David Grossman - Falling out of time

sink our faces

in the wall, breach it ,

pull them ,

tear them

out—

We froze. We did

not move! If only

we could speak to them, we thought ,

we’d tell them everything

we did not say when they

still lived. Or else

we’d shout at them

through the lips of the hole

rent in us, through which

our life

seeps out

in throbbing

surges .

CENTAUR: The walking man suddenly fell on his knees at the wall and whispered his son’s name. There was no voice in his whisper, only a gaping mouth and torn eyes. In my room, I felt a sharp blade fly over here from there and slice me in two. Through my swoon of pain I heard behind me, from within the piles of objects, the voice of a small child who said quietly, softly murmuring:

BOY:

There is

breath

there

is breath

inside the pain

there is

breath

CENTAUR: I stood up on my feet. I walked around the room. I picked up this or the other object and touched it, stroked it, brought it to my lips. Then I went back and stood at the window. I could see very well using a pair of binoculars I found in one of the piles: the walker’s whisper seemed to reap the other walkers. Like him, they, too, fell to their knees, the midwife and the cobbler, the elderly teacher, the net-mender and the duke, the town chronicler and his wife. And each and every one of them, each and every one of us, called out, whispered, to his child:

WALKERS:

Lilli—

Adam? My little

Lilli — Michael — Oh, my child ,

my sweet, my lost one — Hanna ,

Hanna, look here — Sorry, Michael ,

for hitting you—

Adam, it’s

Dad — Uwi—

My speck of life—

We awoke

lying on the ground .

The wall

stood no longer .

Perhaps it had never been

there. Perhaps nothing

of what we saw

really was .

But then a strange thought

passed through

all of us ,

elusive yet acute ,

as if a hand

had stitched us

with a thread: perhaps

when the man

stood up

in his little kitchen

and said:

I have to go there ,

perhaps at that same moment

something also shifted

there .

And when

the man began

to walk around himself

in circles

by his house—

they, too ,

from there ,

began to walk

here ,

to the meeting point?

We pictured them

now slightly stooped ,

waning ,

slowly turning

back .

WALKING MAN:

And he

is dead.

I understand, almost,

the meaning of

the sounds: the boy

is dead.

I recognize

these words

as holding truth.

He is dead,

he is

dead. But

his death,

his death

is not

dead.

CENTAUR:

Yet still it breaks my heart,

my son,

to think

that I have—

that one could—

that I have found

the words.

April 2009–May 2011

The quote on this page is from e. e. cummings’s

poem “a clown’s smirk in the skull of a baboon.”

The quote on this page is based on Avraham

Huss’s Hebrew translation of “Orpheus,

Eurydice, Hermes,” by Rainer Maria Rilke.

David Grossman was born in Jerusalem, where he still lives. He is the best-selling author of several works of fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature, which have been translated into thirty-six languages. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker . He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the French Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Buxtehuder Bulle in Germany, Rome’s Premio per la Pace e L’Azione Umanitaria, the Premio Ischia International Award for Journalism, Israel’s Emet Prize, and the 2010 Frankfurt Peace Prize.

Jessica Cohen was born in England, raised in Israel, and now lives in the United States. She translates contemporary Israeli fiction, nonfiction, and other creative works, among them David Grossman’s critically acclaimed To the End of the Land . Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, Tablet Magazine, Words Without Borders , and Two Lines .

The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s discussion of Falling Out of Time , internationally acclaimed author David Grossman’s powerful, genre-defying exploration of grief and bereavement as experienced by residents of a small village.

About This Book

Part prose, part play, and pure poetry, David Grossman’s Falling Out of Time is a powerful exploration of mortality, mourning, and the long good-bye that follows the death of a loved one. As linguistically impressive as it is emotionally wrought, Grossman’s trim fable unpacks the complexities of grief as they are experienced on a personal and collective level, leading readers on a journey to define the universal, yet often indescribable, feeling of loss.

Set in a small seaside village, the characters of Falling Out of Time are bound by grief: all are parents who have experienced the death of a child, and all struggle with pain they are unable to articulate. The book opens in the home of two such characters, a man — simply described as Walking Man — and his wife, who are mourning the death of their son. Unable to bear the burden of his grief in the confines of his home, the man sets out on a journey to reach his dead son. He begins to walk around the village in ever-widening circles, reflecting on his sorrow as he paces. One by one, he is joined by a lively cross section of townspeople — from the Midwife to the Net-Mender to the Duke — each with his or her own story of loss to reflect upon. As they walk, questions about death and mortality are raised: Is there an afterlife? Is peace of mind attainable after such a loss? Is it possible, even for a fleeting moment, to trade places with the dead, to free them of their fate? The collectivity of the group serves as catharsis, ultimately turning these individuals’ private experiences of pain into a comforting hymn of hope. Elegantly economical and intensely moving, Grossman’s book is a singular exploration of how to live life in the face of tremendous loss.

Questions for Discussion

1. As Falling Out of Time opens, Walking Man and his wife are embroiled in a tense discussion about whether or not he should embark on his journey. Why does his wife protest the decision? How does her perspective on her husband’s journey change in the course of the book?

2. On this page, Walking Man’s wife asks him: “Will I ever again / see you / as you are, / rather than as / he is not?” How is the relationship between husband and wife changed by the loss of a child? How does it affect specific couples in the novel — the Town Chronicler and his wife, the Midwife and the Cobbler?

3. The Town Chronicler is initially introduced as a sort of omnipresent force who objectively catalogs the events of the town from a distance. Yet as the book progresses, his own melancholia is revealed. What initiates this change? What does this suggest about the presentation of self in professional versus private spheres?