I have a friend and sometime reader of this blog (okay, there is evidence that she read it once– Lynne, are you out there? This is for you, babe!), with whom I go around and around about my redemption of art. It’s not that she doesn’t agree with me sometimes; it’s that she thinks (I think she thinks) that I go over the edge with it sometimes, perhaps redeeming things that are irredeemable, or bothering when I should just leave it alone, or redeeming things that aren’t meant to be redeemed or something like that. (Do I misspeak here, Lynne? Now is the time to defend your position).
Well, perhaps she is right (although of course I don’t think so). But occasionally there are things that just smack one in the face– redemptive tidbits that are crying out to be noted. I found one yesterday when reading to the children.
It’s from the Newberry Medal winning novel The Tale of Despereaux. If you haven’t read it, do. Author Kate DiCamillo describes a young rat (Roscuro) who, contrary to the nature of rats, falls in love with light. An evil-intended “friend” (Botticelli) tries to correct Roscuro, urging him that he doesn’t love light, that he in fact loves evil, misery and suffering. To encourage this passion, he recommends that Roscuro steal a red tablecloth from a new inmate in the dungeon, a tablecloth that had been tossed after the inmate as he descended the dungeon stairs. Roscuro had seen it spiralling through the air, light from above shining behind it.
Wanting, of course, to follow the advice of his older friend and be the rat he is made to be, Roscuro steals the tablecloth.
There is a lot to redeem in the above description, but the line that follows cries out for it, so I will quote it here. I’ll let you do the redeeming (or not) for yourself.
“What a disappointment it was! Looking at it Roscuro knew that Botticelli was wrong. What Roscuro wanted, what he needed, was not the cloth, but the light that had shone behind it.
He wanted to be filled, flooded, blinded again with light.”
