Friday, December 2, 2016

Well Said: To every life there eventually came a moment when one had to accept the fact that the future was entirely out of one's hands

In the morning when Mrs. Pollifax awoke she realized at once that a fateful day was beginning. She lay and thought about this dispassionately, almost wonderingly, because to every life there eventually came a moment when one had to accept the fact that the shape, the pattern, the direction of the future was entirely out of one's hands, to be decided unalterably by chance, by fate or by God. There was nothing to do but accept, and from this to proceed, doing the very best that could be done.
Dorothy Gilman, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax
I've been listening to The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, which is the first in the series about the grandmother who becomes a CIA spy. It's been a real pleasure revisiting a beloved character anew through Barbara Rosenblat's excellent narration. When I was young my mother would bring home the Mrs. Pollifax mysteries from the grocery store and it would get passed around. We all enjoyed Mrs. Pollifax's personality and ingenuity, as well as the author's talent for weaving a spy novel with a light touch.

I reread these so many times that the plot is coming back to me, several decades later, but it doesn't diminish my enjoyment.

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