I like books written from death's POV (The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak was a recent re-read, and even better than I remembered), and I would put Mrs DeI like books written from death's POV (The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak was a recent re-read, and even better than I remembered), and I would put Mrs Death Misses Death, by Salena Godden in that category. In MDMD, Death is an overworked Black woman. She dictates her story to a young writer named Wolf (a desperately lonely guy who squanders money he doesn't have on a magic desk). She tells him stories of deaths that have impacted her (some real, some out of Godden's imagination - some narrative, some in prose-poem form). There are blank pages at the end of the book and Godden invites readers to include their own stories of important deaths. I found it an oddly comforting book despite its unflinching inclusion of terrible deaths, some very recent like those of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. MDMD has been optioned for television by Idris Elba, and I'm very curious to see how they'll adapt something so cerebral, nonlinear and unique for the screen....more
This is not a book for feeling comfortable about one's beliefs and experiences, but it is an important book for empathy-building. I think most AmericaThis is not a book for feeling comfortable about one's beliefs and experiences, but it is an important book for empathy-building. I think most Americans would have something to think about as they read it, since many of our ancestors will have experienced similar feelings of outsider-ness when they arrived on US shores. Although most would have been economic migrants rather than asylum seekers or refugees of war, there's a lot to be learned about the human condition as we read about the movement of people around the globe, and its impact on individuals.
I found every story extremely compelling; I read most of them twice, and plan to read the whole book again. I had my reasons for this explained to me by Viet Thanh Nguyen in his introduction: "Many writers, perhaps most writers or even all writers, are people who do not feel completely at home. They are used to being people who are out of place, who are emotionally or psychically or socially displaced to one degree or another, at one time or another...I cannot help but suspect that it is from this displacement that writers come into being, and why so many writers have sympathy and empathy for those who are displaced in one way or another, whether it is the lonely social misfit or whether it is the millions rendered homeless by forces beyond their control."
Read it, especially if you're not sympathetic to the people who are trying to get themselves and their loved ones somewhere safer than where they are. If you're not moved by these stories, if your understanding doesn't increase even somewhat, then you are a hard case indeed.
Loading...
