Being Dead

That’s the name of a novel I just finished reading a couple of nights ago. I don’t read too many novels because I’m too thick into magazines and my time is limited. After reading the book, I’m three New Yorkers and two Rolling Stones behind.

The book is by British writer Jim Crace and it was suggested and loaned to me Melissa Stewart. It’s good stuff. One reviewer describes it as a “gentle and unsentimental tale on the evolution of love.” It’s also very much about death. No more details than that.

Here’s the opening poem – a perfect introduction – called “The Biologist’s Valedictorian to His Wife” by Sherwin Stephens:

Don’t count on Heaven, or on Hell.
You’re dead. That’s it. Adieu. Farewell.
Eternity awaits? Oh, sure!
It’s Putrefaction and Manure
And unrelenting Rot, Rot, Rot,
As you regress, from Zoo. to Bot.
I’ll Grieve, of course,
Departing wife,
Though Grieving’s never
Lengthened Life
Or coaxed a single extra Breath
Out of a Body touched by Death.