Books That Other World
posted by on September 5 at 11:37 AM
In Salman Rushdie’s East, West, a collection of short stories, an astronaut dies in what Robert Coover described in the New York Times as a “futuristic nightmare,” the short story “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers.” The astronaut traveled to Mars; something went wrong during the mission; and now he is stuck on the red planet. Because no one can get to Mars before his air runs out, he is doomed; because the whole world has reached the end of history, the society of the spectacle is total: the whole world is watching the astronaut die on Mars. He is on every TV screen; his life time seems to be limited by the screen he is seen in; and each day he experiences is quickly sucked into the vacuum of the death that is sure to come in a matter of weeks.
I bring this up because on the website for The Oregonian there is a video diary of a woman whose life is soon to end. Her name is Lovelle Svart, her body has been wasted by a restless disease, and the world around her is not solid but melting with each entry she manages to post on the site.
Svart is much like the astronaut in Rushdie’s short story. Not only are we watching her die, but because she is dying, she is on another planet. Death does not happen here but always there, on a strange and phantom planet that flickers like a fading star, a planet that is quickly running out of air, a planet that is impossibly faraway from this our world of health and heavy things.
Wow. Another post from Charles that doesn't suck. I think as long as you fstay away from titties and communism you do pretty well, Charles.
My mom is dying of pancreatic cancer. Slowly, but inexorably. She is on a very different planet, "impossibly far away from our world of health and heavy things."
It's even remoter than that. When a loved one dies you are irremediably cut-off from them in any physical sense. It's not that they've gone to some inaccesible place, it's that they've escaped time altogher.
Whatever you've shared experientially with them, is also lost. The experiences that you used to recollect in coversation can no longer be discussed, because the dialogue has ceased. The connection has been severed and is no longer shared. The experiences become yours and yours only.
In fact, you lose a part of yourself as well. The part of you that was remembered only by that person. I recently had a conversation with my mother in which she related something from my childhood that I had no recollection of [and neither did my sister]. When she dies, the memories she has of me, that are hers alone, will also be forever lost.
Rushdie (not Rusdie).
Nice post, though.
I think it's sad that when Charles posts a really deep interesting story, nobody posts to it. It's like people have come to expect... I'll be charitable here... a certain kind of story and when the don't get it, they ignore him. His great architecture/photography pieces don't seem to get a lot of traffic either.
Keep trying, Charles. Keep mixing it up. I'm sure I won't like some of your pieces, but I'll keep rooting for more stuff like this.
I love all your stuff, Charles. Keep it up, champ!
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