I didn't expect today's prompt to be as difficult as it was. As I mentioned in my previous post about a book that makes me happy, I have read plenty of less-than-joyful books in my time. Yet perhaps that was what made this challenge difficult: the amount of books to choose from. To narrow things down, I started to get quite specific about the criteria, in a way that wasn't necessarily indicated in the prompt. The prompt specifically said "sad", after all - not depressing, or miserable, or tear-jerking (that's the prompt for another challenge). This left me with two challenges instead of one: in addition to choosing a book, I also had to define what "sadness" meant.
Needless to say, I had been making the issue far more complicated than it needed to be, as is my nature. In the end, I decided to simply pick a book I've read recently that made me feel sad. Nothing more complicated than that. So without further ado, I shall now present to you my chosen sad book: The Man Without a Shadow by Joyce Carol Oates.
The way in which I encountered this book was somewhat unusual for me. When I went on holiday over Christmas, I made the mistake of only taking one book with me, which I was already 75% of the way through. I finished this book on my first day away, leaving me tragically book-less. Naturally, this led to a trip to the local bookshop of the nearest French town. Since the English selection was rather small (only about half a dozen shelves in an otherwise well-stocked selection), I decided that I would deliberately choose a novel I had never heard of before. I thought this would be an interesting challenge for myself, as usually I only buy books which I have previously heard of and/or read about online.
The Man Without a Shadow caught my eye because I had already read another book by Joyce Carol Oates, Foxfire. Having enjoyed that, I was keen to read more of her work. The plot of The Man Without a Shadow also piqued my curiosity, so there wasn't any question of me leaving the bookshop with anything else.
The basic plot summary, courtesy of my edition's back cover, is as follows:
In 1965, a young research scientist named Margot Sharpe is introduced to Elihu Hoopes, an attractive, charismatic amnesiac whose short-term memory has been devastated by a brief illness.
By dedicating her professional life to him, Margot establishes for herself an exceptional career in the rapidly expanding field of neuroscience.
But where is the line between scientific endeavour and personal obsession?
Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? The plot of the book reminded me a bit of Flowers for Algernon, another novel that considers the ethical and emotional fallout that comes from using humans as scientific test subjects. Like Flowers for Algernon, we go into The Man Without a Shadow more or less knowing that the story is not going to end happily. That said, the rest of this post will contain spoilers for the novel, so if you want to avoid that, I suggest you stop reading now.
*WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW*
The sadness of The Man Without a Shadow is multi-layered. Most obviously, we have the sadness of Eli's condition, which originated from an infection contracted when he was 37 and left him unable to form memories after that point. The title comes from Margot's observation that, in having no memory beyond the last seventy seconds, Eli has become a man without a past, without anything behind him - a man without a shadow. His lack of memory prevents him from making plans for the future, too, with the result being that Eli is a man permanently trapped in the present. He is aware of his condition and yet unable to do anything to alleviate it. As his family and friends become increasingly less tolerant of his symptoms and thus become more and more distant, Eli is left with only the people who treat him as a science project for company. As the book goes on, we are given greater insight into how Eli perceives the world. In sections written from his perspective, we see that Eli is a disorientated, scared man, who has a vague sense of being trapped and yet - by the very nature of his entrapment - is forever unable to escape.
The protagonist, Margot, is another tragic figure. Lonely and work-obsessed, she craves human contact but at the same time seems to deliberately isolate herself. She too is trapped, although in her case it is within the role of the "Chaste Daughter" which she believes herself to fit into. While at first she finds some comfort in an affair with her supervisor, Milton Ferris, she is upset by the realisation that Ferris doesn't feel the same way about her as she does about him - and, later, she becomes even more distressed as she is tossed aside when Ferris decides to direct his attention towards his newer, younger subordinates.
The relentless progress of aging is another cause for sadness in the book. This is not to say that aging is inherently sad, but in this book it certainly is. While Margot gains professional success as she gets older, she also becomes further isolated, which in turn causes her relationship with Eli to become increasingly obsessive and unethical. Eli, meanwhile, suffers as greater distance is put between himself and the period of his life which he is able to remember: the time before the incident which caused him to lose his memory at the age of 37. With each year that goes by, the man he sees in the mirror becomes ever more unrecognisable. His friends and family die or drift away, leaving him alone.
The culmination of the sadness and loneliness that both these characters feel comes in their relationship with one another. In different ways, they are each the other's whole world - Margot, because she has devoted her entire life to studying Eli; Eli, because he can remember nothing but the person in front of him, who so often happens to be Margot.
Make no mistake, though: this is not an equal relationship. While both characters become co-dependent out of their personal loneliness and need for human comfort, it is Margot who is abusing her power in this situation. To me, this is perhaps the most tragic aspect of the book. Whereas Margot was once the powerless figure in her relationship with Ferris, her married superior, in her relationship with Eli she becomes the abuser instead. As the person in charge of the so-called "project" which is Eli's condition, Margot comes to be in a position of authority over him. On top of this, she abuses his memory loss by outright lying to him, knowing he cannot tell if what she says is the truth. She tells him she is his wife, that they are in love, and then uses that suggestion to coerce him into a romantic and sexual relationship. It is implied at points that Eli is distantly aware of Margot's abuse, but his condition means he is never able to properly express it.
From the moment we read the first lines of The Man Without a Shadow, we know it is not going to be a happy book. The book's very premise is sad enough, but the plot proceeds with unrelenting suffering and pain from start to tragic finish. The saddest part of all is how the characters, memory-less or no, are all trapped in vicious cycles. They become more withdrawn, more obsessive, more miserable as the years go by. At the end of the novel, Eli is dead, unable to break this cycle. If their patterns of behaviour are anything to go by, the rest of the characters will most likely end their lives in much the same way.
I don't think sadness should necessarily be seen as a bad thing. Perhaps it gives us a little perspective. Nice and informative post. The question is whether or not to add this book to my list of books to read.
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