In the middle of December 2022, TOI Bookmark, weekly podcasts on books and literature was launched by The Times of India (TOI) . TOI has a new vertical dedicated to podcasts called Times Specials / ( @TimesSpecialTOI). It is specially curated premium content from across the Times Group, for digital audiences. I record every week with incredible writers and publishers, based around the world. The Times of India, of course, is the world’s largest newspaper and India’s No. 1 digital news platform with over 3 billion page views per month. Times Specials podcasts will be promoted across all TOI platforms, including print.
Scholastic Writers Academy, short story collections
During the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, Scholastic Writers Academy was launched. I conceptualised the programme for Scholastic India. These are online workshops of 20 hours, 10 days x 2 hours every day, except for the weekends and national holidays. Two hours of a mix of lectures, presentations, interactive sessions, writing on camera, one-to-one mentoring in breakout rooms and peer review. Every participant is expected to write a short story. Every workshop culminates in a published anthology of the short stories. It includes the mentor’s note.
The faculty of Scholastic Writers Academy are handpicked. They are inevitably folks who have a deep interest in literature and understand its nuances. Also, they are extremely kind, gentle, firm and have excellent mentoring skills when interacting with the school students. Our fabulous mentors include or have included in the past, Rahul Saini, Sucharita Dutta-Asane, Neil D’Silva, Harini Srinivasan, Priya Ranganathan, Ujwala Samarth, Madhumita Gupta, Sushmitha Talisetti, Saachi Gupta, Kanchana Banerjee etc.
In the short span since the workshops began ( June 2021) till date, we have mentored more than 1200 students and had more than 55 editions of the workshops. Scholastic India has been incredibly innovative and determined with its outreach efforts with schools. Also, using the social media platforms to promote this programme. As a result, we have had registerations from across India and even abroad — the USA, Middle East, and Singapore.
Most often the workshops are general and we encourage students to come up with their own story pegs and see it through. But we have also had thematic workshops on science fiction, horror, Nature, animals etc. The students are in the age range of 9 to 17+. We make batches of junior and senior.
The success of these workshops is incredible. And I am not saying it because I am part of the core team that works on it. It is the word-of-mouth success too. Students have registered for it not once but multiple times! They join the workshop with trepidation and nervousness. Some join because they have been encouraged to do so by their parents and schools. But within two days, the kids are yapping away happily to their mentor and with each other. Remember that these groups meet ONLY online. They do not know who will be in their batch from beforehand. They are complete strangers to each other. By the time the workshop is over, two weeks later, the children are a raucous bunch and share a special bonhomie. They do not want the classes to end. They leave on a high note. At the concluding session, parents tell us over and over again, how their children look forward to these sessions. They grin and are cheerful. They do not want to be disturbed. Even kids who are normally restless are at peace and disciplined about writing daily. They look forward to these interactions.
Later, they regroup for the official book launch. These are also held online on Scholastic India’s Facebook page. All the recordings of the past book launches exist on the page. There is a fixed format with Mr Neeraj Jain, Scholastic India, MD, the mentor, and a chief guest — inevitably this person is an educationist. It is such a thrill watching these virtual book launches. The children are animatedly chittering at meeting each other once more. Their eyes shine with delight at being able to hold their physical books aloft.
At the book launches, the children share the impact that these workshops have had upon them. It is not only that their writing skills have improved ( SWA does not teach grammar!). But it is the sudden realisation that with a bit of focus, discipline and determination they can create and be productive. They have learned to improve their social skills as they are forced to engage with the other participants. They have improved their vocabulary as they are encouraged to offer peer review in class. They realise that writing a short story is not as easy as it seems and they need ideas and vision. There are many other aspects that they touch upon but it is the massive confidence boosting measure that really astounds them. They discover aspects of themselves that they did not realise they had within them.
Registerations are open throughout the year. To register, please click here.
Every book that is published by Scholastic India as part of the Scholastic Writers Academy is available on Amazon India. In fact, schools buy entire sets of these books. And/or they prescribe individual copies as supplementary readers in their institutions. Libraries order multiple sets as everyone is very proud to see school children write imaginatively and spin stories and ultimately be published by a 102-year-old brand like Scholastic. The same publishing house that published Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, John Lithgow, Robert Redford, and Truman Capote. It is also the publisher of Dav Pilkey, Liz Pinchon, and J.K.Rowling ( in the USA).
We have even launched an edition for adults — 18 and above. The inaugural workshop was very exciting and energetic.
…all of a sudden, in this unfamiliar room, something descends upon her. It has the quality of a vision but it is frailer than that, and brighter in its urgency, arriving unbidden in her head. What has come to her is a painting, entire and robust in its untested perfection. A painting on an elongated rectangle of tavola — she will cut herself the exact size she neesd, at the precise angle she favours — at the centre of which will be a castle. No, a white mule. No, a stone marten, with streaks on its face. Or a centaur? Or all of them. Not one painting, then, but a series, all miniature, all ornate, the confines of the wooden boards filled with details and clues and decorations. She will cut the board now — no, it will have to be tomorrow, for she shouldn’t wake Alfonos with the sawing. But did she pack the right tools? The small handsaw, the planning knife? She thinks she did not. The disappointment is keen. It leaves sharp icicles in her chest. To have this idea but no means to act upon it: the thwarted frustration of it. No matter. She will sketch the ideas tomorrow. Or perhaps now, this minute. She will ease herself from the bed and strike the tinder, relight the candle and take up the roll of vellum she knows is in the travelling box. … She will spend the days with him, so that he feels attended to, taken notice of, but she will work at night. All, she thinks, as the candle catches at first try, will be well, and she sits, placing her hands, palm down, on the surface of her desk, and she smiles. p.94-95
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell (Hachette India) is about the marriage of Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara and her husband, Alfonso. She is sixteen years old and is isolated by Alfonso in his childhood home. A contrast to her upbringing in Florence, where her parents had the grandest palazzo, unusual animals in their menagerie, plenty of laughter and good cheer, many soldiers to guard their quarters and many ladies-in-waiting, readily available to provide companionship and assistance. But in Ferrara, Lucrezia has a very lonely life, albeit she is showered with jewels and expensive dresses. Her supposedly besotted husband commissions a marriage portrait of hers but is as per his specifications. He dictates terms to the artist and his assistants and expects his wife to dress in a manner that befits her status as a duchess, not caring if it was comfortable for Lucrezia or not. Whereas she, an excellent miniature artist herself, tries to find peace and contentment in her new circumstances by focussing on her painting.
It is another powerfully written story by Maggie O’Farrell for whom different historical settings seem to be merely an excuse to understand women’s circumstances in different periods. Ultimately, she focusses upon the main protagonist and in a very Henry Jamesian and Robert Browning style, she plays with the interior monologue technique. It works brilliantly in the case of her women characters as O’Farrell is able to take these deep dives into their minds and make visible the riotous cacophany that zips through a woman’s mind, belying her placcid exterior. The running commentary that women have in their heads while being expected to perform as per someone else’s, usually their husband or father’s expectations. In The Marriage Portrait, the Renaissance becomes the ideal backdrop for Lucrezia’s experiments in painting. The minute detail with which she painted, inevitably fairly realistic renditions, are representative of the age Lucrezia lived in. But it serves another very critical function of showcasing the light, the profusion of colour, happiness and joy that radiates from within Lucrezia and translates itself into her paintings. It is in direct contrast to her irascible husband, who can flare up at the drop of a hat. It is disconcerting… and sadly, the irrational and inexplicable outbursts will be familiar to many a female reader. And herein lies the beauty of Maggie O’Farrell’s storytelling. It is not always the smart pace or etching of characters, but it is her ability to send a sharp pain of recognition through the reader while portraying a woman in a domestic milieu. The fact that little seems to have changed over the years and centuries. It is sad.
The Marriage Portrait is a far second to the previous novel and Womens Prize winner Hamnet. It lacks the sharpness of Hamnet but The Marriage Portrait manages to take a deeper dive into the inner psyche of the protagonist, Lucrezia and with her, some of the minor characters like her mother, her maid and Alfonso’s sisters. There are dialogues and action off stage that are chilling and ring very true. The casual violence directed at the women is unpleasant and sadly, continues to be perpetuated. At times this is not an easy book to read but it explains why it has been garnering a fair amount of buzz on social media. It makes sense.
My Padri Avram used to say that Heaven is a revolving wheel, Pinto said. Even if you never move from your place, everything around you will change, and the world and all that it holds will be the same and not the same. We could stay right here and just watch the wheel turn. But if we move, if we keep moving, everything will always be only different, and we will never be the same. There had to have been a world where no one was ever at home, where everyone was always going from one place to another. The Lord must’ve destroyed such a world and with relish too — for what kind of a place would’ve been a world consisting only of strangers? There would’ve been no righteous ones there, nonthing and nobody older than a day. The people in that world could never be still long enough to see anything. Everything in such a world would’ve been dimmed by incomprehension. I have no idea what you’re talking about, Isak Abramovich said, his gaze still stuck to the firmament. See what I have to live with? Osman chuckled and kissed Pinto’s forehead. Just love each other whatever the world you think you might be in, Isak Abramovich said. There is nothing else you can do. And who knows, maybe all this insanity will produce a better world, where everyone could love whoever they want. Stranger things have happened. p.103
Aleksander Hemon’s The World and All That It Holds ( Picador) is the classic family novel formula with a difference. The norm in literary fiction is to have a family novel spanning three to four generations, ideally set at the beginning of the twentieth century or in the world wars. The author employs various literary techniques to make it accessible to a modern reader. Usually family novels are easily read for they have a straightforward chronology and a single language is used for the storytelling. In exceptional cases, phrases and words may be borrowed from other languages, if the circumstances of the plot demand it. The World and All that it Holds upturns such preconceived notions of this form of literary fiction.
Hemon’s new novel is about Osman, a Muslim, and Pinto, a Jew, who grew up in multilingual Sarajevo. They are young, when conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army to fight in the Great War. After becoming POWs, they move to the Great Steppes and get caught in the Russian Revolution. They somehow manage to join a refugee caravan, relying upon the kindness of strangers whose language they could not speak, till it reached Shanghai. Along the way, they acquire a daughter, Rahela, and a ghost. Osman gets left behind. Pinto is responsible for the infant and brings her up as his own. There are innumerable conversations about a God.
Historical fiction serves many purposes. Most often, it enables the writer to discuss contemporary events without going into the specifics; but tackling issues sufficiently that they resonate with the reader effectively. In this case, it is the migrants or mercenaries or refugees — use any terminology that you will. Through the lives of Osman and Pinto, a young couple, crossing boundaries at so many multiple levels — love, physical migration, religious laws, etc. There are many conversations that are recorded, whether between the Osman and Pinto or with the people whom they meet that make one pause and think. One of the most powerful moments was when Pinto yearns for the simple things in life such as a stable existence and a room with a bed and a light.
The novel prompts questions regarding borders, identities ( is it official as designated by a passport or humaneness), gender, notion of a family, idea of language and the very act of a journey. How does time affect an individual or a community? What are the external factors such as war, politics, socio-economic considerations that determine the space and respect accorded to an individual? Who determines these?
The elegantly sophisticated craftsmanship of Hemon is on display when he plays with language (s) in the text. He uses languages in a way that the characters would, without any explanation. There are no words in brackets or a glossary at the end to explain. It is almost as if as the reader has to be prepared for this deep immersion and like the ghost, to walk along side the characters. Taking a deep dive into multiple languages is more than just a noisy experience, it is shattering. It makes the head spin. Yet, to remain focussed and moving on, hopefully achieving a goal, is a struggle. Intially, the first few pages of the story are very difficult to read and need to be read over and over again to get into the rhythm, but then slowly it develops a familiar pattern. Try reading it out aloud and parts of the story would seem nonsensical but within the story, it makes perfect sense. This is precisely what happens to Rahela. As she grows, she picks up bits and pieces of languages from the refugees in their caravan or from the locals in whose houses they stay. Later, as an adult, she realises that the language she speaks and thought was understood by everyone is only spoken by her “father” Pinto and her. Once she is separated from him, she is very lonely.
Languages form a culture. They create an identity for the speaker. There are cultural references embedded in the language that get conveyed from generation to generation. What happens to people such as Pinto and his daughter, who have travelled for years and years. Do they have an identity? A tradition? A place to call their own?
Later, the older and pregnant Rahela returns to China to collect her father and take him back to Serbia. Unfortunately, he does not survive. Only Rahela arrives. She is lost and has not a clue how to begin her life. Fortunately, a good samaritan ( if you will) recognises her surname and realises she is a descendant of the apothecary Pinto they all knew once upon a time and to whom they sold medicinal herbs. This tiny piece of her genealogical history preserved in social memory enables her to be awarded a Serbian passport and using it, she is able to travel to Israel, the new land for the Jews.
This is where the novel and its conclusion becomes modernist. Hemon uses the popular autofictional style of storytelling to recount his visit as a new author to a literary festival in Jerusalem. While waiting at the signing desk for people to bring copies of the book, he was approached by a frail lady and her son. She did not introduce herself but sang an old Bosnian song. She is Rahela. She tells him the story of her two fathers and her incredible childhood. And thus sparked the idea of this story.
The World and All That It Holds is an extraordinarily magnificent novel. Read it. It is going to be on many prize lists in 2023 and beyond.
On 27 Jan 2023, Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan visited my daughter’s school. It was an author interaction organised for eighth graders. Apparently, the conversation revolved around poetry and writing. I am not surprised since Shobha’s debut book — It’s Time To Rhyme ( Aleph Book Company) — is a delicious collection of poems. My daughter too loves poetry and is musically inclined. For instance, when is in a foul mood or when she was an infant throwing a tantrum, the only way to get across to her was by playing music or speak to her in a sing song manner. So, the kid was thrilled to meet Shobha and talk poetry. And then the author very sweetly inscribed the book for Sarah.
Today, I delivered to two lectures at the National Book Trust, India Publishing Course. NBT is under the Union Ministry of Education. It was established in 1957. NBT also manages the New Delhi World Book Fair and much else.
My lectures were on:
‘An Introduction to Publishing in India Today – Problems and Prospects, Major Publishing Houses, Trends,’ and ‘Publishing across the World- Major Publishing Houses, Industry in different countries.,’
87 students have enrolled this year. The lectures ran over the stipulated time of three hours. Exceeded by nearly one hour. The students asked so many questions!
Update:
I received an email from one of the students. Here is an extract:
… I am one of the students of NBT Book Publishing Course this year and I attended your session today. And let me just say first it was so wonderful and enlightening to listen to you speak and learn from you about publishing. We hardly hear about these things anywhere and I have been wanting to for so long. …..
Buku Sarkar‘s Not Quite a Disaster After All ( HarperCollins India) is a collection of six interlinked stories or six vignettes, if you will. The stories revolve around two women — Anjali and Anita. Anjali is the daughter of a very wealthy family from Calcutta. Anything that she asks for or desires is easily fulfilled; an option that she does not necessarily exercise when testing her wings in New York as a student. She is ultimately successful in her career as a designer and also becomes an author. Her fastidiousness for detail in everything that she does permeates through every story in the collection. Surprisingly, she is far more generous and forgiving of her friend Anita who lives in Ohio and is a mother trying to juggle a career too. In some senses, the friends work like counterpoints to each other in the story, almost as if the distance between them due to their difference lifestyles and behaviour creates an amplitude that indicates what women are capable of. They represent the extreme points of women in society. These two are the central women, but there are other women characters like Anjali’s mother, a devoted wife, Anjali’s editor and the young book publicist. They can be considered as stereotypical examples of women homemakers, wives and publishing professionals or they can be seen as alternative role models to the lives that Anjali and Anita have chosen.
The stories are seemingly arranged chronolgically to depict the life of Anjali from childhood to a successful designer based in the UK and who has a book launch in New York. She is living the middle class dream. But as the stories show, there is a dissatisfaction and a simmering discontent. It is a feeling that begins in childhood when even Anjali has not a clue what it implies. It is in the title story that Anjali seems to be at peace and when that occurs, the reader heaves a sigh of relief.
Buku Sarkar is a much published writer in many magazine publications but this is her first book. It is remarkably composed and poised writing. At first, it does not feel as if there is anything complicated in the writing style. Simple. She evokes childhood memories. She writes about the past in India and the USA. It is done almost in a bored, languid, matter-of-fact style. Yet, by the time the book concludes, the characters have neatly nestled inside one and are part of one’s life. The title “Not Quite a Disaster After All” grows on one from being at first a seemingly wishy-washy title to a strong, assertive remark. You can almost hear the women chant it to themselves to reaffirm their existence and purpose. It is very well done.
Our Share of Night is an extraordinary book by Mariana Enriquez. It is partially set in the period coinciding with military dictatorship of Juan Peron but it is a dark fantasy. Booker shortlisted Mariana Enriquez is an Argentinian political journalist and writer. Her fictional writing is explosive, bizarre, macabre, mesmerising, fantastic and gripping. It is very discomforting to read even if it is fantasy since the harsh reality of the political horrors as the backdrop are very unnerving, yet the mind processes it all. This is her debut novel that has been translated into English for the first time by Megan McDowell. This incredible literary duo have already shared their powerful chemistry with previous publications such as the short story collections: “The Dangers of Smoking in Bed” and “Things We Lost in the Fire”.
In “Our Share of Night”, this particular comment of Mariana Enriquez stands out:
“Marita had heard of Olga Gallardo before, the great female chronicler in a male-dominated world, and also a suicidal alcoholic….[it was said] that in her work, it was hard to know where the facts ended and the fiction began. And how that was mortal sin for journalists, who, though they should by all means employ the narrative tools for literature, must never employ the imagination: public responsibility and commitment to truth-telling was inalienable.”
This is at the core of her novel. I have read every single page of this 700+ novel. It has taken me a while because there are moments that Maritnez forces the reader to reflect. It is either with her observations or the very disturbing images she shares of the mutilated individuals, disappearances of children and adults, incarceration without valid reason, massacres, the womens/mothers collectives such as Mothers of the Corrientes Disappeared who were active in locating victims/missing persons, the ruthless imposition of dictatorship — ostensibly under Peron but is mostly depicted as being within the confines of Juan and Gaspar Peterson’s rich family. Peron’s horrors are a pale shadow of the fantastical magic that Juan and Gaspar as mediums of The Darkness are capable of. A magic that is horrific and merciless. It is hard to distinguish many portions of this book if it is real or imaginary or is the imagined an extension of the truth— a vile truth that is impossible for the brain to comprehend, so it distorts it? By the time the book is over, it is not easy to recollect names of all the characters in this multi-generational saga. Yet what remains with the reader is a sheer sense of helplessness in the face of authoritarianism; also with the hope that there is always a tomorrow, day better than today.
“Our Share of the Night” is a novel that plays on the title by alluding to the fictional storyline and yet by using the collective pronoun, makes the reader complicit in the atrocities experienced over the decades in Argentina. Peron’s dictatorial rule did not spare anyone, not even the poorest of the poor or the ordinary common man. The “our” in the title is chilling as Martinez uses the fictional prism to speak of a very dark period in Argentina’s contemporary political history; yet the manner in which it is elaborated upon in the novel and with quiet authorial intrusions, it is obvious that the political journalist Martinez is using her avatar as an author to warn new generations of readers that we are never really rid of such individuals. Folks with warped minds and with access to power can wilfully ruin the lives of others.
Mariana Martinez takes deep dives into rituals and character development. It is an immersion that is necessary to gauge the almost non-existent boundaries between reality and imagination. What is the truth? It is the fundamental question she is asking in many ways. It is very disturbing to realise that living under authoritarian rule blurs many of the ingrained moral barometers that humans have. Yet, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that lies at the peripheries of these vile dispensations. And the courage to overcome these repressive systems lies deep within every individual. It is called free will. It can be exercised if so desired.
This novel can essily be used to explain storytelling and the manner in which a political journalist could write gripping fantasy, but set against a very real political backdrop. It has been brilliantly translated by Megan Mcdowell. I did pause and wonder what Megan went through while translating this book. It could not have been easy to work objectively on this project.
This book is being released by Granta on 13 Oct 2022, most likely to coincide with the Frankfurt Book Fair. Great publishing strategy. Hopefully, this book will be made available in many more book markets than just Spanish and English.
Hernan Diaz’s novel Trust is being discussed a lot these days especially since Kate Winslet has optioned it for HBO as a limited series on TV. Both, author and actress, will be co-producers of the show. It should be good if past experience of Kate Winslet’s award-winning “Mare of Easttown” is anything to go by. “Trust” too is equally complex in its narratives. The adaptation will be gruelling as it will require a single narrative with disruptions in the telling to create the same effect that reading the book has.
The book is in four parts. A bestselling novella called “Bonds” by Harold Vanner. It is the fictionalised account of legendary 1920s Wall Street tycoon and his wife, Benjamin and Helen Rask. She is the daughter of eccentric aristorcrats who are down and out on their luck. Marrying Rask, Helen zooms to the top of the New York social ladder, much to the delight of her ambitious mother. The story continues about the obscenely wealthy and childless couple becoming patrons of the Arts but remaining more or less to themselves. The love story ends with the declining health and demise of Helen Rask in a sanatorium in Switzerland. “Bonds” is followed by personal accounts of the real tycoon, Andrew Bevel (“My Life”), his secretary Ida Partenza (“A Memoir, Remembered”) and extracts from Mildred Bevel’s diaries ( “Futures”).
It is an astonishing feat on the part of Hernan Diaz in writing in these four distinctive voices. Beginning with the novella where the literary craftsmanship is sublime. The elegant prose is like a nineteenth century novel in a twenty-first century garb. Unlike novels of today which presume a reader will have access to extra information or can “google” for more, “Bonds” is complete. It is the delightfully balanced mix of historical fiction, facts, authorial intervention, and moral judgement. In their desire to be poltically correct in their sentences and subject matters, writers of today forget that sitting upon judgement whether their characters or by extension society, is not always a bad thing. It is a way of seeing. “Bonds” has it all. In the next three parts, Diaz does an incredible unpicking of the “truths” that the novelist chose to share. Curiously enough the reader is first made privy to the novella and in the last of the woman, Mildred Bevel, who is at the centre of these multiple stories. Reading her diaries is a shatteringly pathetic experience. She is a woman who lacked no want and yet no amount of money could buy her the peace, health, goodwill, or long life. It was a frictionless existence that in some ways did her in. She had nothing to do. Self-flagellation as claimed by Harold Vanner was one outlet but her diaries claim otherwise. As does the witnessing by her husband Andrew Bevel. Ida Partenza is a compelling narrator but thoroughly unreliable as she was ostensibly Andrew Bevel’s ghostwriter and was not given access to any of the people or documents at the time of writing. Interestingly enough she was sufficiently obsessed with Mildred Bevel that late in life she read Mildred Bevel’s papers and diaries at the library where the material lay. It had been untouched for decades. Thereby exposing her fragility and vulnerability while blasely dismissing the woman’s narrative and only accepting that version of her story which came through male filters. But the arrangement of texts within “Trust” leaves the reader questioning authoritative accounts and relying on empirical evidence. Sadly, it is all constructed. Whom does the reader trust?
Diaz has to be complemented for the very modern sensibility in his writing of switching gears between various gendered perspectives and telling a story. When he does the voice of women his brilliance shines. I hope to goodness he is not shut down for cultural appropriation of women’s voices — he is excellent. He also gets across the desire of Andrew Bevel to be a controlling man, with his masculine narratives very well.
Trust is superb. Read it. For the story. For the ingenious storytelling. For the sophisticated writing. You will not regret it. I hope it finds a mention on the Booker Prize longlist that is to be announced in late July 2022.
Update: This book did make it to the Booker longlist, but it never made it to the shortlist. Nevertheless, its word-of-mouth success and the number of other literary awards it has reaped, including the Kirkus Award and a Barack Obama recommendation, has ensured that this book has remained in the buzz. It is superb!
The bestselling author of Wintering, Katherine May has written an exquisite meditation on living through the pandemic and emerging on the other side, in a different world, in a different setup, as a new you that is hard to recognise. May’s new book is called “Enchantment: Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age”. It is to be published by Faber Books in early 2023.
There is a gentle frailty exhibited in these essays. It is almost as if it mirrors May’s mental state of being but her voice becomes stronger as she nears the end of the book. It is almost as if she is reaching a crescendo, a moment of jubilation at discovering what may work for her to heal. Despite talking about herself and making it a very personal experience, undoubtedly many readers will recognise parts of themselves in these musings. There is also this acute sense of an overtly secular world (or at least that which is exhibited on social media platforms), there is a crying need to develop a comforting ritual, to help give a rhythm and a sense of normalcy in an otherwise chaotic world. The pandemic alert in March 2020 destroyed many lives, it snatched away food, financial, home, and health/ mental health security; if it did not take away lives, it made living a hellish nightmare. Even those who seemed to have survived are extremely fragile and not as robust as they may seem outwardly. There are many, many examples that May shares in her book about feeling centred in the ordinariness of mundane activities. It could be as common as stitching a button to sitting by a step well built around a spring and admiring the rose climber. In a similar vein she writes about how the chaos of the lockdown crumbled her ability to read. Her autism has nothing to do with it, but the pandemic has — she cannot sit still, she cannot concentrate, she cannot read. The present-day burnout has robbed her of a disciplined, complex and an unfathomable form of reading.
In her quest for this point of centeredness, she feels that our “sense of enchantment is not triggered by grand things; the sublime is not hiding in distant landscapes. the awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is tranformed by our deliberate attention. It becomes valuable when we value it. It becomes meaningful when we invest it with meaning. The magic is in our own conjuring. Hierophany — that revelation of the sacred — is something that we bring to everyday things, rather than something given to us. That quality of experience that reveals to us the workings of the world, that comforts and innervates us, that ushers us towards a genuine understanding of the business of being human: it is not in itself rare. What is rre is our will to pursue it. If we wait passively to become enchanted, we could wait a long time.”
She is so right! In her wisdom, she shares her thoughts about living through flux as we have during the pandemic. It has been a nerve-wracking experience for everyone. IT has been a collective trauma that is going to take a long while to recover from. We need to find our solace. This is what she has to say about change.
“Change is the restless bedrock on which we’re founded. Lauren Olamin, the heroine of Octavia Butler’s Earthseed series, makes a god out of change itself, ‘the only lasting truth in the world’. For her, the sacred is found in adaptation. Perhaps this is what I’m seeking too, the ability to step into the world’s flux, to travel with it rather than rasping against it, to let my own form dance across it. ‘We do not workship God,’ Lauren writes in verse. ‘We perceive and attend to God/ We learn from God… We shape God.’ It’s as good a truth as any, as holy a space in which to rest our minds: we are not the passive receipients of the numinous, but the active constructors of a pantheon. We make the change, and it makes us. Entering into that exchange — knowing the depths of permanence and the restlessness of movement — is the work of a lifetime.
How do we meet this kind of god, this irresistible force that roars through our existence like a hurricane? We adapt. We evolve. We rebuild and remake and renew. We listen to what it has to tell us, and undertake the work of integrating the new knowledge. Sometimes we read it in books. Sometimes we read it elsewhere, in scents carried on the air and the flight paths of birds. Sometimes we need to feel the tingle of magic to remind us what we believe.”
Next year, when the book is made widely available, buy it. You will not regret it.
24 Jan 2023 ( First published on Facebook on 4 Nov 2022)
