On not finishing Spill Simmer Falter Wither
My friend Joanne lent me a stack of books in 2019. The stack remains on my shelf since the last two years have robbed me of opportunities to return them to her. This stack introduced me to Rebecca Solnit, who I then binge read for the rest of 2019. The stack also contained a few from Tramp Press, a few book-shaped literary journals, as well as Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends. I read the back of Conversations with Friends and deemed myself unqualified either to read or weigh in on Rooney. I have read Normal People. I’ve also had several “conversations with friends” about Normal People. I think that adequate Internet ink has been spilled on Sally Rooney. As many have said before me: what she does obviously appeals. I wish her well.
Apart from Conversations with Friends, one other book remains unread from Joanne’s stack: Sara Baume’s Spill Simmer Father Wither.
When I say unread I mean abandoned. I spent a few days labouring through the first quarter of this book about a man in East Cork who rescues a dog. I can’t quite put my finger on what caused me to abandon this book.
People have different philosophies about their bookshelves. I remember an American friend whose house heaved under the weight of books that she had bought but hadn’t read. I’m the opposite. I can count on one hand the books that I failed to at least trudge through. Unread books in my environment distress me. Looking at Sara Baume’s Spill Simmer Falter Wither unread on my shelves stung me. I set aside everything to read it this winter break.
And I sit here having decided to abandon the book once again.
I thought that the last two years would have helped me appreciate and identify with the main character of Spill Simmer Falter Wither, a man who spends most of his life in isolation. A man who never learned the fine details of his origin story. A man who knows he shares nothing in common with those he sees passing by his window, those who he’s forced to make small talk with every now and again. A man who spent a long time learning the names of the most common flowers in his immediate environment for a lack of anything better to do. A man who spends as much time at home as we all have been forced to during this pandemic. A man who, unlike the rest of us, doesn’t complain.
The novel begins when he rescues a stray dog that carries a lot of emotional baggage. The dog is quick to bite. His new owner is slow to restrain or place a muzzle on him in public space. This leads to inevitable mauling of other dogs. Then the dog warden appears to seize the animal. Fleeing from the warden, the monotony of the everyday is replaced with the monotony of traveling through one grimy Irish village after the other.
I’m sure someone has called the novel life affirming and used several lofty adjectives to describe the bond between man and dog. As the novel progresses, the man falls asleep and in his dreams he enters the psyche of the dog. The man projects everything he has onto this dog. He gives everything he has to give.
I thought that reading this novel in 2019 was the problem. My own life moved at a much more rapid pace. I bounced from one event to the next. I worked my way through pithy, beautiful novels. I returned to this novel with the idea that the pandemic might have put manners on me. Objectively, I cannot fault the construction of this book, the language of this book, the rendering of the character, the empathy Baum has shown him. I recognise the undercurrent of everyday Ireland in these pages. The one thing I’m bereft of is pleasure.
What the novel does best of all is demonstrate that rural Ireland is devoid of public space. The narrator hunts for small gateways where he can neatly tuck his car in before sleeping each evening. Driving through the city centres during the lockdowns of the last two years and seeing the youth of Ireland sitting together on cold concrete, this lack of public space never felt so evident. This is a topic for another day.
Depending on what 2022 has in store for us, I might find myself returning to this book with interest. Stranger things have happened.