21st Century Literature discussion
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11/20 Fever Dream, Entire Book
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As a parent that whole...sense of keeping your child close, that rope, I forget the words Amanda called it (my copy is returned to the library), was powerful. It is like that. That sense...helplessness, fear, love, all wrapped into one.
Mod
From my friends with kids I do get the idea of how important that constant awareness is of where your child is and what dangers are around, What do you think of the last line?
Whitney, Thank you for the questions. They help me focus and bring the "fever" down a bit. I kept getting distracted by the worms and transmigration. Schweblin certainly captured emotions that are experienced in very close relationships, especially mother-child, as they are nowhere else. Fever Dream was a little too haunting for me to gain insight into life's "most important thing" however.
Whitney wrote: "Rescue distance, which was the original title of the book in Spanish, "Distancia de rescate". From my friends with kids I do get the idea of how important that constant awareness is of where your..."
The rope was slack. I took that to mean, Amanda died. I felt that daughter ended up in Davids body.. by way he climbed into the husbands car.
I think the husbands were distant, because, I am not sure that they share the same sense of that rescue distance... I think it comes from carrying that growing thing in your body. Obviously men don't do that, I am not saying a man can't have that feeling...but I feel like is a lessor sense for them. If that makes any sense at all....
Mod
I think you're correct in that this was the implication. Especially with him sitting cross-legged the way Nina always did, and reaching for her stuffed mole (why a mole?). Did you see any hints of where David may have gone in the original transmigration?
So many good questions that I don't have good answers for! What is "the important thing"? Is it that, despite all of our best efforts, ultimately we can never truly protect another human being from all the dangers in the world?
Whitney wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "Whitney wrote: "I felt that daughter ended up in Davids body.. by way he climbed into the husbands car..."I think you're correct in that this was the implication. Especially with..."
A mole toy was odd to me as well. Maybe it has something to do with the Earth as in the ground.... the sickness/ the worms came from the contaminated ground.
This is interesting and relevant to the mole in our story :
http://www.native-languages.org/legen...
It talks about Native American Mole mythology.
Whitney wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "Whitney wrote: "I felt that daughter ended up in Davids body.. by way he climbed into the husbands car..."I think you're correct in that this was the implication. Especially with..."
I looked for David, I might have an idea, but I am honestly not sure.
Mod
http://www.native-languages.org/legen..."
Whoa! "Like other burrowing animals, moles are associated with the underworld-- and thus with death, sickness, and healing". Yes, definitely relevant, good link!
Jennifer, I'd love to hear your idea about David!
Been thinking about Whitney's questions:Why is David communicating with Amanda (if he even is)? Why does he think it's so important for Amanda to understand "the most important thing" before she dies?
If Nina's soul transmigrated into David, it may be Nina not David doing the questioning and Nina is trying to figure out when/how it happened. And the most important thing David/Nina wants Amanda to understand is that David is Nina.
Why do you think Carla was so insistent that Amanda come and see the empty stables before leaving town?
Have not a clue on this one. It is a good question that I will keep pondering.
The husbands remain distant and even indifferent throughout most of the narrative. Why did Schweblin hand the narrative over to them in the end?
The clueless husbands did not know or rejected the transmigration. They did not have, as Jennifer notes, the same rope, i.e., the rescue distance, that the mothers had.
Why do you think David tossed Carla's things into the pool? And why was David in the car near the end of the book?
As to the first question, I have no thoughts yet. As to the second, if Nina's soul is now in David, Nina wants to go home.
[T]he translator says ...the last line of the book was the hardest. I won’t write it here, but oh, I had many versions of it. I feel like it condenses so much of the book and is subtly jarring, and I wanted it to be powerful in its implications. Here's the last line, do you think she was successful? What did you think of the translation in general?
"He doesn’t see the important thing: the rope finally slack, like a lit fuse, somewhere; the motionless scourge about to erupt."
The father lacks the instinct to understand that the rescue distance has been breached. His daughter has been lost. And in a larger sense, the damage to the earth, the impacts of industrial farming (and perhaps even broader, the impacts of climate change) will now erupt and efforts to stop it will be in large part futile.
Thanks all for digging deeper, very helpful for considering this book. Bretnie, I like your thinking about "the important thing" and yes, Jennifer please theorize. Especially appreciated is the Mole mythology information. We put a Bocce court in our yard and every night there is a Mole party. Hope this doesn't mean doom!
Does Carla ever actually swim? I kinda wonder if David went into Carla... Amanda was focused on the clothes Carla wore...maybe it was David who wanted to swim..but being a child did not have the strength to overcome the adult..the idea that it might be Nina and not David questioning Amanda is intriguing...
The whole concept of the "rescue distance" was a gut punch personally. From watching your infant sleep to make sure they are breathing, to watching your 6 year old pack an run away from home ( you know the truth, but as they walk down the road out of your sight you freak out) , to your teen driving, testing that rescue distance, somehow when the phone rings at 2am you know who it is and what you need to to before even answering it wide awake. I think that no matter the age and distance that rope is always taught..I can call my mom, if something is wrong she instantly knows. I am 50. Maybe we have lost that rope with the environment...maybe it is not as taut as it should be. If we can't save ourselves how do we save the environment?
I am probably rambling at this point.
I think LindaJ is spot-on. I felt that the fathers were not a part of the story because they were representative of the emotionally distant, consumed by work stereotype. I originally thought the worms and contamination were a metaphor for heroin addiction and that maybe what was happening was an overdose and withdrawal hallucinations, but I’ve backed off of that theory. I did love the way the pace of the book was like a fever dream, frantic and intense.
I keep thinking about who or what was inhabiting David and what that origin story would look like. It’s not necessary for the book to work, but it intrigues me.
I finished this book yesterday and liked it. It intense and impressive work not easily forgettable. I am glad that I read it as a group read.
Agree Nidhi, the only way I can have a positive experience with this book is the group read. You all are very smart and have interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing. "Rambling" is part of the process!
Jennifer wrote: "Maybe we have lost that rope with the environment...maybe it is not as taut as it should be. If we can't save ourselves how do we save the environment?"I read somewhere (sorry I can't remember where) that Argentina has a terrible history with fertilizers and insecticides damaging a percent of the population. With that lens, I think it says a lot about the messages in this book.
Both your point about if we can't save ourselves, how do we save the environment. But also, how do we save ourselves/the people we care about when we are destroying the environment and subsequently destroying ourselves?
How do we protect ourselves from ourselves?
Sorry, probably too meta!
Not to meta, I think the book is rather meta and asks you to do some deep thinking. Had I not been consumed with politics and the election here in the US, it would have been more meaningful for me as a read.
Mod
There are two times David says that "This is the important thing". The first is right before Amanda and Nina sit on the grass where the chemical spill just took place and "the worms" of chemical poisoning enter their systems. (The rescue distance has failed; they are sitting next to each other.) The next is when David says that Nina needs to listen to what his father says, presumptively referring to this exchange about the silence:
“You know,” says your father, “I used to work with horses.” He shakes his head, maybe to himself. “But do you hear my horses now?”
“No.”
“Do you hear anything else?”
Your father looks around, as if he can hear the silence much farther away than my husband is capable of hearing.
Both of these are the important things, because they are the same thing. What happened to Amanda is what is happening to the environment.
Mod
I was wondering if it was Amanda that David went into. At first I dismissed it as unlikely, given that the transmigration had happened years before Amanda came to the town. But we never hear why she chose to rent a summerhouse in this particular town. It may have been the part of David that's in her drawing her there. I recognize this is a fair stretch, but it would also explain why Amanda is experiencing David in her delirium. And also also, perhaps, why Carla was so reluctant to let her leave.
Whitney wrote: "What happened to Amanda is what is happening to the environment."Ah that's a good way to pull them both together. Not that one is causing the other, but that something separate (and important) is happening to both.
The thought of Nina hugging her mom's leg is sweet. When my wife was a young mother, she took her son to the library. Wandering through the shelves, she felt small arms around her leg. She looked down and met the eyes of a little girl, who burst into tears; it was the wrong mommy! Kids are aware of that rescue distance too.
Please feel free to post anything that interests you. I have a few things that I'd like to hear opinions on, but please don't think you have to restrict the discussion in any way.
Why is David communicating with Amanda (if he even is)? Why does he think it's so important for Amanda to understand "the most important thing" before she dies?
Why do you think Carla was so insistent that Amanda come and see the empty stables before leaving town?
The husbands remain distant and even indifferent throughout most of the narrative. Why did Schweblin hand the narrative over to them in the end?
Why do you think David tossed Carla's things into the pool? And why was David in the car near the end of the book?
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In the Booker interview, Schweblin's answer to what the book is about was It’s about the tie that binds us to the people we love the most, and the pain and anxiety that this tie can engender in us. Is this close to how you would have summarized it?
In the same interview, the translator says ...the last line of the book was the hardest. I won’t write it here, but oh, I had many versions of it. I feel like it condenses so much of the book and is subtly jarring, and I wanted it to be powerful in its implications. Here's the last line, do you think she was successful? What did you think of the translation in general?
"He doesn’t see the important thing: the rope finally slack, like a lit fuse, somewhere; the motionless scourge about to erupt."