Book Tweny-Nine: A Mercy by Toni Morrison and 29(b) A Village Life by Louise Gluck

Toni Morrison has already cemented her place in the literary world (the Nobel prize helps) and although not a prolific writer, she rarely misses. Beloved has to rank as one of best novels of the 20th century and makes my all time short list. It is the type of book which reminds you of the power of a story to physically wear you down -- reading that novel is an interactive experience.

A Mercy, Morrison's ninth and latest novel, is a short work (167 pages) that reaffirms Morrison's gift for drawing a reader in and not allowing them to simply "read." While it lacks the final impact of Beloved, it is nevertheless a moving addition to her legacy. This time Morrison takes us back to America before the U.S., when slavery is beginning to take hold but the slaves may be African, Native American, or indentured white Europeans. It revolves around the family that Jacob Vaark creates. Vaark has inherited land he does not know how to farm, but he has an eye for making money. While refusing to be involved directly in the slave trading business, he does own a Native American slave, Lina, has taken on a girl rejected by others, Sorrow, and finally takes a girl as payment on a debt owned whose mother encourages the deal to improve her daughter's lot. With his wife Rebekka they form a small, unusual family. Vaark's boys all die in infancy, and his daughter is killed after being kicked by a horse.

Morrison's characters are strong. This is a book without saints and sinners, instead populated by humans with a tendency toward inconsistency -- in other words, normal people. Vaark is a compassionate owner with a strong moral sense of the indecency of slavery, but he ends up making money in the rum business which he knows is built on the muscle of slaves elsewhere. Lina is for some years his coworker and equal, but she is not above drowning a new born infant to save her from a mother she considers unfit. Florens, the young girl he takes on, is content with life until love enters and defeats her.

By creating such characters Morrison challenges the stereotypes of people and institutions with which we are too familiar. Lina, the Native American, knows she should understand the art of healing, but she was taken too soon from her mother. The quiet Rebekka comes from a life where family entertainment consisted of watching hangings and quarterings. These people are more complex than they appear. We learn about them slowly as Morrison forgoes the traditional narrative timeline and instead presents the tale in a Faulkneresque style of letting different characters tell the story and the use of flashbacks. Indeed, like Faulkner (I'm not sure Morrison will like being compared to a white, Southern male, but oh well) we see the story as the crumbling of paradise. It is not just a crumbling of Vaark's paradise (although the serpants engraved on the gate clearly mean something!) but of the soon-to-be-born United States.

Although not a central character, the story of Sorrow (who later gives herself a new name), turns out to offer the most hope in this dismal landscape. Once her story is told we understand her why she is given such a name, but it is she who is successful in reinventing herself and forging a new future. Florens seems to have the most chance of success, but when she does truly own herself she loses her own value. Lina appears as the strongest, but she is tied to the family she cannot be part of and lacks the courage to step away.

Morrison's greatest accomplishment here is perhaps creating a novel which has the potential to be only bleak, but she shows hope and goodness trying to get through. While in the end most of it fades, characters like Sorrow give the hope we need to make such stories bearable. It is not because we like make-believe stories; instead, it is because hope is part of our fabric and we are drawn to its reality in Morrison's work.

Louise Gluck's A Village Life will continue Gluck's leading role in American poetry, although it presents a more narrative style than her earlier work. We are presented with a unnamed, vaguely Mediterranean setting in an unclear time. In other words, the focus here is on the people.

The theme is familiar, but Gluck's presentation is unique. Here people, you and old, are faced with the reality that life moves forward whether they are ready or not. Indeed, our own choices may move the direction slightly, but finding our ultimate destination is clearly something we do not control. While we expect this in the older people facing death, Gluck knows that such experiences are not lost on the youth.

In "Noon" we find the tale of a "boy and girl" heading out into the meadow where they talk and picnic.

The rest--how two people can lie down on the blanket--
they know about it but they're not ready for it.
They know people who've done it, as a kind of game or trial--
then they say, no, wrong time, I think I'll just keep being a child.


But your body doesn't listen. It knows everything know,
it says you're not a child, you haven't been a child for a long time.

As the poems move on we see that many of these youth listen to their bodies and find their life now laid out for them. Some go away and come back, but they only suffer more.

To my mind, you're better off if you stay;
that way, dreams don't damage you.

This theme of longing for what we cannot have continues with age.

My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer
I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar,
like what I remember of love when I was young--

While all this starts to sound like another aging poet becoming depressed over life, Gluck is not complaining. Instead, even as seen in the stanzas above she finds those moments in life to enjoy and sees change, no matter how much we resist it, as a normal part of life. These changes in our lives are inevitable, but not to be mourned. But she is intentional about recognizing where we are and living in the moment we have.

In "Walking at Night" we see an older woman who takes advantage of the fact that men no longer desire her to take her walks at night where "her eyes that used never to leave the ground/are free now to go where they like." She is rejuvenated by her age and situation and seeks nor needs any pity.

This joy is seen best in "Abundance," a glorious ode to spring which celebrates its newness while recognizing its transience. A boy touches a girl "so he walks home a man, with a man's hungers." The fruit ripens, "baskets and baskets from a single tree/so some rots every year/ and for a few weeks there's too much." The mice scamper through the harvest, the moon is full, "Nobody dies, nobody goes hungry" and the only sound is "the roar of the wheat." Gluck calls on us to revel in these moments without fearing what has preceded and what is to come.

Much of Gluck's intent is seen in three poems all entitled "Burning Leaves." As the leaves burn we are left with little, but the burning is important in creating room for the new. We are offered no promise of anything more.


How fast it all goes, how fast the smoke clears.
And where the pile of leaves was,
an emptiness that suddenly seems vast.

But while the fire is burning, it has life.

And then, for an hour or so, it's really animated
blazing away like something alive.
...
death making room for life

Gluck has created a volume that will benefit from repeated readings, and her easy, unhurried rhythm makes the return that much easier. She has the gift of all great poets in seeing the commonplace, and finding in it a celebration of life as it is.

Reading Challenges
Okay, this is starting to get old, but really this is not much of challenge with a good book. Morrison's book was a two night read and well spent time. I read Gluck's work over three nights and reread much of it as well.

Up Next
Back to a review book. Actually, I posted my review of Gluck on Blogcritics, but I (unfortunately) was using a library edition instead of a free book. Next week I'm reading "Assembling Georgia" by Beth Carpel, a debut novel.

Happy reading!