"That liberality of mind"

A while back I read a piece on Penelope Lively in the New York Times Book Review and put her novel Moon Tiger on my hold list at the public library. The book’s central character is an old woman, lying in the hospital and composing -- in her mind -- a history of the world. I laughed out loud on page one where the nurse taking care of her asks the doctor, “Was she someone?” Lively had me hooked. And not just me -- Moon Tiger won the Booker Prize in 1987.

Eight pages into it, I find this gem: “In the frozen stone of the cathedrals of Europe, there co-exist the Apostles, Christ and Mary, lambs, fish, gryphons, dragons, sea-serpents and the faces of men with leaves for hair. I approve of that liberality of mind.”

Watering, groceries, the gym, and then I get to come back to this book!