“In etymological terms, the roots of the word romance lie with the concept of chivalric adventure, and this was also my understanding: as a stylized distraction or escape spurred by disconnection. I subscribed to the notion of high romance – to the same picaresque instincts and exaggerated emotional investment responsible for the enduring popularity of Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, and Lolita; to the same reckless abandonment of self-consciousness facilitated by opiates. Poetry, which is implicit in romance, was the counterpoint to an existence that lurched from crisis to duty.
“The poetic gesture was, to me, essential; the feeling behind it, less so. Even now, I find myself grading adolescent infatuations on the basis of their ability to make a lyrical experience of life – the boy who pressed that poem by Rilke into my fist as I disembarked from the school bus; the man who kissed me as Coney Island Baby played, spring rain falling on the magnolia petals in the grass outside; that droll and modest lover who, in a black frock coat, walked with me most every day through the fields outside Oxford.
“These and other recollections are the stars by which I navigate my past, and like stars, their light continues long after love’s extinction.”
- from “True Romance”, by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, Vogue, December 2011
December 14, 2009 at 11:50 pm
I did not know you were so famous. I did not know who you were. I was afraid to write this to you. I found your book on a bereaved parents site more than a year ago, recommended to mothers of children who had, as they now say, “completed” suicide. It has taken me months to read it. My son, 21 when he died of one of the rarest and deadliest cancers that exists, Hepatosplenic T Cell Lymphoma induced by a combination of drugs he took to keep his (not deadly) ulcerative colitis in remission, did not kill himself. He fought hard to live (though I believe, I “know,” that those who kill themselves also fight savagely to live as well). Not one of these now dead children reported to the FDA as “adverse events,” and there are only 15 in the United States, have lived beyond an average of 20 weeks. Most of them were vigorous, healthy young men, college students, athletes, beautiful creatures full of the complexities possible in a young life unlived, 19 or 20 when diagnosed. Taken finally, after torturous treatment and little hope for survival. I am now dead as well, not yet(and maybe never to be) remade. But I read your book and was overwhelmed by your ability to capture the reality of grief. There are hundreds of books for bereaved parents. It appears to be a rich publishing motherload of pain to be mined for memoirs filled with fatuous suggestions of false hope to heal, to “recover” (having a new baby, taking a trip, knitting) and furthering an utterly facile belief in another, “better” realm, a “place” where our loved ones no longer suffer. It has been two years since my Maxx died and I have considered suicide many times. I read your book (among several on the subject) to try to understand why people are ultimately driven to this final act. Courage? Cowardice? A sour soup of both I think, a messy concoction of rancid leavings, bitter spices, and rotted ingredients whose measurements defy anyone’s ability to quantify, let alone make known to others. You are a wonderful writer. You know that of course. But you should also know that your words, like those of other great writers who have so honestly captured this unbearable loss, have fallen into a deep reservoir of subtly glimmering truths,the essence of which, I believe, is not readily apparent to most. Neither visible, nor marginally recognizable to those who don’t see, who never search. Thank you for opening your heart so that I (and I am certain there are countless others as well) can know there is another like myself on the planet.
Lisa
California
December 15, 2009 at 8:08 am
Lisa,
Thank you for your beautiful words.
I shall write to you privately.
Antonella
January 1, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Hi,
I published a collection of poems this fall and I quoted some thoughts from your book “Eclipse” as a prologue for my own book. The poems are written in Finnish but I hope to have them translated into English some day. The main topics in the book are one’s exclusion from the society, nature, grief and medicalization.
I would like to thank you and send you a copy of my book, if I may. (I would need some kind of an address for this, be it yours or your publisher’s –wherever you get your mail.)
You’re a wonderful writer, who can capture the essence of loss in valuable, complex and honest way.
January 30, 2010 at 6:27 am
Your book is absolutely beautiful.
January 31, 2010 at 8:31 am
Hi Antonella,
I was unable to send you a private reply to the email you sent me at new year’s (responding to my letter to you regarding the loss of my son and the beauty of your book). The email address you included no longer works. I would very much like to send you what I have written provided that is, you would like to read it. If so, can you please mail me an email that is working again?
Hope you and yours are well.
Lisa
February 1, 2010 at 12:08 am
Dear Lisa,
Apologies – I’ve had issues with my server.
New address sent.
Antonella