Burying the Hatchet – Forgive 2 Forget*
Have you ever been accused of something you didn't do? It's not easy to reconcile the after taste of swallowed pride, being stitched up and letting injured feelings transmute to glorious white roses. The damage is done. Defence is useless like a sinking stone in a freezing pond.
I reviewed Hannah Kent’s book Burial Rites which won all manner of awards. It was her first published manuscript, not a book I would pick up in a pink fit but I had read her second book The Good People and enjoyed it. Her research is what drew me in. I am a quantum physics’, medical and science reader, usually, but can be swayed in any other direction on occasion.
Burial Rites’ cover was grey and sad looking, with two scrawny birds on the front that looked like they were in need of a good feed. The sad looking book lay lonely beside my side of the bed with the other six books I was reading. As usual, I had a skim through it and after five minutes couldn’t put it down.
What is it about authors who grab readers by the throat, mucking around with your head? No, no, you can’t get away to do anything meaningful, only plan your next reading session. This writer brought me to Iceland in the early 1800s where Agnes was accused of being involved in knifing a two-faced character (her once loved slave driver) and another to death. The book is written in fiction but based on true events. Holy God! A Nearly True Transcript…
The storyline is unusual, highly intelligent written text, and Agnes became my bestie for a week or so. She was a prisoner led in shackles to a house full of haters, to be tolerated before her fate was to be finally decided. Then reason, logic and smart questions entered the household and a tiny amount of tolerance entered her life.
The author Hannah Kent, sublimely shows the readers how Agnes’s life is not so different from our own at times. It’s risky, it’s hell and heaven but hey we’re still alive today to share a dream or two in the chaos of creation.
I delayed reading the final pages and left the book down for a few days because I guessed what might have passed in the coldest snow Iceland has ever seen. Agnes, gazing at her almost unbelievable fate with her mentor by her side. There's something you must know. The Truth or What? Stranger than Fiction.
Like most of us, Agnes was pre-judged and the twist in the book may make you dream about her for days afterwards. The scandalous way life doesn’t give two bloody hoots about your plans and its roller-coaster ride to nowhere in a hurry. What you see is often NOT what you get. You get a whole lot more that you never asked for!
We are routinely pre-judged and wrongly accused. Who cares? A lot do. Love Grows in the Strangest of Places. Kindness is often generously delivered by a stranger or an acquaintance. Does Agnes live happily ever after, freed from her captors by a twist of fate, or does darkness envelop her body? You'll have to read this seriously good book to find out!
I choose to look forward and expend precious energy on creative purpose in diverse areas of life. I pick my battles carefully these days.
