Finished

Yesterday I finished the second reading of 'Between Times' and have a better grasp of it than the first one gave.

The title is most appropriate: it isn't 'time' but 'times'.  There are several 'times' through which Drum lived. (Sometimes he was Ben and sometimes Drum; in the series he started out as Ben, then for a while was 'Bear' and later Drum.

In the second book he was pretty consistently 'Drum'.  He seems to have been too young for the war and later too old.  Of course Henry had very clearly a life time hatred of War;  he and I met at the Quaker meeting in Greenville, a 'peace group'.

In Between Times (290) we find both Ben and Drum; Ben returns from the war and goes to 'University' while Drum (from an earlier generation) moves to Asheton.

Later in 290 Millicent meets a ghostlike figure she had known in former years.

After reading 'BT' twice I've come to feel that it's primarily a fantasy with many appearances of people after death to those who experienced love from and for them. In later posts I mean to put emphasis on those episodes.

Spirit and Flesh

"The face he had seen was his." 'Between Times' 232.
Through the book (up to this point) we seem to meet several (at least two) Drums.  In particular the one celebrated in 'Summer Boy' and the one in most of 'Between Times' seem to be different (or the same!).

The quote from page 232 suggested (to me at least)  that the two Drums met momentarily (and collided).

Other moments suggest this, and this one sealed the idea for
me.

(Of course the Japanese man is a great example.)

I began  to feel that this idea could be the crux of the meaning of the story.

The Dark Woman

In a letter from Drum to Mora on 138 he spoke of a "large dark skinned woman" who said, "let me take her Ryder"

In a letter from Mora (139-410) to Drum he had something to say about the 'Dark Woman'.

It harks back in my mind to the 'large dark skinned woman' who was so prominent in 'The Summer Boy'

On page 48 of that work we read:
" 'huge woman (dark skinned) let out a whoop and folded him into her ample bosom"; that was Calley.

Might it have been Calley who spoke to Drum as Ryder? 

urakami cathedral

On page 1-2:
"The American knelt beside her mother-in-law during prayers at St. Mary's cathedral
in Urakami District.....
The world ended without warning....no sound, no shift in the earth...
all the souls they had sheltered were transmuted instantly into light."

On first reading this can only be a quandary.  It's resolved near the end of the book.
On page 299 Drum is looking for an assistant to replace Polly Coggins who "ran off with
Tadahito or Mura or whoever he was."

If you research Urakami you may realize it was in Nagasaki that the second atom bomb
incinerated Urakami's Cathedral and 10,000 Christians.

Jonas Healed

Jonas had been bitter and angry since the death of his wife and children, but when
he found that he loved Drum, the bitterness and anger fell away to be replaced by
page 35: "for he lived now not only for himself but for each soul who had been
joined to his".

Read on to page 48 "Lorraine (his dead wife) had come to visit and smiled down
at  him and laid her hand lightly on his chest" read on! Was this a dream or a
vision? Who can say?

Life and Death

Near the middle of the story, on page 133 I read:
"From behind her chair her father's voice [dead?] startled her...
'you should read those.  You really should...
glad though surprised somehow that he has stayed on with her
.. you seem to know a lot about things  for a dead man...
...wishing she might reach up and touch his hand as he fades
into the wallpaper."

Wow! Who is dead and who is alive!

As you read this book, you may recognize continuing incidents of that
sort.  They become more prominent until at the end you may realize
that many of the characters appeared 40 years early in 'Summer'

My first recognition of a ghost.

Rest

On page 156 of 'Between Times' the lovely song spoke emphatically to me.
It spoke to experiences of long ago, when I was a pastor of an unruly
congregation. The Smokies was some distance, but there were times
when I felt a strong compulsion to repair my soul in the highlands.

I drove some distance to Cherokee, the gateway from the eastern side.
Going up that highway was a healing act for me; as the elevation
increased one by one my church concerns dropped away.  When I
got to Newfound Gap, parked and got out of the car, the concerns
were all gone, to be replaced by a mind filled with gratitude and joy.
Oh what liberation!

"I need to go awhile away
-------------
And all my cares forsaken
and in the space they used to fill
I feel my soul awaken"

A lovely poem by a gifted poet!