Autumn. Spring. And Autumn Again.
Valede kataloog. Inglise aed.
Tõnu Õnnepalu
Valede kataloog was an entertaining read. Not entertaining in any conventional sense of the word. It's just that reading the words, written by someone you have spent long evenings drinking tea with, have prayed and meditated together with, it is impossible not to hear him speak the words. Even morbid words take on a certain playful quality when you hear Tõnu's voice speaking them. Like he means them, and he doesn't.
Make no mistake, the words are morbid. It seems as if he's walking the thin line between clinging to life and surrendering to death. For many chapters in a row. But when his voice comes to you through the pages, and you hear him say it, see him say it, it makes you smile. It even makes you laugh, the way tasting really good whiskey makes you laugh. The taste on your tastebuds is bitter, which by nature should make your facial muscles contort, but the silky-smooth texture, the smokey and peaty undertones are so exhilarating, that you can't help but giggle. Internally, at least. Same thing here. I giggled, at times internally, at others visibly.
Without knowing him, though, it's probably a book best read in Nordic summer light or someelsewhere away from this gloom and doom of Estonian winter. Because the first book, at the very least, is autumn. Autumn of life. Autumn of the year. Autumn of mood.
Inglise aeg by comparison turns into quite a lovely spring. Not immediately, but nonetheless. It's not a young spring, it's a spring that has seen many springs before itself, and many autumns. It's aware of it's own temporality. But being spring, it can't help but walk briskly to the red postbox, and enjoy good books, good memories, good places. Good old England as a backdrop obviously helps, walking with him in her garden lanes, London streets and country roads. Marvelling at her landscape, observing her people. A lovely journey.
The book ends in another autumn. One, that is fruitful. Almost hopeful, that the coming winter will not bring abother close encounter with death. Though he's never far from death. None of us are, but some realise it and most hide. But hopeful, that there's enough food to survive the winter and see another spring. That old things will be thrown away or be organised onto shelves.
And yet Sihvka dies. I was saddened by that death at the end of the book. Someone has to die. Well, everyone has to die, but in a good book, someone always has to die, too. I'm just sorry it had to be Sihvka. It wasn't just Tõnu and Sihvka's first spring at Esna, it was mine too. Of course, Esna ended a long time ago. Even the book about Esna has been superseded now by the new book. Or maybe two, Mis tunne on elada came after Mandala as well, I think. But somehow the death of Sihvka actualised it again, something long gone drifted to the surface for a brief moment. I used the Tsekarmo monks' concert flier as a bookmark for Inglise aed.
It was a wonderful journey. Like Tõnu and perhaps many, perhaps all writers, there's tales and references, signs and metaphors about what he knows. What he has discovered. But it's never spelled out. Maybe that's what a good book should be about. Teasing with the truth, dancing with it, but never naming it, never looking it into the eye.