“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” —W.B. Yeats
It’s no secret that we play favorites around here. We aren’t trying to hide the fact that we feel a blazing love for certain authors. Leif Enger is one of them. (Rachel’s right: he deserves an ode.) The man, I’m convinced, couldn’t write a mediocre book if he tried. Remember Peace Like a River? Enger’s debut novel that received critical acclaim back in 2001. Ah, those glimmering pages comprising “a perennial, bestselling American classic that is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, and a love story, in which ‘there is magic.’” Irresistible magic.
Leif Enger is proof that any idea can turn to dust or magic, depending upon the talent that rubs against it. His idea in I Cheerfully Refuse eddies around a grief-stricken husband named Rainy who can’t find his bearings without his wife, Lark. Like her name suggests, Lark is a source of adventure. And a song of light. Rainy’s world goes dim without her, not to mention he’s on the run. He tries to find refuge on Lake Superior—in her mists, storms, fogs, and wind—with the hope of finding the love of his life therein. Lark would be so proud of his adventures.
While I Cheerfully Refuse qualifies as a dystopian novel, it didn’t take me to dark places. On the contrary. I felt a welcomed optimism in Enger’s pages. Hope sailed through his latest masterpiece. Props to the reviewer who explained, “Like Mark Twain, Enger gives us a full accounting of the human soul, scene by scene, wave by wave.” This man’s prose is a song of light, and his talent is a source of honest-to-goodness magic.