Dead Men Blogging: January 2025

Saturday, January 11, 2025

'Origin of the Brunists': Monday morning and grace

Celebrating this paragraph by Robert Coover (1932–2024) in The Origin of the Brunists (1966).

West Condon, as though unable to gaze any longer upon the deep black reach of night, rolls over on its back to receive the Monday sun, now rising, as men say, in the eastern sky: the eye of God, the golden chariot, the communal hearthfire and source of life, the solar center that, for all its berserk fury, still works its daily anodyne magic on the man's ultimately incurable disease of dread and despair. Its first rays glance off the top of the West Condon Hotel, the high school flagpole, roof and treetops, the Deepwater No. 9 tipple and watertower, and, close by, the small irregular rise, now internationally known as the Mount of Redemption, where this morning occasional white chicken feathers lie like a fall of manna, their barbs gummed into clumps by the dew. Although no one is out at the mine, on the flagpole, or in the treetops, and thus cannot see the sun until at least another hour's roll has lapsed, and though, as a matter of further fact, almost none will bother to look at it when it can be seen, its radiations are nevertheless early perceived: they shred dreams, calm the sleepless, turn West Condon on: clocks sound, radios crow, throats hack, razors buzz, frypans heat, toilets flush, children scuffle, doors bang, church and school bells ring, forks clink, toasters pop, motors turn over, sweepers roar, it is Monday morning.

Differently enchanting: He always believed God would "take care" of him after he dies. But what does that mean? "And what was grace? Did he have it? Who got it and how? Was it fair some didn't? He wished to hell something would happen to take his mind off it. ... And then Mike felt it coming. The grace. He didn't know whether to resist it or not."

...he had never really doubted that God would take care of him when his time came. But what did he mean, 'take care'? And what was grace? Did he have it? Who got it and how? Was it fair some didn't? He wished to hell something would happen to take his mind off it. (quote)How precious did that Grace appear, / The hour I first believed! (end quote) And then Mike felt it coming. The grace. He didn't know whether to resist it or not.

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