reactions to a novel
Gwen gave me a lovely gift package for my birthday- all sparkly and feeling like home, just the way she is... (It even contained some of her new, sophisticated, perfect business cards telling the entire world what her friends have known for what seems like forever: she is a novelist.)
Then, then, then, the book. For my last birthday was "Oranges aren't the only fruit" by Jeanette Winterson. This year is "The lovely bones" by Alice Sebold and I just got a shiver typing the title.
I remember seeing this book around when it first appeared, but as talk of it died down, I forgot to investigate. (Oh god, I just had a thought- what if it was an Oprah book? THAT would explain why Gwen and I would be reluctant to jump on the bandwagon. Not that Oprah endorses only bad books, it's just a thing we have against trying fit in the same way an awkward teenage girl waits to be told what to wear and read and like- I can see why Oprah would like this story though, it fits with the way she sees the world) Huh. Weird. I just realized I like Oprah. Sometimes. When she's not showing off. Yes, I know those times are few and far between but that's when I like her.
As usual, I have let my nervous energy and chatter wipe away some of the better impressions I got from this unusual and beautiful story. First off, I want to talk about Ruth- a character I identify so strongly with it hurts- I feel like she's a more courageous me because I let myself get talked out of so much of the supernatural I saw around me when I was 14 because I didn't think God would approve. But it's more than that, and less. I'm afraid of her loneliness. Ruth embraced it, ran with it, became it-becoming the most popular girl in heaven long before she even died. I'm not willing to trade the living for the dead. Not yet.
That choice is the very crux of the novel- Suzie struggles with it from beyond death with her longing for home and her obsession with the lives of her family and friends. Her family, especially her parents, struggle with the inability to choose living children over the dead daughter. Each of her parents knows how wrong it is, but they can't seem to help themselves. And no one can blame them. Except the remaining children. And only one of them does that at all. They blame each other too, but only in slices, only in separate, bleeding spaces where any feelings of guilt don't even register. One of my favorite quotes about them comes from the beginning of the story
"Before, they had never found themselves broken together: Usually, it was one needing the other but not both needing each other, and so there had been a way, by touching, to borrow from the stronger one's strength. And they had never understood, as they did now, what the word horror meant."
I'm sitting here thinking about horror and what it must feel like. What hollow pits it makes in your throat and your chest and your stomach. But I can never assume to feel that kind of horror. Even if I am a parent, even if one of my children dies, the likelihood of death occurring in a similar way is astronomically remote. I kept wondering, all through this book, how parents of real abducted/murdered children responded to this book. I hope it was good. I hope this story about connections helps them with the grief I can't even imagine. If it does, I stand amazed at this young author whose insight and empathy created a link between them and me.
And with the dead. I found myself wondering, maybe for the first time ever, if my grandparents watch me. I know that sounds silly, but both of them never seemed like the type that would hang around. Grandma Lois and Grandpa Joe would be together- both the life of the party, both of them confident that things down here are going along just fine without them. I'm not saying either one of them is callous or insensitive; they just didn't pine for things often. Grandpa longed for Grandma those two years they were apart and that was all.
Sometimes I think this is what makes my mother so lonely for them, but I'm sure they check in on her, so I guess they check on me too.
But that is a really foreign thought.
Then, then, then, the book. For my last birthday was "Oranges aren't the only fruit" by Jeanette Winterson. This year is "The lovely bones" by Alice Sebold and I just got a shiver typing the title.
I remember seeing this book around when it first appeared, but as talk of it died down, I forgot to investigate. (Oh god, I just had a thought- what if it was an Oprah book? THAT would explain why Gwen and I would be reluctant to jump on the bandwagon. Not that Oprah endorses only bad books, it's just a thing we have against trying fit in the same way an awkward teenage girl waits to be told what to wear and read and like- I can see why Oprah would like this story though, it fits with the way she sees the world) Huh. Weird. I just realized I like Oprah. Sometimes. When she's not showing off. Yes, I know those times are few and far between but that's when I like her.
As usual, I have let my nervous energy and chatter wipe away some of the better impressions I got from this unusual and beautiful story. First off, I want to talk about Ruth- a character I identify so strongly with it hurts- I feel like she's a more courageous me because I let myself get talked out of so much of the supernatural I saw around me when I was 14 because I didn't think God would approve. But it's more than that, and less. I'm afraid of her loneliness. Ruth embraced it, ran with it, became it-becoming the most popular girl in heaven long before she even died. I'm not willing to trade the living for the dead. Not yet.
That choice is the very crux of the novel- Suzie struggles with it from beyond death with her longing for home and her obsession with the lives of her family and friends. Her family, especially her parents, struggle with the inability to choose living children over the dead daughter. Each of her parents knows how wrong it is, but they can't seem to help themselves. And no one can blame them. Except the remaining children. And only one of them does that at all. They blame each other too, but only in slices, only in separate, bleeding spaces where any feelings of guilt don't even register. One of my favorite quotes about them comes from the beginning of the story
"Before, they had never found themselves broken together: Usually, it was one needing the other but not both needing each other, and so there had been a way, by touching, to borrow from the stronger one's strength. And they had never understood, as they did now, what the word horror meant."
I'm sitting here thinking about horror and what it must feel like. What hollow pits it makes in your throat and your chest and your stomach. But I can never assume to feel that kind of horror. Even if I am a parent, even if one of my children dies, the likelihood of death occurring in a similar way is astronomically remote. I kept wondering, all through this book, how parents of real abducted/murdered children responded to this book. I hope it was good. I hope this story about connections helps them with the grief I can't even imagine. If it does, I stand amazed at this young author whose insight and empathy created a link between them and me.
And with the dead. I found myself wondering, maybe for the first time ever, if my grandparents watch me. I know that sounds silly, but both of them never seemed like the type that would hang around. Grandma Lois and Grandpa Joe would be together- both the life of the party, both of them confident that things down here are going along just fine without them. I'm not saying either one of them is callous or insensitive; they just didn't pine for things often. Grandpa longed for Grandma those two years they were apart and that was all.
Sometimes I think this is what makes my mother so lonely for them, but I'm sure they check in on her, so I guess they check on me too.
But that is a really foreign thought.
Comments
2) yes, unfortunately, i'm pretty sure this was an oprah book. damn oprah. i refuse to read things with her sticker on them, too, even though they are often very good (faulkner, anyone?). though, oprah's book club is not for those of us who can find a good book on our own. it's for the sheep. we are not sheep.
3) shit. this was gonna be the good one. what was i gonna say? eff. i can't remember. eff.
3) I never met my great-grandmother. My mother and her siblings called her "Bopple" and she died of colon cancer well before i was born. But my grandmother used to tell me stories about Bopple when I was young, and I always imagined that Bopple was watching over me, that she was, in a way, my guardian angel. Whether or not it fits in with whatever theology we choose to believe, i think it is supremely comforting to think of our family members being able to watch us and commune with us in our darkest and brightest moments.
I completely relate to the "grandparents" thing. My older brother saw ours once, just standing in the kitchen. I think that I would deffinately choose to be around family after I die, watching over them, children and grandchildren alike.
I will check this book out. Thanks.