Integrité

62 Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal beyond the scope of this essay, but, given the frequent, earlier-noted references to the goodness of the creation and human existence, and Qoheleth‘s urging of his audience to enjoy these, I follow Provan‘s argument that Qoheleth cannot mean that everything is meaningless (as per Longman III, Fox, Brown and the New International Version translation). When Qoheleth declares all is hebel, he is making the empirical observation that reality is both ephemeral ―from the mortal point of view‖ and elusive; that is, ―it resists our attempts to capture it and contain it, to grasp hold of it and control it…at the level of both understanding and of action‖ (Provan 52).

This description of reality is exemplified in humanity‘s relationship to time. Time is an aspect of reality that transcends human existence, yet its inescapable immanence is etched on every human face and gravestone. Each human being is a first-hand witness to this duality in our experience of the regular subjection of time on earth to what is in order at a particular time. This is expressed in the famous ―Time‖ poem in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. Qoheleth lists twenty-eight empirically-determined aspects of human existence and experience: fourteen pairs of polar opposites.8 He emphasizes that each is subservient to the rhythm of a transcendent, time-driven reality by first, prefacing each with the phrase ―a time,‖ the insistent repetition of which places the metrical stress in each line on every occurrence of ―time,‖ and second, through his use of merismus (Provan 87)9 to highlight that throughout life one may be engaged in diametrically opposite activities, the fittingness of which can only be understood through a consideration of their temporally-determined context.

Cloudstreet‘s narrative resonates with such a perspective, already seen in the dominant image of the human condition as limited by the ―close, foetid galleries of time and space,‖ and in its rhythm, which seems to follow that of Qoheleth‘s ―Time‖ poem. Provan‘s analysis of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 as picturing ―human experience as a tapestry woven of ‗times‘‖ (Provan 87) could be aptly applied to Cloudstreet. Structurally, the novel is composed of many short, chronologically-ordered sketches or vignettes of a moment or more in the lives of the Pickles and Lamb families. From 1944 to 1964, the two families cohabit— with considerable inter- and intra-familial tension and calamity reflective of humanity‘s fallenness—a large, ramshackle Perth house—―Cloudstreet‖—willed to Sam Pickles by his cousin Joel. The essence of each vignette is encapsulated in its title. Many echo a phrase from Qoheleth‘s ―Time‖ poem as the narrative moves from one to the next with pendulum-like regularity. Early on, the Lambs encounter tragedy when Fish, an engaging nine-year-old, is accidentally entangled under a prawning net, almost drowns, and suffers brain-damage as a result. That moment in time means that for the Lambs there will always be times when it is fitting to weep. In ―Fish forgets,‖ the narrative poignantly states of Fish that ―[w]hen he‘s frightened or angry he falls down. He cries like a man. It makes the Lambs crazy with emotion to hear it‖ (70). But there are also times when laughter is appropriate, such as in ―Cake,‖ which occurs soon after ―Fish Forgets‖ in both discourse and narrative time. In another concrete moment in time—Quick‘s twelfth birthday—Oriel, his mother, sells his birthday cake as he is on the verge of blowing out the candles.