Stones Beneath a White Star

 

Stones Beneath a White Star by Martin Locker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was speaking with someone recently about teaching young children complex concepts. This friend is a teacher of very young children (three- to five-year olds) and is tasked with teaching them some advanced concepts. She was concerned that these kids were never going to remember these principles, though they might integrate them subconsciously, the same way that back in our secondary-school grade introduction to trigonometry and pre-calculus, we all said "we're never going to use this stuff". That turned out to be true for most of us, though our brains were permanently rewired, ever so slightly, to form thoughts in a new and different way than we had done before. All of this aside, we agreed that while these young kids probably won't remember a thing about what was said to them, they absolutely will remember the way they felt when they were being taught. I can attest to this. I remember my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Wells, not because of the things I learned, but because of her kindness and patience and her great sense of humor. I remember her reading us the Winnie the Pooh stories and her spot-on voices (with the Disney movies as her template). And I remember her encouraging my reading, even recommending me to what they called the "talented and gifted" readers program for reading and writing. I didn't even fully comprehend what that meant, but I remember the way she made me feel: special, recognized, an individual. I'll never forget her. I can't even name my second or fourth grade teachers, but Mrs. Wells; she was an icon.

I share this because of the way Martin's book Stones Beneath a White Star made me feel. If someone asked me what the book was "about," I would stumble and mumble my way through an answer. Something about friends and loss and mysticism and mountains and reconnecting with the past . . . mumble mumble mumble . . .

It's tough to pin it down. But I know how the book made me feel.

Excuse me while I get a little personal. I'm hardly on social media these days (intentionally), so I don't spill my guts like some people do regularly. So, humor me. I'll try not to be boring. And maybe this indulgence will say a bit about the book. One caveat: I am a pen pal with the author. We write each other, pen and paper, yes, the old-fashioned way, irregularly. As a result I've gotten to know Martin a little. I apologize if you think this shades the review in any way, but hey, it can't be helped now, can it?

What I didn't say about my experience with Mrs. Wells above is that I was living in Italy at the time. My dad was military - I was what is colloquially called a "Military Brat" (hey, if the shoe fits . . .) - so I lived in a lot of different places through my life. I sometimes wonder if Air's song "Universal Traveller" wasn't written for me (did I mention the word "brat"?). I've been around . . .

One problem with having been around is that some of the places I lived, I can never visit again. The Air Force base I was born at in Germany is now a US Army base, the base where we lived in Italy, San Vito, is abandoned and off-limits, the base in England where I spent most of high school is now a British spy base (though I can, and did go on a tour of some of the base a few years back, "my" house is strictly off-limits), and the house I lived in when we were in The Philippines was buried under volcanic ash and the base abandoned by the US military. In essence, a lot of my childhood stomping grounds are either inaccessible to me or just plain don't exist anymore, though I have written a bit about my dream-life in one of those places.

This makes me a little melancholy. While many people can just drive (or even walk) to their childhood home, I just can't. I can get bits and pieces and visit places near some of those places, but time and circumstance have effectively banished me from my own childhood. It's a little more than mere nostalgia. I am haunted by the ghosts of the places of my past.

And here we have a segue into why I feel the way I feel about this book. Stones Beneath a White Star is the most profound work of Psychogeography I have ever read. It is about the spirit of a place, in this case, the Pyrenees Mountains (where, incidentally, my ancestors on my father's side hail from, generally - though they lived in the Basque regions, while this work takes place largely in and around Andorra). The religio-mystical history of the region is dealt with in encyclopedic depth. The book as historical treatise on the area is exhaustive, thick with referents and nuances that I admittedly know little or nothing about. But this didn't affect my reading, outside of wanting to know more about the people, events, and places portrayed.

The real rub of the book is the intimate connection of a few close friends and fellow-believers to the land itself. Their connections to each other (and some of those who have passed on before them) provide the engine for the story (such as it is). These relationships, between people, the land, and the history of the land, is absolutely immersive. I cannot say what the book is "about," nor do I care. This is the kind of book you just live in, for the moment, a meditation on friendship, loss, and retrieval, of the fluctuating bonds of love despite the catastrophes and disappointments of living life on this planet. It is a novel about the resilience of friends finding peace in a broken world.

You can probably see where this is heading . . . I live in a world of broken memories, unretrievable. I'd like to think this isn't just a function of mawkish nostalgia. I literally can't go back. But the memories still haunt me. Needless to say, this book affected me . . . deeply.

Thank goodness that while much of my past is bricked off (or behind barbed wire), one thing persists, despite location, and that is meaningful friendships. I've made and lost many friends throughout the years (as I get older, I lose more and more), but as I retain some ties over the decades and form new friendships with people I've not known before, whether intentionally or through pure happenstance, there is connection. And this connection is something to be nurtured, something sacred.

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