Genre - Memoir

Sometimes I read a book that makes me long for the ability to produce something just as beautiful (or even partially so). Kerri nĩ Dochartaigh’s Cacophony of Bone: The Circle of a Year is such a book for me. I can say easily I loved her use of language - her prose is poetry and her words are precise and just lovely. I listened to her reading it first, and found her voicing of her text beautiful. Now I am rereading it in the traditional print mostly because I need to slow it down just a bit and dig slightly deeper. I’m already entranced with the arrangements of words on pages. You guys. Also, this book is the first that has much to do with 2020 that I didn’t read and say, “Um, you know, I’m just not ready…and perhaps the key to that for me is in the prologue where Dochartaigh writes, “ I am telling you here of a year that was like no other…I am telling you here of a year that was just the same a every other that had ever gone before.” Her lens is so very different from mine during that time and speaks to me in a way that previous writings have not. Additionally, I am intrigued because many of the poets she quotes are favorites of mine. I needed to own the print version to explore her quotations and mentions of other writers more carefully. I am not sure what that means beyond reading and rereading some things. I am kind of excited about it though. Oh and birds. I have long been drawn to birds. Dochartaigh seems to be as well and how she weaves them into her work is simply stunning for me.

In a typical review, in this paragraph I tend to try and take a technical look at the book for review. In fiction I tend to focus on setting, characterization, plot, etc. I have not worked with nonfiction and memoir as much. True confession: I googled how to review a memoir structurally. The results weren’t helpful - in part I think because I don’t necessarily feel qualified to “review” this work. And so. She structures her work very much like a journal. She starts in January of 2020 - naming months and numbering days throughout. It sounds like something ancient (especially aloud) but then she’d be referencing something she saw in instagram, and the contrast just worked. She is cyclical in her references to the moon. She writes of birds and of swimming and of collecting bones and of grieving and of writing. She captures a year very directly but also through snippets and fragments that seem accidental until you see the patterns that aren’t really patterns after all. I will leave the academic analysis this time to the academics I guess. I have had the conversation with students again and again - the difference between appreciating writing, loving it versus tearing it apart to analyze it deeply. And sometimes the analysis increases the appreciation and the love (for me it usually does), but sometimes it is just as good to read and appreciate and love. For now I am doing that with Cacophony of Bone.

In this paragraph, I like to reflect on the impact of the work on me at a more personal level. I kind of think I’ve been doing such reflection throughout this time. Dochartaigh illustrates change beautifully. She deals honestly with the difficulty of change - addiction, loss, a pandemic. She explores healing through routine, nature, reading, and writing. She inspires me to look deeper into the literature that I have loved for years. I have been gathering books for a bit - mostly collections of poetry - to read when I retired. I haven’t touched them yet. I must. I will be getting even more ideas from this book. But. I am still wired to work. To organize. To clean. To be productive in what I consider a tangible way. Some rewiring is a bit necessary. Dochartaigh teaches that reflection and personal growth are not luxuries, but essential to living well in this world of ours. Please read this memoir.