AN ALL-SEEING LOVE STORY WRITTEN WITH EXTRAORDINARY PERCEPTION
THE RULES OF SEEING JOE HEAP Harper Collins Review: Sheila Chisholm
JOE Heap’s debut novel is a sensitively crafted drama concerning 32-year old gay linguist Jillian Safinova, known as Nova, and architect Katerina Tomassi – known as Kate. Sightless since birth, Nova, working as a court interpreter, confidently walks around London using her white stick and wearing dark glasses.
Kate married police officer Tony two years ago. Unfortunately their marriage isn’t going at all well. Tony, a bully, wants a family. As Kate doesn’t feel ready, she secretively continues taking contraceptive pills.
Considering her limitations, Nova feels content. However, when Alex, her medical doctor brother, discusses with her a revolutionary surgical procedure that could (possibly) give her sight, Nova’s faces a huge dilemma – she understands her present way of life, what will it be if she can see?
Supported by her family, rather reluctantly, Nova undergoes the operation and, wonder of wonders, it’s a success.
However, what does she see? Think about it. If you have never seen anything, how can you distinguish things? Starting with colours. How do you differentiate between green and blue? How would you know what various facial/ body expressions mean?
How would you react to seeing a dog co-ordinating its four legs to walk or run? How would you know how to read a railway timetable? It’s a massive and frightening learning process for Nova. At times it’s so daunting that she pretends to be blind again.
While Nova is in hospital recuperating, Kate is admitted with a serious head injury, caused when Tony pushed her and she fell, hitting her head, and the two women meet. The rapport between them is immediate and from here on, this tense, heart-warming, beautifully written saga develops.
Heap writes this tale of two young women who arrive at peace with such extraordinary perception that one wonders if The Rules of Seeing is not written from an intimate knowledge of what it is like to be blind, or at the receiving end of marital abuse. The rules he works out for Nova are masterpieces of poignant humour, such as Rule of Seeing No 61: an object may be viewed under various conditions. It may be illuminated by sunlight, a fire, or harsh electric lamp. In each of these examples, the colour of the object will vary. Rule of Seeing No 189: when you go walking, remember that your vision will bob up and down like a boat on the ocean. This is normal.
Rule No 275: sighted people get so good at recognising shapes that they use them instead of words. They put pictures on toilets, road signs, bottles of bleach, no smoking areas, food mixers and hospitals. They never seem to get confused.
Read Joe Heap’s The Rules of Seeing to learn the power behind the adage: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” It’s a gift the sighted take too much for granted.