Light in form but not impact: Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter

When God, disgusted with man,
Turned towards heaven,
And man, disgusted with God,
Turned towards Eve,
Things looked like falling apart.

But Crow Crow
Crow nailed them together,
Nailing heaven and earth together-

So man cried, but with God’s voice.
And God bled, but with man’s blood.

Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint
Which became gangrenous and stank-
A horror beyond redemption.

The agony did not diminish.

Man could not be man nor God God.

The agony

Grew.

Crow

Grinned

Crying: “This is my Creation,”

Flying the black flag of himself.

– Ted Hughes, “Crow Blacker than Ever”

I am carrying three griefs—three “conventional” griefs, if there is such a thing. I carry more, I am a walking inventory of grief, but the three “expected” griefs are those that I, and others, anticipate; I lost both of my parents and one of my closest friends within the span of two months last summer. And yet, no two griefs, no two losses are alike. Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter’s bravely unconventional novel about the impact of a woman’s sudden death on her husband and young sons, is a book that speaks to me—not as a bereaved child, my parents were in their eighties and ailing—but in the loss of my friend Ulla, who ended her life burdened by an unremittent depression and her own private, unresolved griefs.

She would have loved this book. It would not have saved her, but it might have granted her the comfort of wings, even for a moment.

To appreciate the invention and spirit of Feathers, it is useful but not necessary, to have an acquaintance with Ted Hughes and his work Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow. These poems, composed primarily in a span of time bookended by the suicides of his wife, Sylvia Plath, and his partner, Assia Wevill, give inspiration to the corvid character, who inserts himself into the lives of the grieving family. The father is a Hughes scholar, fumbling his way through the completion of a manuscript about the poet’s crow poems in the disorienting aftermath of his wife’s death. Guiding him and his young sons as they struggle to make sense of a world and a family missing such a central figure—partner and parent—is a crude, boisterous, grandiose incarnation of Crow in all his mythological glory. Real or imagined, it matters not. This surreal surrogate houseparent has arrived to ease, tease and prod the troubled family toward healing. He will stay for as long as he is required.

This short novel blurs the lines between prose, poetry and drama. It is narrated by three voices. There is Dad, who, aches for the loss of his friend and lover, and in his uncertainty about the nature of his new role in his fractured little family, questions the possible delusional nature of the presence of Crow. But he recognizes the essential value of his feathered wisdom:

There is a fascinating constant exchange between Crow’s natural self and his civilised self, between the scavenger and the philosopher, the goddess of complete being and the black stain, between Crow and his birdness. It seems to me to the be the self-same exchange between mourning and living, then and now. I could learn a lot from him.

The boys, unnamed and ageless, offer contrasting individual reactions, challenging one another as siblings will, while in unison they form a sort of mini Greek chorus. They fill in gaps, and respond to the loss of their mother with their own magical thinking, express deep concern for their father, and exhibit childish delight with the company of the crusty black bird in their midst:

Once upon a time there were two boys who purposefully misremembered things about their father. It made them feel better if they forgot things about their mother.

And Crow, who, in all his trickster enthusiasm, offers folktale wisdom, philosophical asides, and an abiding concern to preserve the spiritual safety of his charges as he ushers them through the initial stages of grief. At his best he is loud and irreverent:

Gormin’ ere worrying horrid. Hello elair, krip krap krip krap who’s that lazurusting beans of my cut-out? Let me buck flap snutch clat tapa one tapa two, motherless children in my trap, in my apse, in separate stocks for boiling, Enunciate it, rolling and turning it, sadget lips and burning it. Ooh pressure! Must rehearse, must cuss less. The nobility of nature, haha krah haha krap haha, better not.

(I do this, perform some unbound crow stuff, for him. I think he thinks he’s a little bit Stonehenge shamanic, hearing the bird spirit. Fine by me, whatever gets him through.)

From the description of this book alone, I was uncertain how well it would work, or more precisely, how accepting I would be of the premise. I have seen reviewers comment that it is clever, but not an accurate depiction of grief. What is an accurate depiction of grief? Loss is personal; grief is unique. Grief, in this instance, is personified as “that thing with feathers.” Mythology and fable meets the urban reality of contemporary life and becomes something other. And that, I would argue, is exactly what the shock of bereavement (whether it is sudden or foreseen) feels like. Grief is jagged, distorted, time-out-of-placeness.

What insures the success of this original approach to a subject so often steeped in unbearable sorrow and self-pity, is not the absence of these emotions—they are present in measure—but rather the careful sifting of language, tone, and spirit in the magical or surreal elements. Porter employs the poetic energy of Hughes’ poetry, ramping it up and making it his own. Yet, Crow’s presence is more than that. He is aware of his role and his origin in the tale:

“Thank you Crow.”

“All part of the service.”

“Really. Thank you, Crow.”

“You’re welcome. But please remember I am your Ted’s song-legend, Crow of the death-chill, please. The God-eating, trash-licking, word-murdering, carcass-desecrating math-bomb motherfucker, and all that.”

“He never called you a motherfucker.”

“Lucky me.”

Hughes is the father’s hero and a project to anchor his recovery. The poet’s own complicated reputation is not ignored, nor is the shadow of Sylvia Plath’s death, yet there is a self-deprecating humour to Dad’s academic and personal obsession, echoed by Crow’s playful interchanges and his sons’ observations. Without these elements the entire set up would seem contrived, forced. With them, the reading experience is both a heartbreak and a delight.

My friend Ulla lost her mother a few short years after healing a bitter and long estrangement. Every morning she took her coffee and cigarette out to stand by the struggling thorn tree planted in her honour. She would pour a little coffee on the ground where her mother’s ashes had been spread—a daily ritual of connection. The spirit of Crow would have delighted her, I am certain. I regret I cannot share this book with her now. She too has turned to ashes, tossed to the sand and waves of the Indian Ocean along her favourite stretch of the South African shoreline.

Now, if you have read Grief is the Thing with Feathers, you will know why, in the end, this is a book that, for me,  speaks to my loss of one of my dearest friends.

Author: roughghosts

Literary blog of Joseph Schreiber. Writer. Reader. Editor. Photographer. View all posts by roughghosts