51 pages • 1 hour read
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Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses suicide.
The novel explores the enduring strength of sibling bonds via Yoli and Elf’s sisterhood. All My Puny Sorrows examines their relationship from Yoli’s perspective. From a young age, Yoli “became acutely aware of [Elf’s] […] powers” and “wanted to be her” (77). She admired her sister’s poise, self-possession, and confidence and often tried to emulate her. At the same time, Elf looked out for Yoli. In Yoli’s frequent narrative flashbacks and spoken reflections, she stresses Elf’s consistent attempts “to make [her] feel better the way she had always done from the time she quoted her poet lovers to [Yoli]” (72). She even says that Elf’s protectiveness “was her profession” (72). This metaphor captures the significance of Yoli and Elf’s childhood connection and stresses the importance of this bond in the narrative present.
Because Yoli’s love for Elf sustains her, she tries to keep Elf alive by reminding her of the importance of their relationship. Yoli fundamentally believes that their sibling connection is a means to survival. She also frequently argues that their sisterhood grants their life meaning and purpose. For these reasons, Yoli is hurt that her sister doesn’t want to stay alive on her behalf. Her frustrated monologue during one hospital visit reveals the heart of her upset; in this scene, she says to Elf, “Has it ever occurred to you ever in your life that I’m the one that’s colossally fucked up and could use some sisterly support every once in a while? […] Has it ever occurred to you that I have also lost my father to suicide […]?” (160). In this passage, Yoli is equating her and Elf’s experience. Because of their distinct bond, she sees parallels between their lives and stories and is imploring her sister to recognize these similarities and find meaning in them. The emphasis on their joint grief over their father conveys that sisterly bonds endure because of these shared experiences. To get through these experiences, she relies on Elf to keep her alive and therefore wishes that Elf would trust their relationship in the same way.
Yoli’s bond with Elf also complicates her ability to help her sister. Because she’s afraid of losing her sister, she’s afraid to grant Elf her wish for a physician-assisted death in Switzerland. Yoli feels that she “would help her if [she] could but [she] can’t” because she doesn’t “want to go to jail” and doesn’t “want to kill [Elf]” (145). Yoli does want to support her sister, but committing to doing so would also mean parting with Elf. Yoli’s attachment to her sister therefore precludes her from saving Elf. In these ways Miriam Toews uses the complexity of Yoli and Elf’s sisterhood to show that ties between siblings are often incredibly durable and relate to the individual’s sense of self-worth.
The novel explores how mental health concerns impact family life via the Von Riesen family. Elf has lived with depression since she was young. Like her father, Jack, she has alternated between bouts of despair and fleeting periods of calm. In the narrative present, however, Elf’s mental health has become more tenuous as she’s been experiencing repeated suicidal ideations. Throughout the novel, Elf’s desire to “end [her] suffering” affects her sister, mother, husband, aunt, uncle, and cousins (27). This is particularly true because the family loves Elf and “wants Elf to want [to live for] herself” (105). Indeed, Yoli, Nic, Tina, Frank, Sheila, and Lottie all come to Elf’s side to support her during her hospitalizations and after her discharges. Their physical presence in her life captures their sadness over Elf’s despair and devotion to her recovery and conveys the way family life can converge around mental health challenges.
Elf’s experience with depression also raises questions about generational trauma. This is particularly true because other members of the Von Riesen family have also died by suicide or live with depression. Ten years prior to the narrative present, Jack died by suicide when he lay on a train track. Three years later, Tina’s daughter Leni died by suicide, too. These family tragedies therefore foreshadow Elf’s death at the novel’s end. Whenever Yoli meditates on the repetitive nature of her family history, she starts asking questions about the origin of depression and suicidal ideation. She often feels that these mental conditions are “a genetic thing” and believes that Elf inherited their father’s despair (44). The novel therefore suggests that mental health does not only affect family dynamics in terms of relationships and activities, but it also can impact each generation’s view of life in a cyclical manner.
Elf’s hospitalization and death by suicide challenge Yoli’s family to survive. The family relies on each other for emotional support when Elf is still alive. They engage in conversations, outings, and pastimes that help them to make sense of what’s happening to Elf. Their sense of humor is also a defining facet of the Von Riesen family’s dynamic and acts as a defense mechanism against their sorrow. In the wake of Elf’s passing, they further embrace closeness and humor in order to process their grief. In particular, Yoli, Lottie, and Nora move into a new house together and develop new forms of connection to combat their loss. In these ways, the novel illustrates that while mental health can challenge a family’s closeness, it might also tighten familial bonds.
All My Puny Sorrows details Elf’s career as a concert pianist and Yoli’s career as a writer to explore how art and creativity can help the individual survive. For Elf, playing the piano is an extension of who she is. Via her music, she is able to express ineffable facets of her internal experience. Her family therefore supports her musical passion and talent from a young age, despite social barriers. The Mennonite community doesn’t condone musical instruments or a woman’s right to artistic or intellectual advancement. Even still, Lottie, Jack, and Yoli do everything in their power to grant Elf access to the creative outlets she needs. They do so because they’re hopeful that the piano might quell Elf’s internal unrest and save her.
Elf’s piano playing is defined by “its delicacy, its defiance” and “by [a] wild, free rhythm” (72). It is therefore a manifestation of her complex interiority and a possible gateway to balance and healing. Playing the piano is both Elf’s “expression of so much passion and tumult” and her way of taking “control of her life” (19). By incorporating such detailed descriptions of Elf’s piano playing and musical career, the novel is exploring what art and creativity might grant the individual’s life.
The novel also includes frequent allusions to and descriptions of Yoli’s writing life. In the narrative present, Yoli is working on her first literary novel—a project that’s meant to afford her more freedom of self-expression and thought than her previous Rodeo Rhonda books. However, Yoli’s ongoing struggle to work on the manuscript parallels her struggle to keep her sister alive. In one hospital scene, Yoli sits by Elf’s bed clutching the plastic bag containing her manuscript pages and meditates on “the similarity between writing and saving a life and the inevitable failure of one’s imagination and one’s goals and ambitions to create a character or a life worth saving” (106). This passage provides insight into Yoli’s artistic practice and captures her internal frustration. She wants to finish the book because she sees this act of creation as a simultaneous act of self-preservation. By writing, she is keeping herself alive but also hopes that it will somehow preserve her sister’s life, too.
Therefore, the entanglement of Yoli’s and Elf’s creative pursuits throughout the novel poses questions about the efficacy of art. Toews uses Yoli’s and Elf’s contrasting and overlapping artistic expressions to suggest that art and creativity give life purpose and allow people to express themselves but that sometimes this is not enough.
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By Miriam Toews