This is an addition to the previous blog on Tinkers, by Paul Harding.
Oh I can hear it. Some of you are saying, WHAT? There's more to say about that mess?
Yes there is.
Because others are saying, YES, THANK YOU! I didn't want the conversation to be over.
The Borealises.
As I said before, or I meant to, this book is as if I were allowed to be inside a man's brain as he was dying. What would he be thinking? What is so core to your life that you would think on it those last few days? And, how would you think on it? He rambles, he hallucinates, he imagines, he remembers. He yearns to reunite with the father that deserted him. He wants to relive the moments that were strong emotional moments. Positive and negative.
The six Borealises, to me, lent some structure to this book, to this collage of memories. Here's my thoughts, by no means proven. Just opinions. Did the author intend this structure, I don't know. As an engineer, when I see something repeatedly inserted into a book, I want to know WHY? The Radical Horologist's ramblings were good to highlight some of the themes, but these Borealises seemed to have more of an outline purpose. Maybe, maybe not. See what you think.
What is a borealis? Literally, borealis means "pertaining to the north wind."
It is also short for the Aurora Borealis, which is the spectacular light show in the sky caused by collisions of charged particles with our upper atmosphere. Quite dramatic. Nature and electricity combining to a dramatic moment? Reminds you of epilepsy?
So our author creates six short Borealis passages read by the grandson to George as he dies. Written into a journal by Howard or by George. I think they were written by George. Not positive though.
We start out the book with calm, peace, order. We meet Howard. He is a hero. He pulled Gilbert's tooth, put out a fire, fished the drowned child from the creek.His son George is dying peacefully, surrounded by family. All is orderly in the world.
The first Borealis is Cosmos Borealis. Cosmos is a harmonious system, such as our universe. Nature in harmony, the opposite of Chaos.
"Light skin of sky and cloud and mountain on the still pond. Water body beneath teeming with reeds and silt and trout.. Skin like glass like liquid like skin; our words scrieved the slick surface.."
The world is calm on the surface. Nature is supreme, with humans just barely an influence compared to nature's momentous and eternal workings.
"What is it like to be full of lightning? What would it be like to be split open from the inside by lightning"
Bam. Howard's world changes in an instant. But the cosmos doesn't change a wit. We don't experience his epilepsy as vividly as in later pages. Here we listen to Howard's attempt to understand his seizures. This violent force of nature that comes literally into Howard's life and changes it unalterably. Talk about 'man versus nature' battle.
Sam gives George a shave. He bleeds. Howard is on his cart, it is evening.
The second is Crepuscule Borealis. Twilight, dusk. The gloaming.
"1. The bark of birches glows silver and white at dusk. The bark of birches peels like parchment. ... 4. Foxes keep to the shadows. Owls look down from branches..."
Talking about clocks, trying to capture time. Talking about George's headstone after he dies.
This is the twilight. Darkness is about to happen.
Third is Tempest Borealis. Violent windstorm.
" 1. The sky turned silver... The wind blew and the trees showed the silver-green undersides of their leaves.... Lightning crawled down the mountain and drank at the water, lapped the shallows with electric tongues, stunning bolt-eyed frogs and small trout and silver minnows. Thunder cracked like falling timber and shook the cabin as it clapped the water skin."
The violent windstorm of Howard's adult life/ of George's childhood. Howard makes a nest, creating beautiful order from nature's leavings. Then has a seizure. He has an ache in his heart. Upswelling of emotions. He loves his family so dearly. We are with him as he watches George release the dead mouse on a birch canoe of flames. Then Howard's violent seizure where he bites George's hand. Howard abandons his family rather than be sent to an asylum by his wife.
Next we see the windstorm of Howard's childhood. His own father faded, probably with dementia. He was taken away by his wife and four friends. Howard searched long and hard for him in the woods, and there experienced his first epileptic seizure.
These two windstorms / tempests provide us some dynamite passages.
On family and generations and memories:
“Because they are like tiles loose in a frame, with just enough space so they can all keep moving around...which will generally stay together but move about within another whole and be mingled with in endless ways of other people's memories, so that I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all the other vitreous squares floating about ..... and to their great-grandchildren, I will be no more than a tint of some obscure color, and to their great grandchildren nothing they ever know about, and so what army of strangers and ghosts has shaped and coloured me until back to Adam, until back to when ribs were blown from molten sand into the glass bits that took up the light of this world.... ”
On dementia:
"The world fell away from my father the way he fell away from us. We became his dream."
On wisdom looking at youth:
"So there is my son, already fading... even thought Howard understood, too, that the fading was yet to begin in a any actual sense, that at that moment he and his son, the father standing in the dimness, the son kneeling and partly obscured by the charred door, were still only heading, not yet arrived, toward the point where the fading would begin."
Perspective, it's how you process what your senses provide you:
“Howard thought, Is it not true: A move of the head, a step to the left or right, and we change from wise, decent, loyal people to conceited fools? Light changes, our eyes blink and see the world from the slightest difference of perspective and our place in it has changed infinitely: Sun catches cheap plate flaking--I am a tinker; the moon is an egg glowing in its nest of leafless trees--I am a poet; a brochure for an asylum is on the dresser--I am an epileptic, insane; the house is behind me--I am a fugitive. His despair had not come from the fact that he was a fool; he knew he was a fool. The despair came from the fact that his wife saw him as a fool, as a useless tinker, a copier of bad verses from two-penny religious magazines, an epileptic, and could find no reason to turn her head and see him as something better.”
Fourth is Cometa Borealis. A comet is a small solar body made of ice and dust and rocks, which usually has a tail. We think of them zooming through our night sky, with their tails trailing behind.
"We entered the atmosphere at dusk. We trailed a wake of fire... We barely caught a glimpse of the darkening world below us before we burned away to nothing."
What tail do the windstorms leave? Here the tail is Howard's life in Philadelphia. We are left to imagine the emptiness of George growing up after Howard's leaving. There's talk of a clock's escapement mechanism. Constructing a bird's nest (order from nature's chaos.)
Fifth is Domestica Borealis. Home. Family.
"1. New Year's morning we watched crows collect tinsel for their nests.... 3. We lashed fishing line to playing cards and raise a house...."
The universe is compared to a mechanism like a clock, with celestial gears, spinning ball bearings, hands orbiting like planets, etc. The reassurance of nature's cycles and repetitions, the deeper mysteries which "puzzle and beg for consideration."
January 1972 Howard dies. Day Six, maybe it's 2009, George is dying. George's spirit is leaving its temporal home.
Megan leaves for her home in Pittsburgh, Howard for his family in Massachusetts.
And sixth is Homo Borealis. Humans.
"1. We kicked the bark of dead trees and the soft wood beneath was as pale as sawdust and sometimes covered with strange designs...We sensed, finally, the foolishness of attributing the unknown to secret cabals, to conspiracies. Everything was almost always obscure. understanding shone when it did, for no discernable reason, and we were content.... 5. When it came time to die, we knew and went to deep yards where we lay down and our bones turned to brass... Our ribs were fitted as gear teeth and tapped and clicked like tusks., This is how, finally we were joined."
George dies.
The last thing he remembers? George remembers Christmas dinner, 1953. Howard arriving unexpected at George's home. He sees his father for the first time in thirty years. Only a few words spoken. Nothing of importance. Then Howard leaves.
Well, George is only imagining this reunion with his father. Before he dies, which memories are real and which memories are dearly wished hallucinations? Is it the inherent goodness of life that allows George to experience his father returning? Think of the hours and hours George would have pictured this. Longed for this. Dreamed up scenes in which the ending moment was his father's return to the family. So here, his last thought, was "remembering" his one heart's desire.
And his one heart's desire wasn't a thing. It was a person. It was love.
I had better end on that note.
Oh I can hear it. Some of you are saying, WHAT? There's more to say about that mess?
Yes there is.
Because others are saying, YES, THANK YOU! I didn't want the conversation to be over.
The Borealises.
As I said before, or I meant to, this book is as if I were allowed to be inside a man's brain as he was dying. What would he be thinking? What is so core to your life that you would think on it those last few days? And, how would you think on it? He rambles, he hallucinates, he imagines, he remembers. He yearns to reunite with the father that deserted him. He wants to relive the moments that were strong emotional moments. Positive and negative.
The six Borealises, to me, lent some structure to this book, to this collage of memories. Here's my thoughts, by no means proven. Just opinions. Did the author intend this structure, I don't know. As an engineer, when I see something repeatedly inserted into a book, I want to know WHY? The Radical Horologist's ramblings were good to highlight some of the themes, but these Borealises seemed to have more of an outline purpose. Maybe, maybe not. See what you think.
What is a borealis? Literally, borealis means "pertaining to the north wind."It is also short for the Aurora Borealis, which is the spectacular light show in the sky caused by collisions of charged particles with our upper atmosphere. Quite dramatic. Nature and electricity combining to a dramatic moment? Reminds you of epilepsy?
So our author creates six short Borealis passages read by the grandson to George as he dies. Written into a journal by Howard or by George. I think they were written by George. Not positive though.
We start out the book with calm, peace, order. We meet Howard. He is a hero. He pulled Gilbert's tooth, put out a fire, fished the drowned child from the creek.His son George is dying peacefully, surrounded by family. All is orderly in the world.
The first Borealis is Cosmos Borealis. Cosmos is a harmonious system, such as our universe. Nature in harmony, the opposite of Chaos.
"Light skin of sky and cloud and mountain on the still pond. Water body beneath teeming with reeds and silt and trout.. Skin like glass like liquid like skin; our words scrieved the slick surface.."
The world is calm on the surface. Nature is supreme, with humans just barely an influence compared to nature's momentous and eternal workings.
"What is it like to be full of lightning? What would it be like to be split open from the inside by lightning"
Bam. Howard's world changes in an instant. But the cosmos doesn't change a wit. We don't experience his epilepsy as vividly as in later pages. Here we listen to Howard's attempt to understand his seizures. This violent force of nature that comes literally into Howard's life and changes it unalterably. Talk about 'man versus nature' battle.
Sam gives George a shave. He bleeds. Howard is on his cart, it is evening.
The second is Crepuscule Borealis. Twilight, dusk. The gloaming."1. The bark of birches glows silver and white at dusk. The bark of birches peels like parchment. ... 4. Foxes keep to the shadows. Owls look down from branches..."
Talking about clocks, trying to capture time. Talking about George's headstone after he dies.
This is the twilight. Darkness is about to happen.
Third is Tempest Borealis. Violent windstorm.
" 1. The sky turned silver... The wind blew and the trees showed the silver-green undersides of their leaves.... Lightning crawled down the mountain and drank at the water, lapped the shallows with electric tongues, stunning bolt-eyed frogs and small trout and silver minnows. Thunder cracked like falling timber and shook the cabin as it clapped the water skin."The violent windstorm of Howard's adult life/ of George's childhood. Howard makes a nest, creating beautiful order from nature's leavings. Then has a seizure. He has an ache in his heart. Upswelling of emotions. He loves his family so dearly. We are with him as he watches George release the dead mouse on a birch canoe of flames. Then Howard's violent seizure where he bites George's hand. Howard abandons his family rather than be sent to an asylum by his wife.
Next we see the windstorm of Howard's childhood. His own father faded, probably with dementia. He was taken away by his wife and four friends. Howard searched long and hard for him in the woods, and there experienced his first epileptic seizure.
These two windstorms / tempests provide us some dynamite passages.
On family and generations and memories:
“Because they are like tiles loose in a frame, with just enough space so they can all keep moving around...which will generally stay together but move about within another whole and be mingled with in endless ways of other people's memories, so that I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all the other vitreous squares floating about ..... and to their great-grandchildren, I will be no more than a tint of some obscure color, and to their great grandchildren nothing they ever know about, and so what army of strangers and ghosts has shaped and coloured me until back to Adam, until back to when ribs were blown from molten sand into the glass bits that took up the light of this world.... ”
On dementia:
"The world fell away from my father the way he fell away from us. We became his dream."
On wisdom looking at youth:
"So there is my son, already fading... even thought Howard understood, too, that the fading was yet to begin in a any actual sense, that at that moment he and his son, the father standing in the dimness, the son kneeling and partly obscured by the charred door, were still only heading, not yet arrived, toward the point where the fading would begin."
Perspective, it's how you process what your senses provide you:
“Howard thought, Is it not true: A move of the head, a step to the left or right, and we change from wise, decent, loyal people to conceited fools? Light changes, our eyes blink and see the world from the slightest difference of perspective and our place in it has changed infinitely: Sun catches cheap plate flaking--I am a tinker; the moon is an egg glowing in its nest of leafless trees--I am a poet; a brochure for an asylum is on the dresser--I am an epileptic, insane; the house is behind me--I am a fugitive. His despair had not come from the fact that he was a fool; he knew he was a fool. The despair came from the fact that his wife saw him as a fool, as a useless tinker, a copier of bad verses from two-penny religious magazines, an epileptic, and could find no reason to turn her head and see him as something better.”
Fourth is Cometa Borealis. A comet is a small solar body made of ice and dust and rocks, which usually has a tail. We think of them zooming through our night sky, with their tails trailing behind."We entered the atmosphere at dusk. We trailed a wake of fire... We barely caught a glimpse of the darkening world below us before we burned away to nothing."
What tail do the windstorms leave? Here the tail is Howard's life in Philadelphia. We are left to imagine the emptiness of George growing up after Howard's leaving. There's talk of a clock's escapement mechanism. Constructing a bird's nest (order from nature's chaos.)
Fifth is Domestica Borealis. Home. Family."1. New Year's morning we watched crows collect tinsel for their nests.... 3. We lashed fishing line to playing cards and raise a house...."
The universe is compared to a mechanism like a clock, with celestial gears, spinning ball bearings, hands orbiting like planets, etc. The reassurance of nature's cycles and repetitions, the deeper mysteries which "puzzle and beg for consideration."
January 1972 Howard dies. Day Six, maybe it's 2009, George is dying. George's spirit is leaving its temporal home.
Megan leaves for her home in Pittsburgh, Howard for his family in Massachusetts.
And sixth is Homo Borealis. Humans.
"1. We kicked the bark of dead trees and the soft wood beneath was as pale as sawdust and sometimes covered with strange designs...We sensed, finally, the foolishness of attributing the unknown to secret cabals, to conspiracies. Everything was almost always obscure. understanding shone when it did, for no discernable reason, and we were content.... 5. When it came time to die, we knew and went to deep yards where we lay down and our bones turned to brass... Our ribs were fitted as gear teeth and tapped and clicked like tusks., This is how, finally we were joined."George dies.
The last thing he remembers? George remembers Christmas dinner, 1953. Howard arriving unexpected at George's home. He sees his father for the first time in thirty years. Only a few words spoken. Nothing of importance. Then Howard leaves.
Well, George is only imagining this reunion with his father. Before he dies, which memories are real and which memories are dearly wished hallucinations? Is it the inherent goodness of life that allows George to experience his father returning? Think of the hours and hours George would have pictured this. Longed for this. Dreamed up scenes in which the ending moment was his father's return to the family. So here, his last thought, was "remembering" his one heart's desire.
And his one heart's desire wasn't a thing. It was a person. It was love.
I had better end on that note.
Thank you SSWhiting. Your creative synopsis, Part 2, with cool photos, continues to inspire readers after 7 years
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