Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells

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The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

There is a remarkable ease to Pico Iyer’s liquid, conversational prose, as when he writes, “I’d moved to Japan, I thought, to learn how to live with less hurry and fear of time [ … ] to learn how best to dissolve a sense of self within something larger and less temporary.” Even his spoken dialogue consists of well-crafted sentences. When Hiroko is quoted, however, the language is abrupt and simple. “I cannot shrine this year,” she says, and, “Summer little ending. Now come autumn.” It is unclear whether we are meant to understand that the couple is speaking English or Japanese; in another book, Iyer writes that he seldom speaks English in Japan, but here, he suggests that they converse in his own tongue: “Japanese has only two tenses, and in Hiroko’s homemade ideogrammatic English, things grow doubly conflated, especially as she’s more comfortable in present tense than past.” Autumn in Norway allows for a peaceful visit to the country’s most famous attractions. The summer crowds are mainly gone, the weather is good and you can enjoy the sights all for yourself.This is the time to visit Kjeragbolten, Trolltunga, or Romsdalseggen (but only when the weather allows for it). The word equinox comes from the Latin equi (meaning equal) and nox (meaning night) accounting for the equinox marking the time when day and night are of equal length. Could there be a more outdoorsy thing to do in England than visit a farm? Many are open this autumn but pre-booking is essential. Although he is the foreigner in Japan (and not fluent in Japanese), it is Hiroko, with stilted, sometimes ungrammatical speech, who comes across as the outsider. Writers of fiction from Pierre Loti to Graham Greene have grappled with how best to convey the conversation of non-native speakers of their own languages. Sometimes these fictional portrayals are unflattering, for the obvious reason that the native speaker sounds—and therefore appears—superior. When a real person is put at a linguistic disadvantage in a text, are there similar (in this case, unintended) consequences? Perhaps. One wonders if a verbatim transcription is always the best approach.Like autumn days, his pen moves slowly, capturing the elements of a culture which worships its dead and holds onto the familial in face of everything. Many people are not sure what to expect when visiting Norway in autumn. Is it cold? Are the roads open? Are there many tourists? Does it rain a lot? We love the exhilaration of high ropes and have been doing them with the kids since they were a few years old. The youngest kids can to do courses in England is usually around three – that’s when we first took Baby to Go Ape. These are also superb places to go for an autumnal walk in the day time. 6. Outdoor things to do in England this autumn: light trails Picture credit: Richard Haughton

To understand your own confusion — it doesn’t take psychosis or old age to feel this way. Before her father died, Hiroko was in Dharamshala, India, with the Dalai Lama. (Iyer has known the Dalai Lama for decades.) “My parents are getting old,” Hiroko told His Holiness, “and I don’t know what to do exactly.” Who knows what to do? It’s paralyzing. But the Dalai Lama had a great response. “Spend time with them,” he said. “Don’t spend it here!” This line was such a relief, a spotlight shining through the darkness of confusion, and Autumn Light is peppered with such moments. It’s not only a joy to read, it’s helpful. After all, what can we say to someone who is suffering a fatal illness, or to someone who has experienced a great loss? “Words have little value in the kingdom of essential things,” Iyer writes, casually profound. “They’re just decorations on the feelings too deep for us to put into syllables.” Presence is enough. We don’t have to say anything. We just have to be there. What do we have to hold on to? Only the certainty that nothing will go according to design; our hopes are newly built wooden houses, sturdy until someone drops a cigarette or match. As I climbed all the way up to our house, the day after everything in our lives was reduced to rubble, I saw that everything that could be replaced—furniture, clothes, books—was, by definition, worthless. There are some lovely observations on the autumn of life here as Pico Iyer joins his wife Hiroko to farewell her just-deceased father, tend to her mother, and contemplate what it all adds up to. Recalling the loss of his parents' home in California to fire, he writes: What do we have to hold on to? Only the certainty that nothing will go according to design; our hopes are newly built wooden houses, sturdy until someone drops a cigarette or match. As I climbed all the way up to our house, the day after everything in our lives was reduced to rubble, I saw that everything that could be replaced--furniture, clothes, books--was, by definition, worthless. The only things that mattered were the things that were gone forever. (p.202) He doesn't say what things were gone forever, and here, as occasionally elsewhere, I found the point a bit hard to fathom. Because the Gregorian calendar is not quite in perfect symmetry with the Earth's orbit, the autumn equinox will very occasionally fall on September 24. This last happened in 1931 and will next happen in 2303. 7. Persephone's returnWould you like to visit Norway in autumn? What would you like to do? Or maybe you have some other activities to add to the list? Let me know in the comments! September in Norway might be one of the best months to visit the country. It’s often still warm enough for a general traveler, with mild temperatures and sunny weather.