The journalist and writer Jeannie Marshall discusses her book All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel (Biblioasis, 2023), with Joseph Planta.

All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel by Jeannie Marshall (Biblioasis, 2023). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: All Things Move

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

One of my favourite books of the season is All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel. At once, it’s about its author Jeannie Marshall’s relationship with the work of Michelangelo; artwork she’d avoided despite having moved to Rome. At another, after finally seeing the frescoes, she’s able to work through how to view this art, what her relationship to it is, and how much of faith and spirituality is part of the work. We also get a sense of what it’s like living in the Italian capital, a city much older than the Toronto she grew up in; how is daily life affected by the aging infrastructure and history all around. And at its heart, the book is about art and its place in one’s life, how we really do need art. Jeannie Marshall joins me now, and I’ll ask her about her ongoing relationship with art, and her own family. We’ll talk about how well-timed the book is considering we’ve moved into a new stage in the pandemic, just as in Michelangelo’s time, when he returned to paint more of the Sistine Chapel after a plague, and having witnessed death and fleeing. Jeannie Marshall has lived in Italy with her family for over twenty years now. Her previous book was Outside the Box: Why Our Children Need Real Food, Not Food Products. She is a journalist and contributes to Maclean’s and The Walrus, and has appeared in The Common, Brick, Literary Review of Canada, and Literary Mama. She was a staff features writer at the National Post. This new book is published by Biblioasis. She joined me from Rome, Italy, this past weekend. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Jeannie Marshall; Ms. Marshall, good morning.

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