“The Honest Island” by Greg Jackson revolves around, and functions off of, the idea that the protagonist, Craint, finds himself on an island, but he can’t remember how he got there, or why he is there, or pretty much anything else. It’s a good type of mystery to start a story off with. In case you don’t know, “craint” also happens to be the French word for “fear.” (Yup, it’s that type of story.)
Craint goes about his business on this small island. Generally, staying at his small B & B, going to the beach, napping, drinking beer at sunset, and contemplating why he can’t remember anything. Yet this doesn’t bother him too much. Though he can’t speak the local language, he has found ways to get by, and even has met a woman whom he occasionally dines with, but nothing much happens with her. Craint can see across the harbor, where a city looms, so he knows he’s not completely cut off from the world, but at the same time, he cannot seem to find the ferry to take him off the island. Then along comes a new person, a man named Budger, who also is confused as to why he is there, and persuades Craint to show him around the island. FYI: “budger” is an English word from the early 1600, which means a person who stirs or budges. (See, that type of story.)
It’s not a bad story, it’s okay, but at certain moments, it can be heavy handed. (Have I mentioned the character’s names?) What works for the story is how the mystery of the piece, the tone, and setting, work very well together. It feels solid, but also like shifting sand under your feet. Jackson didn’t over play that hand, which kept the story compelling and engaging. Where the story lost steam, was the rush to the conclusion. What came before in the story took it’s time, but the ending felt like it was trying to beat the clock and get to the finish line. For that reason, what the conclusion was didn’t feel complete, and in a strange way, predictable.
How does the phrase go; “The unexamined life is not worth living.” At least, that’s the philosophical dictum that has been credited to Socrates. Some days, I think that is the job of a writer; to examine life and make it worth living. That was the mind space I was put in when I finished reading “From the Wilderness” by Yukio Mishima.
Here’s my overly simplified synopsis: A mental unbalanced youth breaks into the home of the author, which causes the author to contemplate life and loneliness.
Couple of things here. I appreciated the structure of this piece. The first part was from the author’s point of view of the incident. Then the second part was an overall description of the entire incident, showing how the other people in the home reacted. Then the final part was the author contemplating the event, trying to make sense out of it. In this structure, the narrative of the event goes from very narrow, to expanding to a wider view of the many people in the home, and finally taking in the world of the intruder, and the larger world in general. In this way, the narrator goes through a progression of expansions, which leads to the author having a new understanding of the world he lives in, and creating a feeling that a journey has commenced.
But what I enjoyed most was that this was a story that took its time. Mishima was patient with his storytelling, letting the ideas of loneliness evolve and develop, which had a natural and authentic feeling to it. I know this is a work of fiction, but with the narrator also having the same name as the author, it creates a conundrum of how much of this is fiction, or reality? Sure, it’s a device, but played well here as it lends itself to give a legitimacy to the thoughts and conclusions.
They don’t make stories like this anymore. Short fiction that enjoys language (Bonus points to this translation,) playing with language, and isn’t afraid to take time, but not waste our time. Maybe this wasn’t the most profound story I have read recently, but Yukio Mishima reminded me that life is meant to be examined.
(The short story “Hi Daddy” by Matthew Klam appeared in the October 14th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)
Photograph by Ryan Lowry for The New Yorker
As I get older, I have this dualistic thought in my head when I think of my parents; How much I am like them, and how much I am not like them. This dualism can cause great joy, and unbelievable anxiety in me. I also know as a middle-aged man, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. With Matthew Klam’s story “Hi Daddy,” a well-intended but uneven work, he attempts to address these issues.
Here’s my way to simple synopsis: Middle aged man says goodbye to his teenage daughter as she goes off to Europe for the summer before she starts college, and then he visits his elderly parents, realizing that he is more like his father than he wants to admit.
Emotionally, I dug this story, and identified strongly with the narrator. There was an honesty in the narrator, that sometimes got very close to self-pity and whining, but Klam was able to pull it back in time. The narrator, in his family, has the role of primary care giver, as his wife has the job that earns the majority of their living. This role has left the narrator feeling taken for granted and left out, though his wife does point out that he is the cause of this situation, as he can be emotionally unavailable, especially to their daughter. Part of his issue stems from having trouble dealing with his daughter leaving home, and the changes that it will bring. When he visits his parents, his father has fallen and has dementia. The dementia means the father no longer recognizes the son, and the fall means that the once stoic and distant father has become feeble and dependent. Again, the theme of change, and the act of dealing with change, gives the story a weight here, and the narrator’s inability to know how to deal with these situations and emotions has a melancholic honesty to it.
Yet, I had issues with this story, and they were all technical storytelling issues. When I finished the piece, I was left feeling unsatisfied, and that was due to none of the story threads felt wrapped up. Many emotional tangents are cast about in this story, but they don’t come back or lead to a resolution. The narrator says that he doesn’t like his parents, but the issues are with his father, so why is the mother put in the same bucket with the father? When the narrator realizes that he is becoming like his father, will that influence future actions of the narrator?
That last one was the kicker for me, for that was the driver for the unsatisfying feeling the story created in me.
If this is a normal “Hero’s Journey” story, then the narrator’s realization that he is like his father would then influence an action in the climax of the story, therefore allowing the hero to defeat the obstacle and view the world in a different way. The best that I can tell, the hero’s obstacle is himself, the climax has to do with the horse getting free (horse also metaphor for father/son,) yet the narrator’s actions in dealing with the horse are not influenced by his realization. If this is a normal “Rising Action, Climax, Resolution” story, then I’m not sure what to make out of the last two sections as a resolution; the thoughts the narrator has about his daughter’s choice in boyfriends and her actions towards them, and final section which is a “Dead Chick in the Basket*” cliché. That left me to believe that this whole exercise was just a meditation on the narrator dealing with a rough two days, and the narrator is the same person at the start of the story as he is at the end of the story. And if that is true, the narrator doesn’t change, then why are we being told this story?
I will say this, “Hi Daddy” has some very fine points, and some crisp, honesty imagery and writing. Matthew Klam is writing about a character who is flawed, which is just ripe for storytelling. And it almost gets there. He just didn’t stick the landing.
* “Dead Chick in the Basket” refers to a writing device where the final paragraph of a short story contains new information about a character which is meant to make the reader view the actions, statements, or feelings of that character in a different light. The first known use of this device was in J.D. Salinger’s short story “Just Before the War with the Eskimos.”
If you have read any of my reviews, then you know that I am a sucker for a story about death, especially if it’s a story dealing with the death of a parent. “Consolation” by Andre Alexis is such a story, as it deals with the death of both the narrator’s parents, but it is also about how parents’ shame can affect their children, can affect a marriage, and can affect the community they live in.
The piece begins with the narrator telling how he got in an argument with his elderly mother over driving directions, and the narrator was so hurt but his mother’s anger, that he didn’t speak to her for two years. Only when they reconciled, did the narrator learn that his mother had dementia, and most likely the fight was a precursor of her disease. This leads the narrator to recount the death of his father, which happened a decade earlier, and though we feel that the son loves his father, we also learn that the father was a serial philanderer, thrice divorced, and despised by the narrator’s mother for the infidelity. Then the narrator tells us the story of his father, who was born in poverty in Trinidad, worked his way up and out by becoming a doctor, and then married the woman who would become the narrator’s mother. Together, they started a family, and moved to Canada, to a small all white town, where the father dealt with the indignity of the town’s prejudice, to become a respected member of the community. It is also the place where the father’s infidelities began to be noticed, and affect the family.
This is a well thought out, and written, short story. The characters are compelling. The family dynamic is honest, complicated, and uncomfortable. It’s paced well, has a very unique climax, and I just didn’t like this story when everything is telling me that I should. I have been thinking about, and thinking about it, and I should like this, but something just feels off to me. And today, it came to me; it’s passion. Which is even more striking as there is a paragraph in this story that is about passion – between the father and another woman, and the son realizing that this moment of discovering this passion lead him to his career as a lawyer. That this is a story about passions, between lovers, between family members, how they can spark trust and betrayals. Yet, I found the narration less than passionate, which I can only say was done on purpose. This passionless narration juxtaposed with these lives driven by different forms of passion which elicit reactions of shame, desire, and anger. I go back to the start of the story and the narrator describing the argument he had with his mother. The way it is described is almost clinical, factual, without any hint of what the narrator was feeling. It is an event that is only described and not felt. I get the decision to write this story in this way, to make the point that is needed for it to have its conclusion. This artistic choice left me feeling divorced from the emotions of these characters, which explains why I couldn’t connect with the story.
I will fully admit that I am the odd man out here. I can totally understand why people will love this story, and be dumbfounded by my inability to relate to this piece. Yes, it’s me, and it is not Andre Alexis. You should read this story, enjoy it greatly, and then shake your head at me for not getting this story.
For the life of me, I don’t remember who or what recommended First Love to me. It was on a list of books that I should read, and when I found a copy of it at the Strand, I picked it up without a second thought, nor having any idea what I was about to get myself into. To be honest, I appreciate the joy and excitement that comes from reading a book that I know nothing about, by an author I also know nothing about, because it does afford me the ability to truly experience a work without any preconceived notions. In this situation, I didn’t even read the description on the back of the book.
First Love isn’t about the “happy” side of love. It’s not about the joy, fulfillment, or really any of the positive side of love. Oh, now and then, that side of love does show up, but on the whole, that’s not what this novel wants to explore. For the protagonist Neve, she shares with us all of people that she first experienced a form of “love” with; her mother, her father, a boyfriend, and her husband. Each relationship is troubled, difficult, in some cases even toxic, and they all overlap on each other, influencing each relationship from actions that happened in the past, and fears of what might happen in the future. For this reason, it is not a traditional novel, and time and events shift – nothing is linear here, but it adds greatly to the theme of these loves bumping and conflicting with each other.
I found myself thinking about the works of Rachel Cusk and Maggie Nelson as I read this book. Riley’s novel tackles a serious subject, but the narrative never becomes weighed down, as it feels like a conversation. As such, this book was akin to the Outline Trilogy, and the examination in Bluets. It felt very internal, that we were being let in to very personal thoughts and exanimations. I will say that though First Love is a new form novel, like Outline, Riley did have a more traditional climax here, which gave the novel a satisfying conclusion.
When I read a book like First Love, I am rather envious of writers like Gwendoline Riley, who create drama and self-examining characters, while never making their stories so personal that it becomes dull of whiney. It’s a bit of a magic trick, that is fun to experience. Thank you, to what, or whomever put this book on my reading list.
