Never in a Hurry
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Ingram Book Co., $16.95 hard
The most unusual soundbite from Never in a Hurry‘s cover blurbs comes
from Albert Goldbarth, who likens Nye’s writing to a “warm bath.” Nye doesn’t
mind the analogy (“I like warm baths,” she says with typical cheerfulness), but
Goldbarth’s phrase implies a place where you can close your eyes and relax, and
frankly, Nye demands more of the reader than that. While it’s true that her
writing style is flowing, graceful, and easy for the reader, her subject matter
winds through miles of terrain and you’re never quite sure where you might
encounter a particularly poetic passage or an image that burns into both the
eye and the psyche.
Of the book’s 39 essays, all but a few place Nye exactly where she needs to
be: within the action of the piece, directing it with subtle narration and
solid illustration. In a few of the pieces, Nye is a touch over-exuberant and
even over-didactic, moving the balance of the piece from essay to lecture. In
one case, “One Village,” it’s understandable, for Nye is conducting a Palestine
101 tutorial, but in another, “Newcomers In A Troubled Land,” she packages an
outlook far more trusting than most of us could possess with a tidiness that
makes her sound too good to be true.
But the majority of essays effortlessly demon-strate that perhaps Nye is
almost too good to be true, handling fantastic, sometimes surreal, situations
with a good-natured grace and beautiful sense of humor. Truth is often
stranger than fiction, and in Never In A Hurry, Nye revels in that
maxim. At her best, Nye weaves through a three-way intersection of fiction,
poetry, and essays, emerging not only unscathed, but full of the rosy glow of
exhilaration and excitement that comes from once-in-a-lifetime experiences. And
at her most joyous, Nye finds those once-in-a-lifetime experiences within the
fabric of day-to-day life. — P.W.
This article appears in August 16 • 1996 and August 16 • 1996 (Cover).