Journeys

It is like removing a lid from boiling water. The daughter falls in love; the son takes steps, albeit clumsy, to proclaim an identity.

This satisfying story has a traditional plot line with a beginning, tension, climax, and resolution. It’s so different from a New Yorker story that just starts, goes on for a while, and stops. Much happens, but it is the internal action as the two come to terms with withered, repressed sexuality, that is most compelling.

Two main symbols contribute to the depth of the novel. The house the three had lived in together is neglected, filled with remnants of the past moldering away. The adjacent woodland where the brother spends his time is filled with wildlife but overgrown and out of control.

Passing On reminded me of Afterlife by Julia Alvarez, where a new widow’s behavior is influenced by what she thinks her husband would have done. In this case however, the control is only for a while.

On keeping up with technology, Petrow chastised those of us who continue to use two spaces after a period. So old school and reminiscent of typewriters. With the advent of computers and their different way of spacing individual letters, one space is now correct. Really? Also about technology, there is a discussion of the pitfalls of various dating apps for seniors. 

I disagree with him though when he says, “I Won’t Be Ordering the Early Bird Special” and complains about old people wanting to eat at 4:30. Hmmm. I have enjoyed many “happy hour suppers” with friends – crackers, cheese, fruit, wine – no one has to cook. Time for cards afterwards. What’s not to like? 

The disadvantage of the book is that there is too much personal information about illness – his, his parents’, his sister’s, his dog’s(!) True, this is a book about aging, but before long I wanted to refer him to his own chapter on the organ recital, which has nothing to do with music.

A young woman, barely 30, loses her position as a librarian. At a job finding seminar she is asked to name her dream job. Open a bookstore, of course. The characters are delightful; the setting is gorgeous. Nina finds herself in the Scottish countryside among idyllic farms and a friendly small town.

Listening to the book being read by Lucy Price Lewis in her lilting Scottish burr added a lovely dimension. Reading it by the fire with your feet up would also be appropriate.

Nina, the bookseller, has a wonderful quote about reading. At the movies, you just watch the action. When playing computer games, you try to control the action. When reading, you are not outside, but inside; you have moved into the action and are a part of it.

So many things in Venice are made from stone, especially marble: statues of course, churches, cemeteries, sea walls, rocky coastal remnants that stand guard. The stone has travelled from a variety of places, and we get a bit of that history; they provide the foundation for a riff on things Venetian.

There is the creative figurative language: “…the clouds Bless us with sky,” a phrase so alive instead of the tired “clouds parted.” And there is intuitive observation, “…limestone becomes marble. Organisms once alive made stone…”  And there is a sense of the numinous, or spiritual, “I have a thought…that if I could somehow reach the same vibrational level as the (stones) I could experience the world as they do—outside of human time, …a longer, slower story…”  And there is the speech of nature, “The wind would stir the leaves, the sound Recognized by the birds as the voices of the gods.”

The musically inclined reader might hear echoes of a third art besides the literary and visual. Whispers, vibrations, blowing, singing suffuse the book. While probably unintended, there are overtones of other music as well. Maybe because I’m married to a rock ‘n roll devotee, I brought to the book a whole other idea of travelling, singing, vibrating, long lasting “Stones.” I laughed and dismissed this until I came to the last page on which the author has written, “Enter this heart of stone,” and there in a song title were those Rolling Stones again. This is a good example of why books and poetry say such different things to different people.

I looked up the heart of stone legend and see that it has at least two sources.  There is Ezekiel who says, “I will take the stony hearts out of your body, and I will give you one of flesh.” There is also a German fairy tale written down by Wilhelm Hauff in the 1800’s called “The Cold Heart,” about someone who trades his heart for riches and then discovers that he can no longer feel. There is a movie. 

I’m not sure what Lawless means by saying “enter” this heart of stone on the last page. Are we leaving his quiet pocket of mystery for a harsh stone hearted world? Or has he put a different twist on the image? Maybe he wants us to be aware of stones as alive and humming, a timeless foundation that we can access if we try.

How the Stones Came to Venice is published by Litorall press and available by mail order from them. If you live close by, I would be glad to share. My copy was my Christmas gift in our book exchange.