"Like a mist around the living, the crush of ghosts, the ones we can't let go." - Mark Haddon, The Red House
Hello, it's me. (not Adele.)
I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write another post, but I found that I needed a bit of a break, emotionally and otherwise. And so, I found solace in Leonard Cohen's Stranger Music and Book of Longing. I wrote. I celebrated my friends' lives, and celebrated life with my friends. I even watched the Evil Dead trilogy (which, though comedic, is quite a feat for me since I don't generally watch anything horror-wise). And while I'm still writing poetry, I keep staring at the list of books to read and the post I haven't yet completed. It's time.
This week, I'm reporting on Mark Haddon's The Red House. I loved his books The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and A Spot of Bother, and as such I figured I'd love this one, too.
This week, I'm reporting on Mark Haddon's The Red House. I loved his books The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and A Spot of Bother, and as such I figured I'd love this one, too.
Turns out, I didn't. I just couldn't get behind the story of two families who spend a week away together, told from each of the eight relatives' points of view. Granted, I laughed at their idiosyncrasies and the turns the story took, but I think it was more of a "Oh, life" kind of thing rather than something being particularly funny.
I don't know that Mom would have liked this book. Inasmuch as I didn't really ask her about the particularities of her taste in literature - and based on our listy list, it runs the gamut, like mine - I think this would have been a bit too abstract and yet boring for her. It certainly wouldn't have served as the escape I've made some of the other books I've read out to be.
I did, however, like a few passages, as per usual.
Eventually we find that we no longer need silence. We no longer need solitude. We no longer even need words. We can make all our actions holy. We can cook a meal for our family and it becomes prayer. We can go for a walk in the park and it becomes prayer.
Wow. I have read and re-read this a bunch of times since finishing the book. Mom was a Catholic, and I was raised in the same way, only to leave it behind in the years leading up to her death. She would have identified with these words from an organized religious sense, whereas I would rather not put too fine a point on it. The part about not needing words again brought me to when my family and I cared for Mom when she was unable to speak - I hope she saw what we were doing and something resembling the healing nature of prayer. Those actions were our prayers to her, our prayers for her.
I also loved the bit about the park. This is exactly how I feel when walking through Victoria Park in Bow, East London. This park is incredibly magical and every single time I am there, I am inspired to write. Now, sometimes those words are nothing more than random bits floating around in my head until I get them to paper weeks, even months later, but they stick. I can't even describe to you the feeling I get when the sun filters through the trees on the other side of the park, just beside the rose garden. It has to be a prayer from someone. Maybe to someone. Who knows? Who cares? All I know is that I chase that harmony each time I return and walk the familiar path.
Later on in the book, one of the mothers reflects on her time spent at art school, which she left behind: "[I]t was creative and it was hers and it was precious and she didn't want it picked over by other people". When my family and I were cleaning out Mom's place, we found some of her drawings from... gosh, perhaps her mid-late 20s in a storage box. My sister and I knew she could draw - her help with our homework showed us that - but we didn't really know much about the passion she used to have to art and sketching. She never mentioned it to us, nor did she ever bring out her work for us to see. It was precisely as above - it was hers and she probably preferred it that way. We all have secret talents, don't we?
Anyway, that's about it. If any of you have read the book, spill the beans. Did you like it? Am I being too... closed-minded? It is pretty hard to read some of these titles and frame them around the purpose of the blog; I often wonder if my enjoyment is somewhat hampered by the "demands" of my chosen vehicle of review. But then I start another one and devour it, so it can't just be that.
Maybe it's just me. ;)
I don't know that Mom would have liked this book. Inasmuch as I didn't really ask her about the particularities of her taste in literature - and based on our listy list, it runs the gamut, like mine - I think this would have been a bit too abstract and yet boring for her. It certainly wouldn't have served as the escape I've made some of the other books I've read out to be.
I did, however, like a few passages, as per usual.
Eventually we find that we no longer need silence. We no longer need solitude. We no longer even need words. We can make all our actions holy. We can cook a meal for our family and it becomes prayer. We can go for a walk in the park and it becomes prayer.
Wow. I have read and re-read this a bunch of times since finishing the book. Mom was a Catholic, and I was raised in the same way, only to leave it behind in the years leading up to her death. She would have identified with these words from an organized religious sense, whereas I would rather not put too fine a point on it. The part about not needing words again brought me to when my family and I cared for Mom when she was unable to speak - I hope she saw what we were doing and something resembling the healing nature of prayer. Those actions were our prayers to her, our prayers for her.
I also loved the bit about the park. This is exactly how I feel when walking through Victoria Park in Bow, East London. This park is incredibly magical and every single time I am there, I am inspired to write. Now, sometimes those words are nothing more than random bits floating around in my head until I get them to paper weeks, even months later, but they stick. I can't even describe to you the feeling I get when the sun filters through the trees on the other side of the park, just beside the rose garden. It has to be a prayer from someone. Maybe to someone. Who knows? Who cares? All I know is that I chase that harmony each time I return and walk the familiar path.
Later on in the book, one of the mothers reflects on her time spent at art school, which she left behind: "[I]t was creative and it was hers and it was precious and she didn't want it picked over by other people". When my family and I were cleaning out Mom's place, we found some of her drawings from... gosh, perhaps her mid-late 20s in a storage box. My sister and I knew she could draw - her help with our homework showed us that - but we didn't really know much about the passion she used to have to art and sketching. She never mentioned it to us, nor did she ever bring out her work for us to see. It was precisely as above - it was hers and she probably preferred it that way. We all have secret talents, don't we?
Anyway, that's about it. If any of you have read the book, spill the beans. Did you like it? Am I being too... closed-minded? It is pretty hard to read some of these titles and frame them around the purpose of the blog; I often wonder if my enjoyment is somewhat hampered by the "demands" of my chosen vehicle of review. But then I start another one and devour it, so it can't just be that.
Maybe it's just me. ;)