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Fiction. Literature. HTML:The first novel by Anthony Doerr, the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning #1 New York Times bestseller All the Light We Cannot See, one of the most beautiful, wise, and compelling debuts of recent times. David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen�??a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream. On a Caribbean island, destitute, alone, and unsure if his child has survived or his wife can forgive him, David is sheltered by a couple with a daughter of their own. Ultimately it is she who will pull him back into the world, to search for the people he left behind. Doerr's characters are full of grief and longing, but also replete with grace. His compassion for human frailty is extraordinarily moving. In luminous prose, he writes about the power and beauty of nature and about the tiny miracles that transform our lives. About Grace is heartbreaking, radiant, and astonishingly accomplish… (more)
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OK - sometimes that feels true - I can't help but project a "What If" onto my own kids -
I don't know if I liked the main character of "About Grace". David Winkler is one of the most disconnected human beings I've ever read about. He seems able to study and show interest in pieces of the natural world (water, snowflakes, cold) but when it comes to relating to other people - he seems almost a total loss. He proves to be a very interesting combination of tireless worker - he can do any sort of mindless labor for hours on end - and total drifter. In most of the major stages of his life - he is unable to make choices for himself - he lets other people, sometimes total strangers, make decisions for him.
He can't seem to connect completely to his wife, his child, his best friends...and yet he'll stay in the homes of strangers, listen to intimate details of their lives. He cannot seem to find any sort of balance - any "normal" way to prioritize relationships or tasks.
When he fears he may let something happen to his baby daughter (premonitions) - he removes himself from her life...for 23 years. He's not even sure she's still alive and worries endlessly about it - but doesn't take even the most rudimentary steps to find out.
After 23 years, when he finally manages to get to a place in his life (or maybe his mind) where he can actually take some action to find out if Grace is dead or alive, he deludes himself into thinking it will be easy to be a part of her life again, that he will be welcomed with open arms.
"Along those miles, and the miles to come, he crossed and recrossed a thousand reinventions of his daughter. Grace as a housewife, apron lashed to her hips, biscuit dough drying on her fingers. Maybe a tiny granddaughter, polite, madly pleased, some pureed squash smeared across her cheeks, pushing back from the table. Grandfather, she would say, and curtsey, and giggle. Grandfather, like a father who had succeeded so long and so long he'd been promoted."
I found myself shaking my head at the idea that a father who had never really been a part of his child's life would think he'd be hailed as a conquering hero when he finally decided to make contact.
And then...his inability to handle the smallest details. "He bent, and drank, and drank again. Lightning touched a tree not a half mile from him, and it made a profound popping like the sound of water being poured into a deep-fryer. When he finally pulled back from the river, kneeling on the bank, he realized his glasses had been taken from his face."
He drifts through the world for weeks, unable to see, and when he finally gets new glasses (through no action of his own) he in childishly delighted. "To see again - to discern a tree or face or cloud with an acceptable level of clarity - was the smallest kind of revival, a tiny breakthrough, but enough to start happiness in his heart - the joy of recognizing things, an improvement in his relationship with the world."
So I don't know if I liked this frustrating man...but I did form a connection with him. Maybe it was just my desire to see him repair what he could of the disjointedness of his life...maybe it was the small pieces in time when he seemed to show (or at least experience) emotion towards those he professed to love.
"...Winkler had been grateful all his life that he had been given that moment with her (his mother), maybe one or two complete minutes, he and the animals and his mother, the only person who had ever really understood him, and he imagined he could see the animals taking her with them, solemnly and delicately, escorting the life out of her, something gauzy and illuminated, like a jar full of fireflies, or the flame of a candle behind a curtain, her soul, perhaps, or something beyond words, and carrying it with them back into the walls of the building, heading for the roof."
Now that I read that, though, he seems only to experience people in terms of nature. The same again when he is standing at the gravestone of a woman he loved.
"A ladybug scaled the D in her name. Her life represented in a two-inch etched hyphen. A breeze came up and passed over the stones and spirit houses and ascended the hillside into the spruce, and pushed higher still, to the patches of tundra, and the still-melting fields of snow, stirring the tiny new blooms of avens and saxifrage, tucked into the highest rocks, starting their summer yellows and purples."
While still very detached, the writing is at times lovely. The descriptions of anything found in nature are both detailed and evocative. Doerr's descriptions of snow and snowflakes paint incredibly beautiful pictures...at times I could practically smell the snow in the air.
There was not enough to make me like Winkler...but I suppose at the end, what I felt for this incredibly flawed character, was pity.
"Winkler was sixty years old. He wore oversized glasses; he had liver spots on the back of his hands. He had been a gardener at a two-star inn for twenty-five years and now he worked at a Lens Crafters in the Fifth Avenue Mall, making $7.65 an hour."
A sad book, about an almost wasted life. One worth reading about, even if understanding is impossible.
Doerr often comes back to a couple of themes in this one, which is basically the theme of water and the theme of frozen water and the identity of snowflakes. He isn't so hokey as to spell it out that snowflakes are like people but that idea is there. Doerr's protagonist also becomes friends with a young lady who grows up to study all kinds of insects so that is another aspect of Science present within the text.
Memorable Quotes:
pg. 26 "How much, how much, how much? A drop of water contains 10^20 molecules, each one agitated and twitchy, linking and separating with its neighbors, then linking up again, swapping partners millions of time a second. All water in any body is desperate to find more, to adhere to more of itself, to cling to the hand that holds it; to find clouds, or oceans; to scream from the throat of a teakettle."
pg. 111 "He thought of the feeling he'd had leaving the post office in St. Vincent: a sensation as if his body might dissolve into light-a crackling at the back of his skill, a damp sigh, a thread pulling apart."
pg. 166 "A snowflake, a honeycomb, a spider's web stretched across the doorframe. He found a dead katydid in the corner of the apartment and turned it in his hands, the small, polished thorax, ten thousand tiny hexagons in its diaphanous wings. Sixes and sixes and sixes. Were there solutions here, clues to what he was missing?
...
"Insomnia, a pending calamity: Hadn't he been through all this before? He thought of graduate school, growing ice on a supercooled copper pipe. Each dendritic arm of a snow crystal always corresponded precisely to the others, as if, as they formed, each knew what the other five arms were up to. Was this so different from the shape of his own life, the way his personal history seemed to repeat itself...He was trapped in the lattice of an ice crystal, more molecules precipitating around him every second; soon he would be at the center, locked in a hexagonal prison; one of them, a quarter billion of them."
pg. 324 "Soon the cacti were behind him, or invisible in the dark, and all that remained were gray and corrugated mountains at the horizons and the immense darkening cistern of the sky, trimmed at the edges with orange.
...
He spent the last hours of darkness in a rest stop between two putting car carriers. All night he half woke to the sounds of truckers swinging open the door of the outhouse and relieving themselves. An echoing trickle; a noise like small, individual lives passing away. Ina dream he watched a winged ghost disappear through columns of falling snow. Each time he drew close, the ghost faded deeper down the trail. Finally it dissolved for good, just the faint blush of its wings receding, and Winkler stopped running to gaze up at ranks of descending snow, snow all the way to the limits of the earth. He woke sweating."
pg. 239 "In the night, wrapped in his poncho, the moon seemed to move closer, filling his whole frame of vision seeping around the edges of his eyelids, abrading him, his skin and skeleton, until he felt he would become nothing but membrane, a rippling film of soul, until he was lying on the outermost ridge towards heaven, the stars at his feet, the very core of the universe within reach."
pg. 244 "...two Inuit boys by the windows stared into the screens of their handheld video games with the ardor of believers."
pg. 258 "But here she was-not a ghost or a figment, but real: a hand on his ankle, water pouring out of a bucket, a kettle scraping across the stove. She had slipped through a crack somehow a rift in the fabric, an intersection at the edge of things."
...
pg. 258-259 "Ten billion insects for every square kilometer of land surface-a million ants for every person-and humans think they dominate Earth"
pg. 288 "Watch the snow fly through the air. Watch the wind come up, and the flakes rise, and swim-each, it seems, travels in a separate direction. The flakes grow bigger; they blow in ghostly waves; they become flowers, raging through the boughs. In the arctic, Winkler had heard, explorers became hypnotized watching snow fall, so entranced they had frozen to death. And what indeed, he thought, standing at the desk in the outrageous cold, could be more important than watching snow fly into the meadow, and settle on the hills, and gradually conceal the trees?"
pg. 293 "What you realize, ultimately, when you have nothing to lose, is that even though the world can be kind to you and reveal its beauty through the thin cracks in everything,, in the end it will either take your or leave you."
pg. 296 "Dreams were the reciprocal of each place you visited when you were awake, each hour you passed through. For every moment in the present there was a mirror in the future, and another in the past. Memory and action object and shadow, wakefulness and sleep. Put a sun over us and we each have our twin, attached to our feet, dragging about with us in lockstep. Tray and outrun it.
pg. 316 "When he thought of cancer he saw a black throat; he saw ink soaking through a napkin; rot, eating a tree from the inside out."
pg. 329 "Above him the ceiling tiles seemed to peel away one by one and reveal a sky where stars whirled on and on out toward the arms of the galaxy...He said something about time, about how once they had a little more time it might be easier, how she could take all the time she needed. But all around them the physics of time were coming apart, betraying them both. What was a minute? A lifetime?"
The mythology of the Great Flood still lives in our heads. The fear and awe of
As I continued reading, I thought of Joyce:
All day I hear the noise of waters making moan,
Sad as the sea-bird is when, going forth alone,
He hears the winds cry to the water's monotone.
The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing where I go.
I hear the noise of many waters far below.
All day, all night, I hear them flowing
To and fro.
But David Winkler is trapped by his dreams. He runs from them and stays away until his transformation is completed. Like a snowflake. "To enter a world of shadows is to leave this world for another." Yet we stay patient and we read on, because now we are attached to David Winkler. He is a refugee. We all are, in one way or another. His travels from Alaska to Ohio to the Caribbean involve us more and more, even as we barely notice other major characters enter the book.
I truly enjoyed this novel, even though I fought it. The author dictates the character's pace, so it's my job as the reader to adjust my expectations and adapt to the protagonist. I was justly rewarded.
Book Season = Winter (brew some herbal tea)
His journey takes him across several states and eventually back to Alaska, where he spends time photographing snowflakes in order to capture the fleeting beauty and perfection of what nature can produce. By profession he’s a hydrologist—a person who studies the nature of water and all the forms it takes, and it’s almost a secondary character. Between temperate seas to raging storms to the not-as-barren-as-you’d-think beauty of the last outpost in the Alaskan tundra water shapes the lives of the characters in myriad ways.
Doerr weaves a convincing and affecting story of what a man will do to protect the ones he loves—even if it means abandoning them—and how he redeems himself the best way he is able.
My favorite thing about Doerr's writing is the way he captures wonder and awe. This book is no exception.
David Winkler has the gift of second sight. His dreams predict the future. Can he alter that future by changing part of the event when it occurs? Often, his dreams predict tragedy, but also they predict kismet as when he dreams of the
Soon, David begins to have recurring dreams predicting the drowning death of his daughter when the Chagrin River overflows, and he fails in his attempt to carry her to safety. To prevent his dream from coming true, as other dreams of his have done, David spontaneously abandons his family, traveling 2000 miles away to the Grenadines in a cargo ship. When the actual flood occurs, in 1977, he hopes that if he isn’t there with Grace, she will live on and he can alter her future. After some weeks away, and several attempts to reach his wife, he is successful. He hopes to find out if Grace and she have survived. He is hoping Sandy will take him back and forgive him for abandoning them once she understands his reason. He hopes to arrange for his return with her help. He has run with only the clothes on his back. However, she neither tells him about his daughter’s survival nor does she want him back. She tells him never to return.
David begins a second life in St. Vincent. He is a vagabond, with no means of support. Lonely, bereft, hungry and unkempt, he wakes one day and meets Felix Orellana sitting and eating next to him. He takes him home with him, explaining that it is Easter which is a time of forgiving. David had already met his wife, Soma. She helped him place his phone calls to Sandy. They are both kind and caring people. He grows close with their young daughter, Naaliyah, and he teaches her how to carefully observe the world around her which inspires her to begin a career as an Entymologist. When his dreams once again disturb his reality, becoming more frightening as he once again dreams of a drowning, he tries to warn Naaliyah that she must stay away from the water or she will drown. More and more he wonders, can he alter the future once it has been written? Can he save her when his dream becomes reality?
Years pass and David adjusts to his new and limited lifestyle. He takes whatever job he is able to find, but always, in the back of his mind he wonders if his own daughter is still alive. He is sorry for what he has done because he believes it was all for naught, and she must be dead. One day, Naaliyah provides him with an address for Sandy Sheeler, who is back in Anchorage Alaska. Both she and her mom encourage him to contact her and try to find out about Grace. The lack of knowledge about her is tormenting him. However, he does not follow up on their suggestion.
Finally, after living on the island for 25 years, he takes what money he has saved and leaves the Grenadines to return to Cleveland and begin a search for Grace. He obtains a list of all Grace Winklers and begins to hunt for her across America. He is overwhelmed, and along the way he is attacked and severely injured by one of the Grace Winklers he locates, and eventually, he is robbed of all his remaining money. He finally makes his way to Alaska, wounded and hungry, alone and hopeless, and he begins to search for Naaliyah. She eventually finds him, battered and ill, and she helps to nurse him back to health. Throughout the years, David has lived by the grace of others who have been kind to him in spite of his disheveled state and poverty. His rescuers have been abundant. He soon resumes his search and winds up at the door of Herman Sheeler, in Anchorage. He helps him to find out about Grace and, oddly, they actually develop a friendship.
The book is about finding Grace Winkler, but it is also about the different variations of the term grace, as in the saying of a prayer of thanks, or a refined and elegant behavior, or the favoring someone with your blessings or your presence, or granting a reprieve in the fulfillment of a promise or showing someone a kindness. It is about forgiveness.
The novel is well researched. Every subject brought up is explored completely in layman’s terms so the reader even understands hydrology and entymology. David studies water and has a particular interest in snow crystals. Naaliyah explores the insect world with a passion. Doerr has connected us to their world and made the study of snow and of bugs romantic and a thing of beauty. There are so many interwoven parts of this novel that the reader is never bored, just intrigued and eager to turn the page to become more and more involved and invested in the well developed characters’ lives.
"In our memories the stories of our lives defy chronology, resist transcription: past ambushes prensent, and future hurries into history." (page 200)
"What are dreams? A ladle dipped, a bucket lowered. The deep cool water beneath the bright
This author has a fascination with science- and renders characters who study bugs, and snowflakes with such precision- it is as though he is the scientist, showing us the human creature in its flawed, beautiful complexity.
A naturally quiet, gentle man he is fey, and sees and senses incredible details of the physical world around him whether it is a rain drop, or a snow flake, or a leaf, or a footstep, etc. Despite his periodic strange actions, and his inability to articulate his thoughts and feelings clearly, there are many kind and caring people around him. They take the time to speak with him and get to know him, and get a sense of his beautiful inner soul. His mother understood and loved him deeply and inspired him.
I believe that the most dramatic life-changing action he took happened because someone who should have understood him did not. If her behavior had been loving and supportive instead of critical and sharp, he would not have experienced a terrifying premonition so deeply. He possibly would not have left his home and family in Ohio.
But he does ends up in the Caribbean, spending the next 25 years finding himself. Hiding from the terror of his premonition, and very slowly healing with help from Soma, Felix and their children.
When the next awful premonition comes, he tries warning people but they don't fully understand him. He realizes its up to him to act and prevent a tragedy. And once again this event is life-changing but in a much more positive way.
So much feeling, love, kindness, soul, science, learning in David and in this gorgeous book.
(Re-reading my review of Doerr's All the Light We Cannot Sea, I realized how similar David and Frederick are. Both having brilliant minds above the superficiality of the world because they see so much deeper. )