Collected Stories of...
I am really enjoying the Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore. She is so swift, sardonic and yet sensitive to the subtle nuances of daily minutiae which makes me realise how alike the worlds of poetry and short fiction can be. The texts are deadpan and sometimes don't seem to end with any kind of closure (but one must remember the dictum 'begin strongly, step off lightly', again equally applicable to poetry and short prose - these days who wants things ending with a fabricated flourish?) . However they seem to capture glimpses, symbolic instances of the fundamental insecurities and simple emotional needs of our human lives.
Interesting just how much insight she has into various sorts of nothingness. For instance, towards the end of 'Which is more than I can say about some people' (one of my favourite stories so far), the depressed and divorcing Abby realises that the absence of ritual - such as any proper celebration of her marriage - may itself be both symptom and symbol of her fragmenting life:
'It wasn't that such ceremonies were important in and of themselves. They were nothing. They were zeros. But they were zeros as placeholders; they held numbers and equations intact. And once you underwent them, you could move on, know the empty power of their blessing and not spend time missing them.'
Ceremonies as a symbolic zero - outside the practical narratives of numbers; a necessary nothingness.
And then there is a wry look at the life of academia: in 'Beautiful Grade' rather sad older lecturer Bill contemplates his career thus:
'it intrigues Bill to belong to academe, with its international hodgepodge and asexual attire, a place where to think and speak as if one has lived is always preferable to the alternatives. Such a value cuts down on regrets...'
Ouch! Now I'm not so sure of the veracity of this (isn't it rather old school, this idea of daffy old dons out of touch with the real world, as though they were as bad as dinosaurs on the judging circuit who have never even heard of the term 'popular culture'?) but nevertheless do wonder if there's some sort of irritating truth-grain in there. Academics as irrelevant shams, eschewing the risks and rewards of a life in the real world. Do we also, however, still think that one has to be apart from the world in order to gain a certain detachment and objectivity, to see the whole picture and draw threads together, creating a view of the whole tapestry?
Well that used to be one of the arguments in favour of a celibate priesthood offering marriage and family advice - from the detached serenity of one's own nothingness, one could listen compassionately but also dispassionately to the problems of others. I'm not sure sure it wears that well though. And, as often seems to be the case, writing; creative writing, is outside the academic mould to a large degree, as it involves practice and contribution to the actual creation of text as well as the study of it - for both teacher and student. It wouldn't be good enough to think and speak only 'as if' one had written. Would it?
Nevertheless, and returning to this idea of different vacancies and nothingnesses (is that a word?) having a perspective of their own, 'Paper Losses' is all about the poignancy of only being able to realise something's value - someone's value perhaps - as one loses it; also, as one loses the desire for it. Precocious son Sam unconsciously comments on his mother's painful realisation of her own failed marriage.
"If dolphins tasted good," he said, "we wouldn't even know about their language." That the intelligence in a thing could undermine your appetite for it. That yumminess obscured the mind of the yummy as well as the mind of the yummer. That deliciousness resulted in decapitation. That you could understand something only if you did not desire it. How did he know such things already?
This seems rather a bleak interpretation of the value of detachment. It seems to indicate that desire necessarily involves a great deal of projection, which is better generated the more ignorant one is about the instrinsic value and quality of the desired object. Is there a more mature way to use this quality of detachment, and a deeper web of desire and connection underneath it? I think this is present in Moore's stories too. To return to the end of 'Which is more than I can say about some people' Abby finds, at last, a bond with her apparently fearless mother just at the moment that her mother's emotional vulnerabilities and physical frailties unignorably present themselves. Abby realises that: 'It was really the world that was one's brutal mother, the one that nursed and neglected you, and your own mother was only your sibling in that world.'
Here, once the expectations of traditional roles had been lifted the two human beings could meet each other. Abby lifts her glass and her previously stiff and peevish mother 'blushed, ears on fire, lifted her pint, and drank'. The fracturing of both security and convention allows for a kind of recognition and joy that is, paradoxically, brimful of genuine connection.
Interesting just how much insight she has into various sorts of nothingness. For instance, towards the end of 'Which is more than I can say about some people' (one of my favourite stories so far), the depressed and divorcing Abby realises that the absence of ritual - such as any proper celebration of her marriage - may itself be both symptom and symbol of her fragmenting life:
'It wasn't that such ceremonies were important in and of themselves. They were nothing. They were zeros. But they were zeros as placeholders; they held numbers and equations intact. And once you underwent them, you could move on, know the empty power of their blessing and not spend time missing them.'
Ceremonies as a symbolic zero - outside the practical narratives of numbers; a necessary nothingness.
And then there is a wry look at the life of academia: in 'Beautiful Grade' rather sad older lecturer Bill contemplates his career thus:
'it intrigues Bill to belong to academe, with its international hodgepodge and asexual attire, a place where to think and speak as if one has lived is always preferable to the alternatives. Such a value cuts down on regrets...'
Ouch! Now I'm not so sure of the veracity of this (isn't it rather old school, this idea of daffy old dons out of touch with the real world, as though they were as bad as dinosaurs on the judging circuit who have never even heard of the term 'popular culture'?) but nevertheless do wonder if there's some sort of irritating truth-grain in there. Academics as irrelevant shams, eschewing the risks and rewards of a life in the real world. Do we also, however, still think that one has to be apart from the world in order to gain a certain detachment and objectivity, to see the whole picture and draw threads together, creating a view of the whole tapestry?
Well that used to be one of the arguments in favour of a celibate priesthood offering marriage and family advice - from the detached serenity of one's own nothingness, one could listen compassionately but also dispassionately to the problems of others. I'm not sure sure it wears that well though. And, as often seems to be the case, writing; creative writing, is outside the academic mould to a large degree, as it involves practice and contribution to the actual creation of text as well as the study of it - for both teacher and student. It wouldn't be good enough to think and speak only 'as if' one had written. Would it?
Nevertheless, and returning to this idea of different vacancies and nothingnesses (is that a word?) having a perspective of their own, 'Paper Losses' is all about the poignancy of only being able to realise something's value - someone's value perhaps - as one loses it; also, as one loses the desire for it. Precocious son Sam unconsciously comments on his mother's painful realisation of her own failed marriage.
"If dolphins tasted good," he said, "we wouldn't even know about their language." That the intelligence in a thing could undermine your appetite for it. That yumminess obscured the mind of the yummy as well as the mind of the yummer. That deliciousness resulted in decapitation. That you could understand something only if you did not desire it. How did he know such things already?
This seems rather a bleak interpretation of the value of detachment. It seems to indicate that desire necessarily involves a great deal of projection, which is better generated the more ignorant one is about the instrinsic value and quality of the desired object. Is there a more mature way to use this quality of detachment, and a deeper web of desire and connection underneath it? I think this is present in Moore's stories too. To return to the end of 'Which is more than I can say about some people' Abby finds, at last, a bond with her apparently fearless mother just at the moment that her mother's emotional vulnerabilities and physical frailties unignorably present themselves. Abby realises that: 'It was really the world that was one's brutal mother, the one that nursed and neglected you, and your own mother was only your sibling in that world.'
Here, once the expectations of traditional roles had been lifted the two human beings could meet each other. Abby lifts her glass and her previously stiff and peevish mother 'blushed, ears on fire, lifted her pint, and drank'. The fracturing of both security and convention allows for a kind of recognition and joy that is, paradoxically, brimful of genuine connection.
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