Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!

Recently, a package arrived at my door from Parsley of Seasons of My Mind. She is the talented cross-stitching, unmatched award winning 4-H leader, multi-dog owner with a huge heart of gold. She was the one that sent me all the neat Oklahoma goodies a while back when I won her postcard giveaway (details here).

Before I go on - I want to wish Parsley a speedy recovery from a recent bit of upset and trouble. If you thoughtful readers would, please visit her blog and give her a 'I hope you feel your bestest soonest' as she continues to struggle. Go back a couple post if you need to, to find a place to comment. I would be most grateful and appreciative.


Inside the surprise package, was an 8-CD set containing Joshua Ferris' second novel, The Unnamed.

Joshua Ferris constructs his new novel, "The Unnamed," around one of Emily Dickinson's most devastating poems, "After Great Pain a Formal Feeling Comes"

AFTER great pain, a formal feeling comes--
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs--
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round--
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought--
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone--

This is the Hour of Lead--
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow--
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--

Emily Dickinson (1862)
My understanding of this poem is this: Emily Dickinson was tracing the numbness experienced after some terrible blow. Numbness one way we protect ourselves against the onrush of pain and against being overwhelmed by suffering.

Novelist Ferris drops realism to ask but what if we did live without distractions? Not just the petty ones, such as e-mail, but all the carrots: a promotion, a successful resolution to that all-important lawsuit, a vacation in the British Virgin Islands?

Ferris examines this question by giving his protagonist, Tim, an undiagnosed condition that periodically returns that wrenches him out of the rat race. "A happily married father of one with a partnership at a fancy Manhattan law firm, Tim can't stop walking. He might be at his desk at Troyer, Barr and Atkins, LLP or in bed with his wife, Jane, when suddenly he's seized with an irresistible compulsion to walk.

If he's lucky, he'll have on hiking boots and a provision-filled backpack. But if he's hatless in winter, his disease is no less cruel. It forces him to slog for miles along city streets and highways or through the woods, until he collapses into a deep sleep." (quoted/paraphrased from here)

I came away thinking, "Despite all the progress human society has made, there's still something shameful about having a mental illness, some lingering, unfair impression that the 'afflicted ones' need to just try harder to be normal."

The novel is beautifully narrated, and contains some exceptional bits of music. As a compulsive walker prone to bouts of depression and OCD weirdness, I can relate to the Tim in a small way - As an admirer of good writing, I admire this novel.

Thank you Parsley! This was quite a surprise, an awesome giveaway! and a thought-provoking piece of work indeed.