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A few weeks ago I was put in charge of my daughter’s To Do List - well, some of it. I harbored her large adorable dog who needed lots of attention and walking. I fed a daily pill to her elderly c I Thought My Father Was God and other true tales from the NPR National Story Project was the perfect book for such a fragmented week. It is a fragmented book. It consists of stories, most only one or two pages long, all purported to be true. Some are secondhand — this happened to my great-great-grandfather in the civil war — but most are first hand reports. They are engrossing, entertaining and endearing, with only a few duds. I read the book straight through in five minute increments, between dog walks and the rest of my unfamiliar tasks. I Thought My Father Was God leans very heavily on reports of astounding coincidences, apparent occurrences of extra-sensory perception and oddities which sound suspiciously like stories honed in repetitive tellings in saloons - and a great more like stories polished and edited through years of retelling, if not in a social setting, then in private brooding. While I was in a scattered, incoherent routine, the coincidences were extremely comforting and convincing, perhaps because I was thrown into toddler’s-mom mode, where any scrap of continuity was welcomed with glad cries. Now that I am back to my own dull but predictable routine, sans doggie, I look back on this unique collection of stories with some reservations. It is a book which raises the question “What is truth?” in a very compelling upsurge of post-reading skepticism. Or perhaps the real question it raises is ‘What is the purpose of truth? Do we need scientific truth when we are telling our stories to each other round the fire in the cave?’ It appears that we don’t. Coincidences make us happy, especially when our To Do Lists are in disarray. Small but cogent stories lend a sense of control which is almost peaceful, even when the stories are full of violent material, which some of these stories are. Coincidence, premonition and omens are notoriously subject to superstitious errors as they are edited, conciously or unconsciously, in retellings. I believe each and every story was true to the person telling it - but I wonder at my own easy acceptance of so many coincidences,close calls,telepathic messages from distant dying relatives, miraculous reappearances of long-lost objects and people, just as they had been mentioned in casual conversation. I know better than to believe such stories in any literal sense - but they have an undeniable appeal, just the same. Some of the stories are of a different variety; they tell stories which do not have any element of the fantastic or the superstitious about them. In either case, the voice telling the stories is fairly consistent, rather plain and straightforward, easy to read. It sounds like someone earnestly reciting a familiar, important, core story to a friend. The story tellers sound very sincere. They also sound remarkable similar. It doesn’t matter. I can definitely recommend the book. It is perfect for a week of fractured schedules, formidable To Do Lists, and tiny available time segments. However, I can’t recommend investing too deeply in the testimonial value of all the stories any more than I could recommend taking astrology seriously. Like astrology, many of these stories are mythological, burnished and fixed up to give them cohesion. They are delightful and interesting, horrifying and pathetic. They are truly fascinating and truly human - whether they are true in the sense of scientific, verifiable, sober fact or not. Of course, everyone, no matter how devoted to fact, has stories of coincidence. Why, just the other day I was walking the dog when I got to thinking of an old friend who had disappeared some years ago and when I returned, to my surprise, the phone was ringing and it seemed to take forever to get to the phone and when I picked it up a familiar voice said “I almost hung up” and it was ....... not the long-lost old friend I had been thinking of. But it could have been! |
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