Faithful Are The Wounds

FAITHFUL ARE THE WOUNDS

by May Sarton

 

Nomination: National Book Finalist 1956

 

Date Read: March 25, 2022

 

The setting is Harvard during the 1950s, what would have been an idyllic setting for a professor with strongly held political beliefs. Edward Cavan has been fighting the good fight his entire life, standing by his principles and never wavering from his beliefs. But he sees those around him wavering, if not abandoning, their principles due to pressure from every direction – faculty, government, society at large.

 

Under this realization, an overall depressive personality and the perception that his idealism is slipping away, Edward commits suicide one day, horrifically throwing himself under a train. His death has ripple effects throughout Harvard and his entire circle of friends. Although he has always kept to himself, a loner in modern terms, his life has an impact on his students and those who share his political beliefs.

 

Isabel, Edward’s sister, flies to Boston from California, not really knowing her grown brother. Edward essentially cut her out of his life for not sharing his political beliefs and for not letting him know that their mother was dying when he was at Oxford. This is a hurt that he carried with him throughout his life – that he was unable to say good bye. His mother passed away before he returned home.

 

Damon, a fellow professor and political sympathizer, is also cut out of Edward’s life days before he killed himself. Edward could tell that Damon was leaning away from their causes because of his fear of being identified as a Communist. In fact, at the end of this novel, Damon is questioned about his Communist leanings in a House Un-American Committees interrogation. The fact that he stands up for freedom of thought and for his belated friend, Edward, is a testament to Damon’s fortitude.

 

The other character of note is Grace, an older woman who is outspoken in her beliefs and has thrown herself into her political life head first. She is opinionated, stoic and relentless. Only at Edward’s funeral does she really lose control of her emotions and is unable to compose herself. The quote below was read at his funeral and was so incredibly touching.

 

An interesting yet brief novella about Harvard life during yet another terrible time in America’s history.

 

“Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell, which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main – if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”