Broca's Aphasia in The Water Rituals

The Water Rituals by Eva García Sáenz translated by Nick Caistor, is about ritual murder. In White City, the first in trilogy, Unai López de Ayala was shot in the head. He is still recovering. One of the consequences was Broca’s aphasia. His mind is working well but he cannot speak words. 

The National Aphasia website describes Broca’s aphasia:

Broca’s aphasia results from injury to speech and language brain areas such as the left hemphispere inferior frontal gyrus, among others. Such damage is often a result of stroke but may also occur due to brain trauma. Like in other types of aphasia, intellectual and cognitive capabilities not related to speech and language may be fully preserved.

Broca’s aphasia is named after the French scientist, Paul Broca, who first related a set of deficits associated with this type of aphasia to localized brain damage. He did this in 1861, after caring for a patient who could only say the word “tan”.

It was striking to read how Unai has grown accustomed to writing upon his phone and showing the screen to provide his side of conversations. The messages are inevitably stilted and generic. While personality occasionally breaks through what he enters needs to be quick, clear and concise.

I thought of Kevin Brace in Old City Hall, the first novel by Canadian lawyer Robert Rotenburg. Brace was Canada’s leading national morning radio show host. Charged with murdering his wife he will only communicate with his lawyer in writing.

Brace’s communication is far more awkward than Unai entering words on a cellphone and using WhatsApp. Rotenburg skilfully concealed the reason for the written communications until the end of the book. It was an “oh my'' moment as I felt I should have figured out there was a reason for not talking to your lawyer beyond quirky stubbornness. 

I have had clients and other lawyers who want to only communicate by text and/or email. I resist limiting communication to writing in some format. Even if it is by telephone there is more nuance in oral communications than written words. For important meetings I want them in person to get the full benefit of seeing expressions and body language in addition to the words delivered.

Unai’s speech therapy was fascinating. Learning to speak again involved exercises and repetitions that needed to be done before his face lost the ability to form and say words. He had delayed going for therapy.

He spends up to 5 hours a day “doing the exercises in front of the mirror practicing with the apps Doctor Korres had recommended”.

His grandfather, impatient with his lack of progress towards speaking again, seeks to force him to move ahead by tossing his cellphone into a small pond.

Unai starts by speaking single syllable words. More can be expressed with a single word that I would have expected.

Later he progresses to planned short sentences.

He carefully learns common sentences he can use in conversations.

Later his instructor has him singing.

At times of great emotions he finds he can speak more readily than when he is calm.

It was fascinating to read how Unai communicated when he could not speak and how his speech improved through the book.

****

Sáenz, Eva Garcia and translated by Nick Caistor - (2022) - The Silence of the White City; (2023) - The Water Rituals

Water Rituals by Eva García Sáenz

(37. - 1176.) - Water Rituals by Eva García Sáenz translated by Nick Caistor - Another compelling opening for the second book in the White City trilogy. As with the first book, The Silence of the White City, Sáenz had me hooked early.

On the opening page Unai López de Ayala nicknamed Kraken, formerly a police inspector and now profiler, learns his lover is pregnant but she is unsure whether he or her deceased husband, a serial killer, is the father.

On the second page we learn he has partially recovered from being shot in the head. He has Broca’s aphasia which prevents him from speaking. He communicates through an “editing app on his cell phone”. He uses WhatsApp continually.

On the third page he is called to a crime scene where a young pregnant woman, her ankles tied together, has been found hanging from a tree branch with her head down in a “bronze cauldron” filled with water. The cauldron was made in Celtic times. She is dead from drowning.

On the fourth page he finds out the victim was a teenage love.

Such a complex murder raises questions of rituals, past and present.

The book shifts back and forth between Unai’s teenage years and the present.

For Unai and the 3 other boys in his cuadrilla the victim, Ana Belén Liaño, known as Annabel Lee, was their first love during a teenage summer they spent working on an archeological site.

She has made a successful career as a graphic novel artist and author.

His close colleague and friend, Estí, has been appointed inspector. She has controlled her drug addiction.

Unai conceals the personal relationships of himself and his cuadrilla from his supervisor and lover, Deputy SuperintendentAlba Diaz de Salvatierra.

And then there is another victim.

As he approaches the hanging body he genuflects “as a mark of respect” and recites his motto:

Here your hunt ends, and mine begins.

As inevitable, the murders become known and the public is terrified by another killer bound up in a personal ritual of death.

Unai has used a hacker known as Golden Girl to assist him with cases. She is extremely talented. She is also 69 years old and recovering from a hip operation. 

The story is bleak in many ways involving sexually abusive situations.

At the same time it is not only the men who are sexually manipulative.

The relationships within the cuadrilla and the police department are intense.

Amidst the tension there are moments of friendship. On Christmas Eve the members of Unai’s cuadrilla carry on the city and personal tradition of meeting to drink mulled wine, “the hot wine is infused with cinnamon, lemon, dried apricots, figs and other delights”.

Someone with a great knowledge of Celtic water rituals is exacting revenge and Unai is a target. The Celtic fertility ritual of Threefold Death where the victim is burned, hung and drowned is terrifying. If the victim is a pregnant woman she “has been judged a potentially unfit mother” and the unborn child is given to “las tres Matres, or the three mother goddess”.

The hunt for the killer is devilishly difficult as suspicion and paranoia creep into the minds of the investigators.

One of the investigator’s quirks is an obsessive use of Post-it notes. (I try not to use them at my office but I still find them very convenient.) She uses different coloured notes for different people. And she is pursuing a personal parallel related investigation.

The Water Rituals is a complicated book. Several plot lines are disturbing. There is significant but not excessive detail on death. What is most chilling is the macabre precision of the ritual taking of life. As with the first in the trilogy I was absorbed by the combination of history and personal relationships. I thought the translation flowed better in this book. Ultimately, at the heart of the book are thousands of years of history and the contemporary setting of the Basque region of Spain.

****

Sáenz, Eva Garcia and translated by Nick Caistor - (2022) - The Silence of the White City and Broca's Aphasia in The Water Rituals

The Holdovers (Movie)

In December of 1970 I had just finished Grade 12 at boarding school. I had attended St. Peter’s College in Muenster, Saskatchewan. As I watched the The Holdovers movie my mind went back 50 years to life in boarding school.

St. Peter’s was not a well-to-do preppy New England academy like Barton in the movie. Many of my fellow students came from farms like myself. Certainly no one had a father with a helicopter.

We did not wear suit jackets and ties. The College had given up on having us wear ties after I was in Grade 10. Too many guys simply wore the same tie day after day with no regard to the rest of their clothing. The Barton boys were far more co-ordinated.

The longer hair of many of the boys in Barton was familiar. At St. Peter’s hair was also lengthening as the 60’s turned to the 70’s.

We did not have any Korean students. We did have students from Hong Kong. I could not imagine going thousands of miles from home for high school.

The casual, often biting banter, between the Barton boys was exactly what I recall from St. Peter’s. I did not fit in the banter as I hardly ever swear.

I would say there was less meanness at St. Peter’s. Certainly guys could be nasty but it was not as pervasive as at Barton.

The metal beds of the infirmary reminded me of the beds at St. Peter’s. The Barton beds appeared to have better springs than our beds.

The movie did not show the challenge of sleeping in a dormitory setting. It is hard getting to sleep in a room of guys. At St. Peter’s there would be 25 - 30 guys per dormitory.

Meals were less chaotic at Barton with the faculty sitting at a table in the dining room. At St. Peter’s the main goal at meals was to eat as fast as you could. Were you there more than 15 minutes after getting your tray you would be by yourself.

Meals at St. Peter’s were made mainly by sisters from the Order of St. Elizabeth with the aid of a few lay ladies. There was no equivalent to the formidable Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) of The Holdovers. I expect the food was comparable between the schools. Since we ate so quickly it would have been hard to appreciate the meals.

Randolph was understated but powerful as a grieving mother still carrying out her duties in the kitchen while aided by whiskey. 

Seeing the Barton College principal chain smoking in his office brought to mind Father Vincent Morrison who was principal at St. Peter’s when I started school there in 1967. He was always smoking in his office.

None of the teachers at St. Peter’s closely resembled Paul Hunham (Paul Giametti). 

I do recall guys being shaken by the academic standards at St. Peter’s. We were expected to meet expectations well beyond public high school. What was different from Barton is that the St. Peter’s administration would never have put pressure on a teacher to grade a student higher because their parents donated to the College.

At St. Peter’s most of the teachers were Benedictine priests or brothers. Two to three lay men filled in the remaining positions. Some of the Benedictine teachers had been there for decades. As with Mr. Hunham they gave us a good education.

None of my teachers were as caustic or profane as Mr. Hunham. They could be sarcastic. Brother Bede was slight in stature but no one wanted to cross him as he could verbally slash any pretense and put us in our place. Profanity between teachers and staff was not tolerated.

Integrity was valued at St. Peter’s and Barton. When students and teachers live together integrity is important.

I was never a holdover, unable to go home or to other family or friends for Christmas. I can see how achingly lonely it would have been for the holdover boys of the movie.

There were a couple of guys at St. Peter’s who wrote inappropriately to a girl. Instead of suspension they were, with the consent of their parents, heldover for weekends when the rest of us went home. One of the guys later said that discipline decision let him reflect on his actions,  made him a better man and helped him be successful in his life.

Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) could have been one of my classmates. Bright but fragile defined many of us at St. Peter’s. While Giamatti was the star I thought Sessa was brilliant. After the movie I learned he attended Deerfield Academy, a Massachusetts boarding school. He had acted in school plays, just finishing the fall play, when he auditioned for the role. The Holdovers is his first movie.

Giamatti is a great actor. Once again he was Mr. Hunham, a brilliant aloof man with a deeply damaged soul. His ability to convey emotion without talking is exceptional. 

Mr. Hunham’s personality is far from the well regarded Mr. Chips  of the 1939 movie, Goodbye Mr. Chips, about an English boarding school. Mr. Hunham and Mr. Chips did share a love of the classics and learning and teaching.

I was not surprised when I read, after watching the movie, that the screenwriter who was also one of the producers, David Hemingson, had attended prep school. I read an article in Time in which he said Mr. Hunham was modelled on his demanding caring Uncle Earl Cahail. He added that “I channeled my mother’s immense strength and heartache and love into Mary”. He did not say if he was the inspiration for Tully. I expect an Oscar nomination for his script.

The Holdovers deeply moved me. It is far more drama than comedy. I do not know why it is advertised as a Comedy/Drama. It was the best movie I have seen in years. I hope it does well.

As I left the theatre another filmgoer asked my thoughts. I said I had appreciated a movie where no one was killed or blown up, where real people dealt with real problems, where the plot was not a cartoon, where I could get emotional over the characters. He said there are not many out there.

Citizens of Light by Sam Shelstad

(33. - 1172.) - Citizens of Light by Sam Shelstad - Colleen Weagle is getting by.  She works at a Toronto call centre calling out to people across North America. She conducts phone surveys. The electric company survey can take 45 minutes. The job just covers the expenses of herself and her husband, Leonard. Much of his income from working in a plastics factory went on student loan payments. They live with her mother.

Now Leonard is gone. He was found over an hour from home in Morrison Bog, shot in the head. The police decided it was suicide.

Colleen is floundering. She is certain Leonard never shot himself. She cannot understand why he was in a distant Bog dressed in black clothes.

Her Mother is struggling with mental health issues. Her anxiety paralyzes her.

They reside in Mimico, a neighbourhood in Toronto, near Lake Ontario on the West side of the city.

When Colleen sees a photo in the Metro, a free newspaper, of a man who she remembers being at Leonard’s funeral she is certain he knows why Leonard is dead.

He is wearing a Fallsview Casino (a real life Casino in Niagara Falls) jacket. 

Colleen is a naive, maybe simple is more accurate, woman. Why this man should talk to her, should she find him, never enters her mind. She is positive that if she can reach this man she can find out what really happened and her anxiety over Leonard’s death will end.

It is a struggle for Colleen to take initiative. Being passive is her way of life.

I longed for her to turn from wimp to warrior. Undertaking an investigation into Leonard’s death takes her coping lifestyle into the unknown where she haltingly treads. Her friend, Patti, pushes and leads her to being more assertive.

It is hard to have a sleuth who is meek at heart. I am accustomed to sleuths who are brilliant or physical or both. Colleen was the stereotype of the “ordinary working woman”. 

Friends, family and co-workers are startled when she pursues an investigation into Leonard’s death.

While far from, Colleen and Patti remind me of a modern day Laverne and Shirley of sitcom fame. (At least fame for those of us who are seniors or near to being seniors.)

Her earnest efforts at investigation have the real life feel of the perils of an amateur sleuth. 

Colleen is a budget conscious sleuth. She travels by bus between Toronto and Niagara Falls.

Colleen's aggressiveness has bizarre consequences. The ending strained credibility. I sensed the closing was added to create drama rather than flowing from the plot.

As noted above Colleen did not have a dynamic personality. The sudden shift from passive past assertive to aggressor came too late and too suddenly for me.

Citizens of Light is a good book. It won the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best First Novel in 2023. I hope Shelstad can publish more crime fiction. I am confident his next book will be better.

The Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker

(36. - 1175.) - The Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker (2010) - Bruno Courrèges, Chief of Police in St. Denis puts aside his fear of fire to rescue the local fire chief after an explosion at a fire which destroyed a field of grain and a large unauthorized shed in the hills near the town. And there is an unknown standpipe at the scene. Bruno is startled. How could this development have occurred without his knowledge?

It turns out that it was a secret Ministry of Agriculture project testing new GMO grains.

There is immediate pressure from Paris to solve the crime. No one in the capital wants attention drawn to the project.

Suspicion falls on ecolos, enviornmental activists opposed to GMO’s. Yet there are no loud local strident activists threatening direct action.

At the same time the heir, Fernando Bondino, to one of the world`s wine industry giants arrives in St. Denis to propose a major project that would transform the region. Bondino equally wants the crime solved.

The Mayor emphasizes the importance of the project saying competition from supermarkets is gradually destroying villages. Surrounding communities dependent on tourism are `` `dead from September to June every year … No families, no schools, no jobs, no shops, and most of the houses empty until the tourists come back to rent them. ` ``

Another newcomer is the lovely young Jacqueline Duplessis from a Canadian wine making family. She draws ardent admirers as she assesses every man she meets.

Bruno acutely feels the modern world pressing upon his comfortable life in St. Denis. As with many he would prefer life be updated rather than changed. 

Bruno enjoys bringing his own container to fill with wine, for a Euro or less a litre, at a local cave. On visits in the countryside he gladly stops for family produced glasses of wine. There is commercial but not industrial production of wine around St. Denis. I longed to join him.

He prefers the modest Saturday new market, started in 1807, to the larger Tuesday market, held continuously since 1347. The new market has a dozen stalls of locals selling their cheeses, yoghurts, meats, fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables and wine.

As it is early fall grapes are being picked. Some are processed in the traditional way by having villagers tread upon the grapes.

Nearing 40 Bruno is melancholic as his love, Isabelle, has moved to Paris. Even a passionate lover could not bring him to leave his beloved St. Denis. An unexpected return visit by Isabelle leaves him in turmoil.

Further vandalism and the combined deaths of an elderly resident and his newly adopted son create mean intense investigations for Bruno.

Amidst the police work Bruno invites friends for a supper featuring a truffle omelet and then becasses (woodcocks). They are consumed with fine wines from France and New Zealand. The meal made me long to visit Le Bugue, the inspiration for the fictional Saint-Denis.

The resolution of the mystery is convincing. At the same time Bruno’s personal life is perking up. I am eager to go looking for the next in the series.

****

Walker, Martin - (2019) - Bruno, Chief of Police and The Magic of St. Denis and Three Pines

Gilbertines in Fiction and Contemporary Life

Father Anselm, the sleuth in The Discourtesy of Death by William Brodrick, is a Gilbertine monk residing at the Larkwood Priory in England. He had been a barrister before becoming a monk. 

Anselm is the priory beekeeper. While I wondered if his monastic work was inspired by Sherlock Holmes being a beekeeper it is common for monasteries to have bee hives. At St. Peter’s Abbey in Saskatchewan where I went to high school and first year university Father Demetrius has long been the Abbey beekeeper.

Brodrick was an English barrister for 10 years before becoming a full time writer. Prior to being a barrister he was a member of the Augustinian order leaving shortly before he was to be ordained.

Anselm is not the only Gilbertine monk to be featured in contemporary crime fiction. Louise Penny, in The Beautiful Mystery, has Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir investigating a murder at the Gilbertine monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups (Saint Gilbert Between the Wolves).

The fictional monastery was inspired by the real life Benedictine monastery of Abbey Saint-Benoit du Lac located on the shore of Lake Memprhenmagog. The Abbey is an inspiring building in a beautiful location.

I was harsh in my assessment of Penny’s fictional monastery being a secret monastery almost invisible to the world.

After reading The Discourtesy of Death I discovered online Penny’s motivation for making it a Gilbertine monastery in the website www.gamacheseries.com:

The religious affiliation and events of the book bear no resemblance to the Benedictine Monks of the real abbey, as explained by Louise: “it became clear in researching [The Beautiful Mystery] that I couldn’t set the book in a monastery, or even an order, that really existed, so I dug into history and found the Gilbertines, an order that actually once existed, but went extinct.”

It is ironic that both books were published in 2013.

I do not know why Brodrick chose to make Anselm a Gilbertine. I suspect it was for the purposes of artistic licence outlined by Penny.

Another reason may be that the Gilbertine Order of Canons Regular was the only completely English religious order founded in 1130 by Gilbert of Sempringham.

The Gilbertines were unusual in that the order had both women and men as members. According to Wikipedia they lived in the same building divided by a wall and only came together for Mass.

Another reason why Anselm might be a Gilbertine is outlined in Wikipedia in that the men “lived according to a variant of the Augustinian rule”.

There were 26 houses of Gilbertines in England in the early 16th Century when Henry VIII forced their dissolution ending the Order.

I had thought their history ended almost 400 years ago until I learned in Wikipedia that efforts have been made to revive the Order in the last 40 years. A group of lay people in England have established the Oblates of St. Gilbert. A Brazilian priest set up an experimental Gilbertine community in Brazil but it has been dissolved. Of most interest to me has been what happened in Calgary in the past decade.

Initially it was sought to establish the Canons Regular of St. Gilbert of Sempringham in Calgary in 2017. In 2019 those involved decided full restoration was not possible and the Companions of St. Gilbert of Sempringham proceeded. They state:

WE FEW COMPANIONS are based at St. John the Evangleist in Calgary, Canada. As Companions of St. Gilbert, we pray for the full restoration of the Gilbertine Order and live out our Christian discipleship in friendship with our fellow Gilbertines, according to a Personal Rule of Life as well as the Statutes of our Association.

The Gilbertine Institute has been established to provide classical Catholic education in Calgary and Edmonton. The elementary school is Holy House of Our Lady and St. John and the high school is the Gilbertine Academy.

Students wear uniforms. All students are taught Latin as part of the curriculum. Singing is important. The Prospectus states:

The Gilbertine Academy and Holy House hold as integral to their daily community one of the oldest academic traditions in Catholicism: the singing school - schola cantorum. The venerable tradition of the schola cantorum attributes its origins and patronage to St. Gregory the Great. The Gilbertine Academy and Holy House will strive to cultivate this ancient tradition along with the patrimony of the celebrated Anglican choral tradition.

In order for any schola cantorum to sing the Lord’s praises capably, the choristers must learn vocal technique and sight singing as well as music theory and history.

There are 3 choirs.

As set out above, the Gilbertines in Calgary are based at the parish of St. John the Evangelist. It was an Anglican parish until dissatisfaction with the Anglican church led them to join the Roman Catholic church when Pope Benedict made it possible for Anglican parishes to join the Church while preserving important aspects of their Anglican traditions. An example is that some of their priests are married.

The parish is not a part of the diocese of Calgary but rather is a parish within the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter which has 38 parishes in the United States and Canada with the Bishop in Houston, Texas.

The parish is in the heart of the Inglewood community in Calgary. It is located within minutes of the homes of my sons. A few years ago I attended a Christmas Mass at the Church.

It was a welcoming though unusual experience for me. The priest faced the altar and the servers were all male. The Mass was a blend of  Anglican and Catholic prayers. Much of the language was from centuries past. 

While the Gilbertine religious order has not been restored, Gilbertines remain active within the Catholic Church.

****

Brodrick, William - (2023) - The Discourtesy of Death and Can Death be Courteous?

Can Death be Courteous?

The Discourtesy of Death is an apt title for Father Anselm’s investigation into the death of dancer Jenny Henderson, paralyzed in a fall and suffering from terminal bowel cancer. The death certificate lists bowel cancer as the cause.

The Google definition of discourtesy is “rude and inconsiderate behavior”. Death is normally discourteous. Can death be courteous?

Within the book there are hard discussions between Anselm and Jenny’s family about her life and impending death.

Much of the conversation is about the value of her life as a paralyzed person and the suffering before death it was anticipated she would endure.

For several, including Jenny, it appeared life has meaning so long as a person is physically and mentally whole. A young woman in a wheelchair with terminal cancer does not fit that image.

Her mother, Emma, the veterinarian says:

‘Her life is over. What has she got to live for now? If she was an animal, I’d gently put her down. It would be the right thing to do.”

Her dancer friend, Vincent Cooper, makes an exit mask that can fit on her head to end her life at a time of her choice.

I thought of Louise Penny’s book, The Madness of Crowds, in which Abigail Robinson, a statistician, advocates for the state to kill those who are a burden upon society. She considers “mercy killing” of, in the words of one of my posts upon the book, “ailing aged or deformed unborn”, to be appropriate, even necessary.

Armand Gamache abhors her philosophy. In his personal life he loves and adores his granddaughter, Idola, who has Down Syndrome.

Later Jenny changes her mind. She tells Father Anselm in a powerful passage:

‘Now? she replied. ‘I want my life. I was ready to die before but now I want my life. I know that in one way it’s broken, disappointing, limited, worthless, empty and insignificant … but it’s mine. It’s all I’ve got. I’m still me. And I know it will soon become messy and painful and frightening, but I still want it. I want to live what I’ve got … do you understand? It’s as valuable to me now as it ever was. I’m still … full of something … and it can exhilarating, despairing, violent and peaceful - every state you can think of - and I just want to keep hold of it … for as long as possible.’

Jenny’s life is an illustration of  the principles of Viktor Frankl, the Viennese psychiatrist who was a Nazi concentration camp surivivor. I first learned of his philosophy 50 years ago in second year university in a class called The Philosophy of Religion.

Some years ago I read his great book, Man’s Search for Meaning which discusses what sustained those who survived the camps.

In my review of the book I said:

Frankl said it “does not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us”. If suffering is your task in life it is necessary to face it with dignity. All life has meaning. He said those with religious faith understood their sacrifice.

I continued in my review:

A dying inmate cheerfully faced her death saying she was grateful that the brutal camp life had forced her spoiled pre-camp self to “take spiritual accomplishments seriously”.

Anselm, following the principles of Catholic faith, recognizes all lives as meaningful. 

Jenny’s husband Peter says:

… I wondered if you’d ever considered that certain … intricate situations … require neither mercy nor justice. Just a blind eye. Not because it’s expedient. But because neither mercy nor justice can reach the true depths of what actually happened. When all we can do is turn away and look in the other direction.’

Anselm replies:

‘And I’m inclined to think that turning away is the first step towards barbarism. Because it would be the ultimate concession that we cannot regulate human affairs.

….

‘Because the most intricate situation of them all is protecting the weak against the stron. We can’t give up on that one. It’s what makes us civilised.’

Anselm will not accept there can be mercy killing. 

Were all the family and friends around Jenny to have considered her life meaningful there would have been less drama to the plot but an affirmation of life for all.

I say death cannot be courteous.

****

Brodrick, William - (2023) - The Discourtesy of Death