Madeleines From Reading A Long Way Down
Nick Hornby’s novel, A Long Way Down, revolves around four individuals who bump into one another (literally in some cases) atop a building where each has independently arrived with the intention to commit suicide. They decide to defer taking their lives and, instead, form an especially odd gang, lending each other mutual support and understanding.
One of the characters, Maureen, stands out as unusual even in this group. Maureen’s entire life consists of caring for her child who is so neurologically impaired that he can’t even recognize her existence. While Maureen’s personality is established only over time, one of her internal monologues seems to me especially poignant:
What I’ve come to realize over the years is that we’re less protected from bad luck than you could possibly imagine. Because though it doesn’t seem fair – having intercourse only the once and ending up with a child who can’t walk or talk or even recognize me – well, fairness doesn’t really have much to do with it, does it? … And once you have a child like Matty you can’t help but feel, That’s it! That’s all my bad luck, a whole lifetime’s worth, in one bundle. But I’m not sure luck works like that. Matty wouldn’t stop me from getting breast cancer, or from being mugged. You’d think he should, but he can’t.
While the content of the knowledge itself is sad to the point of evoking pathos, it strikes me as exactly the type of self-acknowledgement, shunning the false hope proffered by notions of luck or magically administered cosmic justice, necessary for one to become an adult with the potential for living with dignity.
Well said. There comes a point at which we realize that our sense of justice or order, grace or mercy does not constitute any kind of obligation on the part of the universe. Justice, order, mercy and even love we can impart to to the world insofar as we have small power and moments in time, but they are not things we can rely upon. They can be our gifts to give, and therein lies the nobility to which we can aspire.
These truths are hard lessons, dearly won, a second growing up.
Comment by MindSpin — October 23, 2006 @ 5:03 pm