Shadowchild by P.F. Thomese

What a beautiful book this is.  I have only read a few pages but already I want to read more by P.F. Thomese, a Dutch writer whose little girl died when she was a few weeks old.  The book was published in 2005, in a translation from the original published in 2003.  Here is an excerpt:


Does love disappear when the person disappears? Where does the love go when the body is burned to ashes? It flees into similes.  The body has been taken from the earth, but not all the things that remind you of it.

 "Thine eyes are like the ponds in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. Thine head upon thee is like Carmel..."  Like, indeed, like, like. Love looks for an embodiment it can no longer find.
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousAugust 30, 2010 at 11:24 PM

    "Does love disappear when the body disappears?"
    I know it does not. I send you my fondest thoughts and wishes for peace.
    Claire

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How Dina Aunty relished her memories. Mummy and Daddy were the same, talking about their yesterdays and smiling in that sad-happy way while selecting each picture, each frame from the past, examining it lovingly before it vanished again in the mist. But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be re-created—not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.

> From A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry