Book review: No One Is Here Except All of Us

I've raved about my library system before, and this post is going to do it again. While I usually go to a particular library to pick up or drop off most of my books, I can't really go there if I don't have either a plan or a hold already there. That location is very steeped in horror, LDS fiction, and romances, three genres of books that rarely go home with me. If I need a book and don't have a plan, I will go to a different branch that always seems much farther away, but it really isn't. I can usually browse the stacks and come up with something that is good.

I had once such visit to the library a few weeks ago. And while I usually consult the computer for suggestions or go on Amazon to find reviews, I did none of that. I just wandered through the shelves and pulled books out at random. I can still remember the spine of No One is Here Except All of Us as it sat on the shelf: it was aching for me to read it.

No One is a World War II novel. A very small and isolated village reads the latest newspaper one night in 1939 during the Sabbath service. The inevitability of war is starting to seep into their consciousness and it terrifies them. Suddenly, an airplane flies over their village and drops what may have been a bomb (it is never clear what it was) very near the village. Right afterwards, the river that circles their land floods (which seems like an alarming amount of catastrophic events to happen in an evening!) When the floodwaters recede, they find fish and a piano and all sorts of flotsam and jetsam, mostly importantly a woman who was had very recently lost her entire family to Nazi soldiers, and was only saved from death herself by the sudden flood. The village panics, and decide that they aren't going to go along with the narrative that the world, but are going to isolate themselves and start over. They will have no history, no link to the outside world, no before, only a future.

At the heart of the story is Lena, a young girl with parents and a brother and a sister. It was her and the stranger's idea to begin again, and so she is often called on to help to create the parameters of the new world. They decide that most people will stay with their families, but a few swap wives or husbands. Watching the village have the first days in the new world parallels Genesis: God separating the day from the night, the firmament from the waters.

(if you are prone to reading this book and don't want to be spoiled, you can stop here.)

Lena's journey is not an easy one. Again and again she finds herself starting over. She finds herself traded away to her uncle and his wife. Later, after a bizarre few months of life with her new parents/uncle and aunt, she is married. Life is good to Lena and her husband Igor and they have two young boys when the war finally finds the village, and Igor is captured by soldiers and taken away. Lena and her children leave the village to try and find Igor, but she never finds him in her travels, but manages to lose both her children - one to death, another to a farmer and his wife who offer to trade their travel papers for her eldest son. It's brutal and sad and heartbreaking watching Lena lose everything over and over.

My favorite thing about the book was the writing. It was slow and beautiful. It's very unspecific about the passage of time and the details of life. But the relationships - Lena with her first family, Lena with her uncle and aunt, Lena and the stranger, Lena and Igor, Lena and her oldest son Solomon: oh, they are beautiful. And sad. And real. I also loved the lists. They are always sending one another lists, and the lists are the love letters, which seems like a very strange thing before this book but now seems very beautiful. A list of very specific words that mean specific things in a relationship can say more than a paragraph or even an essay, if the right person writes them and the correct person reads them.

Here is one example: "Perl - this is how I love you - as she hold the worn piece of paper in her trembling hands - dog, pillow, mask, cabbage, kiss shovel. Perl imagined each item as a creature at her feet, an army her daughter had summoned to look after her. I almost remember who you are, the note read. 'I almost remember who I am too,' Perl said..." Just reading it again makes me want to sob!

This is such a different type of war novel. While I as the reader knew the atrocities that were going on, the villagers had no idea. Lena has only a vague idea of the war as she encounters people on her journey. She doesn't know that millions of Jews just like her are dead, or are finding themselves in the same position as her: alone in the world, no home to return to because everyone is dead, no plan or safety to flee to. So in this way, it's just like every other war novel. Because it really does not matter at all if you know the details - the number who were killed or how the Americans and Russians and Brits defeated the Nazis and the Fascists or where the concentration camps were or how Hitler killed himself. The only thing that matters is that real people who loved and lived and worked and had lives were subjected to war, which always makes everyone lose.

Sunday night thoughts

One of the afternoons when we were in San Diego last month, Ben and I went to the beach at high tide. It was the first time I can ever remember being there at the exact time of high tide. We were playing out in the waves like we always did, but it was crazy. The waves were deeper and they came so much faster than we were used to. After diving into a wave, it was necessary to come up as soon as possible and get sure footing and look to see what was coming. The few times we didn't do this we were knocked off balance, or went under without meaning to. It was a lot of hard work, and I got tired really soon.

I've thought a lot about the ebb and flow of life in the past years. When I taught Sunday School a few years ago, I would talk about it with our class. I always thought that the hard times in my life were when the water was ebbing: I felt thin, I felt bereft, I felt that I was far away and that life was in slow motion. But that day on the beach when the waves came one after another and I had to be so diligent (diving, getting my feet under me, coming up, looking out for the next wave) I realized that for now, the hard time is a flow. The waves are fast and I can't always see what is coming or understand what to do with it once I see it.

Here are a couple of the waves that are coming at me.

Church these days - it's hard. I'm in a loop right now where I'm really ok with everything to do with God and Jesus, but my testimony of other things is struggling. There are things I can't say "I know" about anymore. But I'm okay with that.

I remember a few months ago I was talking with a friend who is in my ward who has gone through a lot of hard things, and now she is a lot less active than she used to be. She said one of the hardest things about being at church in her new life is how fragile people treat her, as if at the slightest word or look will cause her to leave the church forever.

I loved that she told me that. It helped me to realize that in my own current struggle, I don't want to be treated like I am fragile. I also don't want to act fragile in my struggle. I want to boldly admit that I don't know all that I used to know. But I want to say just as boldly that I still want God in my life and I vehemently want to believe that I'm still loved by Him and even think that he probably understands me a little and even knew that I would feel this way and struggle like this. I want to feel worthy of that love and I want to declare to the wonderful young women that I work with (and the older women too, and the boys, and well, everyone!) that they are worthy too.

I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving or wanting to leave. But I'm also not the same person I used to be. It's been hard but rewarding to go through this time. I have more empathy for others who struggle. I'm more likely to voice my doubts in a meeting than I used to be, even if I worry that my comment will make me look "less faithful" than I would have wanted to appear in the past. It's a process.


Anxiety. Remember when Harry Potter went into Gringotts Bank at the end of Deathly Hallows and how he had Griphook on his back, whispering what to do to get past the Goblin security? Well, I feel like my anxiety is like Griphook, except it's only him under the invisibility cloak. People can see me, and some people can see Griphook, but most just feel him on my back and wonder what is making my shoulders so tense and my walk so unsure and unsteady. (hmm, I started this post out with a wave analogy. I'm easily distracted!)

I go through times when I don't think about it at all, and others when it's all I ever think about. I have a lot more days that are good, which is a big relief. But some moments I feel like I will never stop over thinking every tiny body sensation, or analyzing everything I do to see if it's a connection to it. I've made some good connections lately - I've realized how much my emotions are tied to how long it's been since I've eaten, and that staying really hydrated is a must. Which are two good things to know regardless of whether I'm anxious or not. I need to take care of my body and know what it needs so that it can take care of me. I'm also trying to not be so hard on myself when I am anxious or just having a hard time. I want to get to a place where I accept that it is part of my life, a part that I didn't really want or ask for, but that I can live with.

Those are two of the biggest waves I'm paying attention too. There are others but I'm not wanting to go into much else tonight. I'm actually in a pretty damn good place even with these things. I'm liking who I am and feeling that even if I don't have all the answers, I can do this.

Are you watching the waves come in? Are you in ebb or flow when the tough times start?