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Women Who Read

@women-who-read / women-who-read.tumblr.com

Thoughts on books, and the art and words of women reading everywhere.
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archaicwonder

Rare  Image of Death Personified as a Skeleton in Prayer: Miniature on a Leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin from Burgundy, France, C.1480-90

Single leaf, 117x76mm, vellum, with a miniature for the Office of the Dead, 19 lines, 74x44mm, upper and outer borders slightly cropped, coffin in lower margin rubbed, overall in good condition.

This miniature shows a unique depiction of Death, a worm-eaten cadaver dressed in a luxurious fur-trimmed brocade mantle, kneeling in prayer before an open book in a palace. The image opens the Office of the Dead, a series of prayers to be said in anticipation of death or in remembrance of the dead. The iconography for the Office of the Dead is rich and varied. Common illustrations include the Last Judgement, Raising of Lazarus, Parable of Dives and Lazarus, Three Living and Three Dead, Job on the Dung Heap, and various types of Death Personified, often portrayed attacking unsuspecting people. The idea of picturing Death as a noble figure in prayer (imitating the portraits that were often included in tailor-made commissions) serves as a horrifying reminder of the universality of death and is directly aimed at the viewer. No other example is known to exist but a comparable thought motivated the shocking image of a dead woman gazing at her reflection in a hand mirror in Matteo da Milano’s superlative Hours of Dionora of Urbino.

Source: sothebys.com
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The Codrington Library at All Souls Coll Oxf

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I finished this collection a few days ago. These essays and short stories were culled by her family and professors after Keegan’s unexpected death just a short time after she graduated from college. I enjoyed the collection, and often felt moved by what she had to say. But ultimately I hold what is probably an unpopular opinion of it: I think that if Marina Keegan was still alive, many of these stories would not be published. She was only 22 when she died, and many of these stories were written when she was even younger than that - I think she wasn’t done developing her voice yet. I’m sure authors never truly finish developing, but some of these stories feel incomplete. Maybe they were. It’s a tragedy that Keegan isn’t here to grace us with her prose. It saddened me to read a book so beautiful, and so full of promise. I recommend it to anyone who has ever felt young and alive, who has worried about those feelings disappearing, and who wants to feel them again.

#Marina Keegan#the Opposite of Loneliness#books#women reading#women who read#women who write
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