Voices of the Dead

I love music almost as much as I love books. I have listened to classical music all my life and remember feeling guilty as a teenager when I could not follow the trend and enjoy loud and tuneless music. I soon discovered that many other teenagers also enjoyed 'real' music and I have never looked back. The furthest I have strayed is into musicals which I love, they move my soul.

Yesterday while in a taxi the driver started talking music after I told him I took my guide dog to concerts. Expressing concern for Jay's hearing I explained I only went to classical concerts. He then told me he had learnt classical Indian music for 6 years which was very different from Western music. I was fascinated and as he talked and he explained they are taught that the sounds of the octave notes are the voices of the dead. Fascinated, I checked out google at home and could find no reference to this in any of the different octave origins of Asian music. Perhaps it was something which was said to this chap when he was learning music to encourage him to see the ethereal side of music. I will be interested to discuss it with him again next time I am in his taxi.

Each year for 4 years I have kept a 'Year of Reading' diary. I list the books I read, the author, and whether I read it on my kindle or Victor Reader Stream. The number of books I have read each year has increased and last year I read 89 books. I doubt I will make that number this year as with only 3 months to go I am in the early 60's. This may be due to having read several rather long books and occasionally taken some time out from reading just to give myself,  or at least my eyes, a rest. At present I am listening to a book about Raoul Wallenberg which has an incredibly boring narrator and includes lots of quotes which he states each time. There is no flow and it is so boring I have no interest in listening in the middle of the night. Frankly, it puts me to sleep. This is disappointing as this is an amazing story which needs to be told. How many young people today know this story and the amazing courage this young many displayed to save so many Jews in the Holocaust. His disappearance into the Soviet Union has always remained a mystery though may have a far more ordinary answer. The Russians murdered him as they did so many other people who opposed views expressed by people who had an integrity they did not possess.



I am doing a lot of research for my book at present. It is very therapeutic to learn that what I experienced fits so concisely with what is seen as the norm for the behaviour of a narcissist. My 31 years of pain, emotional abuse and loss of identity are so typical of what many women suffer at the hands of these abusive men. I find the research easier than the writing though it is time to start fitting the theory in with my experiences and to make my words sing.