Skillful Writing

Salim, the main character, begins to tell his story when he is seven.  He describes the hut he lives in, his mother and uncle, his small village home in Zanzibar.  His tale unfolds in a leisurely manner as he gets older and he, and we, learn more about the complexities of his life.  Eventually, this likable and sensitive young man goes to live in London with his uncle and aunt and we experience, with him, his disillusionment with them, and his difficulties in adjusting to London.

On this level, not much else happens and it is a tribute to the author that Salim’s day to day life is so appealing.  When I picked up the book, I felt like I was opening an email from a friend I didn’t get to see very often.  Maybe nothing special had happened, but I was glad to hear anyway. 

Under this benign attractive story there is another plot developing.  As Salim matures, he begins to question some of the troubling parts of his childhood.  Why don’t his parents live together?  Why doesn’t his father like him?  The mystery, like an ominous movement under placid waters, surfaces occasionally until the last section when it emerges fully.

Many grand topics are touched on, colonialism, revolution, corruption, religion, immigration, but the heart of the story is found at home in the powerful effects of family secrets.  Gurnah took the title Gravel Heart from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, a play whose influence he acknowledges at the end of his novel:

“Unfit to live or die:  O gravel heart!  After him fellows; bring him to the block.” 

Unfortunately, in this modern book, there is not a Duke to swoop in to rescue the innocent and punish the guilty. 

Is this Nobel prize winner better than other books?  Well, I can’t say it is better, but it is certainly as good and a very satisfying read.

To achieve her desires, Dorothea decides to marry the elderly scholarly Casaubon.  This is the point in the novel when anyone who has read it before calls across the pages, “No, no, Dorothea, don’t marry him.”  But alas, she aways does.

Creating memorable characters is Eliot’s strong point: the failed scholar who regurgitates the past, the idealistic doctor who wants to save the world but is caught by a pretty face, the woman herself whose values are those of the small village finishing school.   The characters are rich and complex.  We may be appalled by Casaubon’s dismissal of Dorothea, but we are sympathetic to him when he recognizes his life’s work as useless.

This 800-page creation of rural England moves at a pace befitting a time of horses, carriages and leisurely social calls.  Eliot not only meticulously builds her characters but her setting as well. The reader is present at a village meeting where there is much maneuvering to elect the new hospital vicar. There are chapters where relatives gather around a dying man to discuss among themselves the demerits of other hopeful inheritors.

While this kind of detail creates a nuanced image of the people of Middlemarch, it can be off putting to a modern reader who is used to a streamlined plot. To lessen the temptation to skim, we read it over four months, 200 pages per month. We didn’t want to miss any of Eliot’s wit and subtle perceptive lines:

“… moodiness – a name which to her… covered his thoughtful preoccupation with subjects other than herself…”

“creditors – disagreeable people who only thought of themselves and did not mind how annoying they were to her.”

“…goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged…”

Or a just-right phrase such as “the winter worn husband” describing someone poorly matched with an energetic wife in her springtime.

Is this 150-year-old novel worth reading today? Absolutely. The subjects are universal – the illusions of young love; the realities of marriage; living beyond your means; the difficulty of sustaining youthful ideals; juggling for power and reputation; the pettiness of gossip.  These things have not changed and continue to make up the life we know in the 21^st century.

My first experience with Oliver was years ago when my yoga teacher would read us something of hers at the start of our relaxation. Today I found a different studio still quoting Oliver on its home page. It is the last line of “The Summer Day:” “Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.” Oliver’s poetry fits well into diverse spiritual practices. “Make of yourself a light” she has the Buddha say for his last instruction. 

This Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner is renowned for her lush nature poetry. Some is easy to enjoy. For example, “Hummingbirds:”

 “The female, and the two chicks…in their pale-green dresses…tiny fireworks…dainty charcoal feet…sea-green helmets…metallic tails…”

But many poets write about the beauties of the natural world. The exceptional part of Oliver’s work is the portrayal of the not-pretty parts of nature, the powerful, terrible, or ugly in a realistic, non-judgmental way. In “Beside the Waterfall,” a dog, Winston, is out for an early morning walk in the woods with his owner and finds a dead fawn. In a magnificent use of efficient spare language, Oliver paints an image I will long remember:

“Winston/looked over the/delicate, spotted body and then/deftly/tackled/the beautiful flower-like head,/breaking it and/breaking it off and/swallowing it.”

This is followed by a description of the rising red sun which

 “dropped its wild,/clawed light/over everything.” 

Yow!  What a powerful impact. Saying so much with so few words is the epitome of what poetic language should be.

Living Bird, winter 2022, reports that a study of these endangered birds has shown two separate cases of parthenogenesis, or virgin births. Two birds hatched from unfertilized eggs.

Mary Oliver is right. It’s a vast world out there and we, and what we know, are a very small part of it.