Article content Betsy Warland | Inanna Publications | 200 pp. So far, most western literature has paid far more attention to the fraught issues between fathers and sons — think anything by Thomas Wolfe, Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons or The Brothers Karamazov — than to the mysteries, ambiguities, and complexities of the mother-daughter bond. Feminist writers, understandably, critique this one-sided approach and demand more attention for women’s lives.
In 2000, Betsy Warland, renowned author, literary mentor, and feminist icon, published her groundbreaking lyric memoir, Bloodroot. More than two decades later, Warland and Inanna Publications have reissued the book, augmented with a foreword by Susan Olding and a retrospective essay by Warland about what writing and rereading Bloodroot taught her about the nature of narrative and about her own life. Bloodroot is many things — a memoir of the last stages in the life of the author’s mother, a reflection on the shared but unspoken experience of abuse both women suffered, and a profound meditation on the nature of narrative and language itself.
It is a masterpiece of lapidary text, a blend of prose, poetry, and open space. The words live on the page like the brush strokes of Chinese calligraphy or the shapes on canvas of the best abstract painting. The artful arrangement of text and open space creates a visual power of its own and demands that the reader slow down and absorb both what is said and what is omitted.
On the pages of this remarkable book, we are witness to a profound drama in the lives of the author and her mother as the mom moves through the shadows of dementia toward her end. Warland is both tender and unsparing in her portrayal of the dynamics of her family, the quotidian and complicated secrecies and revelations that made the shared journey toward the end of her mother’s life an oddly thrilling adventure and a work of literary craft. The work is formally innovative and embodies an implausible braid of playfulness and fundamental seriousness.
This is a text to treasure and savour, read and reread. It rewards the attentive and patient reader with layer after layer of meaning and beauty. At a time when more and more people are facing the challenges of caring for their aging parents and trying to make sense out of lives lived and opportunities missed amid the often messy realities of old age, this is a book that is sure to resonate.
Highly recommended..
