Severance

I still have a part 3 of the Hellenisitc Era coming, but I'm taking a small detour into literature.

Awhile ago I stumbled across this book called Severance. I was intrigued, very intrigued. It is a collection of short, very short stories by Robert Olen Butler.

There are 62 short stories, all written form the point of view of a person or creature immediatley after being decapitated.

According to this book and several other sources the human had is believed to remain in a state consciousness for one and a half minutes. And in a heightened state of emotion, like that one, people speak at a rate of 160 words per minute. So basic mathematics suggests we would speak or think at least 240 words. So every story is exactly 240 words. Interesting, yes? The people he chose to represent is quite engaging as well. Some are factual and some are fictional and one is his own death, but all the stories and the way they're told encite some panic and leave you feeling oddly invasive.

-Mud, 40,000 BC

-Medusa, 2000 BC

-Marcus Tullius Cicero, 43 BC

-John the Baptist, 30 AD

-Valeria Messalina, 48 D

-Dioscorus, 67 AD

-Paul (Saul of Tarsus), 67 AD
-Matthew, 78 AD

-St. Valentine, 270 AD

-a Dragon, 301 AD

-St. George, 303 AD

-The Lady of the Lake, 470 AD

-Ah Ballam, 803 AD

-Piers Gaveston, 1312 AD

-Gansnacken, 1494 AD

-Thomas More, 1535 AD

-Anne Boleyn, 1536 AD

-Catherine Howard, 1542 AD
-Lady Jane Grey, 1554 AD

-Mary Stuart (Queen of Scots), 1587 AD

-Walter Raleigh, 1618 AD

-Brita Gullsmed, 1675 AD

-Louis XVI, 1793 AD

-Marie Antoinette, 1793 (I feel the AD is unneccessary at this point)

-Marie-Jeanne Becu (Comtesse du Barry), 1793

-Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, 1794

-Andre Chenier, 1794

-Maximilien Robespierre, 179

-Pierre-Francois Lacenaire, 1836

-Ta Chin, 1838

-Jacob, 1855

-Angry Eyes, 1880

-Chin Chin Chan, 1882

-Dave Rudabaugh, 1886

-Agnes Gwenlan, 1899

-Charles H. Stuart, 1904

-Rokhlel Pogorelsky, 1905

-John Martin, 1921

-Henri Landru, 1922

-Paul Gorguloff, 1932

-Benita Von Berg, 1935

-Nguyen Van Trinh, 1952

-Alwi Shah, 1958

-a Chicken, 1958

-Vera Jayne Palmer, 1967

-Le Van Ky, 1968

-Yukio Mishima, 1979

-Robert Kornbluth, 1984

- Jennifer Hadley, 1989

-Nicole Brown Simpson, 1994

-Mohammed Aziz Najafi, 1996

-Lydia Koenig, 1999

-Claude Messener, 2000

- Lois Kennerly, 2001

-Isioma Owoabi, 2002

-Hanadi Tayseer Jaradat, 2003

-Earl Dagget, 2003

-Maisie Hobbs, 2003
-Robert Durand, 2003

-Tyler Alkins, 2004

-Vasil Bukhalov, 2004

-Robert Olen Butler, 2010

Apparently the author himself can forsee his own death, and thats coming up pretty quickly. Hmm, curious.

These stories are unique and captivating. I was particularly interested in the stories surrounding them women beheaded by their husbands, hundreds of years ago and today. The story of Ta Chin I found incredibly impressive and engrossing. She lived during the early 19th century and was decapitated by order of her husband. She seems so sad, but peaceful despite it all. She talks of her footbinding and how painful and reressing that is. Her last line is "please, before my head cut off my feet".

This post sort of rambles, I just stumbled across something ineresting.
I recommend this book to anyone really. Its unusual and magnetic.