GRIEF IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS

7:36 AM


GRIEF IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS by MAX PORTER (2015)

I never lost anyone that close-- a parent, or a lover. Someone who is there all the time, in your house, until one day they are not. Max Porter made me feel on the one hand like I understood that feeling: I felt it, the pain, their pain as if it were mine. And on the other hand I was so very clearly aware that I wouldn't ever feel it, unless it happened to me. Wishing avidly for it not to happen, of course, not any time soon.

Thank God for new writers who don't keep to the 'rules' of a novel. Thank God for those who dare to create a different shape, something new and yet not any less alluring, drawing-you-in. Thank God, too, for the use of literary references so carefully knitted into a story that you don't realise it until it slaps you in the face somewhere at the end. Ted Hughes. Crow. Sylvia Plath. And if you haven't read the work it is based on, like I haven't, this book makes you want to read it first thing. We actually read a Hughes poem in English class this week. All the things I felt during Grief is the Thing with Feathers came back up, and the poem-- Daffodils, about Plath's death-- was beautiful.

Porter weaves poetry and prose, stream-of-consciousness and clear sentences together to form a novel that is too short for its topic, too short for its beauty, but I can almost guarantee it will say with you longer than it took you to read it.

If you need an idea for a Christmas gift and you're not afraid to make it a little profound-- and maybe a bit melancholy-- this book can be a good present for anyone!

Pictures by me.

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