funeral reading from a novel?

[levyashin]

hi all,

i'm wondering if any of you well-read people can help me out on this.

i'm giving a reading at my mother's funeral next week but am struggling (to say the least) to come up with something suitable.

my mum wasn't really a huge fan of poetry so i'm really keen to find a passage from a novel or perhaps a play that i could read.

unfortunately i'm not nearly as well-read as my mum was and i'm particularly lost on the writers she held most dear.

if anybody has any suggestions that would be really fantastic and save me a lot of fretting - the writers i would really like to find something from are George Eliot or Tolstoy or Chekhov or perhaps Philip Pullman.

Mainly i just want to reflect her love of novels or drama - all suggestions are very welcome.


p.s. i realise that this is my first post and it might seem a bit cheeky to turn up out of the blue with a request like this but i've visited this site often before - just never felt quite literate enough to join :redface:


Matthew.

[kelby_lake]

Not sure what content you're looking forward- there's always Hamlet if you want something philosophical.

If you tell me what you want from the passage, I'll try and think of one for you.

[levyashin]

hi, thanks for the reply.

i think ideally i'm looking for some kind of meditation on life/death/mortality. it could be explicitly a lament for someone's death, or a more general consideration of death a la Hamlet (though unfortunately i think that's off the table as someone else is reading Shakespeare).

Alternatively themes like existence/loss/separation/memory would seem to make sense but it doesn't have to be any of these. Just a philosophical/meditative passage from someone like Eliot/Tolstoy or Chekhov would be excellent. It doesn't need to be downbeat either.


thanks for your help

[kiki1982]

How about this. It's maybe a little sad and cry-y, but still, it evokes the idea of continuity-without-them-that-have-lived among-us...

George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Conslusion:


"Nature repairs her ravages - repairs them with her sunshine and with human labour. [then comes something not applicable about the flood, a continuation of the first sentence]
Nature repairs her ravages - but not all. The uptorn trees are not rooted again; the parted hills are left scarred; if there is a new growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the hills underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past rendering. To the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no thorough repair."

In combination with something more positive it might do.

[Lokasenna]

I couldn't think of any good examples from novels (sorry!), but I thought I'd put up some poetry just in case you change your mind:

Holy Sonnet X by John Donne
Death be not proud, though some have callèd thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

I am sorry for your loss.

[kelby_lake]

From 'Julius Caesar':
"Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come." - -- William Shakespeare

[Virgil]

hi all,

i'm wondering if any of you well-read people can help me out on this.

i'm giving a reading at my mother's funeral next week but am struggling (to say the least) to come up with something suitable.

my mum wasn't really a huge fan of poetry so i'm really keen to find a passage from a novel or perhaps a play that i could read.

unfortunately i'm not nearly as well-read as my mum was and i'm particularly lost on the writers she held most dear.

if anybody has any suggestions that would be really fantastic and save me a lot of fretting - the writers i would really like to find something from are George Eliot or Tolstoy or Chekhov or perhaps Philip Pullman.

Mainly i just want to reflect her love of novels or drama - all suggestions are very welcome.


p.s. i realise that this is my first post and it might seem a bit cheeky to turn up out of the blue with a request like this but i've visited this site often before - just never felt quite literate enough to join :redface:


Matthew.

Perhaps this is appropriate.
From Tolstoy's Thw Death Of Ivan Ilych:


And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and would not leave his was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings. "How good and how simple!" he thought. "And the pain?" he asked himself. "What has become of it? Where are you, pain?"
He turned his attention to it.
"Yes, here it is. Well, what of it? Let the pain be."
"And death...where is it?"
He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. "Where is it? What death?" There was no fear because there was no death.
In place of death there was light.
"So that's what it is!" he suddenly exclaimed aloud. "What joy!"
To him all this happened in a single instant, and the meaning of that instant did not change. For those present his agony continued for another two hours. Something rattled in his throat, his emaciated body twitched, then the gasping and rattle became less and less frequent.
"It is finished!" said someone near him.
He heard these words and repeated them in his soul.
"Death is finished," he said to himself. "It is no more!"
He drew in a breath, stopped in the midst of a sigh, stretched out, and died

My sympathies on her passing.

[applepie]

hi, thanks for the reply.

i think ideally i'm looking for some kind of meditation on life/death/mortality. it could be explicitly a lament for someone's death, or a more general consideration of death a la Hamlet (though unfortunately i think that's off the table as someone else is reading Shakespeare).

Alternatively themes like existence/loss/separation/memory would seem to make sense but it doesn't have to be any of these. Just a philosophical/meditative passage from someone like Eliot/Tolstoy or Chekhov would be excellent. It doesn't need to be downbeat either.


thanks for your help

Did your mum have a favorite author?

[levyashin]

Did your mum have a favorite author?

Yeah sorry, I didn't actually make that clear in the first post but her favourite author was George Eliot.

Although of course narrowing it down to one only makes it tougher to find something :)





Thank you to everyone for their suggestions. I will have a look at some of those passages in their context to see how suitable they would be.
The Mill on the Floss thing had occured to me before but I guess the fact it is about two children, a brother and sister, makes me feel it isn't quite appropriate.

Further suggestions are very welcome.

thanks,

[Pecksie]

Hey. My sympathies to you, and my hope that you will find happiness and peace despite this blow.

How about this quote from John Donne's (prose) Meditation XVII:

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another".

I find it very beautiful and very moving.

[kiki1982]

You are right, Pecksie. Wow, moving.

And sorry, Levyashin, I was too engrossed by the topic itself... My condolences too...

[Cailin]

My condolences on the passing of your mother.

This is a quote I took from a short story "Matters of Life and Death 2: Visiting Takabuti" from the collection Matters of Life and Death by Bernard MacLaverty:

" And it made her remember the Irish story - of the soul that kissed the body. At the moment of death. She had heard it from Arthur McBride at a wake in Ballintoy. His eyes were bright trying not to be moved as he told it. The soul leaves the body and tiptoes to the doorway. Then turns and goes back to kiss the body that has sheltered it all these years. Day in, day out. In sickness and in health. In grief and in joy.

And Nora imagines it happening at her own death. She sees it like cinema. The soul, in her own image, leans over and with tenderness kisses her empty body. Adieu. And each time the soul makes the journey to the doorway reluctance takes hold and it returns to kiss the body with its shrunken frame and frail bones of honeycomb. Adieu. Three times in all. From one vital part of herself to another. Adieu."

I don't know if it would be of any use to you. Good luck with your choice.

[bluevictim]

I'm truly sorry to hear of your loss.

This may already be too late, but here are a couple of passages that I find inspiring.

First, from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It's considered a children's book, but I've always found it profound with every reading.

The little prince is about to leave the planet and his new friend. Here's a part of the conversation.

"People have stars, but they aren't the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they're nothing but tiny lights. And for still others, for scholars, they're problems. For my business man, they were gold. But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you'll have stars like nobody else."
"What do you mean?"
"When you look up at the sky at night, since I'll be living on one of them, since I'll be laughing on one of them, for you it'll be as if all the stars are laughing. You'll have stars that can laugh!"
And he laughed again.
"And when you're consoled (everyone is eventually consoled), you'll be glad you've known me. You'll always be my friend. You'll feel like laughing with me. And you'll open your windows sometimes just for the fun of it ... And your friends will be amazed to see you laughing while you're looking up at the sky. Then you'll tell them, 'Yes, it's the stars; they always make me laugh!' And they'll think you're crazy. It'll be a nasty trick I played on you ..."



And here's a passage from Dostoevsky's famous The Brothers Karamazov.

"You must know that there is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up many such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life. And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation."

I hope this helps. I'm sure you'll find a fitting way to memorialize your mother.

[levyashin]

hi,

a big thank you to everyone for your suggestions and kind words.

the funeral was yesterday and in the end i went the easy route and
read from a poem (Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality). It seemed
to be well recieved and all in all i feel i made a reasonable choice.

someone who knows a good deal more about drama than me read some
chekhov which was nice too, good that my mother's interests were
referenced in some way.

i'm sure at some point over the next several months i'll come across
a passage somewhere, quite by accident, that seems like it would have
been perfect - but i guess that is inevitable.

thanks again for all your help. there were some really good suggestions that
i gave serious consideration to but nothing that quite struck a chord the way
the wordsworth did. i really appreciate everybody who took the time to view this thread and make a post.

matthew.

[applepie]

hi,

a big thank you to everyone for your suggestions and kind words.

the funeral was yesterday and in the end i went the easy route and
read from a poem (Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality). It seemed
to be well recieved and all in all i feel i made a reasonable choice.

someone who knows a good deal more about drama than me read some
chekhov which was nice too, good that my mother's interests were
referenced in some way.

i'm sure at some point over the next several months i'll come across
a passage somewhere, quite by accident, that seems like it would have
been perfect - but i guess that is inevitable.

thanks again for all your help. there were some really good suggestions that
i gave serious consideration to but nothing that quite struck a chord the way
the wordsworth did. i really appreciate everybody who took the time to view this thread and make a post.

matthew.

My condolences again about your mum. I imagine that when you find that passage that seems like it would have been perfect, you'll think of her. That is a good thing too, and I imagine that if she is anything like myself, she would be pleased that something that is seemingly so small brought her to your mind.

Meg