Well, I have already broken my promise to post my second blog post a few days after my introductory post, and after that, once a month. Let’s see if I can at least stick, sort of, to the once-a-month plan.
Right next to me now is the print copy of Meg Mason’s stunning second novel, Sorrow and Bliss, first published in Australia in 2020, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2022 and won other big awards. The image on the cover is lovely, but the real thing is tactile: a perfect cover, still with a new-book perfume years after I purchased it. I am a reader who does not turn down page corners or leave my precious books in the sun—except for the four minutes I took to take this photo of the book lying in our garden! On the title page, Meg has signed my copy; I purchased it after her session at the Auckland Writers Festival in 2024; I have shelves of books, some signed, some not, purchased at that same incredible festival. Sorrow and Bliss rightly became a major bestseller (as I think her latest novel, Sophie, Standing There (published in August this year), also will. (Meg grew up in New Zealand and has lived in Australia since a teenager. But she identifies first as a Kiwi (just saying…).
Goodreads describes Sorrow and Bliss thus: This novel is about a 40-year-old woman called Martha. She knows there is something wrong with her but she doesn’t know what it is. Her husband Patrick thinks she is fine. He says everyone has something, the thing is just to keep going.
Martha told Patrick before they got married that she didn’t want to have children. He said he didn’t mind either way because he has loved her since he was fourteen and making her happy is all that matters, although he does not seem able to do it.
By the time Martha finds out what is wrong, it doesn’t really matter anymore. It is too late to get the only thing she has ever wanted. Or maybe it will turn out that you can stop loving someone and start again from nothing—if you can find something else to want.
There were many reasons why I loved this novel, most psychological, but I think empathy is the emotion that is overarching and, from a psychologist’s point of view, could provide a reason for why we read novels. It is a wonderful writer who can write words and sentences and stories that are so vivid we can imagine and feel every part of those emotions that the characters are feeling.
Our brains are wired to respond to other people’s emotions almost as if we are experiencing them ourselves; for example, studies have shown that when we observe someone else doing something or showing an emotion that engages us, the same neurons fire in our brains as would fire if we were feeling a similar emotion. These have been called mirror neurons. In fact, many systems in our brains are connected with empathy, which in turn is part of the concept called theory of mind; the cognitive capacity that humans have that allows them to attribute mental states, including thoughts and feelings, to oneself as well as to others (mind reading!) [see my past post on this]. Meg Mason’s novel effortlessly invites us in and permits us to read the mind of Martha. Writers call this writerly skill “showing, not telling.”
Razor-sharp, laugh-aloud funny, and shatteringly sad, Martha’s story will not let you go. At 40, her life has split asunder, her marriage unable to survive the weight of her lifelong mental illness that no doctors or medications have been able to diagnose or fix. Just keeping going isn’t working for her or her husband.
As a reader and certainly as a psychologist, it is almost impossible not to try and guess what the mental illness is that Martha has struggled with for most of her life. But it remained unnamed. Finally, on page 233, Martha’s new psychiatrist names it, but all the reader sees on the page is a dash. From then on, as Martha tries to talk about this diagnosis she finally has with her husband and family, every time the “disorder” is mentioned, all we get is that dash. What an incredible way to highlight the downsides of “labelling,” especially when a label stamps a person with a condition or a characteristic that forces them into being someone they are not, because nobody is a single thing. So Martha’s life cannot be pinned to whatever our idea might be of whatever disorder we think she might have, and instead we are encouraged to see the ripple effects of her chronic struggle that tests the love she feels for her family and they for her and even pushes her to sabotage her own relationships even when she is deeply loved.
Novels these days are sometimes accompanied by “red flag” warnings signaling that the content may be triggering for some readers. My “red flag” for this book would be to ensure you have a box of tissues close by. But you will be giggling as well. What more can we ask of a good read?
Previous blog posts inspired by writers I heard at the Auckland Writers Festival include:
- The Sebastian Barry moment.
- The Lloyd Geering talk when he was 99; he is now 108 and still writing and speaking. (Another of my beliefs: Writing and reading are good for the brain and help us live long and healthy lives!)
Happy reading, and catch you in a month (or thereabouts)!
