The Sheila Variations

"Word came today"

This post made me cry - it's a swept-away and yet articulate response to Richard Powers' Goldbug Variations It brought me back to my own experience reading that extraordinary book ... and how blown away I was (and still am) by it. I've never written about Goldbug Variations because ... I find the prospect daunting, I guess. Where to start?? The same with Hopeful Monsters - a book that means more to me almost than any other. I can't seem to bring myself to write about it. The last big book on my personal-fave list (and I always think of these three together) is Mating - and that one I DID manage to write about. In a frenzy. I find some books hard to talk about. Because not only are they a good story, a good book - but they are sometimes like angels, come into my life at the perfect reason, to help me struggle with a certain issue ... the books show up - These 3 books were like that. There was no reason for me to read them. I picked up Hopeful Monsters because I liked the cover art and the description of the plot on the back. I picked up Mating because the description of the plot on the back spoke to me. Nobody recommended it. I read it a couple years after it won the National Book Award. And I picked up Goldbug Variations for ... I have no idea why. But these three books - together - ended up being woven together into a rope, a strong rope - for me to hold onto - until the bad-ness passed. This was in the late 90s. Each book is dog-eared from re-readings. I love them as BOOKS, but I also love them as saviors. Goldbug Variations came at a time when I was ricocheting around in my own loss, and I had been for about a year. Everything was cold, I was always walking into the wind. Goldbug it was challenging, a real feat, it takes concentration - and it's an intellectual battle. But (as it so often is for me) - the intellect is PART of the passion. It's not either/or. I don't separate. And an intellectual love affair ... hmmmm ... what would that be like? I know exactly what it would be like, and it is the only kind of relationship possible for me. There is a hopelessness in that. A swoon of necessity, of self-knowledge. And in these 3 books I list here - I've seen such a relationship described, dissected, analyzed. (Possession is another one, actually).

But alongside of (or woven into) the intellectual rigor of Goldbug Variations is this keening note of mourning, longing, bittersweet love ... Oh, how I know that. I know it better than anything else.

He feels a strange euphoria, an overwhelming sense of inevitability. The thing about to make its grand entrance surprises him by its uncanny familiarity.

-- Richard Powers, Goldbug Variations

"Are you waiting for someone?" he asked. It was the first time he had spoken to me, ever.
I didn't say what I wanted to say, which was, "Yeah. You." Instead, I smiled up at him, strange how familiar he seemed, uncanny familiarity, and said merely, "Yeah."

I still haven't written about Goldbug Variations. I still don't feel ready.

Here's the link again to the post that started off my brain a-spiralling. Thinking about that book makes my heart pound faster.

Posted by sheila