currently reading:....look, i just finished a long book and i don't need to hear it from you right now!
books bought:
John, Dear by Laura Lannes
books received:
The Witch Elm by Tana French
The Made-Up Man by Joseph Scapellato (e-galley)
books finished:
The Reckonings by Lacy M. Johnson
John, Dear by Laura Lannes
The Witch Elm by Tana French
Hey you,
What's your biggest fear? I've always had a ready answer to that one—I have a nausea and vomiting phobia. My biggest fear is throwing up. That sounds very silly and very small, and I think most people (perhaps reasonably!) believe that if ever push came to shove, I would be forced to admit that it's not really my biggest fear, that actually my biggest fear is dying, or being alone forever, or something much larger, more grand. And maybe if it did, I would! But I'll tell you, when I'm wracked with the terror that is particular to phobiafear, or thinking about the terror that is particular to phobiafear, I'd pick dying alone over throwing up in a heartbeat. Dying would be fine, as long as I don't throw up!
This is a way of saying that for my whole life, my biggest fear has always been, in the words of one psychiatrist, coming from inside the house. What I'm most scared of has always been something going wrong inside me, in my body, which by all rights I should be able to control. It started with nausea and vomiting but after I had kidney stones a few years ago and spent hours in the ER waiting room this fear grew to be more generalized.
So, while I didn't love Tana French's latest, The Witch Elm, it did do an excellent job of inspiring this certain kind of fear in me. (Which I'm not sure was the goal.) From the jacket:
Toby is an easygoing charmer who's dodged a scrape at work and is celebrating with friends when the night takes a turn that will change his life—he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family's ancestral home to care for his dying uncle. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden—and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed.
The part of the book that so scared me was when Toby woke up in the hospital after he was assaulted, and he had so many injuries, and he couldn't understand them all, certainly couldn't understand the extent of them. It wasn't exactly the violence that got to me so much as the after, so much as the fact of having to live with the violence. So much as having to live in a body that doesn't work how it used to, doesn't work how it should, doesn't let you have peace.
It's not that I was here in my apartment scared someone was going to break in and assault me. (Which is not to say I'm confident that there won't be a break-in—if there's anything I've learned over the last few years, it's this: however invincible you imagine yourself to be, you are wrong.) But, like, I could fall in the shower and that's it, I would be forever and utterly at the mercy of my body (which I know I always am, but I don't always have to feel it). What is more terrifying than even that possibility is that I would be utterly at the mercy of doctors, of people who aren't feeling what I'm feeling and who don't have to listen to me.
Reading about Toby waking up in the hospital and talking to his doctors reminded me of being in ER waiting room with kidney stones (i.e., under very different circumstances than Toby), of how it took around four hours to get a bed, to get any painkillers. (The day before an urgent care doctor told me not to take painkillers because maybe I had a kidney infection and maybe ibuprofen wouldn't be great for my kidneys. Nice!) All I wanted to do was to scream and howl and tear the place down until someone would take me seriously, but I thought then they would think I was just being dramatic, just acting out, just doing it for the attention, so I sat quietly, rocked back and forth, paced, tried not to pass out. The longer I sat the more the anxiety was gnawing, not just because I was in the worst pain of my life, which meant something was very, very, very wrong, but because something was very wrong and no one was listening to me. When I finally got a bed, the doctor said something like, "We usually assume the pain is manageable if there's no screaming or crying!" But could you imagine them listening to me howl? Imagine them taking that seriously?
Of course not!
So, sure, the first, oh, 163 pages of this book could've been condensed into a tight 30. And yeah, the book would've been way better off ending 50 pages earlier than it did. Sure, I hated the ending so much I said out loud, "Tana, please don't!" when I figured out what was about to happen. And yes, it was heavy handed in places. To the point where it felt insulting! But it also described this medicalized powerlessness, this feeling of futility in the face of your body and in the face of your doctors, really well, and in an accessible way. Here's a passage that illustrates the point—it's a little long, I know:
"Has there ever been someone," Susanna said, "who treated you like you weren't a person? Not because of anything you'd done; just because of what you were. Someone who did whatever they wanted to you. Anything they felt like..."
"Yes," I said. For some reason it wasn't just the two men in my apartment I thought of—them of course, sweat-and-milky smell horribly close and the blows crunching in, but in a confused whirl it was also the neurologist in the hospital, the clammy pallor of him and the fold of his neck over his shirt collar as he stared blandly back at me: "It depends on multiple factors."
"What fac, factors?" Thick-tongued and idiot-sounding. The near-concealed pity and distaste sliding across his eyes, the moment when he demoted me to something not worthy of explanations, branded and filed away, no appeal possible.
"It's very complicated."
"Yes but but but, can you, can—"
"Why don't you concentrate on your physio. Leave the medical issues to us."
Kick in the ribs and something snapping, stupid cunt think you're fucking great
There are several great reviews out there already that talk about the role of power and privilege and this book. (I mean, the narrator talks about the role of power and privilege in the book, too.) But, uh, I wanted to highlight this one thing in particular. Am I being harsh? Maybe. Did I have a doctor's appointment today? You be the judge!
Your friend,
Smalls