#278 The Worst You Ever Feel- Rebecca Makkai
A common theme I’ve seen in some of the short stories included in this project is the high perceptive abilities of children, their ability to
tap into emotion and meaning in things overlooked or ignored by people with
more age and experience. Aaron is more than just a perceptive child, he is a
savant. He can see the past, and feel the pain and loss of those around him.
And in post war Romania, that loss is beyond the scope any child should see.
Aaron is a spider on the tapestry high above his parents
dinner party. This is an occasion to reflect, and celebrate. One of Romania’s
brightest talents, a violinist, Radelescu, has returned to society after
surviving the pogroms and the communist impresonemnt. He has lost a finger but
can still feel the music with unaccny emotion.
Aaron watches from above and with each song, he “remembers”
the horrifying things that happened in that house. Each song has a story, and
the room has too many memories. “Aaron could feel now that the people in the
room below were breathing less, as if afraid to propel the old man back to
Romania on the wind of their exhalations.”
This is another powerful story from this collection, with
incredible touch and depth. Even without the musical fabric sewn into the plot,
there is melody everywhere in Makkai’s writing. This is one of my favorite
stories thus far.
Notable Passage: “It was people’s sadness, mostly, that he
attempted to feel, the ghosts that surrounded them, the place where a finger
used to be but no longer was. He imagined pain traveling through the air on
radio waves. If he positioned himself in a room and concentrated and listened,
he could catch it all.”
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