Title: Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
Book Beginnings quote:
They asked me to describe the pain, but the pain defied description, on a scale of one to ten it demanded a different scale. It was like someone had plunged a hand into my gut and grabbed hold and yanked, trying to turn me inside out and failing and trying again.Like that, while somebody else kneed me in the groin.
Friday56 quote: [Where the narrator is remembering a conversation with his high school class about a favorite untitled poem written in old English, focusing on these two unparsable lines: "Weston wynde, when wyll thow blow, / The smalle rayne downe can Rayne."]:
Imagine the speaker. What is the small rain, isn't it beautiful, the weird adjective, how can rain be small; and does he want it, the speaker of the poem, does he long for the rain, is that how we should understand the cracked syntax, and isn't the poem more beautiful for it, for the difficulty, for the way we can't quite make sense of it, settled sense, I mean, for how it won't stay still...
Summary:
A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind.
This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value—art, memory, poetry, music, care—are thrown into sharp relief. Time expands and contracts. Sudden intimacies bloom. Small Rain surges beyond the hospital to encompass a radiant vision of human life: our shared vulnerability, the limits and possibilities of sympathy, the ideal of art and the fragile dream of America. Above all, this is a love story of the most unexpected kind (Publisher).
Review: An unnamed teacher and poet finds himself at the mercy of the healthcare system during the COVID pandemic -- in pain, frightened, alone, confused, and scared. When he is admitted to ICU he still doesn't know what is happening to him and his life is out of his control. In the weeks he is in the hospital there are small moments of beauty, however, where he finds himself thinking about some piece of music, art, or a poem. For example, at one point he and a nurse find themselves talking about madrigal music they like. The nurse pulls out his phone and cues up a song and they listen together in a special moment. Another time during a procedure he thinks back to a lesson he had with his high school students where they discussed the poem "Smalle Rayne" (Small Rain). I always enjoy finding the title in the text of a book. And here it is.
The healthcare specifics made me wonder if the author had had a similar experience in the ICU, if not he really did very specific, excellent research. The patient is a gay man, and some of the discussions that occured as the doctors attempted to figure out the cause so they could properly treat the man made me feel a little uncomfortable. But I had to keep reminding myself to not be a prude. (This said by me, a person who nearly faints if anyone talks about teeth or dental issues may explain my squeamishness.)
I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author. When I looked at the Friday56 quote (from page 47) I was relieved that I chose the format I did. It drives me crazy when authors don't use quotation marks and, in this case, use big long run-on sentences, a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, thoughts separated by semicolons. When I listened to this quote I was captivated by it but when I looked at I didn't feel the same way.
That said, the books' prose and structure were so beautiful. The story was really elevated by the writing. The author read the audiobook. I would recommend that format.
Rating: 5 stars.
Discussion Questions
- What was your reaction to the story? What did you like/not like about it?
- What did you think of the writing style of Small Rain? See Friday56 quote (above) for an example of the stream-of-consciousness style, with non-traditional punctuation. If you listened to the audiobook, what did you think of the author reading his own book?
- If you live inside the USA, what do you think is the biggest problem with our healthcare system? If you live outside the US, what do you like/not like about your healthcare system? What do you know about the healthcare system in the US?
- Garth Greenwell said the book is NOT autobiographical but he did have a medical emergency in 2020 similar to the book's narrator. He felt completely bewildered by his treatment and his care. To your mind, how were the descriptions of the medical care the poet received accurate? What aspects of his care bothered you the most? Is "bewildered" a good word to describe the experience? Explain.
- How did the COVID pandemic factor into the story? What experiences did you have with the healthcare system during the pandemic? The book's description mentions the politics of COVID. Did you think the book had a overt/covert political message?
- Authors find it hard to write about sex and about illness. This book had both. Which made you feel more uncomfortable? How well do you think the author did writing about these difficult topics?
- Art, mainly poetry but also music and visual art, is a secondary theme. What did you think of the way it was integrated into the story? What were your favorite "art" moments in the story?
- As the poet spent his days in the hospital he often found himself reflecting on his past life and how he got to where he is now. Through these reflections we learn about his relationship with L., his homosexuality, his teaching career, his relationship with his family especially his sister, and his insecurities. What did you think was effective about this type of storytelling?
- React to these quotes from Small Rain and explain how they relate to the story:
- “I was full of squeamishness, which whatever else it is is a way of clinging to life, I could still care about unessential things.”
- “Read it again, read it more slowly, that was the whole of my pedagogy when I taught my students, who were pressured everywhere else to be more efficient, to take in information more quickly, to make each moment count, to instrumentalize time, which is a terrible way to live, dehumanizing, it disfigures existence.”
- “....now there was a great gulf and I was on one side of it alone. If I died, what would I be for him but a story, not even my own story but a segment of his, larger or smaller, I would be something he lived past, something he got over, an elegy's inspiration, maybe.”
- "SMALL RAIN" what does the title have to do with the story?
