Mortality, Hopes, and Secrets

“Dry and dead things becomes earth. Earth becomes dry and dead things….. The only thing that separates us from dust is water …….When water runs dry, we are of earth alone.” (p.113-114). Itaranta uses the earth as an intermediate, giving it a mortal property for it alludes to the limitations of our physical body. By contrast then, water and death are immortal. Water for it is the guardian of the past and death because it is unstoppable. These three elements form what I would like to call heaven, earth and hell.

The three lament women also reminds me of the three fates in greek mythology, another immortality element. It is described that they ultimately determined the destiny of man and that the three fates are older than the gods themselves. In comparison, the lament women sings in past world languages and that they are older than the rest of the villagers supports that. It was also describes that death follows where ever they go, giving them the symbolic role of transferring a person from a physical body to spiritual one – almost like crossing the river styx. (There was a river reference separating Noria and her dead father on p. 127)

Because there were so many allusions to death in this chapter, I feel that Itaranta manages to cancel that out with Noria finding the passage about the Jannson expedition. It gives hope because even forty years prior, people have been trying to free up the water for everybody.It is a revolution in making and I feel that this discovery gave Noria the purpose and grounding that she needed after her father’s death.

“Secrets carves us like water carves stones” (p.161) and “If we let another person into the silent space a secret has made within us, we are no longer alone there” (p.167) – This made me think, when does a secret stop becoming a secret? The military secret? The secret of the spring? The knowledge of what the military has done? etc….