The last time Marthe Carrare heard Harfang speak, he had delivered a sparkling lecture… (He) concluded his speech by foreshadowing the end of cardiac transplants, suggesting they would soon become obsolete because the time had come to consider the virtues of artificial hearts, technological wonders invented and developed in a French laboratory…A murmur ran through the auditorium, waking up the drowsier students. Harfang’s audience was disconcerted by this conclusion, by the idea that a prosthetic heart could rob the organ of its symbolic power, and while most of the heads obediently bowed down toward the spiral notebooks held below them, concentrating as the hands took notes of Harfang’s words, a few shook from side to side, signaling sadness, or even vague dissent, while some slid hands inside jackets, behind ties, under shirts, touching bare skin so they could feel their hearts beating.
~ Maylis de Kerangal, The Heart: A Novel
Notes:
- Self Portrait titled “Destiny” by 24-year old Hungary-based photographer Noell S. Oszvald. Don’t miss more here: My Modern Met.
- Related Maylis de Kerangal post: A hundred thousand times a day. 10 pints a minute.
Damn, these passages are unreal! You know a book is good when an author can grab you with a paragraph. This weekend, I’m getting it this weekend…
Yes. I describe the book and my state in reading it: “Hypnotic”
That last sentence will be with me for a long time! Thanks for sharing. David.
Yes Jean. That is a powerful punch line. Right there.
to be absolutely certain that they were still there –
Another perfect match…words and photo…you have that way…
Thank you Freddie!
This makes me think of “The Heart’s Code” by Paul Pearsall. He writes of cellular memory and how heart transplant recipients get flashes of the donors’ memories. Sooooo much we don’t know or understand.
Paul Pearsall. I read his other book. http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Factor-Psychology-Hardiness-Happiness-ebook/dp/B001ET679E/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8. He’s brilliant.
Ooo. I like the looks of that one.
We put the symbolic power in the wrong place, maybe?
Maybe! 🙂
It does make me wonder what the effect a prosthetic heart may have on us energetically, spiritually and emotionally? It seems wrong. Our heart is the space where we hold our cellular memories of love and wounding and is the basis for how we see and live our life. What happens if that is gone?
I shudder to think…just hope my real one keeps ticking…
Speaking of which… how’s that electric flutter?
I need to go check it out. I do.
Funny how we get mixed up between the physical and metaphysical …
Yes…