SOMETHING RISING (LIGHT AND SWIFT)

(Part 2 of 2)

The summary also ignores the importance of place in this novel, which occurs mainly in a fictional Indiana town called Roseville, and ends in the very real New Orleans.  When Cassie has her fortune told late one night in New Orleans, in Jackson Square, the palm reader says he sees she comes from  "....Someplace...I can see flatness, desolation...it's just so ugly.  You live in a world where the spirits have completely flown, there are no voices left...well, it's really painful, isn't it?"   He goes on to say of New Orleans that..."Even here, the voices are weakened, it's nothing like it used to be, we all used to feel like radio receivers, voices coming through all the time.  We'd spin the dial and listen to our favorite songs.  But now it's like they're far away, children calling from a great distance."   And yet, the spirit voices have a message for the fortune teller to deliver to  Cassie, and it's from the poet Rilke:
        "To you is left (unspeakably confused)
         your life, gigantic, ripening, full of fears,
         so that it, now hemmed in, now grasping all,
         is changed in you by turns to stone and stars."
And this is exactly the right message for this young woman, it is, in fact, her story, encapsulated in Rilke's miraculous verse.

I want to quote whole passages, long ones, here.  The description of Poppy's dogs,  the encounter with the turkey buzzard, Cassie's visit to Belle's college dorm room and the lengthy note she leaves for her sister, and again I have to say, Laura's posthumous letter to her daughters, the entire section about Cassie's trip to New Orleans.  But of course, I can't.  So, do yourself a favor - find this astonishing novel, read these passages and all the rest, be grateful for the gift that Haven Kimmel has given us.