Reading suggestions

September 11, 2007 1:06 AM

One of my good friends died a few days ago. Can you recommend some suitable works of literature (fiction, essay, poetry, etc.) to help me along?

I don't mean specifically therapeutic literature (i.e. self-help books, how to cope with loss, etc), but traditional literature that might carry some meaning.

(To give you an idea of what I'm looking for,) I got something meaningful out of reading Eliot's "The Waste Land," Camus's short essay "Return to Tipasa," and a few of Roald Dahl's short stories from "Over To You." Thank you for any suggestions.

posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam to Writing & Language (24 answers total)

I'm sorry for your loss.

For me, works that focus on death are most helpful; this may not be what you need.

So, works that focus on the inevitability of death and the continuity of life: Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" is often therapeutic for me, if a bit hackneyed; Marcus Aurelius's Meditations; Sylvia Plath's "All the Dead Dears", etc.; Southey's "After Blenheim"; the last paragraph of The Origin of Species ("Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life....").
posted by orthogonality at 1:29 AM on September 11, 2007

Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H.

I'm so sorry.
posted by Pallas Athena at 1:34 AM on September 11, 2007

Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus
posted by bunglin jones at 1:37 AM on September 11, 2007

Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

And seconding Tennyson's In Memoriam.

You have my sincerest condolences for your loss.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 2:33 AM on September 11, 2007

Do you have access to the departed's library? You might want to read something he or she was a fan of.
posted by absalom at 4:21 AM on September 11, 2007

When I was dealing with the death of a friend, I picked up The Undertaking by Thomas Lynch. It's a collection of essays by a poet/undertaker about death, dying, and the mortuary business. It's really good and was a help, so much so that I recommend it to others when they go through something similar.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:02 AM on September 11, 2007

It's not yet a "classic," since it just came out a few years ago. But it was written by one of our greatest essayists, and I think it might offer you a sort of communion.
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 6:03 AM on September 11, 2007

The poems of Thomas Hardy. All his poetry is good but his poems remembering his first wife are particularly moving. "The Going," "Rain on a Grave" etc, you can find them in decent anthologies.
posted by fire&wings at 6:16 AM on September 11, 2007

I'm sorry to hear of your loss.

Simone Weil is one of my favorite writers. Her book, Gravity and Grace, is a collection of aphorisms taken from her notebooks. These are her 'religious' writing but there is nothing doctrinal about them. Her work does not explicitly address grief and the loss of a loved one but it is some of the most profound and beautifully written prose I have come across. There is no other book I would recommend as highly to someone looking for an accessible account of our deepest concerns.

If you pick it up, take a look at the sections, 'The Void and Compensation' and 'Chance'.
posted by BigSky at 6:55 AM on September 11, 2007

I found the Tao Te Ching to be really helpful when I was dealing with a sudden death. It helped me move on to the whole "acceptance" part a little more quickly, and definitely helped me in regards to the anger I was feeling.

Plus, it's beautiful.
posted by mckenney at 7:05 AM on September 11, 2007

Adding on that I only mention it because I think of the Tao Te Ching to not be very self-help at all, more philosophy and poetry, but if that's not what you're looking for, then, of course, disregard.
posted by mckenney at 7:06 AM on September 11, 2007

A Grief Observed is made up from the countless notebooks C.S. Lewis' filled while trying to deal with his wife's death. You are looking on as an elegant thinker and passionate lover deals with his loss. It is very shot, and highly reccomend it as a way of coping with your serious loss.
posted by milestogo at 7:16 AM on September 11, 2007

I'm so sorry, Vic.

There's another thread that might have some suggestions, though that thread wasn't as focused on literature.

I certainly recommend the Didion as well, and maybe also Shakespeare? Hamlet was always coming to mind after my mother died.
posted by occhiblu at 7:33 AM on September 11, 2007

Try the Consolation of Philosophy, and keep in mind that it was written by a man who was in prison while writing the book and was executed afterwards.
posted by nasreddin at 7:57 AM on September 11, 2007

Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life, by Eugene O'Kelly

Written by a top CEO business type who discovered he had a brain tumor and immediately changed his life to make dying a true celebration. Very uplifting.
posted by wackybrit at 8:38 AM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse helped me deal with tough times.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 9:31 AM on September 11, 2007

Ulysses - Leopold Bloom would make a good companion.
posted by jennydiski at 10:47 AM on September 11, 2007

From Boethius:

'To pleasant songs my work was erstwhile given, and bright were all my labours then; but now in tears to sad refrains am I compelled to turn. Thus my maimed Muses guide my pen, and gloomy songs make no feigned tears bedew my face. Then could no fear so overcome to leave me companionless upon my way. They were the pride of my earlier bright-lived days: in my later gloomy days they are the comfort of my fate; for hastened by unhappiness has age come upon me without warning, and grief hath set within me the old age of her gloom. White hairs are scattered untimely on my head, and the skin hangs loosely from my worn-out limbs.

'Happy is that death which thrusts not itself upon men in their pleasant years, yet comes to them at the oft-repeated cry of their sorrow. Sad is it how death turns away from the unhappy with so deaf an ear, and will not close, cruel, the eyes that weep. Ill is it to trust to Fortune's fickle bounty, and while yet she smiled upon me, the hour of gloom had well-nigh overwhelmed my head. Now has the cloud put off its alluring face, wherefore without scruple my life drags out its wearying delays.

'Why, O my friends, did ye so often puff me up, telling me that I was fortunate? For he that is fallen low did never firmly stand.'

While I was pondering thus in silence, and using my pen to set down so tearful a complaint, there appeared standing over my head a woman's form, whose countenance was full of majesty, whose eyes shone as with fire and in power of insight surpassed the eyes of men, whose colour was full of life, whose strength was yet intact though she was so full of years that none would ever think that she was subject to such age as ours. One could but doubt her varying stature, for at one moment she repressed it to the common measure of a man, at another she seemed to touch with her crown the very heavens: and when she had raised higher her head, it pierced even the sky and baffled the sight of those who would look upon it...

posted by nasreddin at 10:54 AM on September 11, 2007

a short but powerful poem i have always loved

For The Anniversary Of My Death
 
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what


W.S. Merwin

my condolences, i hope you find what you are looking for
posted by crunchywelch at 11:28 AM on September 11, 2007

I am so sorry you lost your friend. This has happened to me before. You might find that reading some of your friend's favorite books might help. It really did for me. It was like sharing them all over again.
posted by MrFongGoesToLunch at 12:08 PM on September 11, 2007

Condolences. Alan Shapiro's Vigil carried me through a very dark time.
posted by Token Meme at 12:13 PM on September 11, 2007

I'm sorry for your loss.

Not ten minutes ago I listened to the Kid Logic episode of This American Life – the final act is a child's tremendously poignant but positive reflection on grief. There are a number of other very touching segments in other episodes...browse the archives and you'll find them.
posted by avocet at 12:26 PM on September 11, 2007

My condolences. In times like this, I find myself turning to Walt Whitman and particularly "Song of Myself."
posted by maurice at 12:37 PM on September 11, 2007

"Death Comes For the Archbishop" by Willa Cather and "I Heard The Owl Call My Name" by Margaret Craven are two books that I read in times of great emotional distress.
posted by lilithim at 4:31 PM on September 11, 2007