I read it during lockdown, but alone. Just when I was finished, I learned that Yiyun Li had run a reading group with War and Peace and afterwards published "Reading Tolstoy" which I can truely recommend on the side, as you read War and Peace: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57271721-tolstoy-together
I started reading it a month or so ago. Got a few hundred pages in and stopped. I was really enjoying it but I go distracted. I also need to return to it.
It’s a beautiful piece. As much as I understand that death is natural it always feels like a terrible cosmic mistake.
My thought about the rabbit’s gaze heavenward was that it was terrified of a hawk finding it helpless. I feel like prey animals live in near constant panic. Hell, I do and I objectively have nothing to fear from any predator.
Regarding the second point, on the idea of a hawk. I had the same thought, but I also realized that I (a human) was looming over it, and that the dog that injured it was, for a little while, quite visible to it, and yet it wasn't even looking at the dog that had just savaged it (clearly the #1 threat). Maybe it was some sort of inexorable genetic programming to always watch the skies, but I'd like to think not.
Something about danger in the sky is so arresting though. The SF book, “Sheep look up” has a haunting title. And Of all the Army slogans I’ve seen, the 82nd airborne is the scariest: Death from above.
Of course the rabbit probably never read the book or signed up.
"I’m free to contradict myself, regardless of it makes sense."
This reminds me of a headline in the Danish intellectual-left-wing newspaper Information, back in the days: "I am enough of a dialectician to contradict myself" (Jeg er dialektiker nok til at modsige mig selv)
I loved the figure of the sky moving above. My rabbit story: At the very beginning of the pandemic my neighbor came over, desperate for help. There had been a cold rain, and a rabbit had tried to go through on of the squares in a chain link fence. It was stuck there, back and front halves of it dangling on either side. Not fluffy, it was soaked.
We were in the days when you didn’t know if you should be within 10 feet of friends, so we were flirting with danger just by interacting. But something had to be done, right? I pulled the rabbit out of the fencing. It was breathing but limp. There was no question of bringing a possibly sick wild animal inside either of our homes. So I wrapped it lightly in a towel and set it in a sheltered niche under another neighbor’s juniper hedge. It would recover or its light would go out, best we could do. It was about a year before we entered our neighbor’s yard again. No bunny, no bones. Maybe a fox got it. Just another in the quadrillions of deaths leading up to our time.
Not to ruin the vibe but here is a somewhat worse story from about five or six years ago. My wife calls me to the backyard for a small dying animal, a little mammal that I was having trouble identifying. The dogs had found it and had been harassing it until she chased them away. We can't see any injuries on it but it won't move and seems hurt in some undefined way. Maybe the dogs did something? We decide to do the humane thing and finish it as painlessly as possible and dispose of it in the woods.
So, Chey and the dogs go in the house and I get a shovel. I smash it quite hard several times thinking that it should be dead now, scoop it onto the shovel and begin to walk it to the back fence. As I throw it over the back fence, a word comes into my mind...possum. And then a phrase...playing possum. By the time the possum lands a whole story has shaped itself in my head, not so tender as most of the ones shared here today, a story of an animal that was terrified by my dogs and cowered, played dead, played possum. In this story that self-assembles in my mind, the possum was uninjured until I, in my rather fierce tenderness, beat it over the head with a shovel.
I look for the possum but can't find it and just walk back into the house feeling like a fool. And then there is nothing to do. No way to make right what I made wrong.
Dude. Just about two weeks ago, our own bun died (albeit not due to a predator, even though we live in a home with 5 cats). Then last week we ended up adopting another one who is already at the 7+ year mark of a 7-10 year lifespan. So, you know. This really hit home.
Yeah, well, one of our cats is 21, which makes him 104 in cat years, and when we adopted him (back when he was only eight, after spending his whole life to that point in an abandoned car, FIV positive and frostbitten and patchy of fur) nobody expected him to last more than a year. So there's precedent.
Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023Liked by Erik Hoel
My lord, how beautiful, Erik.
When my own son was four, I had him look at a squirrel's body, on the side of the road -- and then look again a few days later, and again, and again, till it was bones, and then all dirt. I told him it was beautiful how bodies become other bodies again -- the trees, and grass, and flowers, and so on -- but all I could think about, really, was the thought of him dying one day, and of him experiencing the nonstop rush of losses that human life is. The circle of life stuff is beautiful, but also BS. I want to be alive with my son forever. I want us to be alive together forever with the birds of the sky, and also the bunnies of the field...
I walk to work and back, every day. It's about 8 km altogether, right through the heart of Berlin. I get to know my neighbours, my hood, the mood of the city, and nature in it.
One day, I saw several young girls standing close to each other. There was a man and he had an owl in his hand. It's wing was broken, and the girls had seen how it moved, and how some ravens were already closing in. What could we do? We decided to bring the owl to a veterinarian. So the girls went to school, and the guy (who was from New England, on a holiday trip in Berlin) and me went to a vet. The vet looked at the owl and said, easy. But he already had three operations started and asked if we could bring the owl, which was easily treatable, to a vet clinic on the other side of town. The holiday guy from New England had stuff to do, so the vet gave me a box for the owl and off I went.
At the clinic, they also said, this looks manageable. They took the owl, thanked me, and that's all I know. But when we were going with the train, the owl looked at me from inside the box, deep down into my eyes right to my soul. It seemed it was thinking what is this guy doing here? Is he eating me, or does he understand? I will never forget the way this owl looked at me.
And see, this is what happens when you walk. You see the world around you. All the persons with cars on that day in that neighborhood, they never saw the owl. They never helped this wounded animal. And it is them that are the poorer for it.
I am reminded of when our cat Victoria died. We had only had her a few months when she got hit by a car, she was still just a kitten really. Susannah, a daughter, was less than two but more than one at the time and she cried inconsolably. She is almost four now, and she does understand death, the permanence of it, and she still thinks and sometimes talks about Victoria, especially in the context of death.
I don't know how old your son is, and I won't presume to offer advice, but children can understand what is happening, and I don't think that there is a loss of innocence, or a cloud over them or anything like that. Death is a part of humanity and I think that you will find that they have all of the tools that they need to accept it. I would just say what you honestly believe and how you feel. Children are capable of understanding far more than they are capable of expressing, and in my experience, the thing that takes their childhood away most is when we deceive them, whether about facts or about our own emotions.
Had a similar situation with a lizard the other day. Cat caught it and shook it so hard as to break its neck. Every once in a while it would breath but without limb function, it was slow doom ahead. My girlfriend asked if the lizard will survive. Yes, I lied. Meanwhile, I was plotting ways to kill it swiftly. But I couldn’t do it. Didn’t have it in me. And while I could bear the cruelty of nature, I did suffer from the two counts of failed courage.
Beautifully written and poignant. The world is a better place for that story. I think it is important to slow, be thoughtful and contemplative in those moments between life and death - human or animal, predator or prey. Thanks for sharing :-)
So much richness to your words. As I read Jed McKenna there are many shared insights of what it all means. Important to take our own perspective as truth in such life questions...
This is beautiful. I'm not sure if it would take away from the meaning if I asked if Prince Andrei (the rabbit) survived? But I'm still young and barely an adult so I can't help but ask.
I wish I could tell you Naomi! I unfortunately don't know, and doubt I'll ever know. I think we have to be agnostic as to the fate of the prince. Sometimes you just have to live with ambiguity. I wish I could tell you doing so gets easier, but I'm not sure that's true.
Hit right in the feels, this post. Feel I need to reread War and Peace.
I read it during lockdown, but alone. Just when I was finished, I learned that Yiyun Li had run a reading group with War and Peace and afterwards published "Reading Tolstoy" which I can truely recommend on the side, as you read War and Peace: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57271721-tolstoy-together
Just saying.
Interesting. I did read a TON of books during Covid in 2020, including Anna Karenina and Brothers K.
I started reading it a month or so ago. Got a few hundred pages in and stopped. I was really enjoying it but I go distracted. I also need to return to it.
It’s definitely worth the effort! One of those books that stays with you for years and years
For sure!
It’s a beautiful piece. As much as I understand that death is natural it always feels like a terrible cosmic mistake.
My thought about the rabbit’s gaze heavenward was that it was terrified of a hawk finding it helpless. I feel like prey animals live in near constant panic. Hell, I do and I objectively have nothing to fear from any predator.
Agreed
Regarding the second point, on the idea of a hawk. I had the same thought, but I also realized that I (a human) was looming over it, and that the dog that injured it was, for a little while, quite visible to it, and yet it wasn't even looking at the dog that had just savaged it (clearly the #1 threat). Maybe it was some sort of inexorable genetic programming to always watch the skies, but I'd like to think not.
Something about danger in the sky is so arresting though. The SF book, “Sheep look up” has a haunting title. And Of all the Army slogans I’ve seen, the 82nd airborne is the scariest: Death from above.
Of course the rabbit probably never read the book or signed up.
"I’m free to contradict myself, regardless of it makes sense."
This reminds me of a headline in the Danish intellectual-left-wing newspaper Information, back in the days: "I am enough of a dialectician to contradict myself" (Jeg er dialektiker nok til at modsige mig selv)
I'm not crying you're crying.
You are right. I am crying.
😂😂
I loved the figure of the sky moving above. My rabbit story: At the very beginning of the pandemic my neighbor came over, desperate for help. There had been a cold rain, and a rabbit had tried to go through on of the squares in a chain link fence. It was stuck there, back and front halves of it dangling on either side. Not fluffy, it was soaked.
We were in the days when you didn’t know if you should be within 10 feet of friends, so we were flirting with danger just by interacting. But something had to be done, right? I pulled the rabbit out of the fencing. It was breathing but limp. There was no question of bringing a possibly sick wild animal inside either of our homes. So I wrapped it lightly in a towel and set it in a sheltered niche under another neighbor’s juniper hedge. It would recover or its light would go out, best we could do. It was about a year before we entered our neighbor’s yard again. No bunny, no bones. Maybe a fox got it. Just another in the quadrillions of deaths leading up to our time.
Not to ruin the vibe but here is a somewhat worse story from about five or six years ago. My wife calls me to the backyard for a small dying animal, a little mammal that I was having trouble identifying. The dogs had found it and had been harassing it until she chased them away. We can't see any injuries on it but it won't move and seems hurt in some undefined way. Maybe the dogs did something? We decide to do the humane thing and finish it as painlessly as possible and dispose of it in the woods.
So, Chey and the dogs go in the house and I get a shovel. I smash it quite hard several times thinking that it should be dead now, scoop it onto the shovel and begin to walk it to the back fence. As I throw it over the back fence, a word comes into my mind...possum. And then a phrase...playing possum. By the time the possum lands a whole story has shaped itself in my head, not so tender as most of the ones shared here today, a story of an animal that was terrified by my dogs and cowered, played dead, played possum. In this story that self-assembles in my mind, the possum was uninjured until I, in my rather fierce tenderness, beat it over the head with a shovel.
I look for the possum but can't find it and just walk back into the house feeling like a fool. And then there is nothing to do. No way to make right what I made wrong.
Dude. Just about two weeks ago, our own bun died (albeit not due to a predator, even though we live in a home with 5 cats). Then last week we ended up adopting another one who is already at the 7+ year mark of a 7-10 year lifespan. So, you know. This really hit home.
Thanks.
Awwww, thanks - and I hope the new bun beats all laws of physics and biology and just goes and goes
Yeah, well, one of our cats is 21, which makes him 104 in cat years, and when we adopted him (back when he was only eight, after spending his whole life to that point in an abandoned car, FIV positive and frostbitten and patchy of fur) nobody expected him to last more than a year. So there's precedent.
Awwwww that’s cute man
My lord, how beautiful, Erik.
When my own son was four, I had him look at a squirrel's body, on the side of the road -- and then look again a few days later, and again, and again, till it was bones, and then all dirt. I told him it was beautiful how bodies become other bodies again -- the trees, and grass, and flowers, and so on -- but all I could think about, really, was the thought of him dying one day, and of him experiencing the nonstop rush of losses that human life is. The circle of life stuff is beautiful, but also BS. I want to be alive with my son forever. I want us to be alive together forever with the birds of the sky, and also the bunnies of the field...
I walk to work and back, every day. It's about 8 km altogether, right through the heart of Berlin. I get to know my neighbours, my hood, the mood of the city, and nature in it.
One day, I saw several young girls standing close to each other. There was a man and he had an owl in his hand. It's wing was broken, and the girls had seen how it moved, and how some ravens were already closing in. What could we do? We decided to bring the owl to a veterinarian. So the girls went to school, and the guy (who was from New England, on a holiday trip in Berlin) and me went to a vet. The vet looked at the owl and said, easy. But he already had three operations started and asked if we could bring the owl, which was easily treatable, to a vet clinic on the other side of town. The holiday guy from New England had stuff to do, so the vet gave me a box for the owl and off I went.
At the clinic, they also said, this looks manageable. They took the owl, thanked me, and that's all I know. But when we were going with the train, the owl looked at me from inside the box, deep down into my eyes right to my soul. It seemed it was thinking what is this guy doing here? Is he eating me, or does he understand? I will never forget the way this owl looked at me.
And see, this is what happens when you walk. You see the world around you. All the persons with cars on that day in that neighborhood, they never saw the owl. They never helped this wounded animal. And it is them that are the poorer for it.
I am reminded of when our cat Victoria died. We had only had her a few months when she got hit by a car, she was still just a kitten really. Susannah, a daughter, was less than two but more than one at the time and she cried inconsolably. She is almost four now, and she does understand death, the permanence of it, and she still thinks and sometimes talks about Victoria, especially in the context of death.
I don't know how old your son is, and I won't presume to offer advice, but children can understand what is happening, and I don't think that there is a loss of innocence, or a cloud over them or anything like that. Death is a part of humanity and I think that you will find that they have all of the tools that they need to accept it. I would just say what you honestly believe and how you feel. Children are capable of understanding far more than they are capable of expressing, and in my experience, the thing that takes their childhood away most is when we deceive them, whether about facts or about our own emotions.
Had a similar situation with a lizard the other day. Cat caught it and shook it so hard as to break its neck. Every once in a while it would breath but without limb function, it was slow doom ahead. My girlfriend asked if the lizard will survive. Yes, I lied. Meanwhile, I was plotting ways to kill it swiftly. But I couldn’t do it. Didn’t have it in me. And while I could bear the cruelty of nature, I did suffer from the two counts of failed courage.
Beautifully written and poignant. The world is a better place for that story. I think it is important to slow, be thoughtful and contemplative in those moments between life and death - human or animal, predator or prey. Thanks for sharing :-)
So much richness to your words. As I read Jed McKenna there are many shared insights of what it all means. Important to take our own perspective as truth in such life questions...
Beautiful.
That passage from War and Peace is my absolute favorite! It is the first "deep" passage in the book, after hundreds of pages in which nothing happens
This is beautiful. I'm not sure if it would take away from the meaning if I asked if Prince Andrei (the rabbit) survived? But I'm still young and barely an adult so I can't help but ask.
I wish I could tell you Naomi! I unfortunately don't know, and doubt I'll ever know. I think we have to be agnostic as to the fate of the prince. Sometimes you just have to live with ambiguity. I wish I could tell you doing so gets easier, but I'm not sure that's true.
this was a truly touching read. thank you.