Note to Self...

Do NOT read Shilling's Quietus before going to bed.

I did it last month while staying at the cabin with Morgan and again last night. And during both nights I hardly slept; I tossed and turned, woke up frequently; and did not get that deep refreshing sleep I needed.

The word quietus means a finishing and that's how Shilling uses it in the title. This is a book about finishing something that wasn't completed. The thing not completed was death. But there is another underlying theme, connection. We are all connected and what happens to one, ultimately affects us all. Shilling notes this idea with the quote:

  

There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. 

The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, 

is often carried out by secret steps, which are foresight cannot divine

and our sagacity is unable to trace.

Joseph Addison 1723

(I'm watching the news while writing this and there is an outcry about the burning of the Qu'ran and I'm reminded of the sense of connection - what that act will do to all of us, either now or later.)

Shilling uses the finishing and the connectivity in a very personal sense. What would happen if one was supposed to die, but didn't. If during that time right before "death" we would have a vision of those that come for us. However, when we are brought back from the brink, those "watcher", guardians, earthly angels, may still hover, waiting or working for the finishing, the quietus, that was denied them - our death.

And what about the connection? If those who are supposed to have died still live and connect with others, does that connectivity cause problems? What are the results of those unintended-by-fate problems? Have we changed the world just because we survived?

Shilling's prose is vivid, at times a bit purple but mostly effective in telling the story of several people who cheated death in a small plane crash.

But the varying themes of connection, death, loss, along with passages about medieval death art can lead to sleepless nights.

Although I'm also reading The Hunger Games (more on that in a later post), I think I need a change of pace soon.  Jennifer Crusie's Maybe this Time is waiting in my Kindle. Time for some romance.