Written on the Body by Jeanette Wintersen

****I'M GOING TO WRITE THIS BLOG ENTRY A LITTLE AT A TIME**********

"Why is the measure of love loss?

It hasn't rained for three months.   The trees are prospecting underground, sending reserves of roots into the dry ground, roots like razors to open any artery water-fat.

The grapes have withered on the vine.  What should be plump and firm, resisting the touch to give itself in the mouth, is spongy and blistered.  Not this year the pleasure of rolling blue grapes between finger and thumb juicing my palm with musk.  Even the wasps avoid the thin brown dribble.  Even the wasps this year.  It was not always so."

So begins this novel.  There is an air of stillness, eeriness and destruction that's come in the wake of a tragedy/loss.  The narrator has lost something and is trying to understand (with forensic detail) this new state of affairs.  It's an uncomfortable place to be - and "narrator" doesn't shrink from bringing the reader right there.

This blog has been similarly neglected and consequently has not produced as I had hoped it would.  So I am returning to it to see if I can't turn that around.  I finished Written on the Body a while back - I will try and remember as best I can...

Some back story : my brother gave me this book about 15 years ago.  He was in college and I was still in high school.  He told me it was his favorite book.  As I've said elsewhere in this blog, I am always keen to read something that someone claims is their favorite book, especially if I am particularly curious about that person.  I always hope that the book will give me some insight into who they are.

I began the book back then but never finished it for some reason.  It came back around recently in a book club I created based on musician Jeff Buckley's personal library.

This is an intense book - the narrator keeps you pressed up close against him/her (the narrator is gender-fluid) and never lets you go.  She shares everything - holds nothing back.  And yet, she remains a distant figure who seems difficult to get to know.  Even so, it's a very brave way to go about writing.

The plot: this is a story about two lovers and about learning how to genuinely connect with another person without preconceived notions about how it is "supposed" to be done.  The narrator calls these "cliches" and advises all to fervently avoid them.  The narrator  loves a woman named Louise.  Louise is married to a man she doesn't love.

This book has the feel of intense confession - a confession that will only redeem in direct proportion to how truthful it is.  It also has an archaeological feel - only through digging up the past can the narrator order and give meaning to her experiences.

The main story is between the narrator and Louise, however the narrator does touch upon other liaisons she's had in the past.  Each lover is their own world, and the narrator dives into their world with abandon to discover the topography of that world:

“Explore me,' you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I’m free, coughed up like Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognise myself again. Myself in your skin, myself lodged in your bones, myself floating in the cavities that decorate every surgeon’s wall. That is how I know you. You are what I know.”

It's painful each time that the narrator must escape from a liaison and it all falls apart.  "I thought of Caliban chained to his pitted rock. 'The red plague rid you for learning me your language.'"  This book is a true testament to how painful, ugly, devastating & wretched it can be to fall in love.  As the narrator struggles to make it new (according to her the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is "I love you.") what she's chasing, love, often turns violent on her.  

My confession is that I am not as brave as this narrator.  She keeps going back into the fray, I've gotten to a point in my life that the possibility of such havoc turns me off.  I am more reluctant than I am excited.   This book though is alive with the effort of being/remaining hopeful about loving others.   Also, and I suspect that on some level she/he understands this, success in relationships should not be measured by whether or not the relationship lasts.  To begin to believe that is like going to sleep but believing you're still awake.  Success is to hold on to what allows you to still want to make the effort.  

This kinda implies another thing, if you are someone who discourages people from making the effort with you, you are not inviting success.  I tend to struggle with skeptical, suspicious thoughts about others - I've never been a very trusting person.  Actually, scratch that, I've never been good at evaluating whether or not my trust is warranted, so I've bypassed this weakness by trying to be mistrusting of everyone.  It's an artificial approach and people come to know it as such as they come to know me. 

I have my better moments though.  Anyway, I mean to say that it does no good to seek what you do not encourage.  

So, bottom line to any would-be reader out there, this a book of the interior.  If you do not like the "inner monologue" type book you will not like this.  If you do, I'd give this a try.   It is a well-written, honest book written by what I think is a unique voice.  

PART TWO : THE BODY