The Illumination, Kevin Brockmeier’s enthralling, haunting novel, follows several lonely characters wandering through a world that is much like ours, except for a sudden new phenomenon: pain and illness are now visible. Arthritis, cancer and cavities all glow with a lovely, ethereal light. The pain of hunger becomes concrete. Bruises are luminous.
This twist of magical realism creates an intriguing and uncomfortable new intimacy; we notice a passing woman’s recent bikini wax, we see once-hidden blisters and fungal infections in strangers on the street, and we watch the incandescent cancers and cavities of our presidents and celebrities.
Characters in The Illumination
The six characters in The Illumination, who range from a silent child to a half-committed missionary, are tenuously linked by a diary in which a woman recorded the one-sentence love notes her husband left her each morning. These love notes, quoted throughout the novel, range from prosaic to delicate and poetic: “I love wasting an afternoon tossing stones off the pier with you. I love seeing your body turn into a mosaic through the frosted glass of the hotel shower.”
The novel’s exploration of physical and emotional pain is hauntingly lovely, especially in Jason Williford, the author of the love notes, who is now mourning his wife’s death. Jason photographs teenagers who are self-mutilating and soon finds himself caught in the allure of self-inflicted injury. In this age of luminescent pain, hurting oneself – cutting, burning, opening your skin’s old scars – becomes a beautiful and disturbing form of artwork. But the novel also captures the rush, the thrill, the satisfaction and the relief of physical pain overtaking grief.
My favorite character, however, is Chuck, a ten-year-old boy who is exquisitely sensitive to the helpless pain of objects. He tends to the diary with heartbreaking consideration: “He put his lunch box away and took out the diary. He stroked the cover, trying to brush its pain away. He pretended it was a cat, purring in his lap. He wished that he could feed it a cat treat.” Chuck’s entire chapter, in a subtle flexing of seemingly effortless skill, is written in ten-word sentences.
Casting Light on the Nature of Pain
By the end of the novel, the novel’s characters – and the reader – have become accustomed to this world in which pain and disease emit shimmering flames of light. Visible pain doesn’t seem to change how humans act towards each other; they look away even from a dazzling glow or pretend not to see an ooze of light.
Brockmeier’s novel doesn’t provide any easy answers about pain or illness; despite its title, little is illuminated. Even the plot of the novel seems unsure and unfixed, moving from character to character with fluid grace but no clear arc. However, the novel ultimately succeeds in its depiction of pain as inextricably interconnected with beauty and meaning, and, like Rilke’s angels, simultaneously lovely and terrible.
Brockmeier, Kevin. The Illumination. Pantheon Books: 2011.
Rebekah Richards - Rebekah Richards has published fiction and nonfiction in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Brandeis Law Journal, Where the Children Play, ...
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