A beautifully written post and so many real insights here Hattie - also just came out of a month of funerals and deep pain. Listened to Michael Rosen’s Getting Better and (didn’t think it possible) thought it was more moving and brilliant than Many Different Kinds of Love. He goes into more detail about how Carver influenced him, and Michael’s own writing influenced the plain prose I opted for in a poetry pamphlet on miscarriage and giving birth in the pandemic. Thanks again for writing this
Such a timely post as one of my dearest friends passed away last night. I love the Queen's quote about grief being the price of love. It is always hard to know what to say to people going through hard times and yes silence is often best. And Calvin Trillin can write about sadness and loss with humor, almost like being at a wake where you are sad but you are also sharing funny stories about the departed. About Alice is a wonderful book. Great post.
I thin the hobbit is about love, loss and fulfilling your potential. Tolkien wrote it for his kids, I understand. And I think George RR Martin used the same themes for GoT: a very small person "can cast a very large shadow."
Although you could argue that the Hobbit is basically an abridged version of LOTR, at least thematically if not entirely in plot. LOTR is about love, loss and how friendship sustains in adversity.
I found John Gray’s Feline Philosophy really helpful in its whole idea of getting trapped by words and thinking, and thinking the best way out is with more words and more thoughts. For really overwhelming things I think it is just being in the same place as others and sharing them, as there is a point where words only do so much.
Thank you for this, Hattie. As for spare writing (and love, loss and living afterwards), I always come back to Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt. Thinking of you.
Dear Life by Rachel Clarke was transformative for me, when trying to fathom the impossibility of loss and the physical process of death. Fiona Scarlett's Boys Don't Cry is so brilliantly written - painfully cathartic – and Catherine Newman's We All Want Impossible Things does achieve the impossible: makes you cry at the waste of it all – and the next minute laugh out loud. Sending strength. Things keep shifting and changing...
"...how anguished the protagonist felt, chapter after chapter, until I stopped feeling empathetic, and started to look forward to losing the book."
I'm a 70 year old male who would never read a book or see a movie (anymore) about despair, anguish or grief. My younger self would, but the wisdom of age kicked in for me. My wife, 6 years younger, and her girlfriends still adore such books and movies; I know it's unfashionable to say, but gender difference explains the attraction and the aversion. Women seem to have a need to know sadness; it could be evolutionary genetics, so that the species would survive. The "Y" chromosome leads to so much idiocy and self-destruction, every member of the human race should have 2 "X' chromosomes.
Everyone experiences loss...the loss of physicality, ONLY...NOTHING is ever "lost." The Universe (or whatever you call this) is far, far too complex to ever comprehend..."time" is a self-created human bogeyman...Einstein knew over a 100 years ago that "time" does not exist.
Black holes and gravitational waves should be a comfort that everything exists and is never lost...we existed for billions of years before we managed our 1st breath and we will exist for billions of years after our last breath. We are made of the same "stuff" as the Universe. Your loved one's exist, to infinity and beyond!!
Now, I am closer to the physical end than to the beginning, at age 70. I FORBID anyone, friends and family, to grieve my physical loss. Not my wife, nor my sons and I tell them this; remember the laughs, the adventure and yes, even the mistakes. Maybe remembering the mistakes is the most important.
Even Jesus, if the accounts are correct, asked for only one thing after He was gone, physically: "Do this in MEMORY of me." He didn't say grieve my passing. So read your/write your sad tales, but there is nothing to be sad over...the one's you think are lost are not lost...just like the band The Eagles sang, "You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave." No grief; only joy!
I'm not sure that I've come across a really good book that addresses loss directly. I would welcome it, or even a book that addresses it broadly and indirectly. And, "River of Shadows" by Rebecca Solnit might touch on the diversity of loss we experience and how it can drive us, through her narrative documenting the life and experiences of Eadweard Muybridge.
❤️ (And because you asked: The Hobbit: Love, loss, and a great big fuck-off dragon sleeping on a pile of stolen treasure.)
A beautifully written post and so many real insights here Hattie - also just came out of a month of funerals and deep pain. Listened to Michael Rosen’s Getting Better and (didn’t think it possible) thought it was more moving and brilliant than Many Different Kinds of Love. He goes into more detail about how Carver influenced him, and Michael’s own writing influenced the plain prose I opted for in a poetry pamphlet on miscarriage and giving birth in the pandemic. Thanks again for writing this
Thank you for this beautiful read x
Such a timely post as one of my dearest friends passed away last night. I love the Queen's quote about grief being the price of love. It is always hard to know what to say to people going through hard times and yes silence is often best. And Calvin Trillin can write about sadness and loss with humor, almost like being at a wake where you are sad but you are also sharing funny stories about the departed. About Alice is a wonderful book. Great post.
I thin the hobbit is about love, loss and fulfilling your potential. Tolkien wrote it for his kids, I understand. And I think George RR Martin used the same themes for GoT: a very small person "can cast a very large shadow."
Although you could argue that the Hobbit is basically an abridged version of LOTR, at least thematically if not entirely in plot. LOTR is about love, loss and how friendship sustains in adversity.
Ha! Picked up a book this very day that was about 'love, loss and regret' - now you've said it, I'm gonna see it everywhere!
I found John Gray’s Feline Philosophy really helpful in its whole idea of getting trapped by words and thinking, and thinking the best way out is with more words and more thoughts. For really overwhelming things I think it is just being in the same place as others and sharing them, as there is a point where words only do so much.
Thank you for this, Hattie. As for spare writing (and love, loss and living afterwards), I always come back to Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt. Thinking of you.
Dear Life by Rachel Clarke was transformative for me, when trying to fathom the impossibility of loss and the physical process of death. Fiona Scarlett's Boys Don't Cry is so brilliantly written - painfully cathartic – and Catherine Newman's We All Want Impossible Things does achieve the impossible: makes you cry at the waste of it all – and the next minute laugh out loud. Sending strength. Things keep shifting and changing...
Beautiful post. Marie Howe’s What The Living Do is always of great comfort to me. 🌸
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I found this strangely comforting at such a heartbreaking time.
"...how anguished the protagonist felt, chapter after chapter, until I stopped feeling empathetic, and started to look forward to losing the book."
I'm a 70 year old male who would never read a book or see a movie (anymore) about despair, anguish or grief. My younger self would, but the wisdom of age kicked in for me. My wife, 6 years younger, and her girlfriends still adore such books and movies; I know it's unfashionable to say, but gender difference explains the attraction and the aversion. Women seem to have a need to know sadness; it could be evolutionary genetics, so that the species would survive. The "Y" chromosome leads to so much idiocy and self-destruction, every member of the human race should have 2 "X' chromosomes.
Everyone experiences loss...the loss of physicality, ONLY...NOTHING is ever "lost." The Universe (or whatever you call this) is far, far too complex to ever comprehend..."time" is a self-created human bogeyman...Einstein knew over a 100 years ago that "time" does not exist.
Black holes and gravitational waves should be a comfort that everything exists and is never lost...we existed for billions of years before we managed our 1st breath and we will exist for billions of years after our last breath. We are made of the same "stuff" as the Universe. Your loved one's exist, to infinity and beyond!!
Now, I am closer to the physical end than to the beginning, at age 70. I FORBID anyone, friends and family, to grieve my physical loss. Not my wife, nor my sons and I tell them this; remember the laughs, the adventure and yes, even the mistakes. Maybe remembering the mistakes is the most important.
Even Jesus, if the accounts are correct, asked for only one thing after He was gone, physically: "Do this in MEMORY of me." He didn't say grieve my passing. So read your/write your sad tales, but there is nothing to be sad over...the one's you think are lost are not lost...just like the band The Eagles sang, "You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave." No grief; only joy!
John Pavlovitz has written excellent articles in his blog on grieving.
I'm not sure that I've come across a really good book that addresses loss directly. I would welcome it, or even a book that addresses it broadly and indirectly. And, "River of Shadows" by Rebecca Solnit might touch on the diversity of loss we experience and how it can drive us, through her narrative documenting the life and experiences of Eadweard Muybridge.