the last taboo? (daughter buffalo)

so this is what i am currently reading. janet frame's daughter buffalo. it's been on my list of books to read for a while now, - about ten years ago i "discovered" frame for myself, when i found one of her books (her first, the lagoon and other stories) in the foreign language section of a german bookstore. i devoured the book and decided to read as much of her writing as i could lay hands on.

i did read a bunch of her books, though by far not all of them. i thoroughly enjoyed the lagoon, - a  collection of very short, intensely interesting short stories, - and fell in love with owls do cry and also with scented gardens for the blind (both novels). her short story collection you are now entering the human heart is also good, though (maybe because it was "first contact"?) the lagoon stories still seem the strongest to me. i got swamped with work somewhere during the adaptable man, and also never finished reading her three volume autobiography. i remember reading her poetry collection the pocket mirror and being a little disappointed - i guess her intense, poignant prose is a hard act to follow. her prose, in itself, is very poetic, maybe that's why.

so now i am reading daughter buffalo. i am noticing more and more that i am getting to the point where, while i can hardly wait to read on, i am also reluctant to read on because it means coming closer and closer to the last page. this happens to me a lot when i read a "good" book. its words and images weave a world around me that i want to stay in just that little bit longer. at times finishing a "good" book can be a real struggle that way - because you know that, while you can of course read it again and again and again, it won't be the same. no two readings are ever the same. finishing a "good" book is a bit like a tiny death in itself. which takes us right into this novel!

talbot edelman, a NYC medical student specializing in the study of death, unexpectedly finds a friend in a random stranger, turnlung, who is a poet from a different place and also deeply interested in death. they exchange the lessons in death education they have had through their lives so far. they take turns in narrating this novel, independently of each other, so we get to see both sides of the encounter. frame is a fine observer of persons and behaviors, and these two characters are more than interesting. and while you may shudder at the idea of a novel all about "death education" and dying, or may already have decided not to read it, it is not really a gloomy book.

how do we talk about death? do we talk about death? do we have our own words for what we feel when someone dies, or when we talk to someone who has just lost someone? when we talk about those who have passed on, - how do we talk of them, how do we think of them? is death part of life, or apart from life? are we curious about it? are we allowed to be curious about it?

death, probably more so than anything else, is possibly the last taboo of our day. on my way to work and back and during any visit to the newsagent's i see so much openly advertised and published that - fifteen, twenty years ago, when i was a teenager - would not have been displayed so publicly anywhere. the only thing you cannot find magazines about at that generic newsagent's is death. there are health magazines, yoga magazines, periodicals on parenting, tattooing, fetishes, growing cannabis, and training your dog, journals for birdwatchers, astrology rags and supernatural magazines, but nothing on death and dying.

are people really not curious? i have to admit that i am. i have been for a long time. and i will also admit that there are questions i ask myself that i have not really dared ask aloud. even simple, technical ones. like, is it true that when people die, in the U.S., they replace the dead person's blood with some chemical to slow down decomposition? how does that affect the environment? and is it true that, again in the U.S., lots of make-up is applied to the corpse to make the person look, well, less dead? and there are so many other questions. but how, who and when do you ask?

in any case, talbot and turnlung have set out, independently at first, to explore death. they make many interesting observations and have different motivations for wanting to know. i will let turnlung introduce himself (taken from chapter 4):

I said that, to survive, from the moment we are born we must be capable of turning against. Before birth, we are against air, against breathing, yet we survive to breathe and love the air, we become turncoats - turnskins, turneyes, turnmouths, turnhearts, turnlungs. And having known life, we are against death even when all messages from the country of death convince us that our final role must again be that of turncoat, turnheart, turnlung. 

but talbot and turnlung are not the only intriguing characters in this novel. we also meet talbot's dog sally, and a headmistress of a northern school who shares her own death education. different types of death are considered: death in youth, in old age, in sickness, sudden and unexpected deaths, literary deaths, anonymous deaths, deaths in the family, and one's own personal death. the passage about literary death, to me, was particularly interesting, since it ties in poetry and how literature can serve in mourning by lending to us feelings we might feel we do not have enough of all by ourselves. how do we mourn? how long should we, could we, may we mourn?

this book gives no answers. it gives no recommendations. it piques your curiosity and lets you look right at death where you would usually feel worried people might think you're staring. it is because of the peculiar character of talbot and because of his detached observations that it becomes ok to be curious - and to maybe learn by proxy. meet talbot. (this is from chapter 1)

I  learned little of [death] in my own home. Our garbage was removed by an automatic disposal unit. Everyone took many baths, drying with thirsty towels which in their turn played the family game by seeming to render invisible all traces of hair, stains of living, dust, sweat. All our happy conversations, our plans lovingly composed together, had no mention of death. In winter, when the snow was deep and the year's leaves had died and were buried, when only a few creatures - squirrels, cardinals, crows - could be seen, you might have imagined that even we would be tempted or persuaded to surrender ourselves or part of ourselves to the surrounding death-light, [...]

Yet each winter we let pass the opportunity to invite death as a rightful guest, without fuss, into our home, and before we knew it the trees had new leaves, the sun melted the iron bars of the winter prison, and death, unfrozen, flew away as a scarlet bird, a golden bee or fly, as if it had never been; and for us, it had not, for us, the sun was like money, always with us and in use.

i am now half-way through this book. i am enjoying it because it deals with an interesting subject in a way i can handle. in a language i understand - the language of experience, image, and poetry. even if i did not know this book was by janet frame, i would have guessed it - the characters, their voices, the detailed observations, all her strengths are there. if you feel up to it, if i have managed to make you at least a little bit curious, go see if your local library has a copy of this book. it's been published a few times since it first came out in 1972 (i have the flamingo edition from 1993) so should not be too hard to find.

chill poetry for eyes and ears (Jean Sprackland)

so... today was definitely the right day for reading jean sprackland's collection Tilt. the wind, the temperature on the train to work, the mutterings of the tracks. but before i tell you about this book, just a quick note on the side - a site i came across when looking up jean online - this might be interesting to you if you like poetry and if you are, like me, curious.

i believe poetry is about as personal as writing could possibly get, so hearing the voice of the poet is always interesting to me. i remember when, in school, a teacher played us a recording of dylan thomas reading "fern hill," "do not go gentle," and - most of all - "death shall have no dominion" - i was stunned. (the links will take you to youtube videos with audio recordings of thomas reading these poems)

anyway. here is a site that has lots of recordings of english language poets reading their own work: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/poetWelcome.do (and the link to jean sprackland is, she is also involved in the making and running of this site)

and now the book. it is a fine case of packaging matching content. the book itself is slim, with a cool, simple cover design. the title poem is quite something. so are pretty much all of the others, too! poems containing cows, crime scene investigation, anesthesia, love, miracles, loss, pirates and sandcastles. you will run into fish and chips and babies and waterfalls and shards of ice on a beach. the strength of her poems are in the simplicity of the images, and the chilling moment when it all falls into place.

there are many "cold" images here, so maybe that's why reading this today, on an autumny october day, felt so right. here is an example:

...

But thirty miles south,

in another town, [the ice] creaks

under the pier, where someone kneels,

staring down like a god

through a damaged sky, onto wilderness

of ridges and blue shadows.

(from: Ice on the Beach)

what i also found very interesting was the sequence of poems titled Miracles. six poems look at the ministry of Christ from an angle that is tangible, surprising, anachronistic - sprackland transplants doubting thomas onto a bridge across the M6 (a busy english motorway), translates the first miracle of water turned to wine (at the wedding in cana), and lets the reader witness the casting out of an evil spirit. i personally really enjoyed the way these stories - handed down over generations and generations - take on a new life in a new light.

the book begins with lying down, waiting, and ends with moving about, an engine, a powerful force for good, "breathing in the spoilt air, / and breathing it out clean."

i was going to put another snippet or two here but... i don't want to give too much away. it would be difficult to pick out bits and pieces and still do the book justice. i guess you may just have to read it yourself...

the dervish and the homemaker (elif shafak)

"Oh, it's no big deal, " Ella rushed to  explain now. "I'm only a part-time reader for a literary agent."
But David seemed determined not to let her think too little of her new job. "Come on, tell them it's a well-known agency," he urged, nudging her, and when she refused to comply, he heartily agreed with himself. "It's a prestigious place, Esther. You should see the other assistants! Girls and boys fresh out of the best colleges. Ella is the only one going back to work after being a housewife for years. Now, isn't she something?"
Ella wondered if, deep inside, her husband felt guilty about keeping her away from a career, or else about cheating on her - these being the only two explanations she could think of as to why he was now going overboard with his enthusiasm. Still smiling, David concluded, "This is what I call chutzpah. We're all proud of her."
"She is a prize. Always was," said Aunt Esther in a voice so sentimental that it sounded as if Ella had left the table and was gone for good.
They all gazed at her lovingly. Even Avi didn't make a cynical remark, and Orly for once seemed to care about something other than her looks. Ella forced herself to appreciate this moment of kindness, but she felt an overwhelming exhaustion that she had never experienced before. She secretly prayed for someone to change the subject. (pp.6-7)

and this is how it all starts. for her first assignment, ella is to read and critique a manuscript titled sweet blasphemy which tells the story of famed poet and mystic rumi and his friendship with shams of trabriz, a wandering dervish. set in anatolia in the 1200s, this story nonetheless has a very real effect on the life of ella rubinstein, jewish american mother of teenage twins and a daughter about to marry for love. which brings us to the word that keeps popping up in this book: love. this book, in short, is all about love. not in the saccharine sappy sort of way, not in the mere physical sort of way, - this is mystic, spiritual love we are talking about.

... someone comes along and makes you realize what you have been missing all this time. Like a mirror that reflects what is absent rather than present, he shows you the void in your soul - the void you have resisted seeing. That person can be a lover, a friend, or a spiritual master. Sometimes it can be a child to look after. What matters is to find the soul that will complete yours. All the prophets have given the same advice: Find the one who will be your mirror! For me that mirror is Shams of Tabriz.
... It's as if for years on end you compile a personal dictionary. In it you give your definition of every concept that matters to you, such as "truth," "happiness," or "beauty." At every major turning point in your life, you refer to this dictionary, hardly ever feeling the need to question its premises. Then one day a stranger comes and snatches your precious dictionary and throws it away. (p.192)

this book walks a fine line. so much has been said and written about love that almost anything one could say or write now, overtly, about love, would be repetition, or a breach of copyright (who holds the copyright to love?), or wading into cliché. shafak takes the risk, talks about love, introduces us to a number of memorable, strong characters through their own voices and the voices of those who care about them, fear them, love them.

and yes, of course the book talks about the Quran. how could it not, when its central characters are passionate scholars of Islam, of religion, of God. the central theme however are the forty rules of love already mentioned in the title.

i am an unlikely reader for this book, at first glance: impatient (poetry is my fiction! short books rule!), feminist, not interested in history-themed stuff, and the type of person not to pick up anything with "love" in the title. the reason i did read this book (well, i am two thirds of the way through) is that my friend p. gave it to me, saying, "you'll like this." she hadn't even finished reading it yet, but she gave it to me anyway, saying she would read it over again in turkish. :-) thank you, p! this is quite the book, and i am enjoying it very much. i am learning much, and, like ella, i am noticing how the ideas and ideals inside shams of tabriz are getting me to think, to look at things from a different angle. if that's not a good think in a book, in a work of art, then i don't know what is.

elif shafak's forty rules of love is very readable, it is by far not as dark as i feared it might be, in fact it is enjoyable and interesting and thought provoking. spiritually and intellectually stimulating.