Elephant Winter (22 page)

Q:
Why did you create the Elephant–English Dictionary?

It started with imagining an idealized matriarchal culture. Language reflects our preoccupations, our social structures, our creativity. I wondered what kind of language would emerge from a matriarchal culture. Real elephant communication is rumblings in infrasound, which is too low for the human ear to detect and is felt by pressure changes in the air. My dictionary is a fiction. I divided it into sections on greetings, empathy, and nurturing, and then of course I put in the functionals that structure language and the expletives (or expressions of surprise, humour, sorrow, and wit) that are another creative component of living language.

Writing the dictionary was very pleasurable—imagining a different language, a different culture. In the old days people used to create commonplace books in which they put their favourite quotations. This is the source of our contemporary quote books and books like
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.
I think making the dictionary was a little like this, imagining a book of favourite words and ideas and poetry. As Sophie learns more about the elephants, and about her roles as daughter and lover and mother, her language expands. Her ability to hear the creatures around her—human and animal—grows with her capacity to listen. Dictionaries and commonplace books and nurturing are all about deep listening.

Q:
Yes, this is a story about language and communication as much as anything else. What is the significance of language in Sophie’s relationships?

What people say to each other in language is more important to Sophie at the beginning of the book than at the end. By the end, she has learned to hear the silent communication of the elephants, through their infrasound and their gestures. She has learned to listen to the breath of the dying. She has learned to accommodate her lover’s incapacity to express himself through words and to accommodate to her body as her baby grows. The more attuned we are to silence, to the space between words, to the beats between sounds in music, to the many sounds in nature that we don’t perceive on the surface, the more we are able to imagine worlds different from our own. This is empathy.

Q:
Issues of isolation and community are woven through the novel . . .

The elephants live in captivity. All the characters live in different captivities, whether alone or with others. Sophie’s mother lives within the restrictions imposed on her by her illness, Jo lives with his insecurities, Sophie with having to be a caregiver before she feels ready for it. But living in these various containers helps the characters discover both their unexpected capacities and their limitations. Besides, they have no choice. It is part of being human to confront experience we do not feel ready for, and how we do this determines who we are. I allude to one of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, “Batter My Heart, Three-Person’d God,” in which the poet describes faith learned in the experience of being broken. Finding the language for this was one of my challenges and I discovered it as often in rhythm as in the words themselves. I like that the silent undertow of the words has so much meaning.

1. In a story so centred on communication and language, what is the significance of Alecto’s muteness? Jo’s limited dialogue with Sophie? Sophie’s quest to understand the elephants’ language?
   
2. How does Alecto challenge the reader’s notions of good and evil?
   
3. So much about the elephants’ existence is tied to their captivity. Discuss how the theme of captivity affects the novel.
   
4. Discuss your thoughts and feelings about animal communication. How have you experienced how animals communicate?
   
5. Why do you think Sophie decides to attend Lear’s autopsy?
   
6. How did the Elephant-English Dictionary add to your reading experience?
   
7. What do you think Sophie and her mother discover about their relationship before she dies?
   
8. The elephants’ sense of community seems to define their existence. In the novel, Sophie says, “There are things we do alone: give birth, choose when to stay and when to go, choose when to give of ourselves, die.” How do the themes of togetherness and isolation affect the story?
   
9. Discuss how motherhood is characterized in the novel—for Sophie, her mother, and the elephants.
   
10. What do you think Sophie will do now? Will she stay at the safari and her mother’s house? Will she try to contact Jo?