There's Always Sadness

If you don't want to read about war, reminiscings, and an old man's thoughts of his life, don't start on Ethan Canin's 'Carry Me Across The Water'. I like this book. It's poignant, sad and moving, a book about atonement somewhat, of lives lived and lost (not just in the literal sense, but of the pursuit of dreams). Mournful in its tone. Such is the quiet elegance of Ethan Canin's writing.

A father of three and a widower, 78-year old August Kleinman is a former brewery owner in Pittsburg, a faithless Jewish soldier in the South Pacific against the Japanese during World War II, who remembers his life in bits and pieces, chunks and sudden bursts. By his own admission, he could be an arrogant, difficult and cranky old man who adored his deceased wife Ginger Pella. (Read reviews here, here and here.)

The book begins with a letter to Umi. And we wonder, who wrote this letter? Who is Umi? How is this going to end?

My Most Divine Umi -  

You cannot imagine how I long for you.  

When I think of my real life (or shall I say my past life? For this, now is my real life) so much of it vanishes - Sounzan, the mountain, even my beloved parents - and all that remains of my time on earth are the days that I have spent with you. And two of these days you know nothing about! Are you aware that I spent the Saturday before my departure with you? No, how could you know? 

You and Kakuzo, with little Teiji in his basket, walked that morning to the inlet of turules, and Kakuzo carried a gift melon, no doubt offered in honor of Teiji's birth. You shared it, then brought Teiji to the water and dipped his tiny feet. I believe I saw in Kakuzo, as he stood at the edge of the shore stones, a hesitancy to touch the baby: is it possible? I know such details, my love, because I was in the cherry trees watching you. 

My life I give to the two of you.

We eventually learn who Umi is later in the book when August Kleinman makes a trip to the island of Honshu, an intended short 4-day trip that he calls 'justice', to find Umi, a woman who's close to his age, and he doesn't know her last name. He found her- a polished stone of her memorial, and learnt her last name. At this point, I had to return to the beginning to re-read the 'letter', in order to piece together to information that I've forgotten. We learn that this dead woman's husband, is someone Kleinman may have killed in the war, and he has to fulfil the Japanese soldier's wishes to bring a letter to the woman of his dreams, and the mother of his child. In this act, Kleinman releases ghosts of the family's past and could possibly effect momumental changes in the adult Teiji Yamamoto's life.

The ending is ambiguous, I feel. The book ends with Kleinman leaving Japan after doing his duty. Nothing majorly reflective; perhaps a little pensive. But I'd like to think he died mid-flight without arriving home safe, alive. That's romantic, and the best way possible to end a life that has been vicariously pursued.

Claire Yamamoto reached for his arm and led him onto a patio along the side wall of the house, where she gestured to two chairs of woven yellow cane standing in the shade. Her hair was Asiatic, and in her eyes was a midl epicanthic suggestion of the East; but her skin was olive, and her nose, which Kleinman saw in profile as they took their seats, was bent gently downward at its peak. At this he smiled: Semitic? Could she be a Jew? The Diaspora seed, cast like windfall across the earth? There was an obvious sympathy to her demeanor for which he was suddenly and childishly grateful. She smiled in return. Then, without preamble, she explained to him that she and Teiji had lived in Sounzan all last year caring for Umi, who had died six months ago, in this house, of old age.