Rowing Without Oars

Rowing Without Oars: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Ulla-Carin Lindquist, translated by Margaret Myers, absolutely must exist. It's an absolutely beautiful work of art by a hero-type who also seems completely honest. Ulla-Carin was a Swedish newscaster who died in 2004 of ALS. She was a Type-A person with four children. I could go through at random to pick quotes, but here's one of the many that balances the tragedy and normalcy. Ulla-Carin and her husband, Olle, are telling her two younger children, who are seven and nine, about her diagnosis:

I tell them that ALS is among the worst illnesses that a person can get. Olle says that it isn't infectious and can't be inherited. I say I have the best doctor in Sweden and the most wonderful family in the world. Olle and I start to cry and --
'What's it going to be like in a year?'
Emptiness. Time stops. My throat tightens. Gustaf's eyes are like ponds and he is waiting.
'I'll probably be dead.'
Pontus bursts into tears and dives down beside me in bed while Gustaf remains in the chair by the window.
Behind him a westerly wind is blowing. The sailing-boats are traveling north with the wind side-on towards the harbour in Viggbyholm. The rosehips glow scarlet.
'Now I want to tell you about the stone age!' Gustaf says.
He explains in detail about food hollows and flints.
Pontus continues to lie with me, gazing into my eyes, close. When we have learnt how people lived six thousand years ago, Pontus cycles to his friend Marcus, and a little later he is sitting on the hilltop looking out to sea with a bag of cheese-and-onion crisps.

I feel like I should say more, but I can't really speak for a book that is so beautiful. It should be allowed to speak for itself.

February 19, 2007