The Wedding Dress: Meditations on Word and Life

by Fanny Howe

In times of great uncertainty, the urgency of the artist's task is only surpassed by its difficulty. Ours is such a time, and rising to the challenge, novelist and poet Fanny Howe suggests new and fruitful ways of thinking about both the artist's role and the condition of doubt. In these original meditations on bewilderment, motherhood, imagination, and art-making, Howe takes on conventional systems of belief and argues for another, brave way of proceeding. In the essays "Immanence" and "Work and Love" and those on writers such as Carmelite nun Edith Stein, French mystic Simone Weil, Thomas Hardy, and Ilona Karmel―who were particularly affected by political, philosophical, and existential events in the twentieth century--she directly engages questions of race, gender, religion, faith, language, and political thought and, in doing so, expands the field of the literary essay. A richly evocative memoir, "Seeing Is Believing," situates Howe's own domestic and political life in Boston in the late '60s and early '70s within the broader movement for survival and social justice in the face of that city's racism.

Whether discussing Weil, Stein, Meister Eckhart, Saint Teresa, Samuel Beckett, or Lady Wilde, Howe writes with consummate authority and grace, turning bewilderment into a lens and a light for finding our way.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Literature, Read For School, Philosophy

182 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Fanny Quincy Howe was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. She was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Howe wrote more than 20 books of poetry and prose. Her major works include poetry such as One Crossed Out, Gone, and Second Childhood; the novels Nod, The Deep North, and Indivisible; and collected essays such as The Wedding Dress: Meditations on Word and Life and The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation.
Howe received praise and official recognition: she was awarded the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize by the Poetry Foundation. She also received the Gold Medal for Poetry from the Commonwealth Club of California. In addition, her Selected Poems received the 2001 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets for the most outstanding book of poetry published in 2000. She was a finalist for the 2015 International Booker Prize. She also received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Poetry Foundation, the California Arts Council, and the Village Voice. She was professor of writing and literature at the University of California, San Diego and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[julieta · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was more dense than it seemed. I had never read Fanny Howe, but was curious because this brings together poetry and spirituality, which in my mind go together. The result is a sort of lirical essay, where she speaks of different interests that go with both her writing, and spirituality. I loved the part on Thomas Hardy, a writer I love, also Simone Weil, and many others I did not know. The form she uses changes a lot, so there are a lot of unexpected parts, but on the whole it is a beautifull book from what I think, at least by reading this book, from a beautiful mind. I will have to look for some of her poetry.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Many people I loved died during that year, coincidentally. He didn't. So losing him was losing someone to life, a very different affair.”

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In your cyclical movements you often have to separate from situations and people you love, and the more you love them the more difficult it is to allow anyone new to replace them.

"This action can produce guilt, withdrawal, and rumination that some might read as depression. But to preserve, and return to a past you have voluntarily left--to suffer remorse--has always signaled a station in spiritual progress"

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive collection, though I keep comparing it to Adrienne Rich's On Lies, Secrets, and Silence, Rich's account, over periodical essay writing, of her radicalization and work in the Women's Movement. Rich was 13 years Howe's senior, but certain things in Rich's collection do get covered by Howe's reckoning, in her subtitle, of a life. The essays go along in an almost procedural cadence. I don't have any biographical information about Howe's political activities during a period of radicalism, but she alludes to this period in the Introduction, and the period parallels that of Rich's radicalization. The "word," in Howe's case, is theology, however, not, as with Rich, poetry. There's very little poetry in Howe's book -- at least, in the sense of verse. Orpheus, Edith Stein, and Paul Celan all figure for Howe, but moreso her own novels are canvassed, as well as Ilona Karmel, Thomas Hardy (the novels, not the verse) and Ed Dahlberg. The essays conceptualize the order of poetry, and Francis remains a source.

The loose collection of these essays (a couple get re-purposed in later books) historicizes them. The look of the paragraphs are close to the feel of proverbs, or aphorisms. A way of life is memorialized. A late essay, "Work and Love," talks about a poetic kind of filmmaking Howe tried to do, visiting the Church where her intellectual hero, Simone Weil, worshipped when she was in New York. Howe is in a great tradition of American socialist poets that run from Muriel Rukeyser to Rich and through her to Pam Rehm and others. But with a difference: Howe is a mystic whose work is driven toward demonstrations of ideas of the good. Weil's anamnesis is always the absence toward which Howe's thinking tends.

[Gus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was challenging and I didn't get all of it but there were so many good lines it was wild Fanny Howe is a genius

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book on impulse, and marked so many passages. On the world: "I was feeling justifiable despair, not depression, social outrage, not personal anxiety." On bewilderment: to the spiral walker there is no plain path, no up and down, no inside or outside. But there are strange returns and recognitions and never a conclusion." On motherhood and art: "A mother gives birth to someone who won't last; she has to love someone who will leave, to teach a child who will suffer anyway how to avoid all pain. To be a mother is to hold down a job you can never quit...In most mothers there is a fairy who wants to fly free...For a mother of children, the art-work is the expression of an unrealized and undefined life." There is more--on fairies, Catholicism, Judaism, bad presidents, even--in this slim volume of bizarre and enthralling lyric essays. Not for the faint of heart or mind. Like Maggie Nelson, but with more religion and less sex.

[Kara Kendall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Fanny Howe, all the love to you

[unnarrator · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another three-and-a-half stars for me? Probably need to own this and read it again (library copies just do NOT work for stuff of this density). My favorite essay remains her poetics of bewilderment (SIX STARS); also the intro/biographical one. But I wasn't as enthused about the commissioned review-type pieces (Lady Wilde, Edith Stein, e.g.). "Catholic" and "The Contemporary Logos" demand about five re-readings apiece, I think. I think she's Weil's daughter the same way Jan Zwicky is Wittgenstein's. And I also think she and David Markson could have had (should have? did have?) a scorchingly hot (fragmentary) love affair.

[W.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great essay on the craft and calling of writing. I am amazed she didn't end up with her throat slit (you'll see what I'm talking about when you read about her "open door policy" in the worst neighborhoods). Girl, you must have an angel looking out for you. And you deserve it. One of the finest poets, novelists and sentient, moral human beings working today.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howe returns us to the earliest definition of essay-- these are not straightforward essays with clear conclusions. These are meanderings and meditations on what it means to be human, to be alive, to be Fanny Howe. This is a beautiful, thoughtful, and heady book. Begin with the introduction and move into Bewilderment, this is the best way to take the author's ride.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing. Best I can say is that there are little crumbs that a reader might take and spin off into something thoughtful. Perhaps I didn't much care for the books and authors she wrote about. I liked the poetic springboard, but ultimately I didn't find it rewarding for my time.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredibly good collection of essays on left politics and theology. heard her in an interview and was like “she sounds like she really likes simone weil” - only seconds later she announced her affinity for our favorite christian mystic. her essays on bewilderment, edith stein, and racism in the sixties are particularly good, but the whole thing is worth reading. A particularly good entry point for understanding her poetry

[Avery Marley · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this thoughtful and luminous collection, Fanny Howe turns bewilderment into a serious intellectual and ethical stance. Blending literary criticism, memoir, theology, and political reflection, she explores doubt, faith, art-making, and survival with clarity and grace. These essays expand the possibilities of the literary essay, offering a brave and humane way of thinking in uncertain times.

[jc · Rating 4 out of 5]

was convinced when I saw her opening reading for anne boyer and robin coste lewis in a lecture. i'd love to revisit immediately: "the fact is, whatever one person does, it is only the one person doing it. to spend a great deal of time seeking a form that is right for you is a waste. it will anyways only be you w/ whatever you are doing." (134). but of course!! but also, thank you

[Emily Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could adequately covey how important Fanny Howe's prose is to my spiritual life. It would take something other than language to say it in language, something colossal and indivisible. And even then, she will have already written whatever it is I meant.

[Kissiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Grant Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Paradise may be the time when we can finally turn to our past and see that it’s beauty was there despite our being there. In fact, it’s beauty can finally be seen because we aren’t there.”

[Delia Rainey · Rating 5 out of 5]

reading this book is spiritual, emptiness, contemplation, prayer, hovering.

[Ethan Ksiazek · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too sententious for me.

[Georgia]

only read the chapter "bewilderment," bud I'd like to return to this one. logging for logging purposes

[Joshua Garvelink]

Good for if you want to be both completely baffled and mesmerized.

[june · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Passions are eliminations, but they are critical to the body’s survival, because they attract, command, and absorb; they make vigilant.”

rest in grace, fanny :(

[anjali swarstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

we do not know if there is a god or not, but we do know that there is a word

!

[Erin Lyndal Martin]

I used to own this book in hard copy and lost it somewhere along the way. I loved the introduction and taught that when I was teaching near Boston. I'm a little over halfway finished and I have to say that I really wanted to like this more than I am so far. I like the stories she relates, but there isn't anything that's totally gripping me about her writing style so far. I really wanted to love this.

[courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

the essays included in this collection really amplify the taut and occasionally difficult poetry that fanny howe has produced. particularly special to me was her essay on bewilderment as a desirable state.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Using just words, Fanny Howe gives you something rather than tells you something. Most of these essays are more like poems or abstract paintings in form. Some kind of magic when they work for you.

[clarissa cutrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time faves.

[Blueberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love so much to read her essays--lots of thoughts on gnostics, God, and writing.

[Farren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just...I can't even...there are no WORDS.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a primary resource for me. However, practically anyone who is my goodreads friend has read it, so my comments are likely unnecessary.