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wrenreads2025 's review for:
The Undying
by Anne Boyer
This book was a complete delight to read. Does that sound weird when it's about illness and death? Boyer's use of language is beguiling. I cannot say that I understand what it's like to live with cancer and undergo chemotherapy. However, I felt as though I entered a sacred and private space where I could serve as a witness to someone undergoing a difficult task. It was a celebration of life, creativity, and the drive to do something even when it's not clear what a person should do.
Brava.
As a gerontologist, I read a lot of nonfiction, and it's a delight to read some LITERARY nonfiction. I teach Death, Dying and Bereavement once a year, and I like to read books on the topic. Boyer is a powerful and poignant addition of books written by women who have a diagnosis of breast cancer. Her writing is lyric, philosophical, and provocative.
Prologue: Boyer invokes a number of books written by other women, many of which I have read. (I have not had a dx of breast cancer, so my understanding is very shallow.) She adds her voice to the tribe of women undergoing diagnosis and treatment--and undergoing a radical challenge to their view of self, the world, and how they relate do others. I feel guilty about enjoying her language when her message is devastating. I often reread her paragraphs so that I can better understand the nuance and complexity of her writing.
The Incubants: Boyer organizes her chapter around the Greek practice of ill people visiting temples as a way to seek a cure through dreams that inspire curative practices. The god Asclepius (who carries a staff with a snake entwined on it) is the literary figure that gets the most attention here, but there are other literary and historical references interwoven with Boyer's own experience adjusting to her diagnosis and becoming a member of the unwell due to breast cancer.
Birth of the Pavilion. The title refers to the body existing within the physical spaces of receiving healthcare. Boyer describes her participation in these spaces in a manner that is both dramatic and nuanced.
The Sickbed. She describes her bed at home and her hospital bed. More than that, this chapter is (more) about adjusting to a self who is defined by illness--by medical personnel, by friends, and by one's self.
How the Oracle Held. Even if the person with cancer is not religious, there are ways that cancer puts people on a journey to be saved in mind, body, and spirit. Others might help, or be unhelpful on accident or be exploitative on purpose.
In the Temple of Giulietta Marina's Tears. This chapter focuses on pain--causes, perceptions, significance, absurdity, etc.
Wasted Life . This section describes the feeling of exhaustion and the contortion of time and space due to cancer and its treatments.
Deathwatch. This does reference a film by the same name, but more broadly speaking it's about those with terminal illness being under the gaze of others.
Epilogue: Boyer takes a bit of a step back to describe transitioning from a person dying to a person re-engaged in life post-treatment.
Brava.
As a gerontologist, I read a lot of nonfiction, and it's a delight to read some LITERARY nonfiction. I teach Death, Dying and Bereavement once a year, and I like to read books on the topic. Boyer is a powerful and poignant addition of books written by women who have a diagnosis of breast cancer. Her writing is lyric, philosophical, and provocative.
Prologue: Boyer invokes a number of books written by other women, many of which I have read. (I have not had a dx of breast cancer, so my understanding is very shallow.) She adds her voice to the tribe of women undergoing diagnosis and treatment--and undergoing a radical challenge to their view of self, the world, and how they relate do others. I feel guilty about enjoying her language when her message is devastating. I often reread her paragraphs so that I can better understand the nuance and complexity of her writing.
The Incubants: Boyer organizes her chapter around the Greek practice of ill people visiting temples as a way to seek a cure through dreams that inspire curative practices. The god Asclepius (who carries a staff with a snake entwined on it) is the literary figure that gets the most attention here, but there are other literary and historical references interwoven with Boyer's own experience adjusting to her diagnosis and becoming a member of the unwell due to breast cancer.
Birth of the Pavilion. The title refers to the body existing within the physical spaces of receiving healthcare. Boyer describes her participation in these spaces in a manner that is both dramatic and nuanced.
The Sickbed. She describes her bed at home and her hospital bed. More than that, this chapter is (more) about adjusting to a self who is defined by illness--by medical personnel, by friends, and by one's self.
How the Oracle Held. Even if the person with cancer is not religious, there are ways that cancer puts people on a journey to be saved in mind, body, and spirit. Others might help, or be unhelpful on accident or be exploitative on purpose.
In the Temple of Giulietta Marina's Tears. This chapter focuses on pain--causes, perceptions, significance, absurdity, etc.
Wasted Life . This section describes the feeling of exhaustion and the contortion of time and space due to cancer and its treatments.
Deathwatch. This does reference a film by the same name, but more broadly speaking it's about those with terminal illness being under the gaze of others.
Epilogue: Boyer takes a bit of a step back to describe transitioning from a person dying to a person re-engaged in life post-treatment.