Sorrows of an American – Siri Hustvedt
The inner layers of a person’s life control their actions when compressed into one. The first layer, your past shapes and creates your wishes, desires and ambitions and will hopefully encourage and generate what will come next. All events in between and leading up to the present include the middle layer. That is the one in which you keep your fears, your secrets and hidden desires and wishes. The present is what is happening now and it will create a bright and positive future made up of all the events of the past, the middle and the present. However, that’s not always the case, as we see in this deep and profound novel of loss, grief, and depression by Siri Hustvedt.
Returning home from his father’s funeral, Dr. Erik Davidsen, the main character and narrator of this novel, realizes how lonely he is and how isolated he has begun to feel. A prominent psychiatrist, surrounded by his patients, family members who are also dealing not only with the loss of a parent or grandparent, but also others, helps create a feeling of melancholy and sadness throughout this novel. When he and his sister begin to go through their father’s papers, they find a rather disturbing letter that a person named Lisa wrote to him. Nobody knows the origin of the letter or who she is. So, start them on a journey to find out who she is and discover a secret that could break the already fragile shell of her family.
Throughout the novel, the main character goes back in time and describes his father’s experiences in the military during World War II. Although haunting and graphic, these experiences described by the author increase our understanding of what Erik is going through and how much he misses his father and his life with him. Throughout the novel, Erik often sees his father in sight in visions during dreams or slipping into psychoanalytic flashbacks where he begins to think about situations that happened in the past and intersperses them in the present. Sometimes, it is difficult for the reader to know if he is referring to situations in the present or something that happened before.
Erik, not only is he looking for answers related to this letter, but he is also involved in the lives of other characters. Miranda, a single father has decided to rent the rooms on the floor below his. Alone and in dire need of company, he forms a deep and instant attraction to Miranda, who makes it clear that she has no romantic interest in him. Along with her haunting and manipulative boyfriend, the father of her five-year-old little daughter, they all play an important role in Erik’s life. The parent or groom enjoys photographing everything and everyone, disturbing and distorting them in disturbing ways. The groom has an art exhibition and shows many photos of Miranda, her daughter Edgy, and Erik. Unbeknownst to him, he exhibits a photo titled The Chief Doctor Goes Crazy, which is a photo taken of him with almost nothing and carrying a hammer that he used when this man broke into his home and caught him.
Inga, Erik’s sister, also has many secrets and layers in her life. Married to a writer and film director, she has to deal with the knowledge that he was unfaithful to her and to the reporter and biographer who want to know more about him and expose him. Sonia, your daughter is dealing with what she saw on September 11 and with the knowledge that she has kept a secret about her father from her mother and family.
His vivid descriptions of the war, character flashbacks, and memories of times with his grandparents are not only poignant but tragic in many ways. The narrator, Erik, seems to live in the past and, although he tries, he does not seem to appreciate the present. Being close to your sister and building trust in your niece can help you both deal with some horrible problems.
So many secrets and so many mysteries are revealed as the family discovers who Lisa really is and the secret she made to her father, Lars, that they both swore in a Bible they would never tell. His patients, those who are alive, whom he refers to by the first letter of their name, and the deceased, their full names, lets the reader know that he is trying to make sense of the deceased person and that he has yet to understand. the ones you are still dealing with.
Through Erik and his sister, the reader comes to understand how different people from the same family deal with the death of a father and how Erik’s visions and dreams help guide him in coping with the death of his father. The author’s descriptions of immigrant life and experiences and her vivid descriptions of the Minnesota landscape are truly remarkable. His account of the life of this Brooklyn psychoanalyst is not only realistic, but honest and a true description of how someone, even a doctor, deals with death and pain. It makes him human and vulnerable like everyone else.
Although we think that the reporter, who wants to know more about Inga’s late husband, is going to find a terrible dark secret to print, we later find out that she is doing it out of revenge to hurt her and, as she puts it, “to find some dirt on you. ” He wants to put her down a few times for making her feel unworthy of being noticed when they both attended college. Edie, the person who has some letters written by Inga’s late husband, is holding them for ransom to make sure she sells them to the highest bidder for money to help her take care of her son and herself. What the reader discovers in the end is that Edie’s son is also the son of Max, Inga’s late husband, and has learning disabilities. She is distraught and unhappy and sells the cards to what I call Inga’s hero, Burton, a comical character who is always sweating and who is secretly in love with Inga. Her husband actually writes the letters to Lili, the character Edie plays, and not to Edie herself.
Through the characters, the reader learns how difficult it is to deal with secrets, the death of a father where the empty space in his heart never disappears, and the sorrows that families and individuals face every day. This novel is realistic, heartbreaking, and yet it gives us all hope.
This novel is quite unlike anything you have read before. It’s one that caught my eye from the first page and I couldn’t put it down until I read the last page. I will reread this novel many times. Powerful, profound and fascinating, it is a must read for all who have lost a loved one and need to find a way to remember that person in their mind or heart.
