Since I review books with a spiritual perspective, I always read with a thought to some divine or higher connection. At first, this doesn’t seem like such a work, yet the stories remind me that great authors pose spiritual questions. John Barth doesn’t disappoint; he questions our right to choose when we want to die.
As I began reading this latest work by one of my all-time favorite authors, I was disappointed. While his style, story and descriptions were as engaging as ever, I had trouble getting into the flow of the narrative and was frustrated by the suicide of two main characters early in one of the stories without any reference to that event until many pages later in another story.
When he does reference the suicide, however, his characters pose a spiritual dilemma of ending life “peacefully and painlessly before things go downhill.” Many of us have aging parents who suffer physical and mental declines. We sense that we do not want to experience a similar fate, and we try to figure out a way to avoid the inevitable. No matter how healthy, we joke about leaving life if and when we face a serious illness. But Barth asks us to consider leaving this planet before any such decline starts.
Would I consider suicide before any health decline started? Would I do that in my 70s, or later, as his characters do unexpectedly without so much as a note to their adult children? The answer is: I don’t know. Before reading this work, I would probably have said, “No.” Now, I don’t know. Faced with a decline, but one not yet imminent, could I muster the courage? Or is suicide always a cowardly act. Barth asks us to decide.
The novel, Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, which I reviewed in a previous ezine article, encourages us to be spiritual beings in a human experience, a definition of spirituality from Jonathan Ellerby in Return to the Sacred, which I also reviewed in a previous ezine article. Barth wants us to have a quality human experience while we’re here. Is that a cop-out on our part of the deal? Or is it refusing to let death be scary and arbitrary?
As a spiritual being, I accept there is something more when we leave here. I’m just not sure the plan is for us to decide when to go. Thanks to John Barth for reminding us, however, as he has done for me often in past novels such as The Floating Opera, of some of the uncomfortable and unsettling questions in life. Spirituality is all around us, even in unlikely places and stories.
Cheryl A. Chatfield, Ph. D. is a spiritual writer, teacher and inspirational speaker. Visit http://NottInstitute.org to request a complimentary Practical Spirituality Newsletter. Her nonprofit organization, The Nottingham Institute, promotes materials for an everyday, or practical, spirituality for those who don’t find answers in organized religions. Download one of her new books: Do It Yourself Guide to Spirituality: Seven Simple Steps and The Lost Principles, a novel.
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