Tag: #Reviews

  • Short Story Review: “Consolation” by Andre Alexis

    (The short story “Consolation” by Andre Alexis appeared in the May 20th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by André Derainne

    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.

  • Short Story Review: “Life with Spider” by Patrick Langley

    (The short story “Life with Spider” by Patrick Langley appeared in the February 5th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photo illustration by Hana Mendel for The New Yorker

    First of all, when I read a story that has to do with a grown man and a large insect, I can’t help but think of “The Metamorphosis” by Kafka. And I have run into more stories than I can count about men and bugs. (Kafka created a secret literary genre that no one talks about.) It’s unfair to Patrick Langley that I immediately made that comparison when I started reading “Life with Spider,” but when I finished the story, I think Langley was counting on me to do that, so he could mess with my head.

    “Life with Spider” is a story about Fletcher Hardy and his bug-like creature called Spider, even though it is not a spider. We are told off the bat that Hardy, not his real name, has given permission to the narrator to tell the story, provided that we aren’t able to figure out who the “real” Hardy is. It’s an interesting framing of the story as everything that Fletcher says and does, in essence, is told to us second hand. Several specific details are given about Hardy; who his family is, where they live, what he does, and what they do, and so on. It made me wonder if the narrator was lying to “throw me off.”

    Either way, we learn that Hardy is being visited by a six-legged insect like creature, which will not leave him alone. Hardy convinces his friend, the narrator, to help get rid of the creature. I don’t want to give away too many details, leave a few surprises, but I am sure you can surmise that Hardy and the narrator survive, as they are telling this story.

    I enjoyed this story even though it did befuddle me. I mentioned the one above about the details and if the narrator was reliable. But the big question for me about this story was, what was Spider? Did it represent something specific? Was it death? Since the two main characters were young men transitioning into adulthood, was Spider a metaphor for their transition? Possibly, Spider was a manifietation of their friendship? Was I supposed to think about Kafka? Am I thinking too hard about Kafka? And the story had a “Dead Chick in the Basket*” ending, which maybe made sense? Or maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense?

    What “Life with Spider” reminded me of was some of the more fantastical stories from The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. Both had a sense of play, humor, and the humans in the stories react with a relative sense rationalism to their extreme situations. I didn’t need “Life with Spider” to make sense or tie up all the loose ends neatly, because the enjoyment was trying to figure out a mystery that would never get completely solved.

    *  “Dead Chick in the Basket” refers to a clichéd 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.”

  • Short Story Review: “Poor Houdini” by Anne Carson

    (The short story “Poor Houdini” by Anne Carson appeared in the January 29th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Lauren Peters-Collaer

    Well, yeah!

    “Poor Houdini” by Anne Carson is the type of short story I love falling into. Why beat around the bush here; This is a fabulous story that happily reminded me how much fun it is to be engaged and enthralled by the ways a writer takes words, and language and plays with it, creating mood, atmosphere, and a lyrical mist which surrounds their story. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into with that first paragraph, but by the end I was ashamed that I wasn’t aware Anne Carson before today.

    I guess there is a through line of a story here; a female poet, romantic entanglements, a crow, the rescue of a woman from a collapsed balcony, and the writing of sonnets. Picking apart this story seems antithetical to what this story exudes; which is a sort of lived life that is filtered through a poet’s eyes, and their reactions to those events. And these events can and should be explored more, but I only have so much time.

    Because what grabbed me was the language and how it danced to life. “There is stillness after rain. Rank risings rise. Trees drip. Street lamps loom. Night takes on a polish, a pure power.” I know this feeling, this setting, and it’s as if I can touch it with my fingertips, yet it stays magically elusive. Carson weaves these words, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of melancholy, as this is a world of people looking for connections with each other, but nothing seems to land the way they want or expect. But they keep moving forward, not exactly flailing, but grasping – at least the poet does.

    I know that I am not doing the story justice, and this isn’t so much a “review”, as it is more a “gush.” I think part of my reaction to “Poor Houdini” is that it also brought up in me the memory of being young, in college, and the world was still able to be discovered, emotions could be surprisingly new, and it mattered to attempt to create something out of that jumble of life. I can’t completely put my finger on it, but it felt very close to what Anne Carson wrote.

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  • Short Story Review: “The Beach House” by Joy Williams

    (The short story “The Beach House” by Joy Williams appeared in the January 15, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (I will SPOIL this story.)

    Illustration by Mia Bergeron

    Of all the storytelling tricks that are out there, the “MacGuffin” is my favorite. If you don’t know, a MacGuffin in a story is any object, device, or person that is essential to the plot and motivation of the characters. Think of the Ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark; it’s the object everyone wants and is also what drives the plot. And the beach house in Joy Williams “The Beach House” is a MacGuffin, but the rest of the story doesn’t play along.

    So, in the story, Amber’s elderly father is near death, and he owns a beach house which he is planning on willing to a charity that save dogs. Amber finds this charity suspicious, but more importantly, if the house is not willed to her after her father’s death, she will be homeless. This is about as textbook as you can get with a plot, and motivation and the whole thing. He wants one thing, she wants another, and the stakes are high as she has a desperate need to get her hands on this beach house.

    But this story never seems to get its dramatic act together. It plods along with little urgency. Amber seems resigned to talk about her plight, but never take action. And the father, though its hinted at that he might be suffering from early dementia, doesn’t seem very interested in his daughters situation of near homelessness. I feel that there are other issues simmering under the surface between these two, but I also think I am giving the story the benefit of the doubt here. When the climax of the piece occurs, the father falls and the daughter wants to take him to the hospital, it in no way affects the plot, the motivations, or the MacGuffin. Nothing is resolved or concluded with this action – the issue of the beach house is still there.

    It’s not a badly written piece, but the aftertaste I am left with is that “The Beach House” might be the first chapter of a novel. Again, all the pieces are here for a good story, and like I also pointed out, there seems to be a subtext between the characters that could be richly explored. But, with the story in this state, Williams introduced a gun and then didn’t fire it.

  • Where Are the Movies About Gen-X in Their 40’s?

    About a week ago, I found on YouTube old episodes of Siskel & Ebert, At the Movies, and Sneak Previews; all the iterations of their show. It did make me miss watching Gene and Roger debating movies. As Patton Oswalt described, those reviews were a godsend for a kid growing up in the suburbs whose access to good cinema was a video store and their suggestions. The other bonus, other than a nostalgia flood, was being reminded of many great movies that I hadn’t seen in years, which I am now reacquainting myself with.

    Then I noticed that, starting around the late 70’s and going into the early 80’s, there were many dramas and romantic comedies which addressed Baby Boomers entering their 40’s, and the issues and complications that followed. Divorce and affairs seemed to be the Boomer’s major concern in these films, which makes sense as that generation was coming out of the Sexual Revolution which dramatically/comedically could run in conflict with the desire for a more normal and conventional family life.

    The last movie I just finished watching, The Four Seasons, Alan Alda’s directorial debut and meditation on three couples entering middle age and empty nests. Though still a good movie, and no surprise here, it is dated, but dated in the sense that it reflects the sensibilities of its time. Sure, the men dominate the film leaving the women little to do (but Carrol Burnet does steal the show in several of her scenes,) and in the end, it feels like a WASP-y fantasy of a life of leisure. I don’t want to discount that Alda does have some very honest notes with these characters; not wanting to miss out on having joy in one’s life, to have relationships that are still filled with spontaneity and passion, and what it takes to be in a relationship that continues to grow. That I could relate to.

    And then it dawned on me…

    I’m a Gen-Xer in my mid-forties; Where’s the Gen-X movie about being in your 40’s?

    Seriously? What happened? Are those movies out there, and I’ve just missed them? Or are people even making movies like that anymore? (I fully admit, that since I became a father, I totally have dropped off the Earth when it comes to movies. I haven’t seen a film in a theatre that wasn’t children themed in almost ten years, so if I am woefully ignorant, go easy on me.) It can’t fully be that film making and producing and financing has changed THAT much that no one can make a personal drama about real life issues, right?

    I find it hard to believe that no one is interested in stories like that. From my perspective, it seems like there is so much material there that could be churned up to make compelling dramatic or rom-com about X-er’s in their 40’s. I don’t think people have changed so much that they don’t want to see themselves through characters dealing with relatively similar issues.

    So, where are these movies?

    UPDATE: There was This Is 40, but it wasn’t very good, so it doesn’t count.