Still Life With Remorse is a compilation of love notes to art, music, literature and family. The book explores the interior landscape of the deliriously talented author/ illustrator Maira Kalman. Israeli born, American bred, Kalman tries “to shake off the heavy weight of remorse ” with poignant autobiographical reflections and folksy drawings to lift her spirits. She employs short poems, vibrant vignettes, quirky illustrations, and two “musical interludes,” to create something short of a Zen experience.
In 39 anecdotes, Kalman expresses , “an ocean of remorse” for people long gone, those who shaped her, “weltanschauung,” essentially individuals who influenced her world view. Several soulful vignettes focus on family. Originally from Belarus, dire political circumstances took them to Palestine and then America. Most touching in Kalman’s repertoire is the sorrow over her mother Sara. A woman of great culture Sara suffered from mental illness. She could not take care of Kalman’s sister, Kika who was sent away to live in a “Hasidic, Dickensian Orphanage.” Kalman also feels pangs of remorse over her parents’ divorce, the loss of her family who remained in Belarus, “murdered in the Holocaust” and layers of grief for her beloved husband Tibor’s premature death.
She contemplates the loss of musicians, and literary figures who affected her outlook in life. She reflects on “the geniuses of literature,” Anton Checkoff’s disastrous marriage, the discord between the great Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sophie. Kalman recalls Franz Kafka’s wretched life with an overbearing father, and feels the misery in composer Gustav Mahler’s dark symphonies and lyrics. “And yet… and yet …” Kalman writes, “If there is remorse, There should be merriment”. But how can we make this happen? How to do this?” she asks. Kalman offers a bounty of whimsical artworks as a powerful antidote to sorrow or grief.
She redirects her somber mood with 50 vibrant illustrations, vases , overflowing with purple anemones, amphorae with wild cyclamen, bouncing red poppies, pink carnations and pitchers filled with fiery, orange chrysanthemums, white asters, jugs of scarlet zinnias. A music aficionado, Kalman imagines the “conviviality and bonhomie” at lunch with composers Robert and Clara Schuman snacking on kugelhopf or cherry strudel. To relieve her sad moments she listens to “musical interludes” by Schubert or Handel and contemplates “a floor full of books that fill the room with everything you need.” Her book explodes with colorful images, a brash pink sofa that once belonged to Vanessa Bell, a platter of green quince, portraits of French poets and studios that housed artists, Delacroix and Matisse— all positive diversions to erase her somber mood.
Kalman’s book skillfully expresses life’s disappointments in its many iterations. However her bold imperative boils down to this: when immersed in sadness, create your own happiness, discover joy in all that surrounds you! A book open to myriad interpretations, Remorse with Still Life floods the imagination with a torrent of wisdom, amusement and amazement at Kalman’s genius.