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A review by jp6108a
Death Tractates by Brenda Hillman
5.0
What is gone can't answer; but if you listen, everything else speaks. Any question you have ever had about loss is answered by what's left behind. The resolution here is beautiful: it's that you're alive.
This is literature. This is life. This is pain and ecstasy and fear and joy all bundled into an image of something silly: a smeared reflection of a bird. A lampshade flower. A plum tree. The soul you lost is still here in all of those living things. It is in language itself.
This is the language of grief. It is a bird. A flower. A tree.
This book-- in particular, the imagery-- forced me to look at what's still here. And that is the greatest gift a writer can give against the fear of death, the reminder to live and to be alive.
This is literature. This is life. This is pain and ecstasy and fear and joy all bundled into an image of something silly: a smeared reflection of a bird. A lampshade flower. A plum tree. The soul you lost is still here in all of those living things. It is in language itself.
This is the language of grief. It is a bird. A flower. A tree.
This book-- in particular, the imagery-- forced me to look at what's still here. And that is the greatest gift a writer can give against the fear of death, the reminder to live and to be alive.