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Talking with angel about illness, death and survival
Evelyn Elsaesser-Valarino
ISBN: 0-863154-92-1 2005 206 pages Floris Books, Edinburgh
Dorothy H Broom
National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT Australia
This is the sort of book I feel I ought to like, and it is almost embarrassing to confess that I don't. It comes enthusiastically recommended (on the back cover) by Allan Kellehear whom I admire greatly, and it revolves around the illness and dying of a young girl; so it seems almost irreverent to complain about it.
On the surface, it belongs to the large and growing genre of ‘illness narratives'; in this case, told in the voice of a girl of indeterminate age who is diagnosed with an aggressive leukaemia and, at the end of the book, dies of it. The real focus, however, is her spiritual development as her illness worsens, and particularly as a result of a new death experience (NDE). Her growing insight is expressed in the form of night-time conversations with her favourite doll, the ‘Angel' of the title. Elsaesser-Valarino has written two other (more academic) books about NDE: On the Other Side of Life, and Lessons from the Light.
My difficulties with the book arise mainly from its language. Even though we are not told the age of the nameless protagonist, the words attributed to her are incongruous in what presents itself as a first person account from a child (she is young enough to be placed in a paediatric oncology ward in the hospital). For example, she describes her experience of treatment as one of ‘fathomless exhaustion mixed with crucifying boredom', and quotes the doll as answering a question by saying ‘It is simply a matter of the activation of a natural potential inherent in all humans.' Such language is incongruous when ascribed to a child. In the latter half of the book, substantial segments of text quoting the doll take the form of short lectures. When a young fellow patient has a NDE, Angel explains:
He has come back with the memory of having contemplated the secrets of the universe from the beginning to the end of time, of having discovered the mystery of space and time, but having seen the perfect harmony of all things, and the bonds that unite all things ... During James's experience, absolute knowledge was revealed to him: the laws that govern the world and the universe with all their possibilities. In the revelation that gripped him, all truths found their precise and true place in relation to one another, interdependent and permanent movement and transformation.
As a philosophical statement about what some people think can happen in a NDE, this may be fine. But putting it in the mouth of a child or a doll demolishes any willing suspension of disbelief. Because this kind of language dominates the text, I kept being distracted by the incongruity between the words and their supposed source, and soon gave up noting the particular instances because they were so numerous. (I was also irritated that the ‘being of light (pure consciousness)' is referred to as ‘he', but was prepared to ignore that linguistic offence).
Another annoyance within the text concerns the receiving of a letter from a fellow paediatric cancer patient, one supposed to have been written in only a couple of hours, yet it is nearly 6000 words long: a feat guaranteed to provoke the academic reader to incredulity, perhaps driven by jealousy. The book contains a fair deal of dialogue, but little of it is convincing.
Nevertheless, the book contains insights which may be of interest to some HSR readers. For example, there are poignant observations about the way the narrator and her family members become separated from one another emotionally by their distress and grief, unable to talk frankly about the fear and guilt they are experiencing. Her own isolation is particularly acute. There are also occasional keen observations, such as a statement that the opposite of love is fear rather than hatred.
Ultimately, the author considers the problems of life-threatening illness in philosophical terms, rather than addressing questions of pain or other symptoms, or social and bodily stigma. For readers interested in such an emphasis, or wishing to read a short, fictionalised representation of the effects of NDE, Talking with Angel may be of use. Allan Kellehear - who ought to know - thinks the book could be ‘put into the hands of a child who is facing a life-threatening illness', but I would want to take advice from someone with experience in the bedside care of such children before I offered it to a young friend. It may be helpful to service providers or family members, but they would have to be more forgiving of the book's defects than I am. As suggested in the forward by Kenneth Ring (a psychologist of NDE), its main appeal may be to readers looking for the kind of self-development which can occur when people grapple emotionally and philosophically with the implications of their own embodiment and mortality.
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