Day of the Dead
Every third thought shall be my grave.
–William Shakespeare, The Tempest
The end of October is nearly upon us with ghosts and skeletons and tombstones out in full force for the Halloween holiday on the 31st, but in many cultures there is a similar tradition that takes place two days later in November. Lively festivals with food, masks, decorations and bright flowers are held in cemeteries and elsewhere to celebrate the “hinge in the year,” when the seen and the unseen seem closer together and those who have passed away are remembered and celebrated.
Regina Marchi points out in her book Day of the Dead in the USA that these types of ritual offerings are done for the dead all over the world. In Ancient Egypt, there were offerings to Osiris, god of the dead, who was also god of the harvest. In Spain, November 1st is Día de Todos los Santos, All Saints’ Day, in honor of those who have died.
It’s believed the souls of the dead return on the first days of November. People visit the graves of those they love and leave flowers and food on tables and graves, as invitation and offering, as a welcoming back,
as a way of saying: “we remember you.”
-Nina MacLaughlin, Paris Review
Animal Dreams and The Lacuna continue to be my favorite books in Barbara Kingsolver’s impressive oeuvre. Interestingly, both make mention of the holiday Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, and it was while reading Animal Dreams many years ago that I was introduced to this holiday.
…grownups used a marigold as a powder puff, patting cheeks and eyelids with gold pollen. Golden children ran wild over a field of dead great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers, and the bones must have wanted to rise up and knock together and rattle with joy.
–Animal Dreams
These holidays and festivals reflect a certain fascination and natural curiosity about what happens to our loved ones after they die, and what our relationship is, if any, to that “other world.”
From Dante’s poetic exploration of the afterlife in The Divine Comedy to Dickens’ ghostly visitation of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, we see how poets, novelists and playwrights have imagined death and the afterlife—not as a spooky horror, but philosophically and psychologically as a way to face the inevitable change that awaits us all.
In George Saunders’ Booker Prize winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo, Abraham Lincoln grieves the death of his young son as he enters into the “bardo,” the transitional state after death as described in the Tibetan tradition. Saunders manages to infuse that strange purgatory with characters who somehow touch the reader with humor, tenderness, and poignant reflections about our humanity.
Our departures caused pain. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.
–Lincoln in the Bardo
These are a few other Town House favorites that address the territory of the hereafter or take place in the unconventional setting of a cemetery. Each author has ingeniously created a satisfying story and beguiling characters: Fresh Water for Flowers, A Gracious Plenty, and Briefly A Delicious Life.
Fresh Water for Flowers, by bestselling French novelist Valérie Perrin, is set in a small town in Bourgogne, where Violette Toussaint serves as caretaker of a beautiful old cemetery. Her interactions with the visitors and mourners, sometimes humorous and other times somber, is at the heart of this ultimately ebullient novel.
Similarly, in A Gracious Plenty, protagonist Finch Nobles has taken over as caretaker of the town cemetery from her father. She had discovered as a child, in her isolation after a disfiguring accident, that she could overhear and participate in the conversations of those who had recently died.
Briefly, a Delicious Life is an intriguing historical novel narrated by high spirited and funny Blanca, who has been haunting a hilltop in Mallorca for over 400 years. She entangles herself in the unconventional relationship between George Sand and Frederic Chopin. The mid-19th century affair between Chopin and Sand did actually take place as did their extended stay in Mallorca.
The only ghosts I believe in are memories. Whether real or imagined. When someone has gone, they’ve gone. Except in the minds of those who remain.
–Fresh Water for Flowers
Most of us don’t like to dwell on death, but since it inevitably is a part of life, it is interesting to be able to engage our imaginations as we observe the cycles of life this time of year, and to witness the ways in which artists and various cultures acknowledge death as a time of both contemplation and celebration.
Happy Reading!
