Book 1: Interruptions, Intersections and Insights
In Warrington’s stories she describes an assortment of sad, delightful, wacky, and ordinary events that have enriched her life with humor and irony. The stories piece together what she’s learned about friendships and old age as well as her delight in new by-chance friendships. Several stories reveal elements of wonder that we now describe as magical realism. A spontaneously shattering bowl, a dream that provides an answer, a provocative meeting with a Catholic sister all turn into life lessons that remind the writer and the reader that we’re not as smart as we think we are. Mystery remains in our lives and we may as well accept “wonder” as a positive response rather than an inability to explain away every phenomenon.
"Fabulous Book of Essays, Easy to Love......I was completely taken aback by this wonderful book by Freda Warrington. It is a delightful book by an excellent writer who expresses her deep love of people, things, family, friends and LIFE, in the most wonderful and special way. At once moving, deep, funny, engaging, profound, sad, uplifting and deeply human, this book gives us all an amazingly well expressed sense of what it is to be alive and to be part of the human community. While it is in fact the story of a woman, it transcends the usual sense of gender to express with extraordinary sensitivity the human condition, what it is like to love, to be loved, lose those closest to us, experience the sense of wonder that possessions can express to our psyche, and to feel and understand with greater depth how the ordinary really is not ordinary at all, but a part of OUR lives, which translates to the very depths of how we feel and experience this trip called life. I found the book deeply profound and wonderful, and highly recommend it to anyone wanting to mine the depths of what it is to be TRULY human."
"I love everything about this book ; the title, the chapter headings, the character and ease of the writing. The reader can tell from this book, that the author has a wonderful outlook on life, which she shares with you in these very real stories, all told with love, warmth. and of course great insight into people and life in general. Each story as told by Freda, perhaps partially because of having been there myself, whether sad or humorous, or just oddly interesting, somehow left me with a nice feeling of connection to the human race, as well as a more objective look into the unfolding of my own life."
"Alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking, Freda Warrington's essays made me smile at times, and weep at others. Whether writing about family relationships, friendship, death, or broken bowls, she brings both passion and clarity. She does not avoid hard truths and the pain they can bring, and never indulges in glib sentimentality. Her depth of feeling for her subjects is evident in her prose, which is at the same time both straightforward and elegant. Her insights have inspired me to reflect on my own life, on events large and small, on cosmic questions, and on the little mysteries. For me, the writer is like the Jewish grandmother I wish I'd had, but never knew, the grandmother who died several years before I was born. In my imagination my Bubbie would have been as wise, warm, generous, and loving as Ms. Warrington seems, as glimpsed through this marvelous collection of her writing."
"I love everything about this book ; the title, the chapter headings, the character and ease of the writing. The reader can tell from this book, that the author has a wonderful outlook on life, which she shares with you in these very real stories, all told with love, warmth. and of course great insight into people and life in general. Each story as told by Freda, perhaps partially because of having been there myself, whether sad or humorous, or just oddly interesting, somehow left me with a nice feeling of connection to the human race, as well as a more objective look into the unfolding of my own life."
"Alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking, Freda Warrington's essays made me smile at times, and weep at others. Whether writing about family relationships, friendship, death, or broken bowls, she brings both passion and clarity. She does not avoid hard truths and the pain they can bring, and never indulges in glib sentimentality. Her depth of feeling for her subjects is evident in her prose, which is at the same time both straightforward and elegant. Her insights have inspired me to reflect on my own life, on events large and small, on cosmic questions, and on the little mysteries. For me, the writer is like the Jewish grandmother I wish I'd had, but never knew, the grandmother who died several years before I was born. In my imagination my Bubbie would have been as wise, warm, generous, and loving as Ms. Warrington seems, as glimpsed through this marvelous collection of her writing."
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Suggested Discussion Questions
Please use these questions or create your own to suit your reading group.
Dead Wall Revelation
(click on "Z. Grinberg, M.D" to read entire speech) (click on "Honeh and Avrom Boyarsky" to read the events surrounding the Baltrimanz murders) 1. Are there secrets and whispers in your family? Do you believe they’re better left unspoken? How can you determine whether or not to disrupt the status quo and open a potential “can of worms?” 2. In this essay, the writer trusts her instinct and does not throw away the original photo in the filigree frame. Do you trust your instincts? Why or why not? 3. Does the Holocaust subject matter make you more or less anxious to hear the truth? Have you in your personal life been able to make sense or come to grips with that genocide? Does this story in any way help you understand the times? 4. Can you understand the reluctance of children to leave the old folks in order to emigrate to America? In Dead Wall, the three sisters stayed in Lithuania and the two sons went to America. Did the culture of the times make it inevitable that the daughters would not escape? 5. Have you decided to label important photos for the future generations or even to write some history? Or do you prefer to live in the here and now without regard to the past and future? Is it difficult to keep a healthy relationship with the past and still remain firmly rooted in the present? 6. Does it matter if the photo is documented as the family digging their graves, or is it more important that the photo was kept as a reminder for Max? |
A Dream Come True
1. Does mysticism have any place in today’s world? Can one reconcile devils, demons, angels, dybbuks and dreams in a scientific world? If so, how? 2. Was locating the ring through this dream a simple confluence of mathematical combinations? 3. What magical events have occurred to you and can you explain them? Should you try? |
The Samovar and The Egg
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Shiva Candle Skeptic
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The Blintz As Metaphor
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A Golden Box of Bones
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Shattered
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Of All Sad Words...
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The Winter of the Scarf
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One Door Closes
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Dopplegangers
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Inevitable?
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Thank You, Warden
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...Another Man's Treasure
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Elixir for Auntie
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Dying As a Complication of Living
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Bought With Butter
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