Angle and Distance

                                                             Angle and Distance

           The concept of gifting your daughter, while you are dying with cancer, your journals, is a beautiful and thoughtful gesture. The fact that they were empty is a perfect metaphor for my reading of this book. Although the writing is beautiful, lyrical and gripping at times, it falls and feels empty.

            I wonder why this is and I have come to a couple of conclusions, but first I want to talk about what is working for me. As I said the language is beautiful and some of the things Terry Tempest Williams (what a name) is doing stand out.  On page 17 when talking about her mother’s voice she says, “My mother’s voice is a lullaby in my cells. When I am still, my body feels her breathing.” That is just a lovely sentiment that is earned by all her musings about her mother and her empty journals. Also I enjoyed (and sometimes didn’t) the consist of naming what that journals were in relationship to the chapter. “My mother’s journals are……). It was like a poem especially on pages 190-195

            The journals and the obsession caused by their blankness worked because the mother’s voice is present, particularly in letters to Williams during key points in her life. I appreciate the almost stream of conscious writing this had at times. It was interesting and somehow found a way to make it back to the “plot” of the story even when it seemly didn’t have anything to do with it.

            Okay, now for what I found difficult. I’ve been thinking about it and I believe the problem I am having with this has to do with the angle of discovery (I see what you did there Elmaz). This book feels so far away from the deep truths that we have been experiencing for most of the semester. Things are mentioned and then glossed over, but we spend pages talking about books and writers and art and songs. I understand that part of the theme of this book is the power of silence and the fact that her mother  gifted her empty journals, but come on.

            The stories are told from so far away that the emotions of the moments are lost on me, here are a couple of examples. On page 70, when she meets Brooke, there is the quickest of scenes, it is a good scene, after she lists the books he is buying there is a bit for dialogue: “’My dream in life is to one day own all the Peterson field guides,’ the man said passionately. My friend looked at him and said, ‘That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.’ Without thinking, I interrupted. ‘I already have them—‘ our eyes met. ‘Brooke Williams,’ he said.” I mean that is good, but it isn’t deep, other than “without thinking” we get no sense of her thoughts feelings and why she interjected. She didn’t let us in, and I felt that repeatedly.

            For a book that spoke a lot about voices I’m not so sure Williams listened to her voice at the time the scenes were taking place. I really missed the angle of the person experiencing the events. All there was was the person remembering the events. The scenes didn’t move forward and were draped with the reflecting not reflecting but musing on what that meant to the mothers blank journals. Maybe it has to do with were I am at in the moment, but her lack of putting us in the moment made me feel a little lost and a lot empty. If that was the point, then she nailed it.

         Best,

       CF