Day 241: A Prayer for the Dying

A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan.  ISBN: 9780805061475.

How much do we really owe the dead?  Sure, they're the people who got us where we are today, but on the other hand... they're the people who got us where we are today.  They are deserving of respect in the sense that they were someone's loved one and those loved ones have a right to keep their memories intact, etc.  But... they're dead.  It won't hurt them if we take out their organs and give them to new people or let them rot in a field so we can study decomposition or strap them in a car so we can study the effects of crashes and bruising or put them in a deep dark hole in the ground.  So, why should a person's legacy to society end when they're dead?  Why shouldn't their bodies continue to contribute to the well being of individuals (through organ donation) or the safety and health of the community (forensic science, etc.)?

Well, there isn't a reason.  But some people do have reservations about the bodies of their loved ones being used in what they feel are unsavory ways.  And some people themselves don't want their bodies being used in that way.  My feeling on it is: if you're done with it, why do you care?  It would be like getting upset if someone decided to take some empty boxes you had put by the curb after moving.  That person did you a favor by making sure you didn't have to get rid of the boxes yourself* and they're putting them to good use so they're not just rotting away somewhere.  This is very, very practical reasoning, but it's not for everyone.

And I do understand wanting to have something sacred, about not turning everything into a commodity, but I kind of feel that memories do a better job of that than sticking someone in a $3000 casket, giving them a service that costs I-don't-know-what, putting them in the ground, and plopping a $500 stone over them.  I know I don't want anyone spending $8000 on my funeral.  I'm dead, I don't care, I don't need it, and I highly doubt you will remember me fondly when your last thoughts about me were, "Should we put her in the cedar casket with satin lining or the oak with velvet?"  If you think about it, this makes me more of a commodity than donating my body to science, only it's helping one very small and specific industry rather than being more philanthropic.  Personally, I'd rather have my dead horsemeat body do some good rather than have someone pay to "dispose" of it like a piece of garbage in an over-expensive garbage bag.  So here's what I want, my "funeral" arrangements:

Let science take whatever they want, whether it be for organ donation or whole body, whatever.  Get together at someone's house, have good food and drink, and talk.  Talk about that time we took that road trip or when we stayed up all night in college or we had that really weird conversation at an all night diner.  Talk about how I made you laugh or cry or think.  Read the collection of Rupert stories I finally managed to publish before my death, complete with voices.  Hell, get together and talk about how much of a bitch I was, if that's my legacy.  Shoving me in a dark hole in the ground with my name on a stone doesn't really seem like much of a tribute.  Build me a life-sized statue and I might just let you talk me into becoming a commodity of the funeral industry.

*We're living in a metaphor here where there's no trash pick up, okay?
**Whoops, somehow in the editing process the first sentence disappeared.  Also, I found my post has been taken out of context.  Awesome, does this mean I've arrived?

I agree with this short, but apt review from a fellow Goodreader.  Also... does anyone else think of Freddy Kreuger with this cover?

Day 240: A Prayer for the Dying

A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan.  ISBN: 9780805061475.

Spoiler alert, I give away some major plot points... but they are things you should probably know about before deciding to read this book anyway

First off, apologies to Christy from A Good Stopping Point who commented on my general update announcing I was going to read this title.  I know you were looking forward to my posts and that you like the book, but... me... not so much.  And the big reason: writing in second person.  I did make a point of finishing it specifically because you commented; otherwise this probably would have landed on my "I Give Up" pile.  I will go ahead and explain my reasoning for my distaste for second person today; tomorrow I will discuss Jacob Hansen's (or "my") views on duty to the dead versus the living.  I will go ahead and explain my reasoning for my distaste for second person today, tomorrow I will discuss Jacob Hansen's (or "my") views on duty to the dead versus the living.  Because of the nature of the first topic, this post will be a little reviewy, a little ranty, and possibly even a little angry.  We like those posts, though, don't we?  ...and now I'm writing in collective pronouns, thanks O'Nan... thanks a lot.

So.  I don't like novels written in second person.  I especially don't like novels written in second person where I feel like the author is trying to get me to sympathize with a character.  Either I will or I won't, and no amount of forcing me into his role will make me like him.  And by the way, I didn't.  Part of the problem with writing in second person is assuming that your reader will be able to identify with enough characteristics of the character that they can easily put themselves in the shoes of said character.  This is difficult when your reader happens to be a 25 year old female with no experience of having authority over a small town, who was born in 1985, who has never been to war, doesn't have a child, isn't a Christian with a strong belief in a "Guy in the Sky" kind of a god, and who is mentally stable enough not to keep living with dead loved ones no matter how much she loved them.  Oh yeah, "spoiler" alert, by the way.

It's not that I had a problem with the subject matter of the book, it's that every time Jacob/"I" had to make a decision, he always made the one I would never have made and likely caused more harm than good.  It was jarring and frustrating on multiple levels because not only did I feel that this story was forced on me, but it also felt that Jacob's decisions were forced on me.  Maybe O'Nan was trying to make me feel the hopelessness of Jacob's position, but I already felt that and you know what?  I already have my own hopelessness to deal with, so thanks a lot you big jerk for forcing your character's hopelessness on me AND his weird, weird "coping" mechanism over the death of his wife and child.

This is really a shame, because I think O'Nan has a really good hand with prose and his dialog isn't bad.  Unfortunately I couldn't enjoy it because it was less than aparagraph long and then I would get jolted back out of the scene by sentences like the one in the following paragraph,

"The cranberry bogs west of town are parched, burned brown.  Dragonflies slice by, wings shimmering.  It's good to be moving, and you stand up on the pedals and race a scarlet tanager, winning when he lights on a fencepost, but even as you slow, letting the breeze cool you, you know you're trying not think of the soldier, of the awful possibilities."   Page 43.

This is a pretty good description.  It does a number of things: it gives you a little bit of scenery of the town, it tells you how fast the man is going, and it tells you what he's thinking about... or rather trying not to think about.  Unfortunately it would have been much more digestible to me if all the "you's" in that last sentence had been replaced with Jacob or he/him, O'Nan could have brought in a little more description about Jacob riding the bicycle here and it could have been a much stronger paragraph.  Here's probably how I would have rewritten this:

"The cranberry bogs west of town are parched, burned brown.  Dragonflies slice by, wings shimmering.  Jacob thinks how good it is to be moving, stands up on the pedals to race a scarlet tanager, picking up speed while trying to keep the small bird in the corner of his eye.  He slows when he sees that the bird has won when it lights on a fencepost.  The breeze cools him as he coasts, regaining his breath, and trying not to think of the dead solider, and the awful possibilities."

It still keeps the poetic language, it does not detract at all from O'Nan's style or prose to write in third person, and it would be much easier to accept the more... grotesque scenes that occur later in the book.  Instead O'Nan has me worked up because yet another person is trying to tell me what to do with my life and what I "should have done" after all the bad stuff has already happened.

Two words: not helpful.

Gee, of course you know what I should have done, because you aren't the one who had to make the decisions I had to make and so you get to sit on your happy ass and judge based on what happened instead of actually doing something to be helpful or being supportive of my decision.  Trust me, I already know I made mistakes, I already know that things have gone to shit, I now know that I should have stayed in school longer or stuck it out at the insurance company longer and made more money or I should have gone back to temping months ago, but you know what: Not helpful.  These are things that I cannot change now, and having someone force me to relive that feeling of hopeless anxiety and guilt that I "did the wrong thing" just pisses me off.  Maybe if I had read this at a different time I wouldn't have been as frustrated with it as I am now... but somehow I doubt it.

If you want to tell me a story, tell me a story.  Don't drag me along through the mire of your character's mess and expect me to be happy or enjoy or even appreciate being shoved into a fatalistic spiral of inescapable death.  If you want to write in second person, stick to essays; that is where the second person belongs, and I would definitely be interested in reading an essay on O'Nan's thoughts regarding a duty to the dead in times of crises for the living.

I agree with this short, but apt review from a fellow Goodreader.  Also... does anyone else think of Freddy Kreuger with this cover?