Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough
(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Hearing Trumpet
By: Leonora Carrington
Narrated by: Siân Phillips
Leonora Carrington (Author, artist born in England, lived in Mexico, 1917-2011, died at the age of 94.)
“The Hearing Trumpet” is said to have been written in the 1950s or early 60s. The author, Leonora Carrington, is believed to be in her late 50s when the book is written. Her age is relevant because the book is about old age and how those who make it to old age are treated in the modern world.
Though this is a highly regarded novel, to this reviewer the beginning is remarkable, the end is meh (uninspiring). The heroine of the story is Marian Leatherby. She is 94, a ripe old age, when one’s family members waiver between love and burden when thinking about their aged parents.
The character of Marian Leatherby is developed as a remarkable woman that is smart, and humorous but is troubled by loss of hearing. A neighbor who one presumes is similarly elderly buys a gift for Marian. The gift is “The Hearing Trumpet”.
Now that Marian has “The Hearing Trumpet” she can hear much better and understands her perilous living arrangement. She prepares for her children’s plan to move her into an assisted living facility for the aged.
Her son seems reluctant, but the daughter-in-law is insistent because of Marian’s bizarre behavior when they have guests. Marian rarely communicates with her children and often interrupts her family’s social lives because of her hearing loss.
Because of Marian’s hearing, she communicates and understands little about the son and daughter-in-law with whom she lives
The move happens within days of Marian’s realization of her son and daughter-in-law’s plan. Many who have reached a certain age, know of similar family decisions.
An aged parent responds in different ways. Some choose to die by making the move and refusing to adapt to a new way of living. Others choose to adapt. Marian is carted off to a monastery like facility.
The story is fascinating up to this point. It loses its appeal for this listener in a surrealistic story of Marian’s new living arrangement.
The head of the facility is an overweight manager with a semi-religious, zealot-like view of his role. Marian becomes an observer in her first weeks at the facility.
After some time, Marian accepts the behavior of her fellow wards and begins a surrealistic journey into a myth about the Knights of Malta (a religious military order under its own Papal, Roman Catholic charter).
This is semi-interesting to some because the Knights of Malta are an order of religious soldiers who are alleged by some to have murdered the famous artist, Caravaggio. That is not the surreal story of the author, but interestingly Lenora Carrington is an artist in real life.
One presumes Carrington’s remaining story is full of symbolism, but it hides the fundamental importance of aging and how fearful one is to become old, ignored, and essentially discarded by society. Maybe fantasy is all that is left to the aged. Carrington lives into her 90s. One wonders how she adjusted to her infirmities.
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