Andrew Solomon blew me away a few years ago with his
Noonday Demon, a book which was a finalist for but, dammit, should have won the Pulitzer Price. It
was unlike any other book I had ever read: a mix of science, psychological and
sociological study, autobiography, philosophy, and inadvertently perhaps even a
self-help book. It helped me tremendously, and has others. Hard to top, you’d
think.
But Solomon’s done it. It is a very personal book to him,
having known from an early age that he’s gay and subsequently having struggled
in a society that still perceives this as a ‘sickness’. This book took him a
long time to write, but every minute he spent, researching, interviewing,
exploring the subject was worth it. The result is astounding. Far from the Tree is a well-rounded, all-encompassing study of parents’ relationship with
their children, born into or marked by what most would perceive as tragedy at
worst, or a challenge at least: children with disability, mental illness,
criminal activity, born out of rape, and so forth – and how these
relationships, despite hardship, flourished and gained a meaning they might not
have under different circumstances. How the people involved even managed to
embrace some of those challenges as identity, which turns the idea of
disability and illness on its head, suggesting that trying to fix or make
certain perceived problems like deafness and homosexuality “go away” causes
more damage than it improves.
This book bears Solomon’s trademark holistic approach, it
covers all angles and perspectives and neglects nothing. He looks at the very
individual story of each person involved but also places it in its wider
societal context, micro- and macro-analysing and this way managing to still any
appetite and need for reading this book: be it scientific curiosity, a need to
relate and be understood, inspiration on a personal and wider philosophical
level, even finding answers, explanations and solutions if one finds oneself
involved in a similar subject matter. It is a lesson in tolerance, love,
acceptance for the self and others and embracing differences.
When I say this is not an easy read, please do not
misunderstand. Solomon’s style reads beautifully and accessibly, but I had to
put the book down time and again, just to digest the richness of it, to catch
up with my thoughts and how I related to it, to fully grasp what he was talking
about. It is not a book made for passive consumption, it is one that, “for best
results”, should be chewed and allowed to seep into one’s soul. It is
challenging not on a “too hard to understand” level, as the man talks nothing
but sense, it is merely the complexity of it that blows you away.
Solomon has confirmed himself as my hero: he’s an
intellectual, but one that is humble, openly flawed but nonetheless
enlightened, outrageously warm and humane, a man with a vision as wide and
encompassing as the sky. Sorry to gush, but there are very very few people who
have managed to do what he has done.
So I beg you, please please read this book. I myself shall be shipping it to friends far and wide, like soul-expanding,
mindboggling, brain-blowing and enlightening lollipops. Far from the Tree is a
masterpiece that will probably never find its match. Until Solomon writes
another one.
Patty :)
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