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Undying: A Love Story
How can you say goodbye to the love of your life?
In Undying Michel Faber honours the memory of his wife, who died after a six-year battle with cancer. Bright, tragic, candid and true, these poems are an exceptional chronicle of what it means to find the love of your life. And what it is like to have to say goodbye.
All I can do, in what remains of my brief time,
is mention, to whoever cares to listen,
that a woman once existed, who was kind
and beautiful and brave, and I will not forget
how the world was altered, beyond recognition,
when we met.
In Undying Michel Faber honours the memory of his wife, who died after a six-year battle with cancer. Bright, tragic, candid and true, these poems are an exceptional chronicle of what it means to find the love of your life. And what it is like to have to say goodbye.
All I can do, in what remains of my brief time,
is mention, to whoever cares to listen,
that a woman once existed, who was kind
and beautiful and brave, and I will not forget
how the world was altered, beyond recognition,
when we met.
122 pages, Hardcover
First published July 7, 2016
22 people are currently reading
1540 people want to read
About the author
Michel Faber
76 books2,099 followersMichel Faber (born 13 April 1960) is a Dutch writer of English-language fiction.
Faber was born in The Hague, The Netherlands. He and his parents emigrated to Australia in 1967. He attended primary and secondary school in the Melbourne suburbs of Boronia and Bayswater, then attended the University of Melbourne, studying Dutch, philosophy, rhetoric, English language (a course involving translation and criticism of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English texts) and English literature. He graduated in 1980. He worked as a cleaner and at various other casual jobs, before training as a nurse at Marrickville and Western Suburbs hospitals in Sydney. He nursed until the mid-1990s. In 1993 he, his second wife and family emigrated to Scotland, where they still reside.
Faber was born in The Hague, The Netherlands. He and his parents emigrated to Australia in 1967. He attended primary and secondary school in the Melbourne suburbs of Boronia and Bayswater, then attended the University of Melbourne, studying Dutch, philosophy, rhetoric, English language (a course involving translation and criticism of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English texts) and English literature. He graduated in 1980. He worked as a cleaner and at various other casual jobs, before training as a nurse at Marrickville and Western Suburbs hospitals in Sydney. He nursed until the mid-1990s. In 1993 he, his second wife and family emigrated to Scotland, where they still reside.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews
February 12, 2017
Is it morbid or obscene to look at the subtly worded but harrowing pain of others? Like the Flemish poet Herman de Coninck (1944-1997) who wrote acerbically he won the Provincial poetry prize thanks to the death of his first wife (An, 1971) one can expect writers to resort to words when tragedy hits. Novelist Michel Faber turned to poetry to commemorate and deal with the loss of his wife Eva Youren to cancer in 2014. By writing this intimate and deeply courageous and moving recount on his thoughts and feelings regarding her long illness, death and the aftermath, he hazards to voice what seems ineffable, inspiring me with awe and gratefulness.
Under the cloud of death and illness a couple’s intimacy intensifies and is laid bare; in the light of suffering and finiteness every-day moments win in significance and importance; quotidian objects like blankets, clothes and tamarind inspire contemplation.
To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under the heaven, and to everything, there is a last time. The last ray of sun stroking the face, the last concert, the last book, the last sonata, the last words, the last kiss, last times will magnify boundlessly, until the last breath will wipe out all sense of time and change these moments into what they will be forever, irrevocably, last times.
We never knew
when it would be
the last time.
It was important
not to know.
We made love
the second-last time,
always the second-last time,
as many times
as time allowed.
(The Second-Last Time)
However, as an ode to Eva and their love, deeply personal, Faber’s poetry is more than solely a beauteous and graceful emanation of the most individualistic expression of the most individualistic emotion (Willem Kloos). Although at times brutally honest and raw, the conversational and reticent tone of most of the poems evades pushing the reader into a voyeuristic role.
Loss by loss, and need by need,
you slipped into my care,
and, act by act, I learned that I was there
for you, and we were in this till the end.
Chore by chore, I earned your trust,
and learned I could be trusted.
My love no longer sought to cure all things,
but went into the warming up of socks,
the whisking of your custard, bowls of soup,
late-night stories, carrying your coat, your purse,
being lover, friend and nurse.
Broken and remade, I was what I had vowed
I could not ever be: your rock.
(Helpmeet)
Faber unflinchingly covers every step further down closer to the end. From blissful ignorance (Lucky), over dashed hope (Remission), the side-effects of the toxic treatments (Contraindications), the feelings of guilt for being still able to move oneself (Rubbing It In) and for one’s own inadequacy to help and cope, the slow decline ruining the mind and body, the bidding farewell to a life in togetherness even before death arrives (Come to Bed), the messiness of life when dying, the care and nursing, until death do us part and what is supposed to be called life shifts into the collecting of the body of the loved one, the red tape (Account Holder), the self-neglecting non-acts of non-eating and non-sleeping, and the hardest part, the learning to live again – all those little routines coloured by a tinge of missing (Our Cats no Longer Miss You), of grief, by a shadow of regret for the things not done (You loved to dance), not done well enough (Such a simple thing I Could Have Fixed), not said.
(Did you ever wonder what you would regret not having done for or said to your loved one if today would be the last day together? Stop waiting for the better moment and do it now. Memento Mori. Ladies, gentlemen, dance, dance with your sweetheart while you still can).
Reading these verses feels like walking through the heart of a purifying fire, smarting, chafing, almost crossing the threshold of pain. The authenticity of Faber’s narrative poetry rings heartbreakingly true. Whether the wounds are still fresh or not, whether death has yet befallen or is awaited, still tied to the sickbed, when at a loss for words when introspecting or when asked how you are doing, reading Faber’s powerful testimony might not be healing, but might bring about a certain consolation by recognition as a form of understanding (beware when reading a library copy, it might get soaked).
Let go of all hope and illusions and enter the purgatory of mourning, let the swords of despair pierce you, feel the icy wind of horror blowing from the void taking your breath away while embracing the pain. Allow the tide of sorrow and grief to wash over you, go with the flow not to drown, and resurface, slowly. And again. Until your beloved might find rest in the peace of your mind.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the cloud of death and illness a couple’s intimacy intensifies and is laid bare; in the light of suffering and finiteness every-day moments win in significance and importance; quotidian objects like blankets, clothes and tamarind inspire contemplation.
To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under the heaven, and to everything, there is a last time. The last ray of sun stroking the face, the last concert, the last book, the last sonata, the last words, the last kiss, last times will magnify boundlessly, until the last breath will wipe out all sense of time and change these moments into what they will be forever, irrevocably, last times.
We never knew
when it would be
the last time.
It was important
not to know.
We made love
the second-last time,
always the second-last time,
as many times
as time allowed.
(The Second-Last Time)
However, as an ode to Eva and their love, deeply personal, Faber’s poetry is more than solely a beauteous and graceful emanation of the most individualistic expression of the most individualistic emotion (Willem Kloos). Although at times brutally honest and raw, the conversational and reticent tone of most of the poems evades pushing the reader into a voyeuristic role.
Loss by loss, and need by need,
you slipped into my care,
and, act by act, I learned that I was there
for you, and we were in this till the end.
Chore by chore, I earned your trust,
and learned I could be trusted.
My love no longer sought to cure all things,
but went into the warming up of socks,
the whisking of your custard, bowls of soup,
late-night stories, carrying your coat, your purse,
being lover, friend and nurse.
Broken and remade, I was what I had vowed
I could not ever be: your rock.
(Helpmeet)
Faber unflinchingly covers every step further down closer to the end. From blissful ignorance (Lucky), over dashed hope (Remission), the side-effects of the toxic treatments (Contraindications), the feelings of guilt for being still able to move oneself (Rubbing It In) and for one’s own inadequacy to help and cope, the slow decline ruining the mind and body, the bidding farewell to a life in togetherness even before death arrives (Come to Bed), the messiness of life when dying, the care and nursing, until death do us part and what is supposed to be called life shifts into the collecting of the body of the loved one, the red tape (Account Holder), the self-neglecting non-acts of non-eating and non-sleeping, and the hardest part, the learning to live again – all those little routines coloured by a tinge of missing (Our Cats no Longer Miss You), of grief, by a shadow of regret for the things not done (You loved to dance), not done well enough (Such a simple thing I Could Have Fixed), not said.
(Did you ever wonder what you would regret not having done for or said to your loved one if today would be the last day together? Stop waiting for the better moment and do it now. Memento Mori. Ladies, gentlemen, dance, dance with your sweetheart while you still can).
Reading these verses feels like walking through the heart of a purifying fire, smarting, chafing, almost crossing the threshold of pain. The authenticity of Faber’s narrative poetry rings heartbreakingly true. Whether the wounds are still fresh or not, whether death has yet befallen or is awaited, still tied to the sickbed, when at a loss for words when introspecting or when asked how you are doing, reading Faber’s powerful testimony might not be healing, but might bring about a certain consolation by recognition as a form of understanding (beware when reading a library copy, it might get soaked).
Let go of all hope and illusions and enter the purgatory of mourning, let the swords of despair pierce you, feel the icy wind of horror blowing from the void taking your breath away while embracing the pain. Allow the tide of sorrow and grief to wash over you, go with the flow not to drown, and resurface, slowly. And again. Until your beloved might find rest in the peace of your mind.
And death shall have no dominion.
July 7, 2016
Today happens to be my ninth wedding anniversary. For Michel Faber, however, it marks a more somber occasion: two years since his wife, Eva, died of cancer. They met in 1988 and got to spend over 25 years together. It was a second marriage for Eva, a visual artist – a bohemian life full of travel and each working on their art, until a six-year battle with multiple myeloma (a cancer of the bone marrow) cut Eva down in her early fifties.
Faber’s new book, Undying: A Love Story, is a striking outpouring of 67 poems, most of them written in 2014–15, after Eva died. In two halves, it takes up first Eva’s illness and death, and then the aftermath and memories. Faber gives a vivid sense of how completely cancer changed both their lives: “There were three of us in our marriage. / You, me, and your cancer.” Eva’s illness put everything into perspective: “In our former lives, B.C., / all sorts of issues seemed to matter – / like minor wastes of money, and a scarcity / of storage space.”
The poems vary widely in stanza length and style. With only a few exceptions, they are in the first person – “I” and “we” – and addressed directly to Eva as “you,” even after she was gone. In one of my favorites, “You Loved to Dance,” Faber remembers the rare occasions in their relationship when they danced together and shakes his head over lost opportunities: “A thousand chances that we didn’t take. … Half a dozen dances in a quarter-century. / I doubt you thought that that was all there’d be.”
Although this is mostly free verse, the occasional rhyming couplet ends a poem:
As you can see from those last lines, the tone is gently sardonic. Faber’s strategy is often to hold up physical artifacts of Eva’s life – the hundreds of menstrual pads she’d accumulated, only to go through early menopause (“Change Of Life”); the odd foodstuffs he found in their cupboards after her death and tried to use up (“Tamarind”) – and turn them to gently mocking commentary on all the futile plans we make. Most ironic of all is “Or, If Only,” in which he catalogues all the ways life can kill you when you don’t want it to, whereas by the end Eva longed for an easy way out: “We’d jump at any offer. / Any speedy death would do us.”
In subject matter and tone I would liken these poems to Christian Wiman’s and Christopher Reid’s. Wiman is a poet and theologian who has himself been through the trenches – long, painful years of treatment for blood cancer. Christopher Reid’s A Scattering is a poetic reflection on his wife Lucinda’s death from a brain tumor. Though you can sense the rich emotion in the poems of Undying, Faber doesn’t quite match either of these authors for craft. His talent is better suited to the expansive world of a novel like The Crimson Petal and the White.
I was thus dismayed to read in this book’s publicity materials that Faber does not intend to write any more fiction – “[Eva’s] death is a major factor in his decision not to write any further novels. A talented artist, she set aside her career to help further his, despite his protestations – and he is dedicating much of the rest of his life to making her work better known.” Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things was one of my most memorable reads from 2014. The story of an interplanetary missionary separated from his wife, it takes on new ache when you realize Faber was writing it in the shadow of his own wife’s death. If, indeed, it was to be his last novel, it’s appropriate that it gives such a poignant portrait of a marriage.
I’ll keep hoping that Faber writes more fiction. In the meantime, any fan of his writing should get hold of these tender, elegiac poems.
With thanks to Canongate for sending a free copy.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Faber’s new book, Undying: A Love Story, is a striking outpouring of 67 poems, most of them written in 2014–15, after Eva died. In two halves, it takes up first Eva’s illness and death, and then the aftermath and memories. Faber gives a vivid sense of how completely cancer changed both their lives: “There were three of us in our marriage. / You, me, and your cancer.” Eva’s illness put everything into perspective: “In our former lives, B.C., / all sorts of issues seemed to matter – / like minor wastes of money, and a scarcity / of storage space.”
The poems vary widely in stanza length and style. With only a few exceptions, they are in the first person – “I” and “we” – and addressed directly to Eva as “you,” even after she was gone. In one of my favorites, “You Loved to Dance,” Faber remembers the rare occasions in their relationship when they danced together and shakes his head over lost opportunities: “A thousand chances that we didn’t take. … Half a dozen dances in a quarter-century. / I doubt you thought that that was all there’d be.”
Although this is mostly free verse, the occasional rhyming couplet ends a poem:
Yes, let us not leave off praying.
Not for God our soul to keep
but just to die, of old age, in our sleep.
Wake-up call. You’re dead another day.
The hotel hopes I have enjoyed my stay.
As you can see from those last lines, the tone is gently sardonic. Faber’s strategy is often to hold up physical artifacts of Eva’s life – the hundreds of menstrual pads she’d accumulated, only to go through early menopause (“Change Of Life”); the odd foodstuffs he found in their cupboards after her death and tried to use up (“Tamarind”) – and turn them to gently mocking commentary on all the futile plans we make. Most ironic of all is “Or, If Only,” in which he catalogues all the ways life can kill you when you don’t want it to, whereas by the end Eva longed for an easy way out: “We’d jump at any offer. / Any speedy death would do us.”
In subject matter and tone I would liken these poems to Christian Wiman’s and Christopher Reid’s. Wiman is a poet and theologian who has himself been through the trenches – long, painful years of treatment for blood cancer. Christopher Reid’s A Scattering is a poetic reflection on his wife Lucinda’s death from a brain tumor. Though you can sense the rich emotion in the poems of Undying, Faber doesn’t quite match either of these authors for craft. His talent is better suited to the expansive world of a novel like The Crimson Petal and the White.
I was thus dismayed to read in this book’s publicity materials that Faber does not intend to write any more fiction – “[Eva’s] death is a major factor in his decision not to write any further novels. A talented artist, she set aside her career to help further his, despite his protestations – and he is dedicating much of the rest of his life to making her work better known.” Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things was one of my most memorable reads from 2014. The story of an interplanetary missionary separated from his wife, it takes on new ache when you realize Faber was writing it in the shadow of his own wife’s death. If, indeed, it was to be his last novel, it’s appropriate that it gives such a poignant portrait of a marriage.
I’ll keep hoping that Faber writes more fiction. In the meantime, any fan of his writing should get hold of these tender, elegiac poems.
All I can do, in what remains of my brief time,
is mention, to whoever cares to listen,
that a woman once existed, who was kind
and beautiful and brave, and I will not forget
how the world was altered, beyond recognition,
when we met.
With thanks to Canongate for sending a free copy.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
July 11, 2016
Ignore the pessimism and skepticism of other Goodreads reviews if you want to read some hauntingly intimate and considered poetry on the universal theme of grief. Sure, it'll be a topic done to, um, death for many readers but that kind of attitude misses the point of the reason for the work existing: for Eva and Michel. Undying is for them and it's a brave decision for Faber to share it at all. Many times while reading it you wonder if you should be reading it, should be having such insight into their crumbling lives in a way paparazzi can only dream of. What Faber really brings in Undying is a teary but critical eye to the personal politics and literal politics of death. Astute observations of the practicalities in grief, the expectations of friends, families and companies are brimming throughout. It's a difficult read but an essential one.
Personal favourites included 'Cute', 'Ten Tumours on Your Scalp', 'Tight Pullover', 'Don't Hesitate to Ask' and I could go on, most likely. Highly recommended to be read in a quiet and isolatory environment.
Personal favourites included 'Cute', 'Ten Tumours on Your Scalp', 'Tight Pullover', 'Don't Hesitate to Ask' and I could go on, most likely. Highly recommended to be read in a quiet and isolatory environment.
July 17, 2016
This book is extraordinary. It is Michel Faber's elegy for his wife, who died of cancer. In the Foreword he says that he is not a writer of poetry. Or rather that, before she died, it took him ages to write a poem that he considered to be acceptable. Then the need came upon him, and that need was to deal with loss, with grief, with bereavement. And so we have gained this remarkable series of poems, this poetic symphony to Eva, the love of his life, the love that will not die while he is alive.
First, to talk about the words. It is hard to believe that a word like myeloma, which sounds so mellifluous, describes something that is so deadly, but it does. It is difficult to understand that necrosis, so soft in the mouth, is fatal, but it is. It is not easy to understand that Thalimax and Dexamethasone are treatments to hold a killer disease at bay. And yet these words slip into the poetry, alongside the explanations of what they are and what they do. Because how else would we understand what is happening? How could we know?
And while he is introducing us to the horrors that lie behind these words, Michel Faber does not forget to remind us of the banalities of ordinary life - of the use of electric blankets, of the pleasure of eating in a Thai restaurant, of the clothes that we wear, even of the need to use the toilet. This is an account of a life ending, and no detail is too insignificant. It is an account of how his wife was stolen from him, of the suffering involved, of the grief caused, of the bereavement endured. And the grief comes in the daily tasks, such as opening a kitchen cupboard and finding some tamarind. It is things like this that are sharp reminders that she is no longer there.
Anyone who has had to deal with the death of a loved one will recognise what Michel Faber has been through. He takes us through all the emotions of bereavement: grief, bewilderment, anger, pain, confusion, survival. It is that last one that is the most difficult: the bereaved is still alive and their loved one is not.
This is not a eulogy. It is certainly not a hagiography. It is, I suppose, a celebration. But not in the limited way that the word is sometimes used at funerals.
I do not have the words. This book is extraordinary. You must read it.
First, to talk about the words. It is hard to believe that a word like myeloma, which sounds so mellifluous, describes something that is so deadly, but it does. It is difficult to understand that necrosis, so soft in the mouth, is fatal, but it is. It is not easy to understand that Thalimax and Dexamethasone are treatments to hold a killer disease at bay. And yet these words slip into the poetry, alongside the explanations of what they are and what they do. Because how else would we understand what is happening? How could we know?
And while he is introducing us to the horrors that lie behind these words, Michel Faber does not forget to remind us of the banalities of ordinary life - of the use of electric blankets, of the pleasure of eating in a Thai restaurant, of the clothes that we wear, even of the need to use the toilet. This is an account of a life ending, and no detail is too insignificant. It is an account of how his wife was stolen from him, of the suffering involved, of the grief caused, of the bereavement endured. And the grief comes in the daily tasks, such as opening a kitchen cupboard and finding some tamarind. It is things like this that are sharp reminders that she is no longer there.
Anyone who has had to deal with the death of a loved one will recognise what Michel Faber has been through. He takes us through all the emotions of bereavement: grief, bewilderment, anger, pain, confusion, survival. It is that last one that is the most difficult: the bereaved is still alive and their loved one is not.
This is not a eulogy. It is certainly not a hagiography. It is, I suppose, a celebration. But not in the limited way that the word is sometimes used at funerals.
I do not have the words. This book is extraordinary. You must read it.
June 2, 2017
I am the Czech translator of this book. While I don't think it would be appropriate to review this book, since I am obviously biased, I took the liberty to translate a Facebook post of one of the people who read my translation of Michel's poem "Don't hesitate to ask". This status (by Jan P. Martínek) was written a day after the terrorist attack in Brussels:
"Yesterday several people shared the comment of a member of the Block against Islam, the one with underlined sentence about how the person in question allegedly prays for a big terrorist attack. Leaving aside the fact that we should not give space to such people at all and should not help spread such rants, I confess that this rubbish unfortunately left a lasting impression on me.
In a traffic jam this morning brought about by the understandable unpopularity of the Brussels underground, I remembered this instructive text and told my wife about it. Since we didn’t have time earlier and since our car drove at a walking pace, she told me how the situation looks like at her work, after those attacks.
At the time of the explosion at the Maalbek Metro station, some of her colleagues were already at work. They felt how the whole of the building shook and immediately feared the worst (I myself know exactly what I would think about at such a moment). Guards cluelessly ran in front of the building, then locked it and only later they let a few insistent individuals go out for lunch. Those people then passed the dead, injured and crying. On their way to Kentucky Fried Chicken.
One of my colleagues sat in the last carriage of the underground train. That train. Nothing happened to her. Scorched and shaken, she came to our office, quickly checked who arrived and started to call the rest who didn’t come. Another colleague of mine is now at the hospital, because she is now deaf in one ear because of the explosion. Several of those who survived lie at the same ward, with burns everywhere from their waist up. It must have been immense heat.
During this family idyll, I remembered the poem that Viktor translated and shared the day before yesterday. Let me just note that I have never been a great fan of poetry. Either I automatically set it to music in my head, or I am just not interested. I should work on it, but I have been saying that for years. However, I decided to retell my wife this free verse poem.
To my surprise I got without any problems through the universe, scattering stars, but as soon as I arrived at the boardroom door and the high and mighty fucker at a conference with Eternity, I stopped talking. I just couldn’t go on. I couldn’t even peep. I sat there silently, clutching the steering wheel, blinking away tears. Then I managed to apologise. And then I lost it. And cried and wept and blubbered.
My kids at the back didn’t notice anything, they played and I was turned away from them. They have never seen me like this. As a matter of fact, I haven’t cried for some fifteen years. My wife has been caressing my hair for half a minute and I finally pulled myself together to be able to finish the poem, a sniffling driver in the middle of a shuffling Brussels vehicle fleet.
Second grade psychology students would have called it “a mental breakdown”, Hollywood film advisors “a total meltdown”, but I suspect that all the circumstances of the last weeks just heightened my sensibility, so I could finally, on the threshold of forty, for the first time in my life at least partially gain insight into poetry. So thank you, Viktor, for sharing Faber’s “Don’t Hesitate To Ask” and those three people who managed to read this text so far, I recommend that they read the poem. I can now read it without crying, I just get misty-eyed and the sorrow that wells up in me at the end of this text now completes until now an obviously incomplete range of my feelings. Thank you, Michel and Viktor."
"Yesterday several people shared the comment of a member of the Block against Islam, the one with underlined sentence about how the person in question allegedly prays for a big terrorist attack. Leaving aside the fact that we should not give space to such people at all and should not help spread such rants, I confess that this rubbish unfortunately left a lasting impression on me.
In a traffic jam this morning brought about by the understandable unpopularity of the Brussels underground, I remembered this instructive text and told my wife about it. Since we didn’t have time earlier and since our car drove at a walking pace, she told me how the situation looks like at her work, after those attacks.
At the time of the explosion at the Maalbek Metro station, some of her colleagues were already at work. They felt how the whole of the building shook and immediately feared the worst (I myself know exactly what I would think about at such a moment). Guards cluelessly ran in front of the building, then locked it and only later they let a few insistent individuals go out for lunch. Those people then passed the dead, injured and crying. On their way to Kentucky Fried Chicken.
One of my colleagues sat in the last carriage of the underground train. That train. Nothing happened to her. Scorched and shaken, she came to our office, quickly checked who arrived and started to call the rest who didn’t come. Another colleague of mine is now at the hospital, because she is now deaf in one ear because of the explosion. Several of those who survived lie at the same ward, with burns everywhere from their waist up. It must have been immense heat.
During this family idyll, I remembered the poem that Viktor translated and shared the day before yesterday. Let me just note that I have never been a great fan of poetry. Either I automatically set it to music in my head, or I am just not interested. I should work on it, but I have been saying that for years. However, I decided to retell my wife this free verse poem.
To my surprise I got without any problems through the universe, scattering stars, but as soon as I arrived at the boardroom door and the high and mighty fucker at a conference with Eternity, I stopped talking. I just couldn’t go on. I couldn’t even peep. I sat there silently, clutching the steering wheel, blinking away tears. Then I managed to apologise. And then I lost it. And cried and wept and blubbered.
My kids at the back didn’t notice anything, they played and I was turned away from them. They have never seen me like this. As a matter of fact, I haven’t cried for some fifteen years. My wife has been caressing my hair for half a minute and I finally pulled myself together to be able to finish the poem, a sniffling driver in the middle of a shuffling Brussels vehicle fleet.
Second grade psychology students would have called it “a mental breakdown”, Hollywood film advisors “a total meltdown”, but I suspect that all the circumstances of the last weeks just heightened my sensibility, so I could finally, on the threshold of forty, for the first time in my life at least partially gain insight into poetry. So thank you, Viktor, for sharing Faber’s “Don’t Hesitate To Ask” and those three people who managed to read this text so far, I recommend that they read the poem. I can now read it without crying, I just get misty-eyed and the sorrow that wells up in me at the end of this text now completes until now an obviously incomplete range of my feelings. Thank you, Michel and Viktor."
September 2, 2016
This was a very touching collection of poetry. Do I think it's incredibly well-written? Not in all cases no - but you can feel the emotion of Michel Faber's words as he relays his relationship with his sadly passed wife Eva, and recounts the troubling times during and after her illness.
There are a number poems in this collection in particular that really resonated with me: The Time You Chose, which moved me to tears as I discussed it with a friend after reading, The 13th, which has some truly gorgeous descriptive language in it, and Come To Bed, which was beautiful in its melancholy simplicity.
I'm not sure if this collection is for everyone, but having read it after seeing Michel Faber read some of the poems himself at last year's Edinburgh Book Festival, and hearing him talk about the heartbreak of his wife Eva's passing, I felt like I got more out of it than I might have if I had read it without any of the background knowledge.
This is a brave collection, and I will definitely be re-reading it at some point.
There are a number poems in this collection in particular that really resonated with me: The Time You Chose, which moved me to tears as I discussed it with a friend after reading, The 13th, which has some truly gorgeous descriptive language in it, and Come To Bed, which was beautiful in its melancholy simplicity.
I'm not sure if this collection is for everyone, but having read it after seeing Michel Faber read some of the poems himself at last year's Edinburgh Book Festival, and hearing him talk about the heartbreak of his wife Eva's passing, I felt like I got more out of it than I might have if I had read it without any of the background knowledge.
This is a brave collection, and I will definitely be re-reading it at some point.
February 19, 2021
Horrible. Just horrible - in the sense that I wish he didn't have to write this book and she was still alive, loving, and by his side. One of the most shattering books of poetry I'll ever read.
This stuck in my head as one of the most memorable -
So many of the people I’ve
informed that she is dead
have said
‘If there’s anything
we can do, anything at all,
don’t hesitate to ask.’
Well,
actually,
since you offer,
yes:
Would you mind driving me
headlong through the universe
at ten million miles an hour,
scattering stars like trashcans
scorching the sky?
Put your foot to the floor,
crash right through the gate of Fate,
trespass galaxies, straight over
black holes and supernovas
to the hideout of God.
Wait for me while I break
down the boardroom door
and drag the high and mighty fucker
out of his conference with Eternity,
his summit on the Mysteries of Life,
and get him to explain to me
why it was so necessary
to torture and humiliate
and finally exterminate
my wife.
But no.
These things I do not say
because I know
that by ‘anything at all’
you mean
a cup of tea
or a lift into town
if you’re going
that way
anyway.
This stuck in my head as one of the most memorable -
So many of the people I’ve
informed that she is dead
have said
‘If there’s anything
we can do, anything at all,
don’t hesitate to ask.’
Well,
actually,
since you offer,
yes:
Would you mind driving me
headlong through the universe
at ten million miles an hour,
scattering stars like trashcans
scorching the sky?
Put your foot to the floor,
crash right through the gate of Fate,
trespass galaxies, straight over
black holes and supernovas
to the hideout of God.
Wait for me while I break
down the boardroom door
and drag the high and mighty fucker
out of his conference with Eternity,
his summit on the Mysteries of Life,
and get him to explain to me
why it was so necessary
to torture and humiliate
and finally exterminate
my wife.
But no.
These things I do not say
because I know
that by ‘anything at all’
you mean
a cup of tea
or a lift into town
if you’re going
that way
anyway.
August 3, 2016
How do you rate someones pain and anger and grief?
By the way the words touch your soul, by the way your heart aches as you read.
This is a an exquisitely personal, intimate study of cancer, dying, grief and the authors love for his now deceased wife; his life companion, his life long love. ..
Poignant, angry (justifiably so), yet at times romantic and tender. This is love in real life, in the everyday, in the moment - be it the ugly moments of cancer or the moments the lovers dance and twirl towards each other.
Beautifully written, brave and honest.
The presentation is stunning.
By the way the words touch your soul, by the way your heart aches as you read.
This is a an exquisitely personal, intimate study of cancer, dying, grief and the authors love for his now deceased wife; his life companion, his life long love. ..
Poignant, angry (justifiably so), yet at times romantic and tender. This is love in real life, in the everyday, in the moment - be it the ugly moments of cancer or the moments the lovers dance and twirl towards each other.
Beautifully written, brave and honest.
The presentation is stunning.
April 8, 2019
These are some earnest, heartfelt poems. He clearly loved his wife a lot and misses her. The poems themselves, however, are so-so. I definitely enjoy his novels much more.
March 22, 2022
A haunting portrayal of grief. Lovely and sad.
February 6, 2017
Fabers vrouw Eva stierf in 2015 na een lange strijd tegen kanker. In een eerste cyclus gedichten beschrijft hij hoe ze deze allesverslindende ziekte als machteloos en ontredderd koppel poogden te overwinnen; een tweede cyclus gaat over de leegte die ze naliet na haar dood. Naar de keel grijpende, ijzersterke en pure poëzie. Een monument van woorden aan een geliefde ontslapene.
April 16, 2018
Zo geroerd door deze gedichten. Faber laat je in deze gedichten het grote gemis voelen wanneer een leven geleefd is. Wat overblijft is een soort in woorden gevatte fotografische afdruk die de dingen vastlegt zoals ze eens waren, voordat ze je voor goed ontglippen. En hoe een mens zich voelde... Om te huilen zo rauw.
April 13, 2018
Michel Faber wrote the majority of the poems collected in Undying: A Love Story after the death of his wife from cancer. In his introduction, Faber writes that the poems 'are arranged not in order of their composition but in their appropriate place in the narrative of losing and grieving for Eva.' Some poems here are achingly tender; others startle and shock. There is so much emotion packed into this powerful collection, and whilst I did not enjoy every single poem, they work so well together on a whole, and provide what feels like an honest and loving tribute to Faber's lost wife.
From 'Lebensraum':
'Your body will become
a death chamber
disguised as a woman
quaking under pure white sheets.'
From 'Anniversary':
'All I can do, in what remains of my brief time,
is mention, to whoever cares to listen,
that a woman once existed, who was kind
and beautiful and brave, and I will not forget
how the world was altered, beyond recognition,
when we met.'
From 'Lebensraum':
'Your body will become
a death chamber
disguised as a woman
quaking under pure white sheets.'
From 'Anniversary':
'All I can do, in what remains of my brief time,
is mention, to whoever cares to listen,
that a woman once existed, who was kind
and beautiful and brave, and I will not forget
how the world was altered, beyond recognition,
when we met.'
February 14, 2017
'I have waited patiently, oh so patiently,
before asking,
in my gentlest voice:
Can I lure you away?
Can I tempt you with our history?
This mattress has missed you.
Hollowed, it is fit for noone else,
Oh, I know you are snug
in your self-containment.
I know you are settled,
finally at ease
in your ash.
But please...
Just for tonight...
Just for one night...
Sleep with me.'
This collection is incredibly powerful, painful, and brutal. Through beautiful language comes the most angry poems I have ever read. This book is an intimate gift.
'All I can do, in what remains of my brief time,
is mention, to whoever cares to listen,
that a woman once existed, who was kind
and beautiful and brave, and I will not forget
how the world was altered, beyond recognition,
where we met.'
before asking,
in my gentlest voice:
Can I lure you away?
Can I tempt you with our history?
This mattress has missed you.
Hollowed, it is fit for noone else,
Oh, I know you are snug
in your self-containment.
I know you are settled,
finally at ease
in your ash.
But please...
Just for tonight...
Just for one night...
Sleep with me.'
This collection is incredibly powerful, painful, and brutal. Through beautiful language comes the most angry poems I have ever read. This book is an intimate gift.
'All I can do, in what remains of my brief time,
is mention, to whoever cares to listen,
that a woman once existed, who was kind
and beautiful and brave, and I will not forget
how the world was altered, beyond recognition,
where we met.'
August 8, 2016
This is grief in all its intimate, raw and harrowing detail. From anger and guilt ('Such A Simple Thing I Could Have Fixed', dealing with mismatched bed linen, struck such a nerve it had me sobbing) to despair and fear of the future, Faber opens his soul and says the things we have thought and felt in our own moments of bereavement and heartache. These poems are beautifully written, honest and heartfelt, and so familiar.
Haunting, tender and full of love, I recommend you read these in a quiet, personal space, with a box of tissues.
Haunting, tender and full of love, I recommend you read these in a quiet, personal space, with a box of tissues.
December 12, 2020
Faber’s poems honor the memory of his wife’s six year battle with cancer. The poems are full of pain, anger, grief, but above all love. Maybe it’s because I lost my mother to cancer many years ago that ‘Undying’ resonates with me.
August 26, 2018
This, like for instance C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed, is the kind of book that is beyond any lucid literary critique. It feels downright amoral to point out its flaws, should they be there.
Faber is not a poet, not really, and as such his poetry is not the most accomplished or intricate that you will find, but that is not the point. One of the many touching things in this book (among the more obvious emotions) is that Faber has been able to employ this to him somewhat alien form or language of poetry in order to pour out all these feelings that he holds toward his wife.
Most striking are the poems about the humdrum quality of a life that goes on regardless of this immense suffering, poems about throwing out food that She once bought, poems about the cats that no longer miss Her. What the reader is left with is not the image of The Woman who has been lost forever, but the image of The Man Left Behind. And how could it be any different: that man is the one who wrote this.
Faber is not a poet, not really, and as such his poetry is not the most accomplished or intricate that you will find, but that is not the point. One of the many touching things in this book (among the more obvious emotions) is that Faber has been able to employ this to him somewhat alien form or language of poetry in order to pour out all these feelings that he holds toward his wife.
Most striking are the poems about the humdrum quality of a life that goes on regardless of this immense suffering, poems about throwing out food that She once bought, poems about the cats that no longer miss Her. What the reader is left with is not the image of The Woman who has been lost forever, but the image of The Man Left Behind. And how could it be any different: that man is the one who wrote this.
October 14, 2019
Intimate, harrowing, lyrical, but most, importantly, filled with love. This collection of poetry is Faber's love letter to his dead wife in which he transforms the experience of her slowly dying of incurable cancer and their days filled with fear and sadness into a beautiful and hauntingly real collection of poems that I know will stick with me.
The love Faber had for his wife is absolutely palpable, and he doesn't shy away or overdramatise the harsh realities that suffering from cancer brings to both the patient and their loved ones. There is magic in the mundane here and celebration in the exceptional - totally, sadly, exquisite from start to finish.
The love Faber had for his wife is absolutely palpable, and he doesn't shy away or overdramatise the harsh realities that suffering from cancer brings to both the patient and their loved ones. There is magic in the mundane here and celebration in the exceptional - totally, sadly, exquisite from start to finish.
August 7, 2016
Holy crap. This was a tough read, but a beautiful one. 'Undying' is bursting with love and anger and grief. Such brutal honesty about cancer and death.
October 15, 2018
[ 3.25 stars ]
August 28, 2019
2.5
Unfortunately, this didn't doo much for me. I disliked nearly all of the poems with the exception being "Old Bird, Not Very Well". And I wanted something to read quickly, but I ended up reading this for three days.
Unfortunately, this didn't doo much for me. I disliked nearly all of the poems with the exception being "Old Bird, Not Very Well". And I wanted something to read quickly, but I ended up reading this for three days.
January 20, 2019
I'm not crying, you're crying!
July 13, 2016
Poetry as therapy. Much of this collection is loosely coupled from poetry and almost becomes prose. Some is very poetic. It is a study of change and powerless anger when the author loses his wife. He is angry at losing her as a lover and as a partner and as a part of his world.
Some of the poetry moved me deeply and I recognised the emotion. Some surprised me with how much it revealed. It is still relatively soon after the death of Eva.
I found it difficult to read this purely as poetry. The author says he previously found it difficult to write a poem but the words spoke to him deeply during and after the death. I was moved by many of the passages. The emotion is real.
As with so much writing about death it made me far more conscious of the living.
Some of the poetry moved me deeply and I recognised the emotion. Some surprised me with how much it revealed. It is still relatively soon after the death of Eva.
I found it difficult to read this purely as poetry. The author says he previously found it difficult to write a poem but the words spoke to him deeply during and after the death. I was moved by many of the passages. The emotion is real.
As with so much writing about death it made me far more conscious of the living.
July 12, 2016
I will give this truly incredible collection the review that it deserves when I've had a moment to catch my breath.
"If I could scan this planet
with X-Ray's that detect the presence
of your timely interventions,
I'm sure I'd find them
in places you would not expect.
You're dead. I know. And it is not for me
to show you death is not the end.
But you left lucencies of grace
secreted in the world,
still glowing."
"If I could scan this planet
with X-Ray's that detect the presence
of your timely interventions,
I'm sure I'd find them
in places you would not expect.
You're dead. I know. And it is not for me
to show you death is not the end.
But you left lucencies of grace
secreted in the world,
still glowing."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 5, 2018
Fabera mám hrozně ráda, ale poezii nevyhledávám. Ke koupi této knížky mě přesvědčil jeho vlastní přednes jedné z básní, kterou četl, když tu byl loni na návštěvě v Praze. Na místě jsem se odbourala a brečela jak želva. Celá sbírka je neuvěřitelná, ale popisovat mi ji nejde - prostě si ji přečtěte :)
January 29, 2019
I have finished this book in one quiet evening.... and I feel too overwhelmed with emotion. Perhaps this is not the best poetry there is. But it sure is a love story, as true a love story as one can imagine.
October 24, 2019
Nádherná poezie, perfektní překlad, sestimsmiř.
July 3, 2017
Loved the details in this book. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
December 23, 2023
You know what? Ja nisam jaka sa poezijom, ali me je ovo i rasplakalo i natjeralo da se u isto vrijeme nasmiješim. Skoro pa prozno pisano, kroz neke svakodnevne situacije opisao je život svoje žene koja je umrla od raka i njihovu ljubav.
Zbirka posvećena njihovoj ljubavi, ali i njegovom tugovanju je zaista divna. Sirova i jednostavna.
Zbirka posvećena njihovoj ljubavi, ali i njegovom tugovanju je zaista divna. Sirova i jednostavna.
February 25, 2019
I picked this up without knowing it was poetry, not the marketing fault, just my own. To say I was surprised is an understatement, but I'm opinionated enough to actually read and review. I read most of these out loud, and some were quite interesting. Some of these are heartbreakingly true and I was impressed by the raw honesty. I was picking a Michael Faber novel as my next selection and this arrived before Under the Skin, so I thought what the hell.
The book is quite short, and I read the better part of 80 pages in one sitting. Poetry isn't my ideal dream of reading, but I am willing to give something a chance when trying new things. Faber paints vivid pictures and the honesty is right in front of you the entire time. The sadness is in the truth, you can feel the sadness from the author. I was expecting short stories about loss, and I must admit this was an interesting change for me.
Faber's writing is interesting, not all poems are successful but what would I know. These are a personal closure and if Faber came out the other end of suffering through such a painful experience, that's enough for me. I couldn't love the book, I thought some of these poems weren't developed enough. I'm not clear on what I didn't like, it's tough to pick apart something that was obviously a tough experience.
Why the 4?
I liked it, but would I read another poetry novel in the next few weeks? Maybe not. The book is heartbreaking at times, some of the poems are tough to read. The process of death is an individual thing, I personally wrote a closure short story about a friend who died in high school. Everybody has their own thing, and reading another persons process is extremely hard, I feel bad for not loving it. I think if some of the poems were not included this might have been a tight book. I won't trash something that is clearly a personal thing and I hope others enjoy some of the writing like I did. I personally felt like I needed to like it and I now feel conflicted, slightly bias. Read it and think for yourself, but one thing is certain, it's a tough emotional read.
The book is quite short, and I read the better part of 80 pages in one sitting. Poetry isn't my ideal dream of reading, but I am willing to give something a chance when trying new things. Faber paints vivid pictures and the honesty is right in front of you the entire time. The sadness is in the truth, you can feel the sadness from the author. I was expecting short stories about loss, and I must admit this was an interesting change for me.
Faber's writing is interesting, not all poems are successful but what would I know. These are a personal closure and if Faber came out the other end of suffering through such a painful experience, that's enough for me. I couldn't love the book, I thought some of these poems weren't developed enough. I'm not clear on what I didn't like, it's tough to pick apart something that was obviously a tough experience.
Why the 4?
I liked it, but would I read another poetry novel in the next few weeks? Maybe not. The book is heartbreaking at times, some of the poems are tough to read. The process of death is an individual thing, I personally wrote a closure short story about a friend who died in high school. Everybody has their own thing, and reading another persons process is extremely hard, I feel bad for not loving it. I think if some of the poems were not included this might have been a tight book. I won't trash something that is clearly a personal thing and I hope others enjoy some of the writing like I did. I personally felt like I needed to like it and I now feel conflicted, slightly bias. Read it and think for yourself, but one thing is certain, it's a tough emotional read.
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