Review of novel: The Dying Detective by Leif Person, and reflections on Aging!

May 29, 2006 What I can and what I can't

A friend was watching the film The Dying Detective and recommended it strongly to me. I admire this friend's taste and intellect but I WILL not subcribe to another streaming service for anything. I have amazon which I need for ordering home deliveries and netflix. which I think my daughter got for me and that is enough. So I wouldn't be watching that film.

I will dip back and forth between my subjects so here is my first dip: I am losing my vision due to a genetic age related cornea disease. I can't read text anymore without a magnifying glass and I have tried dozens; it is too hard, so I listen to audio books which I love. It is a whole new experience and I love the different voices doing the narration, how they adapt to accects and different characters. So, I bought The Dying Detective Novel with my 1 credit with the app audible. There is a free library service that offers audio books in Camden County Libraries called Hoopla, but I usually use up my five free books and need to buy from audible as well.

After 30 fairly short chapters in The audio book The Dying Detective, I was perplexed at why my friend would have recommended a novel with such a neinous murder at the center of the plot. I actually asked her about it on the phone, "What exactly was it that you liked so much about this?"

She mentioned the main character in the story and the actor playing the part. She and I are both big fans of Nordic films and she was very impressed with the acting of the main character, Detective Lars Martin Johannson. Well, as the chapters went on, and I became more and more engaged with the main character in the book, I began to get what she meant.

The Detective is a man of 68 who is a stressful personality inextricably attached to his career in every way. He was a renowned detective but has retired. He is addicted to the problem solving and his brain is wired from his long career into this function. He cannot give it up, But he has had a stroke! He loses use of his right arm and leg, and a good bit of his memory. He was famous for his memory when he was working. He had one of those memories where other detectives and policemen would come to him for details about long ago crimes. The stroke has taken an array of his mental abilities away with it. He is functional but large parts of his memory are gone and he has emotional peaks and valleys and despair.

The cold case murder, by the end of part 2, to me, was the least important thing about this book. It was Lars' struggle with "the new me" as he puts it. It is his personality and character which are not conducive to adapting to his "new life." He is married to a woman 20 years younger who is in the full flower of her career, so, althugh she is dutiful in service as a wife, and affectionate and devoted, she is busy in her career and we find Lars alone in his struggle with himself. He has helpers along the way, a best friend, a 'carer' or two, but the main story to me, is Lars' inability and disinclination to accept his new limitations and his new life.

He fights with everyone because everyone is telling him what to do and he has been the 'boss' all his life. He resists his new heart healthy diet and resents the efforts of his wife and carer to supply him with these new meals: salmon and salad and fresh fruits for example, when it is sausage in sauerkraut and potatoes and beer that he wants. In fact, he was eating the sausage with sauerkraut and mustard when he had the heart attack that brought on his stroke. Something funny - when he was found, it was thought he had been shot in the stomache becaus his lap was covered in the sausage and sauerkraut and they thought it was his guts spilled out.

He resents and resists the physical therapy and he feels that everyone is controlling his life. Nonetheless, he persists in working on a murder cold case of 25 years ago, at the request of his neurosurgeon Ulrica Swenson. It is working on the case that helps him from drowning in despair. This is something I understand because when I fall into despair, I float from drowning on a raft made of one of my abiding interests like Neanderthals and early humans, or archaeology of all kinds, or art or literature. solving the cold case is really a distraction from his new reality which is that he can't read without sustaining unbearable headaches, and he can't use his right arm which means he must rely on help from others, and his heart restricts his activity. He sleeps a lot and suffers fatigue and lack of vitality.

I know all these things here at the lofty peak of age 80! And I recognise them from my father's long descent into his last journey to his death. My dad used to say "I can't do anything anymore!" And I would say, "well, you can sit on the veranda and look out over the mountains and enjoy the mountain air and the beautiful view!" he would look at me as though I were crazy. I missed his point and I was trying to find alternates for him but he didn't want alternates, he wanted what he used to have, vitality, agency. The thing is, I recognized he couldn't have that; it was over. And what was needed was 're-framing' his situation, flexibility, and a search for what he could have. He was too stubborn for that.

Today I did the medium small walk. Of course I feel a twinge when I think that I used to do 6 mile moon light hikes in the Pine Barrens and that I climbed up frozen waterfalls in Jim Thormpe, Pa. once. But I realize that those days are over

I was a lifelong long walker. Now, I have three small walks, 1000 steps at Proprietor's Park in Gloucester City, to the statue and back, 1500 steps along the waterfront and 2000 step walk around martin's Lake. So depending upon my energy level and my knee and back, I decide which one I can manage. They are all beautiful walks and I have the blessing of being very integrated within the natural world, so I can be happy just being somewhere. I thank my Buddhist readings over my lifetime for this gift.

I can't hike or kayak or walk fast or far anymore and I can't read a book, but I can walk along the river, sit on a bench with my dog, and I can listen to an audio book. And these activities inspire me to other activities that are within my reach. The view of some colorful cargo container ships along the Philadelphia side of the Delaware River this morning made me want to do a small watercolor painting in my Art Journal.

Writing lasts for a long time. It is a good one for aging. The laptop allows me to enlarge the text so I can see it. This blog is a big part of my everyday experience. I am attached to it. And as we age, our friendships tend to drift away, so this blog is a friend and a place for me to express myself about the experience of my life, and it is a puzzle to solve, and an art to perfect, and a practice. I have been journal writing for more than 50 years and writing is now fluent for me. It is possible I might lose the use of my fingers at some point due to arthritis, I suppose. I already get twinges and cramps in my fingers and hands from age and arthritis, but I will face that when it comes and find something else.

We can't eat whatever we want anymore either as we age. And that isn't just us humans either. My dog is 13 and a Lab and she suffered an almost deadly attack of pancreatitis a year ago. She has to live on prescription diet dog food now - expensive to me and unsatisfying to her. I add rice and cooked vegetables to it for interest, nutrition and filling. She is often in a desperate search throughout the house for something with fats in it to satisfy her body and brain which are telling her she needs feets and her diet is deficient. But when she strikes it rich and steals some cat food, she has stomach pain and diarrhea. She can't adapt.

When I was listening to my audiobook last night and the detectives wife was affectionately trying to sooth his emotional pain, I had tears rolling down my cheeks and I was feeling sorry for myself because I have no one who loves me like that, but I have friends with husbands and I realized, this is a novel, not real life, because those spouses are more an irritant than a comfort My married friends have a ot more money, but not more comfort. Maybe husbands just arent' as devoted or as kind as wives, but the wives I know with disabled husbands, they aren't all that affectionate and soothing either, more at their wit's end with the constant needs of their cranky husbands calling their names all day long to get stuff for them.

Well, when everything goes, there is always meditation - a great practice to begin right now. Sitting on the porch or on a bench in the park is an endlessly enjoyable activity as well, keeping company with the trees and the river, the squirrels and the birds. The Detective complains because he is determined to get enough strength and ability back to be able to hunt again. He wants to kill an elk. I think he would be much healthier in his soul and his heart if he could learn to love his fellow creatures and enjoy existence with them rather than destroying them. He has the wrong power.

Maybe by the end of the book he will solve the mystery of his own existence along with the cold case murder crime. I will let you know.

Happy trils along your road through life!

wrightj45@yahoo.com