“If you’re suicidal and you don’t actually kill yourself, you become known as ‘wry.’ ”

That about sums up Lorrie Moore's new story collection, Bark.  Funny, dark, insightful, troubling. The stories are varied and satisfyingly focused, yet I did come away with a sense of Moore as a sharp observer with a cynical yet empathetic eye.  These are traditional stories (nothing Saunderesque here), bleak and contemporary in spirit. I look forward to her next novel.

For me, on to Goldfinch.  I've packed supplies for the long trek. Hoping for the best.

Last Respects

Let’s pay our respects to the omniscient narrator, that rickety old piece of claptrap machinery that served the likes of Fielding, Dickens, and Trollope. Our skeptical twentieth century saw that all-powerful narrator replaced by that of a single character in the drama, one whose point of view was individual and specific, but who could for the most part be trusted.  Then we moved on to the possibly untrustworthy narrator, to multiple narrators, and then on to the blatantly limited or even mentally ill narrator. There can be no viewpoint other than that of an individual, and any individual is deeply flawed.  Snapshots in consciousness, views into the mind of another, glimpses into the void.  These developments reflect an acceptance of the fundamental relativity of all viewpoints.  No single vantage point has any qualitative advantage over another. We’re all good.  We all suck.

Now we have authors whose works are devoted to the point of view of the obviously limited: Rivka Galchen, Mark Haddon, Rief Larson.  These and many others have written fiction that depicts a wrong-end-of-the-binoculars viewpoint that can be fascinating, might instruct us, and can encourage us to deepen our mistrust of our own limited powers of perception and analysis.  Very cynical, verging on the bitter.  Jenny Offill continues that trend with Dept. of Speculation, a short novel that portrays a marriage from the point of view of "the wife", a young, intelligent, and disturbed female writer.  The character is funny, witty, unhappy, pitiful, and perhaps unsalvageable.  She sees what she wants to see.  She manages to make the worst of just about any situation. She gradually descends into a terrifying personal hell far from her early aspirations:

“How has she become one of those people who wears yoga pants all day? She used to make fun of those people. With their happiness maps and their gratitude journals and their bags made out of recycled tire treads. But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.”

And then there’s the literary form.  Offill follows the lead of Jennifer Egan in her short story Black Box (The New Yorker, 2012). Egan’s story is told as series of tweet-like paragraphs. The NewYorker published it in traditional hard copy, but also put it out as a series of tweets. Offill’s main character narrates in much the same way: a series of short self-contained paragraphs, seemingly random thoughts or diary entries direct from the therapist’s couch. Is that the point? Are readers now therapists for these disturbed characters?  Instead of the author presenting characters and situations with an explicitly "objective" point of view, perhaps the reader is supposed to connect the dots and supply a diagnosis from the random thoughts and expressions brought forth by the narrator? We don’t read someone else’s interpretation of a series of incidents, rather we witness those incidents not through a character’s eyes, but through their mind’s deeply flawed memory.  We get heavily edited and biased reports, and it’s up to us to piece together whatever truth we can find.  Or maybe there is no truth, there is just experience, and the most we can hope for is to bear witness to another’s experience?

This novel is short, easy to read, insightful, and ultimately coherent. It's definitely worth your time and effort.  It will make you think, and more importantly you will feel. Yet I for one miss the omniscient narrator, the one that invited us to gather round and listen to his story, who lent his special voice and tone, who offered his comments on the action, who teased us into coming back for the next installment, who didn’t hesitate to chide us when we exhibited bad behavior like that of his characters or praise us for holding to our better instincts, and who thanked us for our loyalty and attention over the long haul.  He still makes an appearance here and there, but in progressive circles he has pretty much vanished, or at least now hides furtively in the prompter’s box. Perhaps we should put the bearded old chap into the ground and shovel some dirt into the grave. The objective storyteller is dead.  Long live the objective storyteller.

This, That, The Other

Fiction that straddles conventional boundaries is often very interesting, but can also disappoint because it’s neither this nor that.  When it succeeds we know that it stands on its own two feet, but it’s also a little of this and a little of that and a bit of the other.  Francesa Marciano’s story collection The Other Language does indeed straddle, but thankfully it does so gracefully and rewards us with a satisfying and gracious reading experience. We get to interact with a broad range of settings, characters, and situations.  We can sample, savor, and move on.  Each story seems that it could be expanded into a full-length novel.  But that’s what a good short story feels like.  It’s a self-contained and satisfying world unto itself, and who can blame the reader for wanting more? That tapas plate was terrific.  I wonder if they offer that as a main?

These stories take place in locations (some exotic) around the world, and the sense of place in each of them is very strong.  Just as in most of Paul Theroux’s fiction, the place is maybe the most important character.  We get a sense of geography and a stronger sense of culture.  We humans have built peculiar social structures that drastically differ from place to place. And when those structures are juxtaposed (usually by a person from one place visiting or moving to another) the contrasts can be fascinating. And those moves afford Marciano's characters the opportunity to forge a new start, or even a new identity.  That contrast among past, present, and future is important in all of the stories.  Marciano is especially strong in delineating the fine lines of difference and of commonality.  These stories are part travelogues, part character studies, part cultural portraits.

Outwardly very traditional.  No meta-gimmicks here, no preoccupation with self, no experimental structures, no characters in extremis. The language is pleasing if not gorgeous. Just well-told stories that reveal insights into the human condition of the ordinary individual and his cultural context.  The small details are well chosen and telling, even if the writing doesn’t push the boundaries into new territory.  This is a bit old-fashioned, but that’s fine with me.

And the exotic locales and diverse cultural viewpoints makes the reader seem cosmopolitan, wise, a bit jaded. Been there, done that … even though of course we haven’t.  Not even remotely. But we’ve been offered glimpses at people and places that do make us more aware (especially of what we don’t know, even about our own small world), maybe even a little smarter.  Or so it seems.  Well done.

Convergence

Doing IT work for a paycheck, playing the piano two to four hours a day, reading literature, playing tennis, being in a loving, committed relationship, tending to family, caring for pets, maintaining a household, going to church, cultivating friends. Lots of pieces that often don’t fit neatly together.  They all are important to me, but where are the common threads?

At least a few of them were nicely woven together for me by George Saunders Congratulations, by the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness.  This tiny book is a cleaned up version of his 2013 Syracuse commencement address. It's short and conversational, a good example of the new style of commencement addresses by famous people: low on formality, high on sincerity.  Saunders is a great fiction writer. His stories are full of imagination, complexity, and contradictions.  They challenge and puzzle us, but his commencement address is by comparison simple. How refreshing that a leader in the intellectual world reminds us about the importance of spiritual values, of kindness, of the need to combat selfishness, and of the purity and goodness that resides in each of us. It’s a message I hear regularly at church (Unity Palo Alto), but to get it from Saunders does connect a few strands for me.

In the last few years I have learned a few lessons. Making demands, even just politely asking the people around you to treat you the way you want to be treated doesn't usually get you what you want.  The only way to get it is to give it, freely and unconditionally.  No strings, no explanations, no fuss.  Doors will open, doors you perhaps have never seen or imagined.  Give your love, offer your insights and your music, give your best athletic skills and your best attitude on the tennis court, be a good friend, a good worker, be a caring partner. It really is that simple. The rest will take care of itself.