review of Parakeet

Parakeet by Marie-Helene Bertino
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A delightful, strange, and punchy book that I assumed would be whimsical and cutesy but surprised me with its darkness and depth. I knew little about the book when I started (woman is a week away from her wedding when her dead grandmother visits her as a parakeet -- seemed intriguing enough!) but the whole of the story was so much more than that simple premise. It is about family, grief, belonging, trying to understand the most elusive people in one's life (usually family), and trying to seek out happiness in the difficult contexts that conspire against you.

"This is what they call trauma logic, which is indistinguishable from dream logic."

This book was dreamy -- not in a pastel, confectionary, lightness of being way, but the way REAL dreams are: mostly terrifying, illogical, scattered, haunting, uncanny. The way dreams feel like deja vu sometimes. The way dreams feel after you wake up from them -- troubling or persistent, gnawing. The first half was surreal and dreamy (I was reminded of Barry Yourgrau's "Wearing Dad's Head" -- another fantastic book featuring familial absurdity), the second half more grounded and much too short. I could have read more but loved how succinct it was (no flourishes, another trait of this book, though there were many phrases and descriptive choices that sang to me -- my version is covered in highlights of some of my favorites).

Parakeet examines a multitude of human relationships -- the social expectations of marriage, of course, but also platonic love, lust, familial relationships and duties, what it means to be connected or tethered to other human beings. It depicts love and connection in various forms and is emotive, while still somehow being distant (using the word "love" feels too contrite, the word itself losing meaning from overuse). Parakeet also depicts trauma and its effect on someone's experiences ("the mean trick of trauma is that like a play it has no past tense. It is always happening.") -- an interesting conceit that recurs and replays in poignant ways throughout the story.

A stunning book, high on my list of books that I delighted in reading, but also challenged me (Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo is another one I hold in high regard and would be on the same list).

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gratitude

I think learning gratitude is really just the process of growing up. Of learning that everything you enjoy now is the product of sacrifice, hard work, dedication, selflessness. The investment of time, commitment, hope in a future that is better than the past.

I was thinking today about my Mom. Thinking about a book I wrote, as a kid, that described being an adult as "getting to do whatever you want," like dragging your kid around on errands when all they want is to go home. Then I thought about the times as a kid, going with Mom all over town to help her shop for things, how that was our way of spending time together. I learned to shop and be a consumer from these trips. But I imagine for my mom, it was nice to have someone to do that with, and also, to have the means to buy what you want, that was a luxury. That was the American Dream. That was something that felt very independent and luxurious, coming from a past where her family had so little, only one of the three kids got to eat meat at dinner, the rest only got soy sauce on rice until the next time they were the lucky one.

I started to think about how every generation tries to make life better for the next. How my mom grew up with so little, and her Mom with even less. My mom's life growing up was unimaginable to her Mom, my life now so pampered compared to what my Mom had. Ever generation doing what they can so the pains and hardships they endured could be a little more faded for the next. More room for joy, for carelessness, for the freedom of unburdenness.

But this realization pains me. Thinking about all my Mom, my Grandma, have done so I could know a different life. I will never know their pain. They will never know the same joys. This hurts me, feels like distance insurmountable.

To be grateful is to see that sacrifice, born of love, and hope to perpetuate that forward, in gratitude for what was given me.