Life and death and literature 101

First you are born, then you live, then you die. If you haven’t died yet then you are still alive. Unless you haven’t been born yet in which case you probably wouldn’t be reading this.

These obvious facts are known to all but rarely discussed. They’re considered importune, impolite and awkward. A bit of a downer too. I’d like to discuss them now.

Literature, that unique human expression, I mean birds do architecture, octopi make pictures, elephants and whales and crocodiles can talk, but literature is a domain reserved for man (and woman). And what do we write about? We write about life and death and the journey in between. What else is there?

And so, at the moment I am reading 4 books. Flipping between ‘The Situation’, a collection of poetry from a friend I have only met on Facebook to ‘The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve’ by Stephen Greenblatt. Turns out there are other creation myths we could have used to map out our human character but Adam and Eve is the one that survived (in the West atleast) and so we are guilt ridden and subservient to an angry god. Morality rules the roost, there is no free lunch.

We could have adapted the ancient epic story (older than the Hebrew Bible) of Gilgamesh: joyous sex, a gradual ascent (assisted by the sacred mother, lover, benefactor) from wildness to civility, the celebration of the city and the wisdom of the ages. Says Shiduri, the barista, at the edge of the endless ocean:

Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek. When the gods created mankind, they also created death, and they held back eternal life for themselves alone. Humans are born, they live, then they die, this is the order that the gods have decreed. But until the end comes, enjoy your life, spend it in happiness, not despair. Savor your food, make each of your days a delight, bathe and anoint yourself, wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean, let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand, and give your wife pleasure in your embrace. That is the best way for a man to live.

No mention of being cursed by an angry god and having to go to work.

‘The Situation’, on the other hand, by Tara Liz Driscoll covers all angles from the absurd to the comical to the horrible, to the incredibly sweet and kind:

Maybe it’s me and only me
Closing an old and tattered page
Maybe I’ve overstayed my welcome
On an old and creaky stage

Ah the sticks and stones are smiling now
The crows I think they’ve left
But the cinders upon ash
Still burn bright upon this hearth

Out into the clearing
See it twinkling up ahead
An inkling of some something
Some of us have thought of and said

I’ve just begun to read this book. It will probably take me the rest of my life. It’s a lament and a celebration and a salutation. Kinda like life. “Hello there.” we say when we greet our fellow humans. It means I see you and I see you seeing me.

In ‘Morning and Evening’ the author, Jon Fosse, takes us thru the life of a man from his birth to (assumably) his death. I haven’t finished it yet. But he writes in such a way that you forget you are reading and you become that person.

In the first part, the story of his birth, you become several people: the woman giving birth, the midwife, the husband waiting anxiously in the adjoining room, the baby being born:

and he hears the old midwife Anna say good, good push now, you’re doing good, good Marta, and the old midwife Anna says something and something is pressing on his head and the darkness is not red and soft anymore and all the sounds and the steady throbbing ah ah there there ah ah ah there ah and ah oh like that ah eh ah eh ah roaring ah rushing ah the old river and swaying ee ah eh ah ee eh ah eh water eh ah and eh oh ah everything is yes sa sa ah sa smooth sa and the voices and then this horrible sound and push eh ah eh and this cold piercing ah ah scraping stone go back ah and ah forth and everything that happens oh to you and it hurts ee arms ee legs ee everything that is ee fingers and cur ee ah url up oo and everything eh it eh still water eh ah oh ah and the hard growling and voices eh ne ah ah en ah ya ah and the the eh light ou far ee from afar everything is somewhere else ah ah and it is not there anymore but it roars and then a sound a something hurls him out of himself somehow into something and hands and fingers ee fingers curl up and all these old and everything is not where it is anymore

I read it twice because I wanted to feel being born twice.

In The Ancient Book of Magic Secrets the author makes the point again and again. Humans are a rowdy and inventive bunch. We build cities and then we destroy them. We create systems and networks. We organize and name things. And we write it all down for posterity. What a thing we are!

Proud and brash, kind and gentle - we have a range of behaviors unmatched in the animal world. We notice things and investigate them. How the natural world turns so easily between birth and death for instance:

The coherence of a system that provides seeds at the same time the flower is dying, which then sprout and fruit in their time should give us comfort. Synchrony is a word not often used because there are so few occasions that we notice it, but it means something like symphony - like the flower and the seeds, the seasons and the rain, the drums and the strings, the bass coming on, a full orchestra effect, from pianissimo to crescendo to pianissimo again, all the parts moving together to produce feelings of elation and great pleasure. Life with its accompaniment, death.

And that’s it. That’s the whole story from beginning to end. Life and death and literature 101.

It doesn’t occur to kids that they’re going to die, it occurs to old folks though. They can see the edge, they can feel the decline as they ease into that yoga move and notice that their body doesn’t respond in the same way anymore. They can’t see as well. They don’t hear too good. They definitely can’t run a mile in under 5 minutes.

Ah it’s just as well, if you didn’t age gradually the shock of it happening all at once would kill you. It’s my aging joke. I think it’s funny.

Gilgamesh quote from Stephen Mitchell’s transcendent volume: Gilgamesh, a New English Version.

Tara’s poem is from The Situation. The poem is called Blubber.

Morning and Evening by Jon Fosse.

The Ancient Book of Magic Secrets, an Exploration Into Being Human by me.

music from made from dreams 11:37-14:25