please click through on this one!
Have you ever read something that just haunts you? Everyone has, probably, in one form or another. But this story truly haunts me, it hovers around the edges, it has even shown up in a dream. The Seventh Man, by Haruki Murakami, was read by John Shea at Symphony Space. I’ve attended the Selected Shorts readings at Symphony Space, and they’re almost always wonderful. I haven’t read this story, and even if I did, I heard it read first, and that reading may partially account for the haunting nature of it — but I suspect it’s deeply embedded in the story itself. John Shea’s reading of it is just magnificent – dramatic, loud, whispering, terrified, exhausted. It’s a relatively long listen – 40 minutes (I think….time just stops when I listen to it, which I’ve done 10 or 11 times).
I’ve typed and erased several attempts to introduce you to the story, to make you want to listen, but whatever I write just misses the boat enough to make me afraid you won’t. It’s really an incredible story. At Symphony Space, it was part of a program called “Deepening Insight” so it’s about the main character’s insight into the most terrible and affecting thing that ever happened to him. If you like to think about metaphor and meaning and transformation and life, please please please give it a try.
I won’t continue to tease; if you want to listen, here you go, and if you want to read it, click here. [note: don't be put off when you start listening - the program featured 2 stories, and this clip begins with a snippet of the 2nd story, followed by the introduction of John Shea, who will then start reading. Be patient, the story starts around a minute and a half.] If you want to keep listening, the 2nd story is included in the audio, too, after the Murakami.
I’d like to know about stories that have had this kind of effect on you. My reading time is pretty severely limited, and I prefer to read things that at least have the potential to knock me back like this. I love literary fiction – Cormac McCarthy, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Murakami – so I’m always interested in a recommendation of a powerful story. Got one to share with me?
The Time Traveler’s Wife. Not high brow fiction, but wonderful nontheless. The end was perfect. Hmmm – A Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin did this to me , too, but I read it so long ago that I couldn’t tell you why. And the fairy tale The Snow Queen is haunting, I think. And A Little Prince.
Your photo of India was a bit overwhelming – so many people! I would like to go there sometime. The culture is so lush and the people that I have met are wonderful. Thanks for sharing.
xo Erin
I’ve read all of these except A Winter’s Tale, which I’ll have to try! I just checked the Amazon page to find (a) that it’s set in NYC, which makes me love it automatically, and (b) that it has a wonderful first sentence:
“THERE was a white horse, on a quiet winter morning when snow covered the streets gently and was not deep, and the sky was swept with vibrant stars, except in the east, where dawn was beginning in a light blue flood.”
Moody, I love that.
And India itself is overwhelming. I’d always wanted to go…always, since I was a little girl. Every single night we were there, I dreamed I was being torn apart by wild dogs. I’d jump onto a roof, the dogs would jump too. I’d climb a tree, they’d climb after me. That speaks to how it felt to be there. We were just always crushed by people, and it felt like they were all clawing at us. We quit going into shops because the shopkeepers would stick to us like glue, pressing, pressing, pressing, buy this buy this buy this. it’s one of those trips that’s much better in retrospect, although Varanasi was really magical even when we were there.
Thanks for the recommendation – I’ll add A Winter’s Tale to my list for sure!
I’ll definitely put this on my list of things to listen to, once I’ve made it through the various emergencies of the next several weeks. I’ve actually been terribly (I mean that in its original sense) haunted by a real-life story that’s happening to a friend of mine as she helps her daughter fight anorexia, and that’s pretty much the limit of what I can handle on the serious side at this point.
However, on the list of books that have stuck with me long past the reading, I can safely say that The Bone People, by Keri Hulme, is one of those. If you haven’t read it, it’s something I find very difficult to describe but recommend highly — many people find it hard to get into, but it’s worth it. I also (in a very different sort of genre) loved The Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis, enough to name my second daughter after the main character. And it’s funny that your first commenter said something about A Winter’s Tale; I’ve never read it, but it’s come up on a number of friends’ lists in conversations like this.
.-= On her own blog, Jocelyn just said ..Seriously? =-.
oh……anorexia, what a truly horrible fight. I can’t imagine the fear and frustration your friend must feel. I can feel a tiny rising panic in myself, just thinking about it. One of my daughters battled suicidal depression for an entire year, and every single day I felt like I gathered up arms and ran into the most desperate battle of my life. I hope there is a good end for your friend and her daughter.
Thank you for the two recommendations – someone else recommend The Bone People to me once, so this 2nd rec (plus it coming from you) boots it to the top. The Amazon blurb sounds amazing, and it’s one of those books that haunts an acquiring editor: I reject it, someone else publishes it, and it wins one of the biggest prizes? YIKES. And The Doomsday Book goes on my list too; any book that has that huge an influence must be powerful.
The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, had such an effect on me that I got the length of my spine tattooed – but that’s a story for another time.
Strength and courage to you and your friend and her daughter.