Bury Me Standing
Even after finishing this book, I’m not entirely sure why it is titled Bury Me Standing. I don’t recall a mention of this phrase in the book, nor about funerals. Maybe it was something I skipped over or misread? (If you know what the title refers to, please let me know.)
Isabel Fonseca (otherwise known as Martin Amis’ wife) opens this journey into the lives of Gypsies with the story of Papusza, who was the most famous Romany poet, but whose death in 1987 went unnoticed. Already this beginning prepares the reader for a slightly different kind of non-fiction book. It’s not exactly scholarly, not entirely anthropological, neither is it really a travelogue. Perhaps it is best described as an exploration, a journey for both the writer and the reader into a culture that is often misunderstood, sometimes scorned and hated.
Fonseca spends a summer with Gypsies, a family called the Dukas, in Albania, where she observes daily life and their many superstitions and oddities (at least they are oddities to us). As a gadje (foreigner), Fonseca wasn’t allowed to wash herself. The boria (brides/daughters-in-law) have the task of scrubbing and washing her down (!). The boria do almost all the hard work at home – building fires, handwashing clothes (this in the 1990s). And there are some other horrifying things to learn, such as a woman who tells Fonseca that she has had 28 abortions, which she performed herself.
In Romania, she confronts a harsher topic – ethnic conflict. Romanians destroy Gypsy homes, trying to force them out of the towns and villages, sometimes even killing or maiming Gypsies. A villager, probably echoing most of the other villagers, calls them “vermin”.
Bury Me Standing is an interesting look into a people that is stereotyped, persecuted and barely understood (their origins can be traced to India but their history is still kind of foggy). But it is a rather depressing read. At the end of it all, one can’t help wondering: Will their lives ever improve? Do they hope for improvement in the first place? Or will they continue living in these rather shoddy houses, their children barely educated, still considered outcasts?
Title: Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey
Author: Isabel Fonseca
Genre: Non-fiction
Year: 1995
Acquired: The Library
Thanks for the review – I read an old 1970′s era National Geographic book on Gypsies once. It belonged to my uncle who owned a lot of National Geographic books. When he saw me reading that one, he commented that his ex-wife from long ago had been of Romany heritage. He didn’t comment too much further though. I think I’d like to read this book by Fonseca but thanks for the warning about it being a depressing book. I just finished a long and depressing non-fiction book and need some breathing room before I start on another.
You’re welcome! I think it’s possible that if you hadn’t commented on this acquisition from the library, I might have succumbed to laziness and not have reviewed the book!