the great leslie

Since the sun barely shone on the East Coast during the month of June, I got a lot of reading done. I  noticed an interesting phenomenon in the books I'd chosen: the non-death.

In Stern Men, a novel by Elizabeth Gilbert, Jane Smith-Ellis is sitting on a rock on the Maine coast, knitting and enjoying a moment away from her demanding mistress and her small child. Just as an envoy from the main house calls to Jane to return to her mistress, a huge wave breaks over the rock where she is sitting and she is washed away, never to be seen again.

In The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino, the baron, Cosimo, lives and loves and organizes his people from the trees. Eventually, he grows old and sick. One morning, the townspeople notice he has climbed to the very top of one of the trees and is looking out over the tops of the olives and oaks in which he has spent his life living. Suddenly a hot air balloon floats by, with a long rope dangling from its basket. Cosimo grabs the rope and is carried off, as if he'd been waiting for a ride.

In Haruki Murakami's Sputnick Sweetheart, the spunky main character, Sumire, simply vanishes, "up in smoke," while visiting Greece with her employer (who also happens to be the woman with whom she is in love). She just disappears, and although it's not clear that she's actually dead, she never appears in reality again.

And so this question occured to me: is a dramatic, silent passing from the visible realm better than a slow demise in a hospital bed or a violent, vengeful death (like Anna Karenina's)? Perhaps, on some level, we all wish to be carried away to the sea or into the air, as if we were never really there at all.

I just started reading Sputnick Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami. I've talked about this book, and about its author (perhaps more about its author) with many people over the years and even in the last week. As my eyes scanned the first sentences, I thought of all my friends and co-workers and even enemies who have read those same words and how, suddenly, I was in the same place they'd all been. This book, and all books, will have its own meaning for me and will affect my thoughts in a unique way, but it will be a shared experience, like visiting a landmark or going to a party. Each page is like a step taken on a well-traveled path.