Catharsis

Khaled Hosseini you have left me unraveled.  You have broken me yet again but this time you held that ax, struck the soil of my mind and "rich black oil" comes "bubbling up to the surface."  I  am broken.

What is this catharsis that Aristotle speaks of?  All the times I've cried during movies and book reading I thought I knew so well what it was; the type of substance it is made of; the essence of it.  Today I am unexpectedly slapped in the face, in the mind, in the heart with an emotional outpouring that can only be the one true catharsis.  Aristotle's Poetics speaks of a purging of emotions particularly pity and fear through art.  Pity because you can sympathize with the protagonist.  Fear that a similar experience can happen to you.

After reading 237 pages, I am left undone.  The details of plot are so far removed from my life but yet I have an intricate, an intimate sort of identification with it which produces a pity that I am only experiencing as of now.  The following quotes are dearer to me because of my childhood, because of my lost, because of the absence. 

Do you understand, Abdullah, how this was an act of mercy?  The potion that erased these memories? (pg 13)

Baba Ayub didn't understand.  Just as he didn't understand why a wave of something, something like the tail of a dream, always swept through him whenever he heard the jingling, surprising him each time like an unexpected gust of wind.  But then it passed, as all things do.  It passed. (pg 15)

In the end, it came down to a simple thing: They weren't her children, he and Pari.  Most people loved their own.  It couldn't be helped that he and his sister didn't belong to her.  They were another woman's leftovers. (pg 22)

"Adollah?...When I grow up, will I live with you?" (pg 25)

There has been in her life, all her life, a great absence.  Somehow, she has always known. (pg 237)

"Brother," she says, unaware she is speaking. Unaware she is weeping. (pg 238) 

 My mother's own leftover from a broken relationship, dreams of a communal life with siblings who  may never know the extent of my love, a brother I miss, the sporadic knowledge of my father's absence at inopportune moments in my life, the feeling that something's missing and there's much more to an untold story and a world of secrets, has been buried deeply within me.

God_in His mercy_ has taken a story so far removed from my own _ and like a mirror _ He caused me to looked through it and see my own life.  CATHARSIS.

Idris and Timur Syndrome

I was talking to a coworker about And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini and the subject of the Bashiri cousins Idris and Timur came up.  The cousins' personalities were starkly different.  Idris seemed to be a soberly minded and controlled person.  Amra the nurse fittingly calls him "introvert" while Timur was extremely chatty, friendly and evidently loved attention.  Idris studied and sacrificed to secure his position as a doctor while Timur used his 'connections' to get along in life.  Timur proved to be very generous and rose to the occasion when any assistance was required and while Idris appreciated his kindness, he "had misgivings about the fanfare, the flaunting, the unabashed showmanship, the bravado." (p 140) 

 

The event which for me was most outstanding was their treatment of the girl Roshi.  At the start of chapter 5 the cousins both visit the girl in the hospital who suffers from a "crack in the crown of her shaved head" which was the result of a violent family dispute.  Timur, true to his nature shows an overt display of emotion which dies once he exits the room but Idris on the other hand frequently visits the girl and befriends her.  Eventually the cousins must leave the country and Idris makes promises to make arrangements for Roshi to fly over to California for surgery.  In this move of kindness and compassion he also exposes his intention to pay out of his pocket if funding was unavailable. 

 

The twist in this story, which always makes Hosseini's writing brilliant, is that in the end Idris does not do what he promised.  His compassion wanes until he stops responding to emails from Amra and Roshi and eventually deletes them without bothering to read.  Roshi however, was able to get the surgery needed and her story becomes publicized in a book.  Idris goes to the book signing and reads on the dedication page: To the two angels in my life: my mother Amra, and my Kaka Timur.  You are my saviours.  I owe you everything. Roshi scribbled this note in Idris' copy of her book: Don't worry.  You're not in it.

So today my coworker asked me what do I think Hosseini is trying to say through these cousins.  I immediately responded with a blunt: Idris was a coward; he was a weak man.  She agreed.  The thing is even though Timur was obnoxious and pretty annoying, he was able to get things done.  He was able to help others in need despite the fanfare.  I admitted to my coworker that I am like this Idris.  I too suffer a bit from an Idris syndrome.  Like Idris I am melancholic by temperament and like him and so many others, I am selfish.  I feel a momentary pang of compassion and I want to move the world over to help but then in time my own needs override this fleeting desire.  The line "anger pauses till they pass away" written by Dennis Scott in his poem Epitaph describes the brief pause or comma we ascribe to the unfortunate lives of others until it passes away because we have better, more pressing things to do.  We are momentarily angry and hurt, we make empty, rash promises and we are afraid to commit.  We are selfish - those of us who belong to the Idris tribe.

And what about the Timurs?  Well, they are flashy and must make a show of their kindness.  They lack humility and are boastful.  Giving in secret for them does not suffice.  The act of giving is treated as a public affair with all focus on the magnitude of the issue and the nobleness of the benefactor. But in the end,  wasn't assistance granted?  Aren't they saviours as Roshi stated?  Isnt is better to save than to make empty promises of salvation? But where is Timur's heart you may ask.  Is it on the suffering Roshis or on Timur himself?  When the rubber hits the road so to speak,  Roshi is in a better position.  So what is Hosseini saying to us?  Have the compassion of Idris and the ability to act like Timur?  I say be compassionate, make a difference and remember to be humble least you may fall.

Love at First Chapter

Dear Page,

I haven't written in a while.  Did you miss me? Well, I'm currently reading And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini.  It was love at first chapter for me!  I've read Kiterunner and A Thousand Splendid Suns but this book seems to bring a promise of something greater. I can tell by the presentation of human relationships from the offset of the story.

Chapter One draws the curtain on a very endearing story.  It's a fictional tale of hidden meaning and a magical, mystical sense of beauty.  Baba Ayub's courage is touching and the div's initial terror and subsequent display of cruel mercy is sagacious.  "When you have lived as long as I have, the div replied, you find that cruelty and benevolence are but shades of the same color." (pg. 12) What does it all mean?  What is Hosseini trying to communicate to us?  In order to be noble we must have a measure of cruelty?  In order to be human we must exact a degree of inhumanity?

And then I consider if in trying to do good we are cruel not just to the subject of our goodness, but also cruel to ourselves.  Baba has to choose to surrender one of his five children because if he does not make such a painstakingly difficult decision he loses them all.  In the end however, it is his favourite son that he loses and in losing this child for the greater good, he seems to suffer the most.

The div's final act of kindness reminds me in a weird way of the Saw series and also of the ending of A Hundred Years of Solitude.  He takes away Baba's memory of the incident.  Yet while many will see this as the ultimate deed of goodness, Baba continues to feel a void that he cant explain.  Somewhere deep in his subconscious he recalls the sound of a bell associated with this lost son.  So is this his reward or was it better to lose, hurt and grow?  While the div has helped to ease the pain of this lost,  there is a part of Baba that no potion can touch, a place where only the hands of love can touch that leaves us forever unraveled.