The main reason I like her though is not due to her style but her subject matter. Her stories are vignettes on a way of living which takes the world as vibrant, unusual and a little scary. For those of us like me, whose life sits firmly on the pedestrian scale of things the stories are glimpses of the edges–which makes this conventional bod happy that someone is out there pushing at the boundaries of our normality and reporting back on just how amusing, marvelous, and terrifying it might be.

Here’s a recent New Yorker piece of hers that inspired this comment “Sticky Fingers” and of course, her brilliant collection of short stories, No one belongs here more than you.

I have found in the past that my selections are quite different to those on the NYest, perhaps longtime readers of that blog will notice!

I’ll put entries in separate posts, from the beginning of the year—keep your eyes (and RSS readers) peeled.

The story concerns an out of work young man, Stevick, who witnesses an strange occurrence whilst sitting outside a coffee shop. The “procedure” of the title is odd and more than a little sinister but it is registered in Stevick’s world as something of a curiosity, something that you wouldn’t want to occur in your neighborhood perhaps but nothing more incongruous than that. Stevick’s own reaction is one of dithering, of being unclear as to whether or not to get involved, of worry about how his involvement (or lack thereof) might be seen by others. This is perhaps a reflection of our own dithering in the face of things that go on in front of us, in our own society. These things may not be “in plain air” but our reaction is similar, “Can I ignore it? Must I get involved?”.

Lethem builds into the story the wider world of those oblivious what’s going on and those with purposeless anger; the part of the story where Stevick, now a participant in the mysterious event, faces off, umbrella to umbrella with an angry local is somewhat bizarre and unexplained. However, I can’t help but feel that he fails to address any of the questions that he raises in a way that is satisfying for the reader—none of those reacting to operation (including Stevick and his ex–girlfriend who is briefly thrown into the fray) have anything more than half-thoughts about what they are experiencing. As a result, we feel no need to examine our own thoughts towards similar events that may be occurring in our society and that, presumably, Lethem wishes to raise. I’ve had to think hard in order to reconstruct some of the ideas about the mix of ambivalence and anger that individuals may display towards acts that they don’t condone and that are taking place around them—much harder than I would have had I been genuinely inspired by the issues raised here.

[Go to the story]

It also explains why I like some of the writers that I like; Proust, Richard Ford and Vladimir Nabokov come to mind in this regard*.

All three write vividly about the thoughts that their protagonists have as they engage in various activities. Specific aspects of Marcel’s remembering for instance — the things that trigger memories, the metaphors that are used to describe past situations, the opinions he brings to bear on the characters of his life — help us to answer questions about the particular ways in which he (Marcel the character) thinks about the world around him. For one person, fitting the world into thought may be a matter of elaborate simile (Humbert Humbert comes to mind) whilst for another it might be pared down, literal description (Frank Bascombe-esque, one might venture). Both styles colour experience, leaving two individuals with contrasting descriptions of the same event.

This feature is the focus of George Saunders’ excellent story this week. Saunders places the contrasting inner lives of his two child protagonists at the centre of the story and lets creepy events unfold. The reader is thus treated to two (disjoint, but adjoining) descriptions of a scenario, each of which is wedded to the child whose inner life we are privileged to be sharing. Alison Pope filters her experience through the daydream of being a Princess with many invisible suitors, a daydream that is soon shattered when an unwanted guest arrives at her door. Kyle Boot’s restrictive social situation is a constant factor, informing and placing boundaries on all of his thoughts — edicts from his parents surround his life so pervasively that Kyle even checks himself when swearing in his head.

As a result, we are left with a rich and vivid insight into the thoughts of Alison and Kyle (and indeed the sinister interloper) and how they interpret the world around them and fit it into their mental stream. Saunders employs typographic flourishes to emphasise the inner-ness of what the reader is given access to and displays the relationship between our social environment and our mental one with wonderful, and occasionally humorous, clarity.

[Go to the story]

*As does the film Rachel’s Getting Married which I talked about in a similar vein.

[Update, the drop capital "I" used here is by from Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hische, a really fun project that I'm going to try to use more often]

Wiggle Room is a study in the minutiae of boredom. A worker, Lane Dean Jr., sits in a cubicle and we are party to all of the tiny motions, the random thoughts, the brain freezing tedium of his work. Nothing is too insignificant to report in Foster Wallace's quest to find that point, beyond boredom, where actions lose all meaning: the line of the tax form that is being examined, the movement of bottom cheeks, the squeak of the office cart. Foster Wallace is a master at tracing along the line of thoughts that lead us from an office joke to a word your mother used ("ansty") via office accoutrements and your wife's cooking.

Aspects of the story offered glimpses into Foster Wallace's mind- the sequence involving the mystery cubicle visitor leaves us feeling insecure about the Lane's mental state. He is nervous about the visitor himself and his thoughts betray an element of doubt that must have been so familiar to the writer and as such is rendered vividly leaving the reader in no better position than Lane. It is this element, this toppling on a precipice, that remains- the boredom has been punctured by the doubt that marks its ultimate end.

[Go to the story]

The ennui of the protagonist, Tom, comes out through his "studies" his camera acts as a mask through which he can exercise his desire to examine those on the beach. It allows him to hide behind a thin sheen of respectability whilst he analyses the “slowly unwrapped” bodies with his plastic surgeon’s eye. The story is itself an examination, of the existential angst that Tom feels— as is revealed by his reminiscing about the beautiful blind girl he dated as a youth and the way he dropped her in favour of acceptance by the crowd and by the tension between him and his brother, who drops in on this overheated Sunday. Roger does not seem to be weighted down by the pressure that afflicts Tom, he's brash and arrogant, good with the ladies, happy to show off knowledge of good food and wine- it’s easy to see why he gets up Tom's nose. This is the classic tale of sibling rivalry, told against the background of wealthy, well educated people who can't shake that feeling that they're just missing something in life.

The story is really well written, with a great and satisfying ending. It captures a dynamic, a series of feelings relationships that many will have encountered, even if just briefly, and magnifies them just long enough for us to see a little of ourselves in there and not so long that we fall into that particular hole.

[Go to the story]

What really interested me about the article was the way that Thurber subtly painted Reza as a true genius of the theatre. It wasn't overblown or demagoguery, nor did it seemed in any way misplaced. In fact, it was refreshing to read about a woman who could unashamedly be said to be at the top of her profession and, what's more, amongst the best of the modern purveyors of her art.

This was a tale firmly rooted in magical realism; the wonderful came entwined with the ordinary as citizens of New York drove around in their cars, chasing the death of the moon, urged on by beautiful, ethereal women who sat on the roofs. The story was certainly at the magical end of the spectrum, I am still not entirely clear about the elements that poked their head above the parapet into the real. The story exists for me more in a haze of the unusual. This in itself was not unpleasant, Calvino's descriptions have a strong descriptive force that pulls you along even in the most unlikely of scenarioes. The problem for me was with the multitudes of mysterious naked women in the story. Whilst their place in a story of this type might be retraced to a classical tradition involving such characters I couldn't help but feel that their almost transparent existence as anything other than objects or placeholders in the story was hopelessly uninteresting. What is meant to compel us to follow these nymphs, except for the compulsion of their nudity?

As a result, the continued presence of the naked "daughters of the moon" and our seemingly unbending need to be absorbed by their involvement in the death of their father was difficult for me to get into. Perhaps a more well thought out reason for following the women would have killed the sense of magic in the story but by leaving one out Calvino subjected us to a theme park ride of the male gaze, which is not something that can get me excited I’m afraid.

Hopefully my own stories do not cushion me from reality in quite the way Roosten's do. As we are gradually allowed more of an insight into his life and into the self deception he uses to escape from the realities of that life we are left with a sense of sadness (and, dare I say, pity) for the gulf that exists between the world (big successful guy barely acknowledges Al's existence) and Al's representation of it (soon enough he'll be dining with big successful guy and family). A scenario that likely extends into all of our thoughts at some point is shown up in a harsh light here.