Communion and Coincidence.

I’m nearly at the end of Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman now. The final part of the narrative sees Natalie having to face the final part of her mental degradation, and the first time I read it I found it more horrifying than anything I’ve ever read in a novel. And that’s no exaggeration. I remember the gut-turning sense of fearful tension, and I remember writing about on this blog.

Maybe it wouldn’t mean the same to anybody else; maybe it was all to do with my sense of communion with Natalie Waite. Maybe I was feeling her fear because we’re a bit like those twin particles the quantum physicists talk about, the ones which react to one another’s states instantaneously however much they’re separated by distance.

But tonight there was another factor involved. I’ve always been drawn to the skill of a good writer in being able to create a sense of place with carefully described word pictures, and tonight it was even more real than it was the first time. The scene is set at this time of year, you see – November – and beset by the same conditions we’re having in the here and now – a dull, cold, wet day and a dark, cold, wet night as Natalie takes her bus ride beyond the town and to the end of the line. Mentally and physically.

I couldn’t face it so I put the book down until tomorrow (maybe) and watched twenty minutes of a Studio Ghibli film instead. I needed the balm.