Beginning to Talk about Goldengrove

On what amounted to off-hand advice from another blogger whose thoughtfulness I respect, I took up Francine Prose's Goldengrove and I am most happy that I have done so.  I haven't completed the book, and so I have a few perplexities in the text that I hope will be resolved by the end (in which I hope to find that this narrative was written as a recollection by a much older person).  I also have one major minor quibble that I may or may not bring out later because it is such a trivial sticking point and you all deserve to know how very petty I can be in reading (although I'm not certain Ms. Prose deserves to be pilloried because of my OCD.)

Goldengrove is about a tragic loss and its traumatic aftermath, but what is really remarkable here is the suppleness and beauty of the language, the powerful and perfect aptness of the metaphors--the precision with which the landscape of grieving is limned. But let a couple of moments speak for themselves.

from Goldengrove
Francine Prose

We forgot how we used to live in our house, how we'd passed the time when we lived there. We could have been sea creatures stranded on the beach, puzzling over an empty shell that reminded us of the ocean.

Occasionally, I'd find my parents in unexpected places: Dad in the middle of the stairs, Mom in the garage, as if she'd gone out with a purpose that got vaporized by the paint fumes.

There are two perfect images in this short passage--the bewildered sea creatures (appealing to me because of my profound love of all things invertebrate) pondering their former home and the purpose vaporized by paint fumes.

For today let me finish with one other perfect image--an image that begins to capture the intake of breath after a long and deadly exhalation--perhaps the beginning of recovery.

As we polished off the Nibble Corner's buttery, warm, melted cheese, my father and I concentrated on our sandwiches as if we were teasing the flesh from some lethally bony fish. I chewed clowly and without stopping, to keep my face from going slack and collapsing like a pudding. For my parents' sake, I was trying to act remotely sane. And in a way, I was. I could get through an hour or so without thinking about my sister. Then a wave of sorrow would crash into me and knock me flat.

"Lethally bony fish" in comparison to a grilled cheese sandwich--it's a pefect simile conjuring at once the delicacy of the luncheon and the ludicrous caution that only occurs when two people who have lost much are trying hard to share and not to share--to support each other without collapsing.  But there is also wry humor here, quiet, subtle, beautiful--the germination of the seed that will result in a kind of healing, at least for the narrator.

I have a graet deal more to share, but let this be enough for the moment.  I hope to finish the book either this evening or sometime this week and will attempt to report in more detail.