Mrs Death Misses Death: Salena Godden

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Mrs Death Misses Death: Salena Godden

Mrs Death Misses Death: Salena Godden

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But it is also a book in an old tradition of personified abstractions, of didactic allegory. Mrs Death, for example, has a sister: ‘My Sister. Life. She is constantly vomiting, and puking cherry pips and cherry blossom everywhere. Every time life lays an egg, Death eats an egg.’ Mrs Death and her sister both have Time as a lover, a ‘demagogue dictator’ who ‘loves a deadline.’ But sister Life lives in denial and refuses to believe that Time and Death must also have ‘some sort of love for each other.’ The meditations on life and death are complex, varied, always provoking. Without death, Mrs Death asks, what would we be? Nothing but ‘big-breasted, hot-fisted infants, as destructive as children stamping on sandcastles; you would be worse than you already are.’ What would it be like, Wolf asks, if our expiry date was stamped on our heads? If ‘we knew exactly how long and how little left we had to love each other, maybe then we would all be more kind and loving.’ Or would we be?Wolf isn’t sure and neither am I.

The Gordon Burn Prize recognises literature that is forward-thinking and fearless in its ambition and execution, often playing with style, pushing boundaries, crossing genres or challenging readers’ expectations. At the end of this book, there is a little section where the reader can fill in the name of a loved one, so that the copy of Mrs Death Misses Death contains the reader’s own dead. If this particular text exists longer than we mortals, so too will the names of our loved ones. I can be a tough old bird. I can see how I might have found this mawkish and sentimental. But such is the curious power of this book that I wrote the name of my dad who met Mrs Death unexpectedly one night in November 2016. Miss you. You were great. The Premise: I can say I have never read a premise like this. Death herself gets someone to write a memoir about her life. INJECT THIS IN MY VEINS! I mean seriously, how utterly original is this premise.The most mystical, brilliant, and otherworldly book about death I've read since... high school? Wow, this book speaks about blood memory, time, death and of course life in ways I haven't experienced before. I'll keep saying it, poets who crossover to novels don't play fair! Given the shape the past year has taken, a book with death in its title or between its covers might not seem like the obvious choice of reading material. However, the novel manages to uplift and reaffirm the power of connection and collectivism. It’s the idea of when you’re not speaking your truth, and not saying something you really want to say,” she explains. “When you keep putting something off, you berate yourself and put yourself down for not getting something finished. It’s easy to have a really good idea, it’s difficult to finish something, isn’t it? So to pursue it, and to persist in finishing it, hurt, but it hurt a hell of a lot more giving up.”

Exploring death Let’s be real, we are all going to die, yet, this is something I don’t think we talk a lot about. Or if we do it is generally clouded in fear. Death is the only thing we have surety about yet, as the book says, we don’t call it by name when it happens. We say, “pass on, passed…” anything but death. Without death, there is no life, and I enjoyed how the author was able to position death as something we should think about, maybe not harp on but at least think about. I liked that it is a troubled young writer who had experiences with people dying that got to have a friendship with Death. That for me really gave the theme the depth it needed. Salena Godden appears at The Fountain's Evening of Quarantine Dreaming , 25 Feb, 9pm, part of Paisley Book FestivalA fantastically imaginative story about life, death and everything in between – a potent reminder that life is short and every second should be cherished - IDRIS ELBA These are the collected memoirs of Mrs Death, edited and compiled by me, Wolf Willeford. I’m a poet and I live in the attic rooms of the Forest Tavern in East London. Contained here are some of Mrs Death’s private diary entries, some stories, poems and pieces of conversations I have had with Mrs Death; she who is Death, the woman who is the boss at the end of all of us. I share this hoping that it is the beginning of your own conversation with yourself and with your own precious time here. I am here. Death is a woman. I am a woman. Surely by erasing me we have erased this power? By never portraying a woman as the representative of Death, the boss of Death, the figure of Death itself, one could debate that an important and fundamental disempowerment takes place. Perhaps this is what erasure looks like.

I'm sure there will be people out there that love this and think it truly bohemian and adore it's uniqueness. I am not one of those people in this instance. Mrs Death herself is both the most significant figure at the end of every life and yet the least significant in our everyday world: Now, in the present day, Mrs Death wishes to tell her story to a willing ear. Wolf Willeford is more than willing to transcribe Mrs Death’s words. He is no stranger to death, having survived a fire that killed many, including his mother. She is nobody and she is everybody. She is the homeless person begging for change outside the train station. Mrs Death is the spirit of the ignored and the saint of the betrayed. She is the first woman. Mrs Death is the first mother of all mothers. She is calling to us all now. She is weeping. She is cradling her crumbling world. She is holding this toxic and wounded planet to her cold breast. She is sitting next to you on the bus. She is amongst us. I got it wrong. Mrs Death is not the wife of Death. No. And she is not the mother of Death. No. She is Death, and she gets the final say. Truthfully, this book is an experience and I highly recommend giving it a try though I’m aware it certainly won’t be for everyone.Prose and poetry combine in short chapters to share both fictional and real tragic deaths across history and include letters, psychiatry transcripts, and diary entries to expose the horrors of life and death. Above I gushed about how strong a premise this book had. When I see a strong premise not strongly executed it makes me sad, maybe even a little mad because I know with tighter edits and stronger editor the book would have been great. Let's start with a couple things: this is not a novel, story or even really a narrative of any kind. Second, I skimmed the last half hoping for some semblance of an "ah-ha, I get it" moment; but sadly it never materialized. A rhythmic and powerful poetic meditation on death, life and love and the hidden mysteries of the universe; both playful and sombre, hilarious and human - NIKESH SHUKLA

Historical Look In the book Mrs. Death refers some deaths that made international news, or deaths that are still unsolved or you may not know about. I think getting a little history lesson within the book worked so seamlessly.

The actor-comedian and the poet advocate for their favourite books. Andi chooses The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary, Nikita loves Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden and Harriett goes for The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. One approach Godden used to condense the text was to turn what originally she wrote as essays into shorter poems, such as 'Mrs Death in Holloway Prison' featuring Sarah Reed's story, giving the reader time to pause, and think and to "say her name." This is a broken prose poem which begins: Writing about the death of Prince and the simultaneous public outpouring of grief that usually follows the death of a celebrity, Godden spears the feeling of this particular type of loss, where art is the connective tissue between us and a stranger we felt we knew. I believe this was supposed to be a unique, powerful 'story' told partially by the character of Death herself (yes a woman), and by a confusing character named Wolf. We get a couple other random commentary chapters thrown in for good measure but mostly it's about Wolf's struggles with mental health and the idea of why we live; and Death's remorse at having to take lives (plus some extensive comments on when people are 'misses' or nearly die). There could have maybe been a timeline set-up here that was manageable or could be followed; but the way the book is written it just gets lost. A poet and memoirist, Godden is skilled at creating shapes with her words. She writes without arrogance. There is no pretence and no pretension, and when she gives us a more literary angle of her writing it is with a wink and a grin, with the full knowledge that she is mistress of her own pen. She does not shy away from the uncomfortable, either. If there are details that make the reader twitchy then there is no apology. In this work, she stands with the dead, with Mrs Death.



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