Saturday, November 22, 2014

Morbid Musings

Atul Gawande, Margaret Atwood, Kira Salak, PJ Harvey and Cillian Murphy pretty much made it a morbid November for me. Maybe it is the change in season bringing early darkness that draws me to such stuff; whatever the reason, the mind has been mooring in morbid lands at least on paper and on screen.

I read "Being Mortal" over the weekend. A fantastic piece of work by Dr.Atul Gawande, that is so very needed particularly in a time when we think we can and should fix everything! I recommend the book to everyone who is part of the sandwich generation like me - caring for young ones, while also caring for aging parents. I know that end of life decisions are not great conversation starters under any context, but if you've had to deal with anyone with terminal illness in your life, this is a book to read. Took my mind back to a decade when I had to make such decisions on behalf of my dad, and to some extent on behalf of a friend much younger than I. Dr.Gawande does not offer ready made prescriptive solutions, but by sharing some intimate experiences both as a surgeon and as a son he gives us great ideas on how to deal with the inevitable.

Atwood is one of my favorite writers period, so I picked up "Stone Mattress" her latest work - 9 short tales, that tackle everything from aging, imperfections, aggression. Typical of her works most stories have an undercurrent of dark humor. The title tale was my favorite and also had an ingenious murder woven into the plot. I wondered why she referred to these short works as tales instead of stories. Having read them I see they all had some unsettling elements, something macabre, almost ghostly that maybe they did share more things in common with folk/fairy tales.

I then read "Cruelest Journey" by Kira Salak as part of OBOC - Niger. Yes I cheated here, the Niger Kira was journeying on was the river not the country, and most of the action was in Mali. Still I had heard of her and had wanted to read one of her books, so chose it for Niger. A woman goes kayaking for 600 miles on the Niger all by herself, attempting to re-create Mungo Park's historical journey - she had me hooked! What an adventure, and she is a great writer too! I loved the book as she also quotes extensively from Mungo Park, and compares and contrasts her experience with her predecessor's and we find that not many things have changed in 200 years! Kudos to Kira and I hope to read more of her works in the future. Makes me want to pack my bags and start traveling again, although unlike Kira, I prefer hot showers, nice beds, and actual food as opposed to Snicker bars.

The soundtrack of this month has been all PJ Harvey all the time. Thanks to Cillian Murphy and the Peaky Blinders I've revisited PJ Harvey's tunes a lot this month. "When under the ether" especially is playing constantly in my mind and rounds out morbid November for me.

I plan to take a break from OBOC and catch up on some more Murakami and Louise Erdrich this holiday season. Also trying to wrap my head around "The Science of Interstellar" by Kip Thorne.

So much to read and so much to see and so little time....nope not being morbid, just behind at chores:)