Heaven's Coast: Memoir, A [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This book was an unbelievably moving experience. Poet Mark Doty's use of language is so beautiful even when he is talking about unbearable loss.

This book transcends the meaning, in that Mark writes with such vulnerability and intamacy that one feels they are immersed in conversation rather than literature. He writes so that everyone, no matter if the situation is familiar or not, can relate on some level to a sense of joy, togetherness or the chaotic feeling of loss. He describes rather obvious feelings in such a reflective poetic manner. He wrote his book for himself, which as a result is a gift to others. Thank you Mark for putting your life and AIDS on a personal level.

Loss is one of the most powerful impacts that engraves a permanent mark of misery and grief on hearts of those who had been inflicted with the misfortune of experiencing such tragedy. Losing someone who appears to be the most important part of our life - perhaps, even the reason that we are living - very often causes a dramatic change in our life's perspective and makes us realize things that had never occurred to us before. Losing the love of our life to AIDS adds a great density to the already intense burden of loss. Mark shares with the readers his experience of taking care and loving the one that meant the world to him - to the end of his counted days. His partner and lover of twelve years became infected with an HIV virus, which later transformed into AIDS, and he passed away after four years of suffering and struggling for his life. It is a fascinating, yet a very sad book, filled with lots of happy as well as painful reminiscences.It is very important to have at least that one person you could definitely count on, to feel needed and safe with. From reading the book, it appears that Mark Doty is exactly that extraordinary person with an immense amount of courage and strength. He had never surrendered to the discouraging spirit of AIDS' dreadful abyss that had suffused the entire surroundings for him and his beloved, and that hung over their heads in a dark, dense mantle. His positive attitude helped his partner to gain strength and to keep going through the most difficult time of his life. Doty's use of language is so beautifully fluid, so boundlessly passionate, so real and down-to-earth, that it takes your breath away, and transfers you into his world of thought, into his life, allowing you to enter his most personal feelings and experiences. Doty talks about how he has always associated Wally with seals. The brown eyes, the playfulness, the freedom of spirit, and the undulance of the coastal creatures, to him, were the mirror objects of those in Wally. It is as if Wally lived between the realm of AIDS' unfathomable chasm and the life on Earth, and was unable to articulate the events of one world to the other. The "two worlds" is also presented here as a metaphor, portraying the body of water and Earth as life with a fatality of AIDS and a life of health. Mark was a tremendous help to Wally in escaping the experience of any acute sensations of the borderline between the two worlds that he inhabited. Even though Wally had the knowledge of his fatal illness, he felt loved and needed, and therefore life was worth living to him: "All the last year of Wally's life, he didn't stop wanting" (p. 18). Mark proves his unconditional love for his partner also by tolerating Wally's ironic attempts to flirt with the male nurse. In his virtually unconscious, dead body, Wally still maintained the usual, human longing, and Mark was only happy to see his beloved striving for his life. Mark's superior and extraordinary abilities to write, to express his feelings in the most visual way is what makes this book even more breathtaking.