More ironic than Alanis Morrisette...

8.20.2007

I just finished reading The World According to Garp by John Irving. I initially resisted the book due to some early Wellesley bashing, but by the end, I really enjoyed it. For me, the book was about death and the irony and absurdity that often accompany it. Garp loved an ironic, unexpected, and ultimately karmic death.

As I sat in the corner of the café near my house frantically to finish some work on a death penalty appeal that I’m behind on, I had a vision of my own death. The tables and chairs are bulky and placed close together here. Between me and the door is a larger table. A woman with a huge stroller was trying to maneuver her way to the table and eventually had to park the stroller outside and bring only the bulky car seat with baby in to set next to me on the bench. The difficulty of logistics inherent in this small activity caught my attention and distracted me. Moments later, her friend arrived with another oversized stroller and they shuffled the large chairs to make room at the table to park the baby. Just settled in to drink lattes and discuss the latest triumphs of their precious little things, I had a vision of a fire in the café. I am stuck in the corner, trapped by the large machinery of birth, with all fire exits and paths to the door blocked by the oversized stroller. At the end, the babies take their collective revenge for my obstinate immunity to their charm. It would be a death that Garp would appreciate.

Of course, real death is neither ironic nor absurd. It is not romantic nor literary. It is sad. So so sad. Heartbreakingly so. It is painful and it hurts. Even if there is relief in some death, there is nothing redeeming or sensible about it. It just hurts.