Deafening

Deafening by Frances Itani is one of the better novels I have read in a long while. Although not particularly mind-blowing, it's written with a quiet thoughtfulness and an understated loveliness that (I think) is rather rare in contemporary fiction.

Deafening--set in World War I era Canada--is the story of several people, but largely it is about Grania, a young deaf woman who loses her hearing at the age of five. The novel begins directly after her loss of hearing, and follows her through years of struggling to adapt to a now-silent world. She must learn how to communicate with those around her. She must learn how to meaningfully engage the world when she is cut off from nearly all spoken language. Itani artfully explores themes of communication, the nature of language, and mostly the nature of silence.

About halfway through the novel, Jim--Grania's (hearing) fiance--appears on the scene. This is where Itani's focus seems to shift, and the novel makes a somewhat strange digression. Shortly after their marriage, Jim enters the war as a stretcher bearer, which launches the novel into entirely different thematic territory: the war and its losses and ramifications. Some of the themes--namely those of language and silence--continue into the latter half of the novel, but for the most part its entire focus shifts. Where before we'd been following Grania and her experiences as a deaf woman, halfway through the novel we begin to follow Jim through his experiences as a stretcher bearer. And while Itani's writing is good as ever, and Jim's character is sympathetic, the novel seems to lose something. I felt as though I could've been reading any other war novel (with the notable exception that Jim is a stretcher bearer and not a soldier). The originality of the premise and the ideas implicit within it peter out as the war totally takes over the plot.

Don't get me wrong, I find "war novels" fascinating when they thoughtfully explore the phenomenon of war (see The Things They Carried, The Killer Angels, etc.), and Itani does, to some degree, pose interesting questions about the impact of war on the individual, and the way in which the individual might cope (which ties in nicely with the theme of internal silence). But, her exploration of war wasn't insightful enough to make me forget the loose, loose threads from the first half of the novel. The shift in focus is too abrupt, and I was left wanting better development of both Grania, Jim, and their relationship in general.

The characters of the novel are compelling, and the writing is lovely, which is its saving grace. It's worth reading (probably even worth rereading), but it's a bit incohesive.