A Density of Souls
So a friend of mine has been bugging me to provide to her a list of all the books I think people should read. I’ve done a good job of putting this information out there for the public to know I think.
But tonight, I sit, re-reading my favourite book ever, and thinking of how much I wish everyone could read it and appreciate it as much as I do.
I’ve started the book tonight, it will be the 7th or 8th time that I’ve read this book. It always makes me feel different emotions, and inevitably ends up leaving me in sobbing fits on my bed. Its not that its sad, or horrible, though its both of those. This book first was given to me by my best friend, and first “boyfriend” if one could call us that, in high school, my junior year, when all the turmoil of coming out had made me believe I would never recover.
This book, A Density of Souls, Christopher Rice, has had the most profound impact on my life. The book is the story of four students, who are best friends and inseparable as children, living in New Orleans, as they grow through High School and into college. They are faced with the realities of high school in ways we can all appreciate. Two of them become football jocks, the girl a bulimic cheerleader, and the fourth, an outcast of the school. The story is generations old, bringing into fold their parents old feuds, grandparents secrets, and a town full of drama that is untouchable. This story is well written by Mr. Rice, combining his mother’s (Anne Rice) ability to describe a scene and emotions to perfect visual imagination without her curse of requiring 11 pages to do so. (My biggest complaint of Anne Rice’s writing was that by the time she had finished telling me what the cemetery looked like, I felt like I was on my way to it myself)
This novel brought to the forefront of my mind emotions I never realized I had felt, and re-reading it now, over 4 years later, it is reminding me of those emotions, and how they burden me today, still.
I’m not writing this for pity, or compassion, nor am I doing so to make conversations in the future about the hurt I’ve felt. I’m writing this because I feel that it is important, so important for us to always be able to, or try to be able to understand where people have come from, and where they are heading.
I’m loathe to plagiarize and so I take this opportunity to go ahead and give whatever credit may be necessary before sharing some of my favourite excerpts from this profound novel with you.
A Density of Souls, Christopher Rice. Talk Miramax Books, Hyperion, New York;2000.
The setup for this particular scene, is the first day of high-school. Stephen, the outcast of the four has come to the Drama Club meeting after school, and is sitting in the theatre classroom with the drama teacher. Jeff, a football player who also is involved in the Drama Club, has come in to let Mrs. Traulain, the teacher know, that he can’t make the meeting for Football related issues. As he walks out of the room he is face to face with Stephen:
“Freshman?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah,” Stephen answered, dropping his voice so suddenly and ridiculously that Jeff smiled, which made the discomfort worse.
“Junior,” Jeff said. “Gets better, dude.”
As Stephen tried another nod, Jeff stared at him for a second before turning and leaving. When Stephen finally heard the freight door slam shut behind Jeff, the aftershock of sudden desire congealed. He finally understood the whispers that had followed him around all day. He knew what was being said. And he knew it was true.
One cannot imagine that feeling, realizing one day, suddenly, what it is that has been inside of you all your life, and more importantly, realizing that others knew about it before you did. One cannot begin to process the grief and also the relief that this bestow upon you immediately. This novel is full of metaphor and comparisons that move past generational lines from age to age. This particular scene involves Stephen’s Grandmother (who makes only a brief appearance in the story, before Stephen’s mother Monica is even born.) The 1940s in New Orleans, the Irish part of town where yellow-fever swept through regularly.
As she heard the first clamor of voices from the street, she noticed there her hands were trembling. She contemplated whether Satan was an actual, real thing or if he had chosen to sprinkle himself about the world in rats along the rivers and in fevers that melted the body. A better fighting tactic, she thought.
This is the only mention of something that is all too familiar for those of us the queer community. AIDS, a fever that melts the body as much as malaria in this time period did, is so common a stumbling block within the community. And all of us have, at one time or another wondered also if Satan is in fact just sprinkling himself about the world in rats and fevers.
One of the most amazing things about this book is that it tells multiple tiny stories, giving way to serious contemplation about the though, emotion, and reason behind the decisions people make in their daily lives. Every bit of it we can relate to our own lives, and we do, while wondering if we are given to the same guttural instincts with which these “fictional” character might react. The name of Stephen’s mother, Monica was inspired by a handicapped boy from across the street of Mrs. O’Connel during a ferocious harvest moon-rise.
Willie Rizzo had gone swimming in the river with some Negro children when a dock pile slammed against the side of this head, fracturing his jaw and almost knocking one eye from its socket. The other children, terrified at being blamed over the death of a white boy who had dared to swim with them, dragged him to shore. Willie manages to live, but with a voice forever mangled by his slippery lower jaw. He walked with a wooden cane his father made for him. Margaret O’Connell had disclosed to Beatrice and Mother Millie that Mr. Rizzo had cut the cane from the very dock pile that almost killed his son, as a constant reminder of the boy’s crippling stupidity.
Reinforcing the theme of prejudice, and disgust of otherness, this mini-story reminds us of how the racism of the 40s is equal to homophobia we see today in our society. Swimming with children of color was as bad in the 40s as being friends with a queer kid is today for the football jocks of Cannon High School.
Stephen is obviously tormented through high school by his two former friends, Greg and Brandon for his sexuality. After running out of English class he shares with the two students with a note reading “FAG” taped to his backpack, he ends up crying in the nurse’s office, trying desperately to escape the pain of his life.
“Do you think you’re ready to go back to class, Stephen?” she asked.
“No,” he whispered.
“Well…” Nurse Schwartz seemed baffled. Her hand lifted off his shoulder, then touched him lightly again before she withdrew it completely. Her eyes wandered down the length of Stephen as if there was some solution in the way his legs attached to his hips.
“It’s never a good idea to cry like you do,” Nurse Schwartz said quietly, so the girl would not hear. “Kids can be mean, but if they see you that usually makes them meaner.”
“When will it stop?” Stephen asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“When are they going to leave me alone? They don’t have to like me. But I just want to know when they’re going to leave me alone,” Stephen said.
He raised his eyes to meet Nurse Schwartz’s pained gaze. There was no answer to his question.
This is going to be the end for today, I’ll continue this particular bloggin until I’ve covered enough of the book to convince people to read it, and given them something to think about in the meanwhile.
See ya soon!!
But tonight, I sit, re-reading my favourite book ever, and thinking of how much I wish everyone could read it and appreciate it as much as I do.
I’ve started the book tonight, it will be the 7th or 8th time that I’ve read this book. It always makes me feel different emotions, and inevitably ends up leaving me in sobbing fits on my bed. Its not that its sad, or horrible, though its both of those. This book first was given to me by my best friend, and first “boyfriend” if one could call us that, in high school, my junior year, when all the turmoil of coming out had made me believe I would never recover.
This book, A Density of Souls, Christopher Rice, has had the most profound impact on my life. The book is the story of four students, who are best friends and inseparable as children, living in New Orleans, as they grow through High School and into college. They are faced with the realities of high school in ways we can all appreciate. Two of them become football jocks, the girl a bulimic cheerleader, and the fourth, an outcast of the school. The story is generations old, bringing into fold their parents old feuds, grandparents secrets, and a town full of drama that is untouchable. This story is well written by Mr. Rice, combining his mother’s (Anne Rice) ability to describe a scene and emotions to perfect visual imagination without her curse of requiring 11 pages to do so. (My biggest complaint of Anne Rice’s writing was that by the time she had finished telling me what the cemetery looked like, I felt like I was on my way to it myself)
This novel brought to the forefront of my mind emotions I never realized I had felt, and re-reading it now, over 4 years later, it is reminding me of those emotions, and how they burden me today, still.
I’m not writing this for pity, or compassion, nor am I doing so to make conversations in the future about the hurt I’ve felt. I’m writing this because I feel that it is important, so important for us to always be able to, or try to be able to understand where people have come from, and where they are heading.
I’m loathe to plagiarize and so I take this opportunity to go ahead and give whatever credit may be necessary before sharing some of my favourite excerpts from this profound novel with you.
A Density of Souls, Christopher Rice. Talk Miramax Books, Hyperion, New York;2000.
The setup for this particular scene, is the first day of high-school. Stephen, the outcast of the four has come to the Drama Club meeting after school, and is sitting in the theatre classroom with the drama teacher. Jeff, a football player who also is involved in the Drama Club, has come in to let Mrs. Traulain, the teacher know, that he can’t make the meeting for Football related issues. As he walks out of the room he is face to face with Stephen:
“Freshman?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah,” Stephen answered, dropping his voice so suddenly and ridiculously that Jeff smiled, which made the discomfort worse.
“Junior,” Jeff said. “Gets better, dude.”
As Stephen tried another nod, Jeff stared at him for a second before turning and leaving. When Stephen finally heard the freight door slam shut behind Jeff, the aftershock of sudden desire congealed. He finally understood the whispers that had followed him around all day. He knew what was being said. And he knew it was true.
One cannot imagine that feeling, realizing one day, suddenly, what it is that has been inside of you all your life, and more importantly, realizing that others knew about it before you did. One cannot begin to process the grief and also the relief that this bestow upon you immediately. This novel is full of metaphor and comparisons that move past generational lines from age to age. This particular scene involves Stephen’s Grandmother (who makes only a brief appearance in the story, before Stephen’s mother Monica is even born.) The 1940s in New Orleans, the Irish part of town where yellow-fever swept through regularly.
As she heard the first clamor of voices from the street, she noticed there her hands were trembling. She contemplated whether Satan was an actual, real thing or if he had chosen to sprinkle himself about the world in rats along the rivers and in fevers that melted the body. A better fighting tactic, she thought.
This is the only mention of something that is all too familiar for those of us the queer community. AIDS, a fever that melts the body as much as malaria in this time period did, is so common a stumbling block within the community. And all of us have, at one time or another wondered also if Satan is in fact just sprinkling himself about the world in rats and fevers.
One of the most amazing things about this book is that it tells multiple tiny stories, giving way to serious contemplation about the though, emotion, and reason behind the decisions people make in their daily lives. Every bit of it we can relate to our own lives, and we do, while wondering if we are given to the same guttural instincts with which these “fictional” character might react. The name of Stephen’s mother, Monica was inspired by a handicapped boy from across the street of Mrs. O’Connel during a ferocious harvest moon-rise.
Willie Rizzo had gone swimming in the river with some Negro children when a dock pile slammed against the side of this head, fracturing his jaw and almost knocking one eye from its socket. The other children, terrified at being blamed over the death of a white boy who had dared to swim with them, dragged him to shore. Willie manages to live, but with a voice forever mangled by his slippery lower jaw. He walked with a wooden cane his father made for him. Margaret O’Connell had disclosed to Beatrice and Mother Millie that Mr. Rizzo had cut the cane from the very dock pile that almost killed his son, as a constant reminder of the boy’s crippling stupidity.
Reinforcing the theme of prejudice, and disgust of otherness, this mini-story reminds us of how the racism of the 40s is equal to homophobia we see today in our society. Swimming with children of color was as bad in the 40s as being friends with a queer kid is today for the football jocks of Cannon High School.
Stephen is obviously tormented through high school by his two former friends, Greg and Brandon for his sexuality. After running out of English class he shares with the two students with a note reading “FAG” taped to his backpack, he ends up crying in the nurse’s office, trying desperately to escape the pain of his life.
“Do you think you’re ready to go back to class, Stephen?” she asked.
“No,” he whispered.
“Well…” Nurse Schwartz seemed baffled. Her hand lifted off his shoulder, then touched him lightly again before she withdrew it completely. Her eyes wandered down the length of Stephen as if there was some solution in the way his legs attached to his hips.
“It’s never a good idea to cry like you do,” Nurse Schwartz said quietly, so the girl would not hear. “Kids can be mean, but if they see you that usually makes them meaner.”
“When will it stop?” Stephen asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“When are they going to leave me alone? They don’t have to like me. But I just want to know when they’re going to leave me alone,” Stephen said.
He raised his eyes to meet Nurse Schwartz’s pained gaze. There was no answer to his question.
This is going to be the end for today, I’ll continue this particular bloggin until I’ve covered enough of the book to convince people to read it, and given them something to think about in the meanwhile.
See ya soon!!
posted by Marshall at 4:01 PM
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