"The Freezer Chest" by Dorthe Nors

This story can be found in the May 25, 2015 issue of The New Yorker.

First Line: "When I think about it, the freezer chest, it's with a sensation of the ferry rocking and the North Sea beneath us, black because it is January, and then the artificial lighting of the lounge where they were sitting, Mark and the others-Starling, Henrietta, Poul, and Susanna-and where I was also sitting with our English teacher, Bo, who found me interesting to talk to, because, as he said, 'One would never know you were so young.'"

Last Line: "'Shame on you,' she said, and I'd like to know if she ever did anything about it, the incest."

I am delayed in posting my review of this story as life made other demands, but I did comment on it on The Mookse and the Gripes.

Here's a sampling of my thoughts:

My initial impression was: too much. So much symbolism and theme and long sentences and rambling-esque thoughts. Because it is a translation, and coming from another cultural perspective, it took me a few paragraphs to realize where they were and what they were doing. There was also a numbness, a passivity to the narrator that held me from seeing things clearly.
All of the story set-up seems at first to be clutter, but I feel it’s there to make the simple point clear and obvious. But I still haven’t cleaned up the clutter with enough readings to find the nugget, the gem, the simple point.  It is the puzzle of this story that entertains me. I want to understand it. I just need a bit more time.

I reread and I even read another by Ms. Nors: https://www.guernicamag.com/fiction/mother-grandmother-and-aunt-ellen/ … and I was feeling the same thing – where’s the action. It reminded me of “My Life’s a Joke” in that it felt more vignette-like. But this tale was more “cluttered”. Either the tension and resolution, the emotional arc, was lost to me in all the action and sentences, or it was a “puzzle” (Nors) that just didn’t work.

Still not a favorite of mine. Wouldn’t even say I liked it. I can appreciate it more now – especially as I am beginning to understand the “why” behind some of the crafting…

With some time I may go back and give it another try, but I am willing to just let it go, unloved by me, for now.

 image source: https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/470901339_640.jpg

"The Duniazat" by Salman Rushdie

This story can be found here in the June 1, 2015 issue of The New Yorker Magazine. 


First Line: "In the year 1195, the great philosopher Ibn Rushd, once the qadi, or judge, of Seville and most recently the personal physician to the Caliph Abu Yusuf Yaqub in his home town of Cordoba, was formally discredited and disgraced on account of his liberal ideas, which were unacceptable to the increasingly powerful Berber fanatics who were spreading like a pestilence across the Arab Spain, and was sent to live in internal exile in the small village of Lucena, a village full of Jews who could no longer say they were Jews because they has been forced to convert to Islam."

Last Line: "Ibn Rushd was dead, but he and his adversary continue their dispute beyond the grave, for to the arguments of great thinkers there is no end, argument itself being a tool to improve the mind, the sharpest of all tools, born of the love of knowledge, which is to say, philosophy."


This is the first story by Salman Rushdie I have read, and I was quite enchanted by it.  Combining fantasy and historical fiction in this tale about the 12th Century philosopher, Ibn Rushd, entertains as well as encourages us to think.  

Ibn Rushd, is forced into exile for his thoughts, his writings, and must use his fortitude and resources to continue to survive.  He becomes a horse trader, a financier, a gardener.  He falls in love with a young woman who calls herself Dunia, meaning "the world".  She becomes his lover and his housekeeper.  They have many children, for she is quite insatiable.  Only the stories he tells, the philosophies he had to abandon, calm her desire.  He tells her tales based on former ideas of "reason, logic, and science" - "the inevitability of cause and effect".

What Ibn Rushd does not know is that Dunia is really a jinni, "pursuing her fascination with human men in general and brilliant ones in particular".  Her most distinctive feature is her lack of earlobes, and all of their children inherit this quality.  While she is magic, she, too, is bound by the natural consequences of her choice. Their lives trickle into common, human patterns.  Physical intimacy fades, money problems wax, and time and energy for thought is overrun by the presence and clamor of children.  Even magic, even miracles, even God must follow natural laws.  Reason and religion must be reconciled.

Then Ibn Rushd is called back to court suddenly.  His exile is ended.  He does not take his children with him, nor Dunia/the jinni. But "she went on loving him, even though he had so casually abandoned her".  Their bastard children, the children of a jinni and a philosopher, wander the earth, "ignorant of their supernatural origins", adopting every kind of thought out there - some of faith, some of reason, never reconciling the two as Ibn Rushd, their father, had done.  Secularism arose.

Using magic to tell the story of the history of thought is fascinating.  It is a fairy tale that leaves so much room for thought and reader participation.  "The Duniazats" is microcosm, "stories within stories".  Ibn Rushd's experience mirrors the grander story of all of us: reconciliation between the polarities of thought that compete for our belief, and the love affair between fantasy and rational thought.  We are the Duniazats, their children.  What beliefs will we choose?  Can we live by faith and also by reason?  We are limited if we chose just one as the basis of all our thoughts.
 
I know I will keep pondering this story throughout the week.  There are so many layers, so many ideas to unravel…

This review can also be read on The Mookse and the Gripes.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

 

This review first appeared in The Canon City Daily Record.

I love to drive through town just as the sun goes down and the lights inside the houses are turned on. I can see into the homes. I see kids around the table, heads bent over homework. I see a blue light reflected in a man's glasses as he sits at a computer. I see a woman laughing, coaxing hair behind her ear. A front door opens, letting out a dog, allowing me to see furniture, pictures on the walls, dishes in the sink. I've seen so much, yet I've never seen foul play.

Rachel Watson, The Girl on the Train, passing through the outskirts of London, looks through windows, too. She sees a couple - a "golden couple" - on her morning and evening rides. She feels connected with them, creates idealized stories about them, imagines she really knows them. And then something unexpected happens - something that does not match her fantasy of this couple. There is a news report that suggests dark, suspicious events. Lonely Rachel may have answers. But can her questionable perspective be trusted? This startling spine-chiller has only just begun.

Saying too much may give away important details, for this story echoes Hitchcock's mastery of the psychological thriller. The details are the story. Facts cleverly unfold within the novel, keeping the reader entertained, convinced - only to be surprised, again, by the ending. Suspense is part of the compelling magic of this book.

The Girl on the Train is representative of a new genre: thrillers concerning the domestic lives of women. Themes of motherhood and marriage feature prominently, the backbone of Ms. Hawkins's fast-paced story. It has been compared to another New York Times Bestseller, Gone Girl. These novels are relatable, examining the lives accepted as the norm, and bringing crimes against women to the discussion. But this isn't a feminist diatribe. This is a story about a woman who must overcome her blemished past in order to solve a fatal mystery.

The pacing of the unpredictable plot overlaps the steadying lull of a train - morning and evening. It is narrated, alternately, by three different women, each with a unique perspective on the events at hand. Rachel, Megan, and Anna are each convincingly and painfully flawed without being feminine archetypes. They are complex, lives entangling.

Paula Hawkins began her writing career as a journalist in London. While The Girl on the Train is her first thriller, she has also written under a pen-name, Amy Silver. Her earlier works were romantic comedies, but she favors writing tragedies in contemporary settings. And here, in this unconventional work, it is obvious she has found her niche.

"So You're Just What, Gone?" - Justin Taylor

This story appeared in the May 18, 2015 issue of The New Yorker Magazine.

First Line: "It's one of those airlines where you get your seat assignment at the gate, and they're late to Logan and slow to get through security, so the lady at the counter can't seat Charity and her mother together."

Last Line: "Fish gutz / my gutz: Compare & contrast." 

With the first line of this story we are immediately pulled in - we've all been to that airport.  We've all experienced the waiting, the slowness, the mind-numbing crawl through a line only to be disappointed.

But the protagonist, Charity, is not disappointed. With her mother seated in the back of the plane, she is gifted "five-plus hours of freedom - hallelujah!"  When they land, she will have to help her mother "see how bad things have got with Grams, and try to figure out what should happen next."

Charity, not yet sixteen years old, is intelligent.  She is taking advanced and college-level classes in high school.  Independent and observant.  Tech-savvy and conscious of fashion and social conventions.  She is also sexually aware.  

A man, "older, way older - like thirty, maybe", sits next to her on the plane and strikes up a conversation.  This conversation leads to a proposition, an inappropriate touch, and sexting.

We walk through tangles of relationships with this teenager.  With the mother, the "typical" teen angst is addressed: the desire to be far away from parents, and yet, needing and wanting the comfort that comes from still being a child.  As a daughter, she watches her own mother as the child in relation to the grandmother. Charity has a close female friend, and a possible relationship with a boy who is "funny and easy to be around".  

And then there's this stranger she's met on the plane: Mark.  She calls him "Mark Perv".  Here, cut off from her usual, routine life, Charity explores dangerous territory - one that she is not prepared for.  One that has consequences not yet understood.  She likens it to "peeking in the doorway of a bar or the teacher's lounge - someplace you could get in trouble for going into but were curious to glimpse the inside of, just to be able to say you knew what was in there."  

Justin Taylor creates a fantastic, true-to-life-character in Charity.  The voice of this contemporary teenage girl is flawless.  The story line and the character bring out so much depth and honesty to each other.  Details are perfect, highlighting the teenager's inner world with raw and defining clarity.

I am also quite taken with the ending.  Charity's responses to Mark's propositions were exactly how I imagined this girl would react.  There was not a moment that I had to suspend disbelief.  I believed it all.

It is a powerful story, exploring a darkness in our world. And here we have a front-row seat to see how one young woman interacts with that darkness... and how a "return to innocence" is not what it proposes to be.

"Truth And Beauty" by Ann Patchett

Truth and Beauty: A Friendship is the bestselling memoir of the friendship between the author, Ann Patchett, and Lucy Grealy (The Autobiography of a Face).  It is borne from Ann's grief upon Lucy's death following almost twenty years as dear compadres.

This is a tale of truth - the cruel honesty stemming from a relationship that rivals the intense closeness of marriage or motherhood.  Ann shares with us the intimate details of the life of a creative genius, a butterfly, that refused to be pinned down.  With courage, she tells us who Lucy really is, what she struggled with, and the effects upon those that loved Lucy.

The book is interspersed with Lucy's own writings, letters to Ann from wherever she happened to be.  They were written during times of sadness, uncertainty, pure poetry.  Paired with Ann's remembrances, they create a complete picture of two women who loved writing and each other.

Lucy is a desperate poet - talented but full of suffering that words cannot ease.  She endured 39 surgeries over twenty years to try and bring her face to a semblance of "normal".  Through this book, we find her sadness and despair, her vibrant sexuality and utter loneliness, her openness and unanswered desires.  

But this story isn't about Lucy.  It is about the earthquakes and typhoons Lucy brought to Ann's life. It is about the eyes of the storm and Ann's measured, practical responses.  It is about an enmeshment so deep that neither could live without the other.

I read an article written by Ann addressing the concerns Clemson University students/parents had about topics addressed in the book.  Some thought the book was explicit in nature concerning drugs, sexuality, and even anti-religious themes.  Ann's response was beautiful.  She suggested that if these were real concerns, then maybe books such as The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina, Lolita, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and works by Morrison, Updike, Hemingway and Faulkner should no longer be on a syllabus as well.

This book is indeed "explicit".  It "fully and clearly expresse[s] or demonstrate[s]" the truth and beauty in the lives of these two women due to their willingness to be humble and vulnerable with each other.  To be friends. 

"My Life is a Joke" by Sheila Heti

This story can be found in the May 11, 2015 issue of The New Yorker.

First Line: "When I died, there was no one around to see it."

Last Line: "How beautiful to be seen."

Oh, boy.  I did not like this one...  Wish I did, though.  I almost feel like it would prove my intelligence to find depth and life's true meaning in this tale. 

"My Life is a Joke" felt like sitting in a quiet bar, when a comedienne bumbles onto the stage.  Rather sudden.  Boisterous and awkward.  Ratcheting noise and poor humor into your nightcap.  That almost seemed to be the story's scene: a dead woman walks into a bar - stop me of you've heard this one - and tells you the joke, the irony, of her life. 

I have been reading short stories, trying to see what really makes a shorter piece into a "story".  Here - it was the last line for me.  The rest was a meandering vignette, with a lot of self-pity, throat-clearing, and mike-tapping.

So maybe I am bringing my intelligence up for discussion, but I did not find this piece to be fantastic.

I do not want to sell Sheila Heti short.  I looked at her site.  She is eclectic, artistic, creative, and a true artist.  She is prolific and inventive, celebrating the art that represents life.  

But this short story did not click for me.  Maybe it did for you.  

What do you think?

"The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is real, honest, witty, and vulnerable. Arnold Spirit chooses to leave the Reservation for his high school education.  This book shares his experiences.  I ached for him as he struggled to make sense of racism, poverty, alcoholism, and being a teenager.  

This book is presented as Arnold's journal with fantastic sketches and comic drawings by Ellen Forney.  Through the images and the words, we hear Arnold's voice as he falls in lust and love, encounters death, and plays some pretty mean basketball.  

And despite all the major sociological issues confronting this young man, Sherman Alexie deftly covers the inane details of teenage life - the details that actually create the biggest milestones.

A New York Times Bestseller and a National Book Award Winner, it is probably one of the best contemporary teen male voices I have read in a long time. 

Today is TED day: Mac Barnett

"Why a good book is a secret door" by Mac Barnett

I love this TED talk.  It made me laugh, and it talks about how fiction - lies - teach truth.

Mac Barnett quotes Picasso: “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.” 

We "realize" truth through art.  Just as children do, we discern our world through fiction.

Mac Barnett is an "author of books for children". He teaches us that children can suspend disbelief (Coleridge) in order to tangle out what is needed to grow...  I love this concept.  "We get there when we read".  

He says "kids are the best audience for serious literary fiction."  We need that same innocence when we read in order to glean all we can from novels.

The story is enough.