In an acceptance speech, Barbara Streisand was once talking about how she realized what it felt to be in the movies. (I now summarize this part.) She talked of her memories in the cinemas and how she remembered her favorite films – what was wearing, who she was with, whether it rained gently or snowed heavily that day – that experience of watching a movie that was special was more than an event – it bookmarked your life.
I feel the same way about finding an author you like or reading
a book that alters you forever. Like I remember the empty office past midnight in
my second job. I came across ‘Catcher in the Rye’, printed out the story, read
it, and dropped it off at my boss’s table with a note suggesting that he read
it. I also remember the pink box pleat skirt I wore in college when I first got
my hands on Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather’ and read it on a rickety bench at
Bandra station. Or the printed blue quilt in my room that I would clutch to
help with the tide of emotions when I read Alex Hailey’s ‘Roots’. Or the swirl
of grey and lavender above buildings when I first started reading Salman
Rushdie’s ‘Shame’.
Yes. You remember.
And I honestly didn’t think I would come across a writer
that would make a memory so vivid until I came across Claire Keegan.
So late in the day is a short story/ vignette about a man
who is reminiscing about the woman who has broken up with him. We follow him on a regular day as he gets to
work, avoids chatty colleagues has strange memories triggered off unsuspecting
cues, and the story ends on a note that makes you want to hold his hand and lie
to him that it will get better.
There is such a tender twist to this story that you don’t
even realize how much it tugs at your heart until you have closed the book and
gone about your week – and then one Sunday night, as you brew your tea, you
think of something that you trace back to the novel and nod. For me, it is these
two lines and the general foreshadowing around it:
“Then a line from something he’d read somewhere came to
him, to do with endings: about how, if things have not ended badly, that they
have not ended.” And
“You know what is at the heart of misogyny? When it comes
down to it?’
‘So I’m a misogynist now?’
‘It’s simply about not giving,’ she said.”
The character’s misogyny (actual or perceived) may be at the
center of things – but it also a compass to how we label, how we may sometimes
just call a man a ‘jerk’ and move on but ay never be aware that maybe if
someone had just given him another chance with a stronger, more open heart, he
might have changed.
But for now, it’ll be sadness
and solitude for the character.
So, what was I doing when I met Claire Keegan? (And isn’t finding
an author you can connect with the same as meeting them?)
I’d just traveled back from town by train. It was a
reasonably peaceful ride home and the evening sky was just getting that shade
of metallic blue with a few stars peeping out. Autos were hard to come by and I
decided to walk home. Thought I’d pick up some grilled sandwich on the way.
I saw this bookstore I had heard a lot about: Fictionary.
Entered it. Towards the back, there was a small coffee shop. There were lots of
books – and none of them were management books. Mostly fiction and narrative
non-fiction. I was supremely heartened by that. Then I perused a few books.
There was a beautiful edition of Dante and something else by Hume. And then, I
came across this slim little book.
Claire Keegan is an Irish writer. The only other female
Irish writer I had read in college was Edna O’Brien. Her memoir of growing up
in Irish countryside – the innocence and viciousness of simple living – was outstanding.
There’s a story in there about Brien going to church after a particularly rough
day, when she doesn’t quite know how much longer she could endure it. The nun
(or priest, I forget) tells her this: “Trust Him when thy have dark doubts.
Trust Him when thy faith is small. Trust Him when simply to trust in Him…is the
hardest thing of all.” (This is why
I read fiction – it’s like panhandling for gold. You find thigs you can save up
for a rainy day when life has dried up.)
Getting back to factionary – I associated Keegan with Brien
in my head. I pulled the book out, sat at the café, and read it through. It’s a
short book but it nestles in you – the grief, the pain, the silence, the
requiem for joy…
But one remains grateful for discovering an author you think you’re going to love. They remind you that you can still…feel.
No comments:
Post a Comment