This truly is a fantastic book! Judging from the title, it seems to cover only a very limited subject: the notion of ‘duatâ€�, which can be translated aThis truly is a fantastic book! Judging from the title, it seems to cover only a very limited subject: the notion of ‘duatâ€�, which can be translated as Underworld/Otherworld in Ancient Egypt. But Silvia Zago (Liverpool University) offers so much more than that: a thorough look at how the ancient Egyptians viewed the reality of life and especially death, and of the immediate nearby and the distant cosmos. Moreover, her study covers more than 2 millennia, which is reflected in a constantly evolving interpretation of notions and concepts. Zago is not only broad-encompassing, but also critical-deep, analytical and synthetic, and with a great sense of nuance. And finally, she also ticks all the boxes of what a scientific study should be: methodologically and even epistemologically very meticulous, with very precise source references and footnotes that are often small essays in themselves, and an additional apparatus (index, bibliography, illustrationsâ€�) that seems almost exhaustive. I run out of superlatives to recommend this. And I haven't even talked about the actual content. That's covered in my review on my History account on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ: /review/show......more
To me Karl-Ove Knausgard's greatness lies in his masterful introspection into the everyday, in his perception of the miracle breaking out of the ordinTo me Karl-Ove Knausgard's greatness lies in his masterful introspection into the everyday, in his perception of the miracle breaking out of the ordinary. This was perfectly reflected in his extensive My Struggle and in the short vignettes of his seasonal cycle, both in the autobiographical genre. But with this book, Knausgard ventures into something completely different. This is a dystopian tale that spirals further and further into haunting magical realism and ends in a philosophical essay on the meaning of death. And also new for him: he follows a dozen of characters in and around Bergen, Norway, in episodes that each end on a cliffhanger, giving the novel a thriller-like character.
The build-up is quite slow, but gradually the strange occurrences that the characters experience pile up, the most striking being the unusually bright star in the sky at night and gradually also during the day, the extreme heat wave and the strange behavior of animals and humans. The curious thing is that Knausgard presents slightly twisted, even unsympathetic characters as protagonists, and leaves certain storylines to a dead end halfway through, as if it doesn't matter what exactly happens. Does he want us to consciously participate in the dark aspects of everyday reality? The words demons and devils are regularly mentioned, and the fallen angel Lucifer also passes by, in what is clearly an attempt to highlight the disruptive nature of our times. "“As the road swung north , the star was above us in the sky . It was beautiful . As beautiful as death was beautiful."
Intriguing matter, indeed, but I especially missed the contemplative and introspective that was so present in My Struggle and the Seasonal Cycle. Only with the character Egil Stray there’s something of the old Knausgard popping up again, he’s the presumed author of the concluding essay on the sense and nonsense of death and life. It suggests we have an obstinate inclination to give remarkable and really unruly phenomena (like the Morning Star and ultimately also evil and death) a place into ordinary life.
With all that, I must concede this book left me with a rather unsatisfactory feeling, as if it was unfinished, but I think that was on purpose (in the meanwhile my GR-friend Chris pointed me to the fact that this is only the first installment of a series). It comes near to books like those of Stephen King, but deviates from them in a very poignant and gloomy way. That enigmatic character has its charm, but in the end I found this novel much less captivating than Knausgard's other books. (2.5 stars)...more
But then, in the 3rd part, the cat comes out of the bag: Barnes begins to dryly describe the utter shock wave the death of his own wife, in 2008, was for him: it was "like falling from a balloon into a deep hole". And he continues in a very personal way, registering what that disappearance really meant for him, what he went through and how his environment reacted inconveniently over and over again. He razor-sharply analyses both the feelings and the semantics of mourning, grief, loss, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, suffering, pain... And regularly he uses metaphors from part 1 and part 2, giving this � at first � very strange composition its unity. This is no more or no less than a gracious ode to his lost wife ("fallen away" is also a word he dissects), and a down to earth and merciless analysis of his own grieving process.
Last year I read “Nothing to be frightened of�, written by Barnes just before his wife died, in 2008. That book is a delicious divertimento about ... death (See my review /review/show...). But in that book Barnes talked almost exclusively about the prospect of his own death and what that brings about. If I remember correctly, there is no hint at all at what awaits him that same year with someone so near to him. Looking back, it gives a very wry feeling....more
Raising children (biological/adoptive/foster...) is one of the most radical experiences in a lifetime: there is nothing else that binds you more to liRaising children (biological/adoptive/foster...) is one of the most radical experiences in a lifetime: there is nothing else that binds you more to life itself, and the bond is forever (as long as you live); the bond is even stronger and more permanent than the 'ordinary' love bond between man and woman (or man and man, or woman and woman, etc.). Now the great paradox is that this intense bond with life is also a preparation ... for death! Let me explain. During the upbringing process, the bond between parent and child at first is very intense, but gradually it becomes looser: as a baby and a small child, their lives almost completely coincide with yours as a parent, you live everything, both the lusts and the burdens in an intense interaction that is usually one of the most wonderful, fulfilling, and absorbing experiences you can have as a human being; but gradually the child tears away from you, looks at the world in his/her own way, makes his/her own life. And let it be clear: this is normal and even healthy.
But as a parent this process is difficult: it is a constant struggle with guiding (taking care and setting limits) and letting go (giving trust); the letting go is an inherent part of the upbringing process, but it’s awfully heavy to bear, because the very thing that binds you most to life goes its own way; it is as if a piece of yourself (both physically and mentally) tears off, like a planet or a moon that cuts the gravitational link and goes its own way through the solar system (and of course, occasionally flashes by again). Pay attention, here it comes: this difficult process of letting go of your children is actually an early exercise in letting go of your own life, and thus into making peace with death, accepting your own finiteness as an integral part of life... Yes, you may swallow.
I apologize for the somewhat morbid tenor of my introduction. I may have put things a bit harsher than reality, but - as you might have guessed - it goes back to my personal experience of parenthood: together with my wife I raised 4 children and letting go for me was absolutely one of the hardest experiences of my life (but let there be no misunderstanding: the bond between us and our children is still very good, and we are very proud of the course that our children go). But for me personally, I have been able to accept that letting go-process by connecting it with the perspective of my own finiteness: embracing life à nd death, accepting the limitations of life, acknowledging that it can end and that you will have to let it go (and the world will go on). I must concede that it still is difficult, this coping, but my children unconsciously have teached me to accept this form of mental peace (not that I am so fixated on the end now, I hope I still have a long way to go).
But then there is this book, 'Tonio' by the Dutch author A.F.Th. Van der Heijden (in the Netherlands he is commonly known as A.F.Th). This is not about the own finiteness of the parent, but about the finiteness of the child and the fragile bond between child and parent. I guess there is nothing as hard as losing your child in the midst of his/her young life, even before he/she has been able to develop and realize all his/her talents and dreams. This is what happened to Van der Heijden and his wife Mirjam, with their 21-year-old son Tonio, who died in a stupid accident on his bike. This bulky book is a description of the various stages of the mourning process that A.F.Th. and Mirjam went through, starting from the report of the accident until they had enough courage, three months later, to visit the site of the accident and even view the CCTV-camera footage of what really happened. Reading all this of course is heartbreaking, you can almost physically feel their own pain, and the whirlwind of rational and irrational feelings they went through: panic, grief, despair, anger, guilt and even shame.
But the novel offers more, as the subtitle itself indicates: it is a requiem novel, a tribute to a life that was broken in the bud. What I particularly noticed (in the light of the theory I outlined above) is that the author also regularly focuses on the process of letting go. Constantly A.F.Th. looks back on his interaction with Tonio, as a baby, a toddler, a teenager and an early adult, with everything that accompanies this upbringing process: the care, the love, the protection and anxiety, but also the challenge, some friction, and the whole process of tearing apart, that also for A.F.Th. clearly was a difficult one. In his case, after the accident, letting go became very definitive, and let there be no misunderstanding: that is an issue of another dimension, a real drama. Death has gotten a face, that stays permanently in your mind, and you have to learn to cope with that. "Times heals all wounds", they say, but that is only partly true, Van der Heijden clearly shows you have to integrate the wound, the pain and the mourning in your life, so that is stays a part of you, forever. In a beautiful passage towards the end of the book, Van der Heijden expresses it in a unique way to his wife: "let mourning take its course, let the pain continue, because as long as there is pain, Tonio lives on, he still lives in us, he is not completely gone". For an outsider that could seem like a form of masochism, but anyone who has ever experienced mourning, knows how real and valuable this way of looking at pain and suffering is.
You can be shocked by the embarrassing introspection that A.F.Th. offers on his grieving process, with its great and small aspects, including the addiction to alcohol and painkillers. I can understand that. I must say, this form of narcissism and the enlargement of the ignoble aspects of his own life were elements that I didn’t appreciate in his earlier books. But here it seems just the right thing to do: showing life as it is, in all its small miserableness, in the midst of the worst possible crisis.
Finally, two aspects that also make up the greatness of this novel. In the first place the endearing way in which the close bond between A.F.Th. and his wife Mirjam is described. Their co-meandering through what certainly was the most difficult period of their lives, their unrelenting support to each other (even though they were not on the same mourning rhythm) is nothing short of moving, because it also is not so evident: a lot of relations break under this harsh experience. And then there’s also the literary quality of the book: the gargantuan style of Van der Heijden's previous novels wasn't my thing, and perhaps also this book could have done with 150-200 pages less, but the literary level of most passages is so high that this does not matter. On the contrary: mourning has an aspect of timelessness that calls for the rawness of it to be spread over as many pages as possible. It is a matter of respect to accept that, in homage to a life that was prematurely broken off, and in homage to the grieving of those that stayed behind. (rating 3.5 stars)...more
I was completely blown away by "Your face, tomorrow", the trilogy in which Marias offers an accumulation of proustian sentences, 1400 pages long, almoI was completely blown away by "Your face, tomorrow", the trilogy in which Marias offers an accumulation of proustian sentences, 1400 pages long, almost constantly being in the head of a man in a midlife crisis, musing about philosophical, ethical and psychological questions - there is hardly any action, unless at some particularly intense moments - and the main tension element that keeps it all together is an intriguing espionage mystery.
This book, much more compact in size (only 350 pages), is written in the same style. This time we are in the head of a woman, Maria Dolz, who works at a publishing house. And once again there is only one element of action: a bloody murder, which happens almost at the beginning. Again, Marias combines very different psychological, ethical and philosophical elements; the central themes being: the inability to gauge the real motives of another person, the inexorable wear of time in strong emotional feelings (love, but especially also mourning about dead loved ones), and the moral implications of criminal acts or the knowledge about those actions. In comparison with "Your face, tomorrow" this book is more loaden with intertextual references, and story elements of Shakespeare, Dumas and Balzac play an essential role, which gives this novel even more of a hyper-intellectualistic tint.
In short, this is another delight for the lovers of the more elaborate literary work, demanding full concentration while reading. Just to give on example of the style, a fragment where Javier (the best friend of the murdered one) muses about the terrible, misleading and disrupting force of time, from the point of view of the widow of his murdered friend: �Putting a point behind a history and returning to a beginning, whichever is the case, is not uncomfortable if you are forced to do so; even though you were happy with what ended. I have seen inconsolable widowers and widows who for a long time believed that they would never come on top of it. Yet they think later, when they have finally recovered and found a new partner, that the latter is the real and the right one, and they are deeply pleased that the previous one has disappeared, that he has made room for what they have now have built up. It is the terrible force of the present, which crushes the past more as it moves away from it, and also distorts it without the past opening its mouth, protesting, contradicting or refuting it.�
Still, however compelling, in comparison with "Your face, tomorrow" this book resonated a little less. It took a while before I could put my finger on it, but main character Maria actually puts it into her own words, in a dramatic passage, in which her opponent Javier works towards a crucial confession in long, abstract elaborations and she thinks to herself, "What is he disclaiming all the while?". Just that, this “disclaiming�, or � ranting in a musing way�, is what the characters of Marias are doing a bit too much in this novel, with too much detachment also, as if they are not real persons. It reminded me of Henry James in "The Portrait of a Lady," which begins each chapter with long general considerations on life and death. Well, in this novel these reflections are there on almost every page, in the head of the most important characters. In the long run they give a very artificial and detached flavor to the story, slowing down the tempo. This way of writing even started to annoy me sometimes, especially because Marias drenches the whole story in a cynical-nihillistic sauce, in which everything becomes uncertain and therefore very ephemeral, while it concerns a real murder.
But hey, this is Javier Marias, and regularly I enjoyed the unparalleled, refined style, the unfathomable psychological and philosophical insights, which come into its own in the sublime final passage. So it’s decided: three stars!...more
Looking out for death? How entertaining and lightly can one write about death? Fatalistic, subdued and saddened, yes, that we can imagine. Or maybe rebLooking out for death? How entertaining and lightly can one write about death? Fatalistic, subdued and saddened, yes, that we can imagine. Or maybe rebellious and desperate? Or just the other way around: with religious confidence or even fanatical arrogance, that too. And finally, maybe even with indifference, cynicism and sarcasm. In this book Julian Barnes reviews all these emotions and attitudes towards mortality. Not as a systematic essay on how others think about death, on what religions or atheism tell us, or what science teaches us. Or rather: that too. Yet in the first place, he talks about how he himself struggles with the prospect of the end, and especially with how much trouble he has with imagining the long infinity that lies beyond the moment of death. Because Barnes makes no secret of it: he has an existential fear about his own mortality.
Lucky for us that fear doesn’t paralyze him (too much), quite the contrary. For about 250 pages he knows to keep our attention with continuous, pertinent questions about life, about being human, the free will, ageing, suffering and the always provisional answers to these questions. And as we have come to expect from Barnes he does so in a brilliant style. In this book it's raining quotes and references, especially from the 19th century French authors so beloved by him: Gustave Flaubert, the Goncourt brothers, Jules Renard. But that’s not all: he also involves his friends, his own parents and especially his older brother-philosopher on this winding road, with sometimes upsetting intimate details.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I actually enjoyed reading this book about death and mortality, though it actually leads nowhere. But I can recommend it to any reader: you really have nothing to be frightened of....more
The Flemish author Erwin Mortier is sometimes ‘accused� of using an exaggerated embellished style. This book proves that this is a completely false reThe Flemish author Erwin Mortier is sometimes ‘accused� of using an exaggerated embellished style. This book proves that this is a completely false reproach, if only for the delicacy of the subject he deals with. "Stammered Songbook� is an unremitting attempt to grasp what is going wrong with his dementing mother, to describe her decay, her developing isolation and fading away, and to express his own ambiguous feelings about letting her go.
Mortier uses everything language permits to make this tragic development palpable and tangible, just like Tom Lanoye did in his book 'Speechless'. For both authors, what happens to their mother is a reason to write in, through and about language, and also to escape in it. But they do it each in their own way: Lanoye in his bombastic and ecstatic prose, Mortier in his very sensitive, delicate and poetic style. Language is central to both books: the disappearing language of the dementing/fading mothers, the impotent-desperate language of the watching sons.
In “Stammered Songbook� of Mortier, the focus shifts slightly more towards the own process of coping with the situation, and the feelings of upheaval, resignation, defiance, disappointment and despair of the son. In that respect the title of this work is so well chosen: it is indeed a stammering work, with overlapping observations and musings: some short, some long, necessarily imperfect and disfigured like life itself, the life of Mortier and that of his mother. A wonderful, moving, heartrending book. (rating 3.5 stars)...more
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