The Two Kinds of Decay

The first word that initially came to mind after reading Sarah Manguso's book, The Two Kinds of Decay, was "stark." The subject matter could be what brought that word to mind. Add to that, the author's treatment of her memoir as distanced, if not clinical. Her writing is very controlled. She also shirks sentimentalities effectively, despite the painful and personal nature of the material. Further, the short chapters, block paragraphs, and abundance of white space seem to form a visual context of strict form.

These are a poet's tools, without a doubt. Though the style of the piece, its voice, and tone initially threw me, I appreciate the tools Manguso used a lot more now. She is consistent and uses her devices deftly and with purpose.

Manguso describes, studiously, with clarity and concision, medical procedures, characters and events from her life, her confessions, as well as the hows of living with a rare form of Guillain--Barre syndrome. The book could be a sort of polished journal in which she writes with disregard to time and instead writes in what sequence the details make sense to her. The book is a recounting, wound tightly to a couple of principles which I can very much appreciate and relate. She writes constantly from the point of observation, distance, and simply, so that nothing is missed and the reader is held close to the text until the end. In the end, the reader is not left with a hole, or depressed, and not even with apathy, but with a new way of seeing that the author herself has come to and shown quite well.

The book is poetic in a meaning-follows-form kind of way. The crisp precision of Manguso's narrative, the observant distance with which she relates her story, the segments of short chapters and blocked paragraphs which reveal a bounty of white space on the pages, and the chapter titles around which the author seems to write certain memories as if they were prompts, come to mind. I would even argue that there is a poetic turn where Manguso explains a way of seeing that has become a part of this work:

My existence shrank from an arrow of light pointing into the future forever to a speck of light that was the present moment. I got better at living in that point of light, making the world into that point. I paid close attention to it. I loved it very much.

Further, an affirmation that the author is very studied in her treatment of the material. She writes a note about how such things (memoirs) should be written:

I resisted as long as I could. A narrator must keep a safe distance from the story, but a lyric speaker must occupy the lyric moment as if it is happening. Or so it seems to me at this moment.

I believe that Sarah Manguso has done the job she has described above well. Because of this work, I have ordered her books of poems and am anxious to read them soon.

originally published for Explication. Analysis. Conversation. (http://explicanalyconvo.blogspot.com/), October 16, 2010 and crossposted at GoodReads (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/126421469).

Anger

Lately, I am reading a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh. He speaks to the issues that presently reside within my heart. Also, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks so beautifully and clearly about those things and he makes the remedy simple.

I have a lot of anger and disappointment to deal with. I figure after many, many years I should deal with these things so they can stop getting in the way of my goals and my happiness.

I have so much anger and disappointment within me it often hurts me physically. I have major heart burn and frequent headaches nearly every day which inflame when my emotions do so. It's difficult for me to not recognize the correlation between the inflaming (and literal burning) and the emotional state I am in at any given time.

Thich Nhat Hanh suggests something really beautiful. He suggests that instead of stuffing emotions we should "get in touch with our anger." We should understand it and treat it as if it was our own child. Normally, I think most of us vent. We spew our frustrations out onto a friend or an acquaintance or a stranger. We hit pillows and cry ourselves to sleep at night until we are so fatigued it seems the anger has dissipated. In the morning, when the anger returns, we have a whole new day to wait in before we can practice our anger into the pillows again. That's what Thich Nhat Hanh says we are doing. We are practicing anger and this is not healing at all, nor is it good for the person or thing towards which we are angry. We'll explode when we see them because that is what we have been practicing.

Instead of suppressing or practicing anger, Thich Nhat Hanh says that we should recognize and nurture our anger as if it is a child. We should take care of it and understand it and then transform it.

We should not fight our anger, because anger is our self, a part of our self. Anger is of an organic nature, like love. We have to take good care of our anger. And because it is an organic entity, an organic phenomenon, it is possible to transform it into another organic entity. The garbage can be transformed back into compost, into lettuce, and into cucumber.

--Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames.

originally published at Grow (http://mecacoleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/anger.html), October 15, 2010, and crossposted at GoodReads (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/121955597).