Five Stages of Grief

When I “Googled” the word “grief,” I came across many sites that describe five stages of grief. The stages include: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. When comparing these five stages with Didion’s mourning for John I can see that she seems to go through at least four of the stages. Didion starts in the denial stage by not wanting to believe that John is dead. She thinks the paramedics are going to revive him and that he will be transferred to a different hospital after he is stabilized. The second stage of grief is anger. We never witness a time when Didion is angry at John for dying, or blames him for his death. The third stage of grief, bargaining, seems to be prevalent in the novel. Didion spends a lot of time trying to think of what she could have done differently to change the outcome. She analyzes the things they said and did before the incident trying to think of what she should or shouldn’t have done. The fourth stage of grief is depression. Didion spends at least a year grieving over John’s death, and she is constantly having flashbacks of the time they spent together. At one point she acknowledges that she is depressed, and sees a doctor. The final stage of grief is acceptance. At the end of the novel Didion says everything is less chaotic, but no clearer than it was the day he died. She does however say that “…there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.” This indicates that she has somewhat accepted the fact that John is dead and the memories of him will slowly become “mudgy” over time.

Useful Death?

Is any source of death helpful for coping with ones encounter with grief and death? Some may argue that it does, but death and grief is always a personal struggle. In Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking, Didion draws from many sources of literature and even medical texts to cope with the death of her husband, John.
Being a person who does not address a religious struggle through the death of a loved one, Didion not only shows her readers how lost a person is without faith, but a person in need of finding faith in something. Desperately trying to investigate her grief and its source is odd to me, since grief is only natural to anyone human. But is a person not human if they don’t appear to grieve?
Death in any case is never helpful or useful. That is only society breathing down our necks, forcing us to move on with the threat that if we don’t, we appear to the world as a person lost in an abyss. Death is fundamentally something we all have to deal with in our lives, whether that of someone we know or our own eventual death. Mortality then becomes the main issue here, where Didion shouldn’t necessarily focus on death, but mortality. Although death is a sign of our own mortality, death is negative and therefore swept under the social rug of human flaw. Looking at the race of man as being flawed may offer more comfort in the fact that death is only written about so often because people try to understand why we die and maybe not so much when or where or how.
Although Didion does not directly address religion in her book, she still seeks the same answers that religious individuals also try to find. The afterlife is only one way of approaching grief, but Didion must have found this track commonplace and decided to write something unique in respect to death. Looking at others’ way of dealing with grief may be useful only for the sake of the moment, but in the end we all have to come up with our own way of comfort.

A Guilt Complex

I really don't have an intro so I'm just gonna jump right into this...

My main problem with Laura Lippman's What the Dead Know is the guilt I felt after I finished reading. I think it begins with Lippman's decision to write Sunny as a whiny, self-centered, narcissistic baby. (Harsh, I know.) Because Sunny is such a despicable character, I as the reader wanted to place blame on her at the end of the novel, once we find out that she did, in fact, lead Heather into a dangerous situation. While I do not think she is in any way responsible for Heather's death, I believe that at 15, Sunny was old enough to know better than to take Heather to the hotel.

This is where the guilt begins--how could I possibly want to put blame on someone who went through physical and sexual abuse by the same man who killed her sister? I believe that this is where Lippman fails. Had she written a character that readers could empathize with and would enjoy reading about, we would not want to put any sort of blame on Sunny.

I also believe that the novel was way too long and complex--too many chapters, characters, and dead ends, so that by the time we were finally told what happened, it was easy to point fingers at the nearly 40-year-old woman who still acted as though she were 15.

What the Reader Knows...

Laura Lippman’s What the Dead Know may or may not be a “good” novel, but I believe that it was an entertaining and easy read. At times, the plot seemed to be a bit confusing but it was entertaining. I still don’t quite understand how Sunny is Heather or how Heather is Sunny but in all fairness, this made the plot interesting. I believe that the most interesting character in the novel is the person that we know least about: Heather. I say this because we really don’t know if the Sunny/Heather character is an honest character (as stated in class) which makes me want to know more about her. Even so, she shouldn’t be blamed for the things that she is going through throughout the novel because I do believe the idea that she has been scarred and she can’t really trust anyone (which is probably why she lies so bad). Its difficult to actually form a connection or fondness to any of the characters because the novel seems so random and all over the place. That’s the major defect I find in the novel: I can’t really connect with any of the characters. Miriam just seems indifferent and separated, Dave is just weird, and Heather is just a selfish person. Lippman doesn’t really give us much personality of the other characters, so I can’t really form an opinion on them. I wonder if that was Lippman’s intent. If this is so, then she really shouldn’t be winning major awards for novels such as this one.

Character Flaws

Frankly, I do not know how Laura Lippman’s What the Dead Know managed to win any awards. Sure, her narrative is engaging, even clever at times, but what the text delivers in intrigue pales in comparison to the cluster eff of essentially pointless character views. And what a shame too, for some of Lippman’s best writing comes out of these character interactions. For instance (though even this could be argued as a bit of clichéd banter), the vulgar and offensive back and forth between Det. Kevin Infante and his boss, Sgt. Lenhardt, rings strikingly true. After a brief discussion on “rich cops,” the talk turns pseudo-sexual and Lenhardt calls Infante a “faggot and a whore,” at which point Infante leaves the office “feeling about as content as he ever did” (95). These details are (again) offensive but nevertheless effective, creating a believable scene that plays on male-male relations, as well as boss versus subordinate. Unfortunately, scenes such as these never pay off. Indeed, the character for whom the previously mentioned scene is a set-up for, former Det. Willoughby, is yet another dead end route Lippman pursues that, at the conclusion of the book, we are left to ponder over, asking indignantly “Why?”
Though it seems plausible that the former Detective for the Bethany case could offer some insight to the novel, what we receive instead is yet another buffer between Dave and Miriam. I should say, in case it seems I speak to harshly, that I didn’t hate the book. In fact, I quite enjoyed the character studies Lippman fronted for her readers. However, in this instance, there was simply too much to chew on.
The way I see it, there are two agreeable options for the improvement of this book: Lippman could have focused on fewer characters (perhaps Sunny/Heather, Infante, and one or both parents) and kept the narrative more plot oriented; or she could have kept the character studies and made the book twice as long, with Sunny suffering some sort of mental break (i.e., schizophrenia or the like), adding a plot twist or two. Then, again, what do I know? I mean, I’ve never won a book award.

To Be or Not To Be Great Literature

Let me begin by stating that I am not a well-read person. I love to read, but mostly for entertainment purposes. I do not, nor have I ever considered myself to be a literary wiz.
Having said that, we all agree that this story could have taken a different route. However, for some strange reason, with all of its inconsistencies, I found my self becoming quite engaged in this book. Yes, there were alot of characters. Yes, we are not sure why some people are even there. But as the characters were introduced, I thought that they were relevant at the time and didn't think much of it.
This book, with its many flaws, created a positive dialogue. I believe that this book presented an opportunity in which it opened up the door for many views to be expressed. Some of these views represented peoples belief and were very sensitive and dear to people's hearts. Many views were expressed that I would have never thought of. They made me realize all the potential aspects that a book has.
As awful as this book may have seemed, it gave me an opportunity to expand on my Literary knowledge of the Mystery Genre. I have added another book to my repertoire that I would have otherwise never read. I personally feel that every book I read after this one will be observed differently. Aside from having more in-depth questions that I could ask, I feel that I am a little closer to becoming equipped with the necessary tools to distinguish between good and bad literature. On that note, Here are some pressing questions (pressing to me that is) :
What is great literature?
Who defines what great literature is?
Is it possible to dissect a book so much that it takes away from its original intent?
Maybe Laura Lippman's task was not to invoke deep thought in "What The Dead Know". Maybe she wrote it because she had a great idea for a mystery novel and hoped that someone like me would find it interesting. Yes I said interesting (not sure about award-winning worthy, but it held my attention if that it saying much). Whatever the intent, whatever the views, I believe it offered a platform in which many different perspectives could be presented.

Inconsistencies in Pseudo-Human Characters

The characters in What the Dead Know are meant to be personable, identifiable, and above all just simply human. But is this really achieved? The most inhuman character out of all of them is Sunny.
How can she, Laura Lippman, expect anyone to identify with Sunny when she has created such a wretched, lying, and deceitful fictional person? In the book, Sunny uses several cards that are never worth playing, especially if for her own means. One card is of course the sexual abuse. Yes, she states many things, but how many things as readers are we made to believe what she says is true and false? She has already lied so many times by this time in the book and continues to the very end of the novel.
To counter an argument about her falsehood, Lippman has several gratuitous sex scenes within the first thirty pages. These would lead some to believe that the idea of sexual abuse is prevalent and that Lippman has her readers constantly thinking about wrongful sex throughout the novel. But, my question is why after her identity is brought to our attention through Miriam does no one address the issue? She could be potentially held liable for her actions, which I am confused about since lawyers were present in the book. Laura Lippman did not address the actions a lawyer would actually take and if such a lawyer existed he/she would already have lost her license, especially if she belonged to a large or medium firm where down payments were mandatory...and staying at the lawyers house is grounds for conflict of interest.
I believe the inhumanity of the lawyer ought to be addressed as well. If she was a lawyer, then her actions do not flow with actuality and reality. Lawyers operate, after a certain amount of schooling and practice, by the book and in this day and age straying a little could mean the end of her firm. Her inconsistent portrayal as a lawyer leads me to believe Laura Lippman did not do enough research on lawyers, even torts and criminal law, therefore made the female lawyer unrealistsic and inhuman.

The Curiosity of Humans

Curiosity is a trait that most humans possess. Curiosity allows us to delve into other’s lives and stories in hopes of learning something new. People tend to be more curious when others have extreme experiences or experiences unlike our own. Recently, Jaycee Duggard was in the news because she was kidnapped as a young girl and held hostage for 19 years. The media broadcasts her story and new updates are constantly being released. Her brutal living conditions and horrific experiences are being detailed for the world to hear. I am also guilty of extreme curiosity of cases such as Duggard’s. I constantly read the new updates to find out every detail about her life during those 19 years. I have to ask myself, why am I interested? Why is anyone interested other than her friends, family, and authorities? Why do we get the privilege of knowing the details of her life? I recently went to see an Auschwitz survivor tell the story of her time in the concentration camp. The room was packed with people….but would they have been there if her story were not something so horrific? If she had been raised in a stable family in the country and had a wonderful childhood, would anyone have come to see her speak?

This theory of human curiosity seems to capture the reader of What the Dead Know. The novel doesn’t seem to be extraordinary based on the mechanics of how it was written or the development of the characters. So why is it such a popular novel? The novel draws us in with the idea of a horrible crime committed against two young girls. The reader doesn’t know who committed the crime or even what the crime was, but we want desperately to find out and therefore we keep reading. We can only imagine throughout the book what has happened to Heather and Sunny and why they have disappeared. While I read it, I secretly hoped that something horrible had happened to them and that the mystery girl would tell the story of her horrific treatment, abuse, and environment.

As humans, we don’t like to see people suffer, but when they do, we want to know all the details of what happened. Sunny and Heather both went through this ordeal and suffered at the hands of their “abductor.” What the Dead Know contains a lot of characteristics of crime stories we see on the news. The novel allows us to connect with the characters and feel more involved in the events that occur. It satiates our natural human curiosity in a safe, fictional form.

Hi

Just trying this thing out....

Hello

I'm simply trying things out.