Held by Anne Michaels

Last week I read A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson and one of my comments was that it 'wasn't a stand-out read for me', and difficult to see how it had made the Booker Longlist. This week I feel more justified in saying that because Held by Anne Michaels has such a high quality of writing and thought-provoking content that from the first page I felt as though I was reading something special.

When I am reading, I particularly like it when an author gives me something to read that causes me to stop for a moment and consider what is being said. The opening line of this book is:

'We know life is finite. Why should we believe that death lasts forever?'

The whole book is divided up into small segments as though we are turning the pages of a photograph album that gradually reveals who the people are from crumbs of information left for us to follow. The segments are within sections that move across generations and the thread that binds them is the idea that we can have an awareness of someone, living or dead, when we find ourselves alone.

The book resonated with me because I have always had the feeling that we can sense others, both living and dead, at times when our bond needs to be felt. There are no voices or apparitions but sometimes we just know something on a deeper level than we can articulate. The feeling can bring comfort or unease but it comes unexpectedly and persists like the continuing sound of a bell after the note has been struck.

I looked Anne Michaels up on Google and I find she is the same age as me, which doesn't surprise me as I think this is the kind of age where we start to understand more about what life is. We are not so old that we are preparing to die but we are old enough to have experienced births and deaths and we are informed enough to consider new aspects of reality. I don't believe that a young person could write a book like this because they wouldn't have had the time to think it all through, whatever their circumstances.

This book should not be rushed or skimmed but considered in a quiet place where you can drift away on your own thoughts and see where it takes you.

Comments

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