In August 2020, Sean O’Hagan began a long series of taped conversations with Nick Cave, “a ritual that lasted until next summer,” he writes. This is how the book “Faith, Hope and Pain” was born, which will be published in a few days by the Kleidaritmos publishing house, translated by Vasya Tsanakari. Cave talks about music, religious faith, his – conscious – conservatism, the heroine and, of course, the death of his 15-year-old son Arthur. “Nick’s son Arthur, who died in 2015, is inescapably present throughout the book, sometimes explicitly and always implicitly,” comments O’Hagan, adding: “If this book describes a dramatic transformation, creative and personal, in the face of great personal disaster, he is also overwhelmed with a sense of the insecurity of life.

HM.

– I say that I write all my songs, starting with spiritual longing, because this is my constant state. For me personally, this state is electrified, creative and full of potential.

Also, more and more of the songs that I have written seem mysterious to me, I can listen to them with awe because I feel personally alienated from them, as if they came from somewhere outside. “Ghosteen” is definitely a record that gives me the feeling that it comes from somewhere outside and expresses something inexpressible. I don’t know how to explain it exactly, Sean, except to say that God is the trauma itself.

“That perhaps mourning can be seen as a state of awakening in which the mourner comes closer than ever to the basic essence of things. Because in mourning you become well acquainted with the idea of ​​mortality. You enter a very dark state and experience pain that you have never experienced before – you reach the limit of torture. I believe there is a transformative quality to this martyrdom. It essentially changes and rebuilds you. This process, of course, is very scary, but over time you return to the world, knowing how vulnerable we are, participating in this human drama. Everything seems so fragile, precious and tense, and the world and the people who live in it, so menacing and at the same time so beautiful. I feel that in this dark state the idea of ​​God becomes more intense or perhaps more essential. I feel that grief and God are intertwined in some way, that when you grieve, you move closer to the veil that separates this world from the next. I allow myself to believe in such things because it makes me feel good. (…)

When you grieve, you long for peace. When Arthur died, there was chaos inside of me, a physical sensation like a roar at the center of my being, and a terrible sense of fear and impending doom. I remember actually feeling it rolling into my body and pouring out of my fingertips. When I was alone with my thoughts, an almost overwhelming feeling swept through my body. I never felt like this before. It was mental torture, but also physical, deeply physical, flattening yourself—an inner cry.

Grief can be seen as a state of awakening in which the grieving person is closer than ever to the fundamental essence of things.

“I meditated for years, but after the accident, I really thought I would never be able to meditate again. I thought that sitting and letting this feeling take over me would be unbearable torture. However, at some point I went up to Arthur’s room, sat on his bed among his things, closed my eyes and began to meditate. I forced myself to do it. And for an infinitesimal moment, I realized that somehow everything could work out. It was like a fleeting light. And then the pain hit again. It was a sign and a major change.

But since you mentioned the feeling of constant disorganization, I thought that after the death of Arthur, an ongoing conversation raged in my head. This was no ordinary internal monologue. It was like talking to your dying self or to death itself.

At that time, the thought that we were all going to die someday became so real that it infected everything, damn it. It seemed to me that everyone could die at any moment.

– Exactly. And for Susie (aka Cave’s wife and Arthur’s mother), this feeling was too extreme. In fact, he believed that everyone would die—and soon. Not that everyone will eventually die, but those we knew will die tomorrow, I know. He plunged into absolute existential anxiety associated with the fact that the lives of all people were in terrible danger. It was heartbreaking.

But somehow, this sense of the presence of death, and the violent resentment that accompanied it, ended up giving us a strangely irresistible energy. Not immediately, but over time. I don’t know how to explain it, it was an action that allowed us to do whatever we wanted. It opened up various possibilities, and out of them poured out a paradoxical, bold force. As if the worst had already happened, and nothing could harm us, and our usual worries were now a luxury. This included freedom. Susie’s return to the world was the most moving experience I have ever seen in my life.

“He seemed to die before my eyes, but eventually returned to the world.

You know, if I have one message that I want to convey, it’s the question people who have lost loved ones ask: Will I ever feel better? The Red Hand Files inbox is filled with letters from people looking for the answer to this awful, lonely question. The answer is yes. We are changing. We are getting better.