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When the celebrated US comedian Bob Hope lay dying, his wife asked him, ‘Would you prefer to be buried or cremated?’ After a pause came his answer: ‘I don’t know – surprise me.’
A strange kind of humour, black or gallows, exists shockingly alongside whatever understanding we living people may think we have of death. It is this strangeness which Canadian writer, Miriam Toews, explores in her novel: All My Puny Sorrows. The subject-matter is essentially bleak – the attempted (and further threatened) suicide of a woman’s sister, followed by the efforts of family and friends to save her – yet the tale is told in a rich, informal North American style, heightened by mordant wit. Most of the humour comes from Yoli’s observations of others around her, and from her own reflections upon these grim family circumstances. The novel is graced with interesting, believable characters who have eccentricities and do believable things.
The two sisters are Elfrieda (brilliantly successful, intelligent, world-famous pianist with devoted husband), and Yolandi (struggling mother and would-be novelist, who feels unsuccessful in love or marital relations, and more or less in everything else). The personal names derive from the family’s background in the Mennonite religious community, many of them descended from refugees to Canada who fled persecution across various parts of Europe – especially Bolshevik Russia. Elf, the successful musician, sees no point in living. Yoli desperately seeks ways, things to say, do or bring, which may save her beloved sister who lies in the hospital bed, so wretchedly keen for death. Toew’s dialogue cleverly conveys their closeness.
The prospect of a suicide poses moral dilemmas for loved ones. Elfrieda wants Yoli to take her secretly to a Swiss clinic where patients ‘weary of life’ may choose to end it all. In a rescued private moment out of the hospital, Yoli consults her unconventional friend, Julie:
Do you think you could live with yourself if you did it? she asked.
Or if I didn’t? I asked.
Either way, she said.
At one point, Yoli has to return from the Toronto hospital to Winnipeg for a beloved Aunt’s funeral, which requires her to leave Elfrieda’s bedside. Yoli’s straightforward account of the words she spoke to her silent sister is beautifully written, and finally most moving.
Yolandi’s family life as a middle-aged mother of two goes on, as it must. Yet the prolonged strain of her anxiety over her sister seems to influence everything she does, and she becomes prey to excessive emotional reaction. An amusing instance occurs at the airport, where her son Will is about to leave for a summer job in New York:
Are you OK? he mumbled, and I said yes, more or less. I love you, he said, you’re a good mother. Oh my god, I said, thank you! My eyes filled with tears instantly. You’re a good son! We stopped hugging and stood apart, smiling. And you’re a good sister, he said. The tears fell, it was hopeless. I apologized and Will waved it off. He took my hand and held it for a few seconds. And you’re a good brother! I added. Okay mom, he said, I have to go. I’ll see you in a month or so. I’ll call tonight.
One of the beauties of a good book is that readers can relax trustfully in the hands of an author whose writing, for all the blood sweat and tears actually involved, manages to convey a sense of effortlessness in the execution. (Indeed, like the live performance of a superb pianist, able to ‘express her emotions at will’.) To be at ease with the writing allows us to give the work our fullest, deepest attention, which All My Puny Sorrows fully deserves and repays.
Ray Rumsby
September 2017