Deafening

By Frances Itani

Book Overview

Set during 1915-19 in Canada, United States, England, Belgium and France, this is the story of a young woman in her 20's, Grania O' Neill (pronounced GRAW-NEE-YA, an Irish name meaning "Love"), profoundly deaf from the age of 5 as a result of scarlet fever. She marries Jim Lloyd, a hearing man who, 2 weeks after their marriage, leaves home in Ontario to serve his King and country and "do his bit for Mother England." Jim tries in every possible way to understand his wife's experience of deafness, and together they explore their love through the silence in which she lives. Jim is trained as a stretcher-bearer in one of the large camps on the southeast coast of England. He serves in Belgium and France with Number 9 Canadian Field Ambulance. His war experiences, friendships, and care of the dying and wounded during this brutal war of attrition, are moving, intimately detailed and carefully researched to show the realities of the life of a stretcher bearer serving in the front lines. On the home front, Grania's childhood in a small town on the edge of Lake Ontario, where her father owns a hotel; and as a residential student at "The Institution for the Deaf and Dumb" in a small Ontario city. A bright child, she has to learn "real" sign language (which replaces the private language she and her sister had, as small children, invented). She also learns, by necessity, extreme self-discipline and control over her emotions, which enables her to survive the trauma of leaving home and the facts of institutional life with 300 other deaf children around her. No visits home are permitted during the school year. Grania's Mother, guilt-ridden and never accepting of Grania's deafness, tries to make Grania hear. She tries for cures by miracle, and by taking her to Rochester, New York, in hopes of finding specialized medical treatment. Grania's early experiences inside her own silence and within a family that tries to overprotect--despite her gradually developing independence and strengths--later illuminate the complexity of her adult relationships: with her closest deaf friend, Fry; with her older sister Tress--who was once her lifeline; with her Irish Grandmother, "Mamo" (the most important person in her life at home and the one who teaches her to read and to speak, and whose love twice--in separate ways--saves Grania's life); with her 2 brothers; and with her parents. After Jim departs for the war, both Grania and her sister move back to their parents' home and hotel, where everyone in the family helps out with the hotel business. The tension in the book is held through the juxtaposition of two worlds: the world of war, violence and sound as shown through Jim's horrific experiences at the Front (which include several major battles); and life for Grania inside the silence of her own world during the long years of waiting on the home front--where news is frequently bad as more and more local boys are reported killed in the war. Grania's brother-in-law, Kenan, returns from the war in early 1918. He is wounded and mutilated and has stopped speaking. It is Grania who, with her extensive speech training recalled from residential schooldays, makes the breakthrough to Kenan's speech. But this success creates resentment in her sister because Kenan is not able to confide or share his war experience with his young wife. Events move quickly toward resolution as first, Spanish flu sweeps through the town ( a deadly pandemic), followed by Armistice (Nov 1918) and eventual demobilization. A moving sequence of events with her sister releases tensions between Grania and Tress. The loss of Mamo finally leads to the release of emotions Grania has never permitted herself to express. In the spring of 1919, Jim returns home. He and Grania have survived, but their separate experiences have altered them forever. Jim has been part of events that "the mind will gorge upon in horror forever." He has lost his closest friend from the war,

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080214165X
• ISBN13: 9780802141651
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

"Deafening"... A masterpiece!

A great novel! This book, by Francis Itani, revolves around the world of a girl/woman who as acquired deafness through childhood illness. The setting is initially in Ontario, Canada in the late 1800's and then eventually alternating between Ontario and the European theater of World War I. I must admit I had some difficultly getting into this work, but I persevered and I'm glad I did, because this book is truly a magnificent read. Once committed, I could barely stand to put the book down. As with all great books, what makes this book special, is the quality of the writing. The prose just seemed to flow effortlessly off the pages as time melted away. You learn things about deafness, quietness and darkness that you never really noticed before; you begin to appreciate what people without hearing have to endure to get through an hour, a day or a lifetime. There were a couple of occasions in this book where I was taken aback with a new revelation regarding deafness; where I would just let this book slip to my lap and think about what I'd just read. There are parts in this book that are not for the faint of heart; some of the description of the trench warfare in France and Belgium are very graphic and disturbing. (but, most likely, accurate) All in all, a story that is quietly beautiful and at the same time beautifully sad. Really, one of my favorite books. If I had to compare it to another book for quality, beauty and heartrending appeal, then I'd pick Charles Frazier's " Cold Mountain". Both books have that intangible timeless aura to them that separate them from their peers. Highly recommended!

Beautiful book, needs promotion

A beautiful book. So wonderfully written that savoring the words was a joy, never mind the sensitive yet powerful story. Though the topics -- deafness, World War One -- suggest a very grim work, it ends up being a powerful affirmation of life. This book deserves to be much more widely known than it is; it's an excellent example of how even good books deserve ample promotion, as I think that it's a lot better than some major recent best-sellers. I was pleased to see in a bookstore recently that it's won an award.

Language of Love

This is a wonderful first novel about sound, silence, deafness, communication and love. Grania is a young girl who loses her hearing at the age of five. Her guilt-ridden mother refuses to accept that she is deaf and resists adapting to reality; only Grania's loving grandmother saves her from a life of illiteracy and loneliness. Grania is taught to read with "The Sunday Book," a precious gift from her grandmother that becomes a metaphor for life's struggles and complications as Grania emerges from childhood, attends school, and meets "Chim," a hearing man who loves her stillness. Just married, Grania must return home to wait while Jim goes to war as a stretcher bearer.Once again, WWI emerges as incredibly pointless and bloody, as men are thrown into the confusion of the European front. Jim experiences the war as a haze of brutal sound. He steels himself to the sight of mutilated men blown apart, but cannot stand the sight of their hands, which of course for him had become the instruments of his personal "language of love" with Grania. Meanwhile at home, a beloved friend from Grania's childhood who became her sister's husband returns home, mute from a horror no one can imagine. Drawing on the foundation of love from her grandmother, the deaf Grania not only coaches him back to speech but heals her sister as well. The end of the novel feels tantalizingly like only the beginning for these wonderful multi-dimensional characters.Itani is a wonderful writer, and manages to convey to those of us who hear what it's like not to be able to--she also shows what we the hearing might be missing! The background on the theories of language and teaching the deaf was fascinating, and Itani must have done some meticulous research. This is a wonderful novel well worth your time.

One of the best I've read...

I picked this book up in a bookstore because it sounded very intriguing and, fortunately, I wasn't disappointed. Itani does a wonderful job of bringing us into the world of the deaf, so much that sometimes after reading this book for long periods I would be surprised to hear noise around me. I was also impressed that there was very little offensive language which is rare in books nowadays. Itani's characters are wonderful, the story is interesting, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who is in the mood for a good read.

A tour-de-force.

This is my surprise book of the year. It was a gift, and I didn't quite know what to expect, but it's turned into a real winner.Spanning the years from 1902 till the end of WWI, we follow the life of Grania, a child/woman who became deaf following scarlet fever. From a loving middle-class family, she went to a boarding school for hundreds and hundreds of deaf children, grew into a self-sufficient young woman, became a nurse, and married a hearing man, Jim. He went off to war, as did her childhood friend and brother-in-law, Kenan. Improbably for that Great War, both men returned - but in very different conditions.Divided into several parts, the early chapters are Grania's education, learning to live as a deaf person in the world of the hearing. The next part is Jim's story of his war experience.Then comes Grania's ultimately successful efforts to return the power of speech to her mute and traumatized childhood friend. And finally the resolution of all the stories.This book grows on you. One of the boldest risks author Itani took was to try (successfully) to convey Grania's silent world to readers, and to imitate the understanding of sign language as well as lip reading for those of us unfamiliar with the Deaf World.It's a stunning and powerful book, showing the power of Story to convey love, union, and understanding - and ultimately, joy.