2024 #33: Mrs. Death Misses Death (Godden)

 

Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a reason I characterize this as both poetry and fiction. I'll borrow from Sara Collins who described the work this way in her review in The Guardian:
The effect is to produce a collage of speech and speechlessness, a story that sometimes slips away from you even while you are reading it, becoming a memento mori in form as well as content. In other words, it’s exactly the sort of thing you expect when a poet writes a novel, and exactly the sort of thing you’ll devour if you like huge helpings of experimentation with your fiction..

Experimental, yes. I occasionally subject myself to the whimsy of algorithms and the title was captivating, so I bought it as an audiobook without reading anything about it. I had assumed it was going to be a cutesy mystery of some sort, but evidently the algorithms were feeling my one reading of Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse more than my plentiful cozy mysteries. From the outset, it is fairly clear this is not a standard novel. Godden is fond of litany as a poetic form, and I felt relieved I was hearing her read it, rather than reading the litanies in print myself. This is a book where it is very much an advantage to hear Godden's reading because she illuminates her own poetry in a way that few might receive it on the page.

To be fair to the algorithmic gods, it does remind me of Woolf's To the Lighthouse as there is only a modicum of actual, traditional "plot" and it is more about musings on death, and even more so, life. We don't get a tidy explanation for Wolf Willeford's mental state vis-a-vis their conversations with Mrs. Death, so the latter straddles allegorical figure and actual character. One might argue drawing conclusions about that aren't very important, but I suspect most readers will find themselves curious, although no doubt carried along by the talking desk and sessions with the therapist. There is plenty of biting social commentary, and the moments of wit pop out of a fabric that is woven from some very dark and dense cloth.

Quote: "Since you were here and sh*t, you might as well give a sh*t."

There was one sentence that I wanted to be the end of the book:
"It's a very simple question that life asks: will you walk with me?"

Godden doesn't end it there, and one can see why, but even after reading the "diary entries" that follow, it was that line that stayed with me the most. It is a helpful question--hopeful, even. But I cannot wholesale give this book a description of "hopeful." It is a longform poem (mostly) that digs into questions of gender and existence in a fresh way that is both alarming and familiar.

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