On “A Year of Grace,” short story from Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn by Harvey Swados

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Fiction - Short Stories, NYRB Classics, The NYRB Classics Project, Short Story Month 2011, Harvey Swados

Does every reader have the compulsion to seek out authors on the hopes that you’ll find traces of your long-favorite authors in their work? Say, you’ll swear by Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, by the short fiction of Raymond Carver, of Elizabeth Hardwick—that you’ll willingly flirt with F. Scott Fitzgerald, with Anne Tyler, or the calmer moments of Jonathan Franzen? That you’d run a hand through the spines of your shelves, notice that some were acquired to fulfill some theme you’ve always sworn by? That even if you discover there are incomparables in literature, you can always find an author that will allow you to approximate that first brush with Yes, these are my books and, at the same time, appreciate those fine-tuned [and unconscious to the authors involved, of course] differences—differences that are inevitable, but still gives way to the familiar?

I approached Harvey Swados’ collected short stories, Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn, with the above as the primary agenda. I’m beginning to suspect that this atmosphere of domestic dissatisfaction—the insular ennui I’m so giddy about—is partly a product of time, of history. The post-WW2 restlessness of Yates appears in Swados’ stories—not to mention Hardwick’s endless fascination with New York; here, in the opening paragraph of the title story:

There was a time when New York was everything to me: my mother, my mistress, my Mecca, when I could no more have wanted to live any place else than I could have conceived of myself as a daddy, disciplining my boy and dandling my daughter.

Today, however, we’ll focus on one story, my favorite—partly because of the reasons above: its echoes of Richard Yates’ concerns. But, like all good stories, it transcends my expectations, even my agenda.

“A Year of Grace” is a quiet story—objectively, not the most ambitious of the lot, perhaps not even representative of Swados’ range as a writer. But it is my favorite—it was the first story in the collection that I sat up and said, Yes, this, the only story I actually reread just days after.

Burton Retter, small-town boy fresh from a stint in Korea, marries the small-town girl manning her father’s pharmacy, Victoria Merz. It’s a marriage of, well, fondness—there are no high passions here, but amiable companionship, if a certain levelheadedness. It’s also a novel of ambitions—Burt’s: Off they go to France for a year’s Fulbright, and Victoria’s unease gives way soon enough.

She is his wife, she tells herself. She must adapt: “because of the way she had been brought up she greeted the prospect of any alteration not eagerly but with anxiety (or was that basically the way women were, the unadventurous sex?); but that didn’t mean that she was slack about going out and doing things when it became necessary—more efficiently, in fact, than someone like Burton himself. This wasn’t something she could put into words, any more than Burton could say bluntly just why he wasn’t ready to become a father, but this was what husbands and wives should be able, she thought, to understand about each other.”

I suppose what I like most about the story is Victoria’s gradual but solid disillusionment. Or, to be more accurate, Victoria’s gradual awareness of this dissatisfaction, awareness of the differences between her and her husband.

The first sign to her, perhaps, was when Burt’s version of rejoicing his Fulbright is to look forward to how it would look in his résumé after the year has passed. This comes with subtle hints of his given superiority over her, his wife: someone has to look ahead and secure their futures, you know.

Victoria found it difficult to conceal the consternation which overcame her when he would say, “Once this monograph appears in the journal, I’ll be a made man.” Made for whom and what? she wanted to ask, but dared not, feeling guilty for even allowing the questions to spring to her mind. After all, she was his wife, and she had committed herself.

She discovers more about her husband, and “partly in self-defense, partly from boredom,” reads up on his studies:

The suspicion gradually hardened into certainty that her husband was devoting his professional life to the exploration of what was at best a minor tributary in the broad stream of Western art. But why was he so immersed in a field that was of minimal interest even to cultured people?

The impulse was irresistible to attribute his ambition not to disinterested speculation, but to a shrewd calculation of his chances in a relatively uncrowded field. If only she could be convinced that Burton was mad about his work—how much more fun it would be to be married to a happy, dedicated crank!

True, Victoria’s so-called journey of self-discovery within this story largely occurs with her distancing from Burt’s hold, how she’d matter-of-factly put Burt on a pedestal, her being his wife. It was necessary to separate herself, to see not just Burt’s faults but how at odds his very self was with her. It made a reader wince, too.

While Burt’s being his old stuffed-shirt self, touring museums, writing papers, Victoria immerses herself in the landscape, mingles with the French—soon she’s speaking the language better than Burt’s ever had: she who knew not one whit when they first got there. A vegetable lady comments on this, and this comment—this praise upon Vic, the public acknowledging that the wife was better than the husband in just one way—that set off Burt, highlighted his arrogance once again, saying he had no need for the flattery of fishmongers and fruit peddlers. “I’ve had a few more important things to do this year than cover their praise, you know.” Sige, ikaw na lagi, leche ka.

This. This was the last straw. It speeds up the disintegration of what fondness Victoria had for Burt, even her desire to stay with Burt. It lets Victoria know that she’s sick of his pompous ass, how senseless it would be to stay—they do not suit. More importantly, goodness, she doesn’t even like him! Oh, the calm that came over her then:

He was not infuriating, he was simply comical, sitting there hunched over the wheel in his shorts that he insisted on wearing a little too long and waiting to be reassured that he was right and the vegetable lady was wrong. There was no need for her to lose control, no need to answer him in kind; in fact, if she really wanted to hurt him she had only to ignore his implied request for support, or to turn it down. But she had no desire to hurt him, she discovered, nor even the wish to assert herself or to explain herself to him. She was simply not interested any longer in Burton, in his work, or in what he thought of her. This in itself was such a shocking realization that it made her feel weak and a little dizzy, and, in the moments that it took for them to reach the wind-scudded seacoast, happier and more lightheaded than she had ever been. So this, she thought, is why I’ve been working so hard all those long weeks on my French. And it struck her that just as a woman’s body will prepare her almost magically to experience the great physical and emotional events of her life, so her mind, deviously, almost furtively, will adjust and retrain itself—if it has any vitality at all and is more than an inert lump of matter—to prepare for new contingencies and unexpected vicissitudes.

I was in awe of Swados’ restraint and how he parceled it out—how painful it was to see Burt brought low in Victoria’s eyes, but how satisfying; the progression of Victoria’s awakening and her impending independence. It all leads to her freedom—and not just from being a stuffed shirt’s wife, not from Burt, but from the given convenience of small-town boy returning home from the way to marry pliant small-town girl—freedom from chaining herself to a life with someone she finally realizes she can’t care about, and don’t even like. It’s Swados’ slow but sure method of letting Victoria and the readers know of her dissatisfaction, of her resolve against it, of her desire for independence—that was what wowed me, that was what had me reading this deliciously lethal-gazed story. And being with Victoria, witnessing her steeliness—no, she’s not exactly a Yatesian character, and I am really really glad for that.

Stuck, with Ali Smith

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Ali Smith, Fiction - Short Stories, Short Story Month 2011

For Short Story Month 2010, I read Ali Smith’s collection, The Whole Story and Other Stories. I thought it was okay. I thought it was an uneven collection, mis-stepping several times yet quite lovely, with “fluid language that still manages to escape artsy-fartsy convolutedness.” I especially liked how that collection was dedicated to books and reading and bookishness, to the passion of intent writers, and lurve. Despite its unevenness and occasional Meh-ness, I still really, really liked it—it spoke of familiar things, and did so tenderly and charmingly.

Since then, I have amassed three more of her books—one collection and two novels—on the affective merit of that book alone. The neatness of reading Smith again for this month wasn’t lost on me, and so I tried to get comfy with her Other Stories and Other Stories. “Tried,” of course, being the predictably operative word. Oh, holy orphaned pandas, what a struggle.

And I really found all the stories odd—reading was an uncomfortable experience of polite impatience and sometime-skimming. I gave every story a chance, okay? I did it in trains, in coffee shops, in my bed. I flipped the pages back when a voice in my head insisted, “No, you’re reading it wrong.” What kept me going was that pesky voice. [But I tried.] What kept me going was the memory of me liking The Whole Story and Other Stories, despite lazily disliking some of those stories. But, dammit, compared to this, The Whole Story and Other Stories was just enchanting.

The charm fizzled. Obviously. Her hazy-vague-y tone, her flimsy narratives. True, the plus-side of her style does allow the reader access to the characters’ most tender, if occasionally saccharine, thoughts. But it was this way all the damn time. I can understand the appeal: Perhaps this is a comfortable voice, if one most accessibly to the author when she’s scrawling about a scene that’s idly lodged itself inside her head. But it still seems like a waste of lyricism.

Where is the risk? Aside from that of boring a reader who encounters you more than once? Formalistic risk? Bah. Experiments? Exploration of the short story’s capabilities to define the human condition? Gahk. Yes, boring for me, then it became tedious—this sonorous monotone, the stories and people all existing in one affectedly ephemeral plane of brusque-melodic sentences, hipster concept of cool. It was so overbearingly self-conscious, it began feeling pretentious soon enough.

Sasha, for decency’s sake, did you find one earnest thing in this collection? Yes—upon vigorous re-visiting and careful thought: I liked the story “Blank Card” well enough. A ridiculous amount of flowers sent by a stranger [the card! was! blank!] brings new life to the romance between a couple. There. I liked that story. It had action, it was sexy, I understood it, it was nice. Wait, though, earnest? Yes. I suppose, on its own—but when this okay-enough story is the highlight of a collection? Well. Well.

PSA: The Other Stories and Other Stories by Ali Smith was found during one rather crazy sale in which I amassed an embarrassing quantity of books. Embarrassing, that is, if I could still be embarrassed about anything book-ish.

_____

Reading Begets [Cautious] Reading — I was quite excited when I found out about her new novel, the beffudlingly titled, There but for the [and maddening too: the OC in me shudders at the knowledge that, typed, it will refuse to conform to Title Case]. The playfulness in that title now appears to me quite, well, catty—hints of intertextuality and stylistic off-kilter-ness now only read Puns-Puns-Puns. Oh, I will read that novel, as well as the one other left in my shelves, The Accidental. I want to see Smith rise from the technical box she seems to enjoy being in. I mean, how long can much-buzzed novels stand on breathy sentiments and the vaguest of vague utterances?

Standing Witness

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Amy Bloom, Fiction - Short Stories, Short Story Month 2011

I’ve read much of Amy Bloom and consider her one of the most skilled and personally affecting contemporary short story writers I have ever encountered—but reading her latest collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out, was still a surprise. That is, I was jarred by how good she was. Why have I forgotten? Why don’t I remember the specifics, only vaguely recalling that she’s spot-on, funny, touching, occasionally absurd, occasionally scandalous, disturbing, sexy? Why do I remember that I gave away an extra copy of her earlier collection, Come to Me, to a boy I’d known for ten minutes (and never did get to meet again after that day)?

Moreover, why, after months of pining over the hardcover, and then finally being able to read this collection in its paperback format—why did I dawdle, why did I expect to be disappointed, to feel Meh about Bloom’s work?

Then. That jarring turn of the page: that first story, a shock—so was the rest of the quartet that followed the course of an unlikely, baffling love, a confounding infidelity, of two middle-aged friends who happen to be married to other people. Indeed, Clare the narrator, quite glibly, states, “Charles and William are friends, Isabel and I are friends. It is all just as bad as it sounds.”

Even if it’s so odd and unexpected for all concerned—and Bloom makes that point clear, in the guise of flighty, oddball, awkward talker Clare—it still feels so honest. Earnest, even if it doesn’t make sense in their real world. That odd balance between What the hell are these people thinking? and the reader being privy to the characters inner lives, that ultimately gives everything perfect sense. Never mind [or, especially because?] the characters themselves are still trying to figure it out.

You walk away from the quartet feeling as close as can be to these people—you walk away thinking that this talkative woman and this gout-ridden guy make up one of the best literary couples ever. That first story may inspire this thought, but the three that followed—and the imaginings left to the reader to console herself with—cements that.

And this continuity was crucial to the impact Bloom’s stories had on me, to its affect. Of the twelve stories, there are two quartets. Four stories which are excellent on their own, but as a collective manages to create a cohesive whole. Bloom’s continual revisiting of her characters, tracing their growth, allows the reader to stand witness to real lives—and doesn’t that fulfill one of reading’s rewards? The reader builds a rapport. You become increasingly invested in these people.

[Despite the quartets being this collection’s strongest points, there’s the same quality in the stand-alone stories. See, this is a fantastic book, a really, really strong collection. Always present: that wit, that instinctive rightness of the narrative, the complexity of the characters established in comparatively few pages. Also, that shriek-inspiring habit of Bloom’s: killing off characters in a precise, hit-you-between-the-eyes sentence. Dammit. However, I still can’t help but wish I would meet these people again.]

The one other quartet follows yet another unlikely love story. It begins with the aftermath of a death—Julia’s husband has died, leaving her to raise their son and his son from a previous marriage. When we’d normally find a character like Julia struggling to move forward, Bloom injects an additional conundrum: How to be a mother to a grown stepson who climbs into bed with you that decisive night following a funeral?

And then, Bloom follows that up with three more stories, and we are drawn closer not only to Clare and Lionel, Jr., but their messy, expanded family as well. We discover fifteen years of silence, we see hints of consequences and guilt and genuine curiosity about how the other is truly feeling. We see people grow up, we see people grow old, we see people die. There are undercurrents, lots of them—some discomfittingly sensual—and the characters would glance upon that persnickety elephant in the room. But along with that is the gradual but confident building of a life, of a family.

It’s been a long time since I’ve met characters who so strongly resonate, and I have to thank Bloom for her investment in her characters, among so many good things she brought to this near-perfect book.

PSA: Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom [PhP609 in paperback] [PhP1049 in hardcover] is available in National Bookstore.

Moments of Miscomprehension with Andrej Blatnik

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Andrej Blatnik, Dalkey Archive Press, Fiction - Short Stories, Short Story Month 2011, Tamara M. Soban, Translation

The Moment of Decision

The man decides things can’t go on like this. The man realizes all the women he knows only want to be friends; even the ones who sleep over only sleep over because they’ve been rejected by his best friend. The man quits his job, leases his apartment. The man goes abroad. The man travels a long time and is silent, people speak to him, he answers as briefly as possible. The man is finally tired, the man stops somewhere, the man rents a room. The man watches the girl making his bed. The man feels something inside him stir, something he thought he had left far behind in the past. The man tells the girl she is beautiful. The man is glad when the girl laughs and thanks him. The man asks if she has time for a drink after work. The man is pleased when the girl says she does. The man thinks it perfectly all right when, after the drink, or rather, the drinks, the girl declines to come up to his room, or rather, the bed she has made. The man tells himself it’s really too soon. The man is glad when he sees the girl in the hallway the next morning and she smiles. The man is in love. The man decides no to travel anymore; this place is just as good as the next one, or better, rather, far better. The man takes the girl out to dinner many times, out for drinks, out on trips on her days off. Then, when she has two days off, the man invites her on a longer trip. After dinner in a faraway town the man asks her if she feels like staying, like spending the night. The man is happy when she says she does. The man knows: It has to be in some other hotel, not the one she works in. The man pays for the room, leaves a tip, orders drinks up to the room. The man enjoys feeling the looks of envy on his back as he climbs the stairs to their room. The man doesn’t understand why the girl starts crying when she sees the bed meant for two, them, and not one, him. The man thinks: This is love, a surprise, it always catches you by surprise, and it did her too. The man tells himself: You have to live for something larger than yourself. The man walks up to her, places his hands on her shoulders. The girl looks at him, she looks at him for a long time, then she crosses herself and starts undoing her blouse. The girl asks him: Will you always love me? The man thinks: Yes, that is the right question for this moment. The man is happy.

The story above, quoted in its entirety, is one of the longest and strongest pieces in Andrej Blatnik’s You Do Understand (translated from the Slovene by Tamara M. Soban, as part of Dalkey Archive Press’ Slovenian Literature Series). Fifty short-short stories that, as the blurb aptly claims, “addresses the fundamental difficulty we have in making the people we love understand what we want and need.”

Ambitious [if ultimately promise-fulfilled] statements aside, the pieces in this slim book manage to cover those small, almost split-second moments of miscomprehension and great misunderstandings, turning points and scenes of extreme vulnerability and volatility.

The unnamed characters that people the stories fail to connect, fail to make themselves understood. Here are confessions that fall on deaf ears, love and desire remaining unstated. Each small scene had me feeling like I was residing inside some representative of humankind’s mind at the most crucial moment in his life.

The stories are spare, sometimes gruff. Touching and charming, even [especially!] all the awkward parts. Sometimes baffling, yes. Very rarely intense, but the calm self-assurance palpable in each makes up for it. Then again, mind you, not every story is a success: Although the stories are generally earnest [earnest enough for the most awkward communicators this book would inevitably affect most], so many opportunities for lyricism are missed. Stories of two sentences that are supposed to encapsulate a lifetime of scenes and intentions more than ever rely heavily on those handful of words: And so why not make the reader breathless in the process? Why not take a risk once in a while and let the reader come away with an utterance he could pin to his lapel?

Still. Blatnik’s short short fictions’ greatest asset—in an evolution of the form that lends itself to inside jokes and wordplay and too-cutesy semantic riddles [I am looking at you, Lydia Davis]—is their insistence on focusing on the ordinary, the near-mundane: the little battles of our contemporary time. It draws on common experiences—quiet or violent, resigned or just plain kitschy-under-the-stars-frames. It comforts the most awkward among us, those who struggle to say, Yes, that was a lovely evening, and consoles the verbose at a rare loss for words.

PS – I’ve posted one other Blatnik story, “Marks,” which begins, All my lovers give me bookmarks. Also, Google Books has a truncated version this way. Enjoy!

Short Story Month 2011

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Fiction - Short Stories, Short Story Month 2011

A Public Service Announcement. Sort of. This is my third year celebrating [yes, celebrating] Short Story Month, organized by Dan Wickett of Emerging Writers Network. I am as excited as ever, not to mention eager to put some long-currently-reading books to rest. [A majority of the short story collections to be featured this May have been percolating and chilling out at my nightstand (read: the floor beside the bed) for quite some time now: Me, taking care to read at least one story a day. It’s all mostly been leading to May.]

A little apprehensive, too: I’ve always said that I loved short stories best—still do, yes, but I’ve come to realize that generally, short stories don’t always come as generously [in letting itself go] as novels do. I’ve noticed that I’m more attuned to the short form, more critical, more trained-by-college-and-workshops to really kick back and relax. That’s not really a bad thing—but one does have to take a chill pill sometimes. Wish me luck. We shall see where this goes.

For this year, owing to my heightened wariness in making any of this blog work-like, I wouldn’t be forcing myself to read just short fiction, if I have a hankering for novels or any other medium. Yes, there will be more coverage of the short story in the next couple of weeks, but I, for one, expect some book about, say, mandrakes creeping into the roster.

Everyone is, of course, welcome to join. Obviously, I’ve taken liberties: Just, ya know. Pick up a short story, if you are so inclined.