that I have been here, that I have talked to you, eaten with you, and slept in your house, they will descend upon you in droves. They will make a plague of locusts look like a minor inconvenience." If Our Lady of the Lost and Found were adapted for film -- and it should be -- the soundtrack might start with OutKast, continue with Bach's Goldberg Variations and end with Erik Satie. This is a touching postmodern ("a word which nobody really knows what it means") story of a perfectly happy solitary writer's perfectly natural perfect houseguest: Our tired Blessed Virgin Mary in need of a quiet vacation and quiet human friendship. It is meditative homage to the nonCatholic, neoagnostic author's new unexpected lifelong friend Mary, an elegy to quiet friendship between complex women who have learned to savor the exquisite pleasures of everyday life with clear understated Zen humor and irony. It is both an eclectic global education in Mariology and the tender, moving "novel of Mary, faith and friendship" Diane Schoemperlen found herself setting aside another book to write. "Pour yourself a cold glass of water on a hot summer day and remember that the vessel was made by fire, Heraclitus' symbol of change. Think about transparent glass taking on the color of whatever is poured into it: green Kool-Aid, brown tea, red blood. Think about the glass being half empty and half full." Definitely not for everyone, but highly recommended for those who, like Diane Schoemperlen, find themselves "ready." Those who are will savor a gifted author's understated comic ironic and delicate emotional timing.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Virgin Rocks!, August 9, 2002
Baptized Catholic, raised Lutheran, I left the church behind in my late teens and have considered myself agnostic since early college. Strangely enough though, I've been drawn to the image and idea of the Virgin Mary for as long as I remember. From my mousepad to keychains to the art I create, she's been "appearing" in my life for a long time now. Perhaps it's a feminist attraction for me, rather than religious, her being Jesus' mother, a commanding presence, even if only in the spiritual world, I don't know. But I do know that I've always tended to view people who see the Virgin's image in inanimate objects as being less than brilliant, as silly religious zealots. Like the narrator, I felt superior to these people, all the while wholeheartedly believing in ghosts, spirits and other supernatural subjects. Why can't I believe that Mary has really appeared? This book has made me look at that, to question why one is more valid to me than the other. Once I was finished reading this book I felt alone and sad, and found myself wishing Mary would visit me, too... I was drawn in by the title, and the storyline was irresistable. I read this book any moment I could, so enthralled by the way the author interwove history, science and religious fervor, interspersing it with a modern-day first-person "account" of a Marian visitation. The subtle humor throughout kept the story moving along, though I did weep from time to time while reading. This book was so simple and moving, I felt as if the narrator's experience could be true. And Mary, well, she seemed like a long lost friend, someone anyone would be pleased to have as a guest.
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