I finished There are Rivers in the Sky a couple of days ago. Usually I try to respond as soon as I finish a book, but this time it had to ferment a bit before I could respond. Not that the couple of days more has made it more clear what I am thinking. We read one of her books, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, for RFB last year. I really liked it, so I looked forward to reading Rivers in the Sky. Like 10 Minutes, Rivers is built around multiple story lines which by the end of the novel converge nicely without sounding forced. Both books stress the importance of community, 10 Minutes on a small group of divergent friends, whereas Rivers weaves a broader tapestry across centuries if not millennia. The connecting thread across time is the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest written piece of world literature arising from the earliest civilization. Which of course, is significant to the novel as a whole. One of the story lines is set in Victorian England (the height of the English Empire), when England is pillaging the past Empires of relics and putting them on display in the British Museum. One of the relics they find is the before unknown Epic of Gilgamesh. It is found in fragments, over time, mainly in the abandoned ruins of the once great city of Nineveh. Another story line involves a small group of people, descended from the Sumerians, considered to be devil worshippers by the dominant religious groups. While the third story line, also descendants from the region of Mesopotamia, Iraq, who have immigrated to contemporary England. Through all three threads, the importance of story, the written word, tradition, and change flow like the rivers,(The Thames and Tigris), which dominate the imagery in the novel. The pollution, re-birth(in the case of the Thames), the destructive and nurturing aspects of the rivers and water in general are constantly in play. Overall it was an enjoyable experience.
One quote out of dozens I underlined: “Hatred is a poison in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire—because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind—when people hate those they have hurt”
I believe I was 34. I had three children under the age of 3. I had taught 150+ 13-14 year old students each year for the last five years. It was my first time to be on a jury. The defense attorneys should not have let me on the jury. If they were doing their job of defending him, they should not have let several of us on the jury: the older church going Christian grandmother; the trainer for the local University’s swim team (18-22 year old young women). Looking back, I figure his lawyers thought we would be sympathetic to the youth minister because we understood the dreams and desires of adolescent young girls. We understood how they trusted us, and even loved us. We understood the accusations which could be thrown because of childish misunderstandings. Fortunately we did understand, and came to the verdict that the youth minister of the Baptist church near Dallas had broken the promise of in loco parentis, the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. That part of that promise that was to not mentally and sexually abuse a thirteen year old girl.
It was a civil trial. Both the former youth minister and the Church were being sued. The statute of limitations for a criminal trial had expired. The young woman was now 21 years old. The prosecutors told us that the evidence for a civil trial was not the same as a criminal trial. It was not beyond a reasonable doubt, but that the preponderance of evidence that lead to a guilty verdict. The preponderance of evidence dropped on us in thick slabs of revulsion for eight hours each of the days the trial lasted. We were asked to determine what percentage of responsibility for the sexual abuse of the young woman lay with the church, or the youth minister.
The trial, they said, would last about 4 days. In the end it went on for two weeks. We heard testimony from the ministers of the church, the deacons, the church women volunteers, the other young members of the church; all those who also went on church trips, attended youth activities organized by the youth ministry, went to pool parties sponsored by the church where the children played games in the pool with the youth minister; who remembered how he and she sat on the edge of the group around the fire at the beach while others sang songs of joy. We heard from the therapist she went to for years after the youth minister’s rape of the young woman. We heard from the young woman. We were given access to her detailed adolescent diary. The same questions were asked of each witness. The answers that were given were so monotonously repetitive that by the end of the second week, I could have answered for each of the witnesses who were called.
We did not hear from the former youth minister. He was a minister of a church in Ohio at this point. He could not be forced to attend a civil trial in Texas. He had moved on from his days as a mere Christian minister to the young souls in his charge in suburban Dallas. God had called him to a new ministry. He was the head of his own church, a respected man. He could not even be impelled to make any monetary restitution that we decided to lay upon him. He was free, forgiven by society, if not by God.
The deliberations in the small room in which we sat were not about whether the events happened; it was beyond debate that the youth minister did what he was accused of doing, but instead circled around how much the church should have known, or did know about the abuse. We were charged with what percentage of guilt lay with each of the defendants, and how much the total monetary fine should be for the actions of the youth minister, who ultimately would not have to pay anything for what he had done to the young woman. What was the price of rape? How much should an institution be held accountable for the actions of an individual member of an organization? Ultimately, we came to a consensus that he was responsible for 80% of the verdict. It was strange sitting in the room, listening to other men arguing for smaller responsibilities to be laid upon the church (because they knew the minister would pay nothing), for a lesser amount of money to be charged to the church, who should have known, who in much of the testimony showed that they did know, about the actions of the youth minister. Too many of the men on the jury seemed to me to be searching for a way to make it all just go away; after all, she let it happen. She let it happen. She was thirteen. He was mid-twenties.
The second decision we were charged to make was the monetary amount that was to be rewarded to the young woman. Here attorneys were asking for 20 million dollars. The foreman of our jury thought that was an absurd amount of money, finally reluctantly acquiescing to 10 million dollars, eight of which the former youth minister would never pay. The other two million being the responsibility of the church.
I remember walking to the bus which would take me to where my car was parked so that I could drive home back to my family with our small children, and then back to my classroom the next day with my wildly wonderful thirteen year old students, thinking that we had all failed her somehow. That justice was bought off cheaply. That we were all responsible for what happened to her. The trial sat in my mind darkly for the rest of the thirty years I worked in education.
I finished the Memory Police last night, but couldn’t summon enough energy to write a response. It was curious. It was interesting. It was ART!! Were there great lines and thoughts? Yes. Did it make sense? Not at first glance, which this response is. The novel (as the blurb on the back states) takes place on an unknown island where objects keep disappearing. Disappearing completely, even from the memory of most of the people on the island. Those who can still remember are taken away to some unknown place, for some unknown fate by the Gestapo-like Memory Police. The last sentence of the blurb says “The Memory Police is a stunning novel about the trauma of loss.” I guess that is true, but only on one level. I would say it is more about the control of a community’s narrative; How history can be erased, and how we all just go along. How writing extends and saves individual memory for the next generations, who lose and save and create their own memories. How small seemingly unimportant objects can embody massive recollections.
Random Thoughts/Questions: None of the characters have names. There is a narrator, the novelist; the old man, who used to be the ferryman before the ferry disappeared, and R, who does not forget. The novelist is writing a novel, which sporadically we (the reader) get to read.Is the old man an allusion to Charon? Are the people who forget dead? The narrator is writing a novel, but loses her voice and can’t remember how to write. R, who used to proofread the narrator’s novels, keeps encouraging her to write, almost like editors who finish novelists books posthumously. Does “R” stand for reader? which is us, as we try to create meaning out of other’s incomplete memories?
Quotes:
“When I was a child, the whole place seemed… a lot fuller, a lot more real. But as things got thinner, more full of holes, our hearts got thinner, too, diluted somehow, I suppose that kept things in balance… And even when the balance begins to collapse, something remains.”
“I have the feeling my voice may come back one day if I study the letters imprinted on the used ribbon.”
“I’d imagine you’d be uncomfortable, with your heart full of so many forgotten things.”
“Memories don’t just pile up—- they also change over time. And sometimes they fade of their own accord.”
“Each one of us hides them away in secret. So, since out adversary is invisible, we are forced to use out intuition. It is extremely delicate work. In order to unmask these invisible secrets, to analyze and sort and dispose of them, we must work in secret, to protect ourselves.”
“Memories are a lot tougher than you might think. Just like the hearts that hold them”
“When you lost your voice, you lost the ability to make sense of yourself.”
subtext 