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The Physics of Sorrow
2/22 The Physics of Sorrow
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2/22 The Physics of Sorrow - whole book discussion (spoilers)
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Vesna
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Feb 15, 2022 06:43PM
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The novel is very labyrinthian which to me felt natural as the Minotaur myth is central though in a very revised vision--not as a monster but as an abandoned child/creature that did not fit in with either the human or animal world. How did you interpret the role of the Minotaur idea in different parts of the novel or in relation to different characters, including the narrator? Did the labyrinthian structure with vignettes flow seamlessly for you or did you occasionally get lost in some narrative "corridors" of the novelistic maze?
For me, empathy was at the heart of the novel, but it's the sorrow that is featured in the book title. At one point, he writes “Empathy is unlocked in some people through pain, for me it happens more often through sorrow.” All the same, I felt that there was much more about empathy than sorrow as its source. Did you experience it differently? And was there only one kind of sorrow across different stories, that is, the sorrow of abandonment, or did you see it in different forms?
I also have a question about the humor. I found many stories immensely sad (though the ending to all was redeeming and deeply humane) but I also laughed a lot. The writing was incredible in blending satire with sadness. I am not sure if his humor came across as funny to everyone. Did you find it humorous in places as well?
How did you interpret the ending?
I found the novel eminently quotable and my ebook is filled with highlights. Any of your favorite quotes, vignettes, anecdotal stories? Let's share.
The Physics of Sorrow was a very interesting book, I had either to stop and reread a passage or go back to a passage. Having finished it yesterday I am still processing it.The novel was certainly labyrinthine and I found myself sometimes lost.
I loved the idea of embedded empathy.
In an online bookclub last night we met with Georgi, a charming man. He said 'that in Bulgaria, the meaning of sorrow is not a sadness for things we have had and have lost; rather it is a nostalgic sorrow for things we have never had'
His new novel Time Shelter: A Novel comes out in May 2022 in English
Mod
His new novel Time Shelter: A Novel comes out in May 2022 in English."
Vey cool!
Mod
And you are right that It is eminently quotable. This is one that really stood out in terms of Gospodinov's theme of the importance of cultivating empathy:
"There’s only one true identity—to be a living creature among living creatures. To be ephemeral and to value the Other, because he is ephemeral as well.”
This follows the wonderful debate the narrator is having with himself over how people get it backwards when they value lasting things over fleeting things.
Another favorite was his tying of the milestones of his puberty to the political events of the 80's, ending with Chernobyl as a way of saying it's all downhill from there:
First kiss (with a girl).
Brezhnev dies.
Second kiss (different girl).
Chernenko dies.
Third kiss . . .
Andropov dies.
Am I killing them?
First fumbling sex in the park.
Chernobyl.
A long half-life of exponential decay ensues.
It's an excellent novel on multiple levels and lends itself to a lot of talking points. I liked how the seemingly disparate and labyrinthine narrative, nested stories and the plentiful digressions, is held together by a master-image, that of the Minotaur myth and its classical interpretations, which the writer has challenged with great acuity throughout the novel. But that is only the external theme, or the grounds on which the edifice is constructed. The novel's internal themes of abandonment that leads to an acute sense of sorrow and the extent of empathy required to examine and understand that sorrow, and to eventually come to terms with it, are executed with perfection.
I appreciated the little magic realist conceit of the "obsessive empathetic-somatic syndrome" by which our narrator, in his child's innocence, is able extend his empathic understanding of people by getting inside their minds, even inside the mind of a slug! This allows the writer to explore various characters stretched across an entire century through a first person perspective, which otherwise would have created technical difficulties for our narrator.
Another brilliant aspect of the novel is the way it relates the realities of life under Communist rule through human feelings and experiences, by depicting little things from everyday life of the people who had lived under the old regime, and not simply as a salvation story told through a series of sociopolitical incidents leading up to their political emancipation.
But even after the proverbial freedom is gained, his protagonists keep harking back to the old times in order to understand the labyrinth through which their lives had passed to arrive in the present, which is no less gloomy and sorrowful. This is where the trope of the time capsules, the character of Gaustine being frozen in time (even going back to it to relive it again), and the extensive archive of little oddities, as objects or in print, made a powerful impact on this reader.
This is not a gripe but I would have preferred the early playful tone to have carried on until the end but the writer made it a little serious midway through all the way to the end.
All in all a great novel.
Mod
Stephen, thanks for sharing Gospodinov's explanation for the Bulgarian "sorrow" at your bookclub meet-up. It sheds some light on the imaginary title he uses in the novel for the collection of stories as "a General History of That Which Never Happened”... All the same, I wasn't aware that it has such a specific meaning in any of the Slavic languages. There is the same word "tuga" in Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) and it can mean "sorrow "for both something that did not happen as well as something that did but got lost.
Love the quotes, Whitney! I also highlighted that list, so cogently reflecting the spirit of the novel with its humor and simple truths and sadness.
Fascinating comments, Jibran. I'm so glad you noticed how he managed to capture the life under Communist rule without being didactic about it. There are so many subtle ways in which he did it through anecdotes and scenes. And there is always a light satire mixed in as in his retelling of how the fate of his grandfather metamorphosed from a (presumably dead) hero to a traitor to a (living) hero properly memorialized with the epic (mythical) song :-)
Vesna wrote: "And there is always a light satire mixed in as in his retelling of how the fate of his grandfather metamorphosed from a (presumably dead) hero to a traitor to a (living) hero properly memorialized with the epic (mythical) song :-)"Thanks, Vesna. And yes, indeed. The episode of the grandfather turned into a living traitor from a dead hero depicted the absurdities of the officialdom with great irony. This and other such vignettes showed us the reality of life during that time without, as you've put it, being didactic.
I wrote the above post for the thread and also to gather my scattered impressions of the novel but I think I will now use it as my review with a few changes.
I guess it’s expected – that when you travel through a labyrinth, you are going to get lost sometimes. I started well with the book: I really liked the ‘combination’ of characters in the first chapter, and the examination of the case of the Minotaur in the second. But chapter three, threw me somewhat. Titled ‘The Yellow House’ it only seemed to stay near the yellow house for a few pages before wandering off. Thankfully one of your suggested videos, did help me see how it might all tie together. I was very impressed by the author.In any case, the writing was really good especially mid-way through when it settled at times into series of anecdotes, including so many true-life tales and so many seemingly autobiographical stories. With all these diverse threads, I began to wonder if it could be called a ‘novel’, and it felt more like a collage than a labyrinth.
Like others, I found there were loads of quotable quotes. Just one here -
“I dream that I’m beautiful. Not exactly beautiful, but inconspicuous. That’s what it means to be beautiful, to be like everyone else. My head feels light. My eyes are on the front of my face. I have a nose, rather than nostrils. I have human skin, thin human skin. I walk down the street and no one notices me. Now that’s happiness—no one noticing me. It’s a happy dream.”
And then the humorous twists, like when someone taps his shoulder says hello but he hasn’t a clue who it is but has to engage in conversation. What do you say? And then -
‘ “How are you?” is the banana peel so courteously placed beneath your feet, the cheese that lures you toward the mousetrap of cliché.’
I enjoyed the book more as it went on, but the ending seemed very abrupt and it just seemed that it was time to stop writing ……as the Minotaur said “your ball of string has run out”.
Overall, it seemed the type of ‘novel’ that I needed some preliminary idea of what it was about before I could really appreciate it. A re-read might be on the cards.
Mod
Hope I'm not too late to the party. I finished the book a couple of weeks ago but am just now getting around to sort out my thoughts.The theme of empathy weaves its way throughout the book and allows the author to travel through time and space in others' memories. I thought his rewriting of the Minotaur myth to be effective. It was extremely sad, like when the Minotaur dreams that he is human and happy that no one notices him as he walks the streets, or when he is killed at the bullfight after charging into the crowd in search of his mother. The empathy is so strong that in a way the narrator himself can be seen as the Minotaur. There are several cues like both living in the basement for cruel reasons, in the narrator's case because his parents were never given a better apartment.
Despite the theme of empathy and sorrow, I also found myself laughing out loud on many occasions. He is a master of political satire like in the episode when the narrator's father was called in to the police station for being a vegetarian. He was later released (after quoting Plutarch to justify the vegetarian diet!) because, even though they thought he was slightly nuts, he was 'ideologically harmless'. The whole section on 'Gaustine's Projects' also had me cracking up. Movies for the Poor, the Personal Poem, and the Condom Catwalk. Ingenious ideas, all of them.
It is also full of stories that will stay with me because they imprinted strong images. For some reason I was drawn to the story where the narrator, as a young child living in a basement apartment, would recognize the change of seasons through the footwear of passersby because that's all that he could see through the window. And then when the snow would cover the window, he would curl up "like a rabbit under the snow". Immensely sad.
I have to say that I loved the ending. It was almost as if being reunited with his daughter allowed him to go back and rewrite the endings to various stories/vignettes. The Minotaur finds his mother in the crowd at the bullfight, his three-year old grandfather sees his mother coming back to get him, the lady who saved his grandfather in Hungary (and later fell in love with him) receives a return letter, Juliet actually does go away with Alan Delon, his mother and father finally receive a top floor apartment... Beautiful.
I originally voted for Petrovic's At the Lucky Hand: aka The Sixty-Nine Drawers in this poll and would still highly recommend it to anyone, but I was glad that I was introduced to this book as well.
Mod
The theme of empathy weaves its way throughout the book and al..."
Joe, you are definitely not late to the party and thank you for many of your thoughts. Your examples reminded me of both the sadness and laughter while reading it. It's amazing how he managed to mix such polar emotional opposites without trivializing either. I agree with your take on the ending (or rather endings), it was emotionally overwhelming (in a good sense)... he made their dreams come true.
On p.219: "People have gotten more beautiful. No, it's not just another sign that I'm getting old. Or at least, it's not only that. People really have gotten more beautiful. The women in particular, of course. Especially the women."Ah, yes. Holdstock and McCloud spoke to that: https://youtu.be/u3F4ETCBxCs
The general tone is also reminding me of Sebald's Austerlitz: a catalog of ironies. I don't mind the lack of narrative drive in the later sections.
...and, the town in "A Past-Time Machine" (p.260) echoes an actual Russian film project: from The Atlantic: "Khrzhanovsky moved to Kharkov, Ukraine, built a replica of a top-secret Soviet research facility, and commissioned about 400 people to live and work there for two years and reenact 30 years of Soviet history, from 1938 to 1968." (I Googled "crazy Russian film project" to find the article.) https://www.theatlantic.com/entertain...
Mod
Like many of you, I highlighted and noted quite a few passages and sections. Overwhelmingly, I'm left with that feeling of empathy (also mentioned several times above) mixed with a near maternal compassion.
Gospodinov threads overlapping tales of abandonment: the grandfather (abandoned by his mother but retrieved by his sister after being left behind), the minotaur (by his sister Ariadne, but also by subsequent tellings of the myths where the story turns him from child to monster), the children of socialism ("abandoned" politically, internationally, and, again, in story... or lack thereof... perhaps).
I found it fascinating that the narrator goes from a kind of cathartic empathy (where he can enter the past stories of other actual people) to entering the stories of fictional characters, to losing his empathetic "powers" as he ages. I guess all readers do this to a certain extent---we enter the past, the story of others, etc. As he loses his powers, he begins to collect things as a sort of substitute (a way to preserve the past or hold on to stories?). I liked the way Gospodinov bounces back and forth between the way the narrator individually chooses to connect/preserve/give voice to the past and others and the way we collectively do so (media, time capsules, institutions, etc.).
"I gather for the sake of the one who is to come. For the post-apocalyptic reader, if we may agree to call him that. It’s not a bad idea to have a basic archive from the previous era. Today’s newspapers will then be historical chronicles. Which is a good future for them. And a fitting testimonial to an epoch quickly yellowing and fading in its final days."
Curious what others made of the move from his advocating for a kind of "double life" (lived halfway forwards and halfway backwards") to his abandonment of this temporal "return trip." Thoughts as to why he sort of changes his mind?
It's almost like every foray into a possible solution is met by the limits/barriers of language:
"What a huge part of evolution remains locked up in the fish’s silence, what knowledge have fish accumulated over all those millennia before us! The deep, cold storehouses of that silence. Untouched by language. Because language channels and drains deposits of knowledge like a drill."
For such a small book, it feels almost encyclopedic in the number of issues/areas it touches (family, history, narrative, art, love, environment, politics, etc., etc.).
Interesting comparison to Austerlitz, Mark; thankfully, not quite as depressing an overall tone as Sebald. Georgi seems a bit more playful/optimistic, and irreverent ("I needed a new Shield of Achilles against bullshit.").
Mod
To bring it down to a lower (but still fun level), most of the western films that his friends were so enthralled by as children are a series of East German westerns, which were filmed in, and hugely popular throughout, the Eastern Bloc. Unlike Western westerns, the Indians are the good guys and the westerners are the blood thirsty imperialists - in this case history really is on the side of the communists. They are all based on historical events.
For people in the US who have Kanopy through their libraries, some of them are available to stream. They are hugely entertaining.
Mod
It's kind of amazing how "fun" or humorous this book remains.... His whole disdain for the question "How are you?" (and his litany of possible responses). The puns: "min-avatar" in reference to Facebook/social media. And so on.
Marc, I can't say I found Sebald depressing; I remember a dessert he had that appeared to be ice cream but tasted like mashed potatoes. Of course, there is also the 11 page single sentence. The comparison with Gospodinov only applies, of course, to the "Global Autumn" chapter.Whitney, care to mention some titles? I do have access to Kanopy; they have some wonderful films on their list.
Mod
Most certainly! Apaches (Apachen), The Sons of Great Bear (Die Söhne der grossen Bärin), Chingachgook, the Great Snake (Chingachgook, die Grosse Schlange, based on The Deerslayer), and Blood Brothers (Blutsbrüder). They are part of the DEFA (East German) film collection
I think Apachen is the one they filmed in Kazakhstan. They borrowed the horses from local farmers, so everyone is riding shaggy little steppes ponies.
Mod
Yesterday I watched the animated film based off this book (linked to in the background thread). Quite well done---unique animation/art style, great tone, and paired very well with music. About a 21 minute run-time if I recall, so not too big of a time investment.
My brain keeps returning back to the passage observing the absence of children in mythology. This seemed like a novel point to me personally although I'm not sure what to make of it...
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I imagine a book containing every kind and genre. From monologue through Socratic dialogue to epos in hexameter, from fairytales through treatises to lists. From high antiquity to slaughterhouse instructions. Everything can be gathered up and transported in such a book.Thought to share a few more quotes I loved, though narrowing down the selection was a tantalizing choice. Such a brilliant writer.
Let him write, write, write, let him be recorded and preserved, let him be like Noah’s ark, there shall be every beast, large and small, clean and unclean, thou shalt take from every kind and every story. I’m not so interested in the clean genres. The novel is no Aryan, as Gaustine always said.
“We cannot run away from the ones we’ve forgotten.”
“Imagine a world, in which everyone agrees to a new hierarchy. In which the Fleeting and the Living are more valuable than the Eternal and the Dead. The opposite of the usual world, which we share today. And so, let us imagine what consequences this might have. Immediately many of the reasons for war and theft fall away.”
“There is some sort of grammar of aging.
Childhood and youth are full of verbs. You can’t sit still. Everything in you is growing, gushing forth, developing. Later the verbs are gradually replaced by the nouns of middle age. Kids, cars, work, family—the substantial things of the substantives.
Growing old is an adjective. We enter into the adjectives of old age—slow, boundless, hazy, cold, or transparent like glass.”
This passage reminds me of Rilke’s Duino Elegies:
“God does not give language to newborns immediately. And that’s no accident. They still know the secret of paradise, but they have no words for it. When they are given language, the secret has already been forgotten.”
Those are great quotes, Vesna. I also found myself thinking about this book and many of the amazing passages for some time after reading it. Here's a long list of some of my favorites and I even cut some out just because there are too many:“What happened to the names after their owners died? Were they set free? Did the names continue to mean something, or did they disintegrate like the bodies beneath them, leaving only the bones of consonants?”
“Nothing brings a small nation together like the feeling that everyone is against it.”
“The day after the Apocalypse, there won’t be any newspapers. How ironic. The most significant event in the history of the world will go unreported.”
“If everything lasted forever, nothing would be valuable.
—Gaustine” (my favorite character)
“There’s no God in Bulgaria, Grandma, I blurted out as soon as we got home and I caught sight of her pouring oil into the icon lamp on the wall. My grandmother crossed herself quickly and invisibly. She surely would’ve snapped at me for such talk, but she saw my father in the doorway and merely said: Well, what is there in Bulgaria anyway, there’s no paprika, no oil . . . Only she could combine the country’s physical and metaphysical deficit like that. God, oil, and paprika.”
“I want to be a part of all this, to enter the cathedral humbly, to cross myself at the entrance, sometimes I do it Orthodox-style, sometimes Catholic-style, I don’t know which one is more proper, forgive me, O Lord,”
“My grandmother knew she shouldn’t talk about such things in front of people, so as to protect my father, who could get into trouble. My father knew that he shouldn’t talk about other things and locked himself up with the radio in the kitchen, so as not to screw up my life (that’s what my mother said). I knew that I shouldn’t talk about anything I’d heard at home, so the police wouldn’t come and screw up my parents’ lives. A long chain of secrets and lies that made us a normal family.”
“The basic question, the litmus test, the divider between good and evil—could what I’ve thought up be done by an animal? Step inside the skin of your favorite animal and find out. If it wouldn’t do it, then you shouldn’t do it, either, or you’ll be committing a mortal sin.”
“Every year, 1.6 billion cows, sheep, and pigs, as well as 22.5 billion birds are slaughtered by humans for food. We are hell for animals, the animals’ apocalypse.”
“For example, we could retell The Old Man and the Sea through the eyes of the fish, that marlin… Its battle with the gaunt old man and the sea is no less dramatic. When it comes down to it, the fish is the character locked in a life-and-death struggle throughout the whole story. The old man’s story is a story about the battle against aging. While the fish’s is a story about death. The whole story through the voice of a fish, bleeding, gnawed clean to the bone, yet resisting to the very last.”
Mod
Those are also great quotes, I had a few of them marked as well. "The Old Man and the Sea" from the perspective of the fish was a particular favorite.
I do wonder how much many of these quotes actually serve a coherent narrative, and how many are just wry observations. One of the reasons I feel this is a reread.
Mod
That's a good point, Whitney. While I was reading it, I felt that the quotable sentences were well placed in the context of the narrative, but what I occasionally found was that some vignettes were digressive from the overarching story. I interpreted it as a part of the labyrinthine structure in which some "corridors" lead us to the dead end and then he would gently take us back.
Great quotes, Joe!
Mod
—Gaustine” (my favorite character)"
I am reading Gospodinov's Time Shelter: A Novel that has been published in English just recently and remembered this conversation and that you, Joe, were a fan of Gaustine. Here is a great news: Gaustine is featured in this most recent novel and not just as an episodic character! I'm still reading it but I can already say that it's one of the books I can't put down. Recommended for both Gaustine fans and others! :-)
Wow, Gaustine is back! This lands it right on top of my TBR list. Thanks, Vesna!
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
Time Shelter (other topics)At the Lucky Hand: aka The Sixty-Nine Drawers (other topics)
Time Shelter (other topics)
