willful creatures
i hope you gave aimee bender’s collection of short stories a shot. after wincing my way through the first couple of stories, i wasn’t so sure: but i hung in there and ran into some gems tucked away toward the back of the book. here’s our guest host kate’s take on things…
Now I know that Aimee Bender isn’t for everyone. I know she can be weird and perhaps too abstract, like a modern painting come alive and reaching out of its nice, neat frame. Some of them are downright scary, and some of them are beautiful, most are a bit of both.
Bender’s stories remind me of fairy tales, stories about the things man of Olde was supposed to fear (deep, dark forest and wolves) and the things he desired (a house made of candy or a goose that laid golden eggs). And so it is with Bender, who tells wild stories that encompass the things modern man fears (death in the story “Death Watch,” childlessness or infertility in “Dearth,” or that we’re oblivious to hope and accidentally break it as in “Fruit and Words.”)
But the tales also speak to the modern wants, which go far beyond finding food or riches. We crave love, understanding, mangoes, companionship, freedom. We crave complicated things, things we sometimes don’t want once we have them. Sometimes we crave things we know we shouldn’t or do things we know are cruel. Therefore this fairytale land is anything but simple and happy endings are rare, happy endings would tie things up too neatly.
My favorites of the bunch are:
- Death Watch: “One can’t account for murder and accidents, says another doctor in his bright white coat.”
- Fruit and Words: “I thought of her in her desert studio, hands dusty, apron splattered, sweat pouring, hammering down the final O in RADIO. She was making the world simple. She was making the world steady somehow.”
- The Meeting: “You find yourself, at the base of her spine, different.”
And there are those that disturb me, especially “Off” and “I Will Pick Out Your Ribs.” And then “Job’s Jobs” crushes something inside me. But on the whole, I get a feeling of playfulness from Bender’s stories, as if she’s pushing the boundaries of the known universe. There’s that childlike play, and at the same time a permanent and precocious melancholy at the things that can never be pushed or changed.
I know Aimee Bender isn’t for everyone, which is partially why I chose it, to stimulate some discussion perhaps? Or perhaps it’s too wild and radical for others to see it in the light I do?
Kate Jonuska is a writer and avid reader who lives in Colorado Springs. Kate collects book reviews and clips over at www.katejonuska.com.
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Again, a book I didn’t actually finish. It seems like the author has a fetish with sex. Every short story had sex in it somewhere (okay, the ones that I read, anyway). I don’t realy think I’m a prude, but come on, every story…even when they’re short stories and when sex isn’t an integral part of the story? The only one of the short stories I could kind of understand (since these are all filled with symbolism) was Jinx. I could relate to how quickly a friendship could fall apart, especially in junior high or high school. Seems like often times it’s one small thing that happens and a friendship is ruined. I didn’t like this book. I didn’t understand much of her symbolism. I think I’m a straight-forward reader/writer.
However, Kate, when I read your comments I remembered other things that I did actually like in this book, like the fruit and words, but I thought the old lady at the fruit stand was kind of odd.
Overall, not a book I liked, but kind of like Napoleon Dynamite…maybe it would grow on me if I read it again. And I can kind of pick out certain parts of the book and look back on them with a smile
i think this last sentence from “end of the line” really sums up my feelings for this collection: “[she] could not understand the size of the pity that kept unbuckling in her heart.”
honestly, the stories from part I terrified me in ways that i can’t even articulate. i could only read them one page at a time over days and days. that poor little man in the cage! ack! and the debbies. ooo. those debbies. i could hardly even realize out loud that bender’s writing is genius because i was so traumatized by her subject matter. i shudder to even recall how achingly real and horrific her descriptions were.
however, once i hit “fruit and words,” i made up with aimee bender. i understand the need for mangoes. the accidental way you can shatter hope: hope you can’t even see. the way someone throws blood at your windows and all you can think about is getting away.
and then the potato children in “dearth.” “holding their potato hands up, they let the rain pour down their potato arms, their potato knees and legs, and the woman breathed in the smell of them, over and over, as deeply as she could.” the way this woman loves her potato children. then the way she eats one and buries the rest, only to dig them up again and see her grandmother “greeting her grandchildren, gathering them in her arms, and covering their wide faces with kisses.”
so, i’m wondering, the stories i hated: did i hate them because i knew them? because i have been inside those stories? or did i hate them because i don’t want to believe that such stories exist?
and the stories i loved. did i love them because they spoke to my sense of hope? or did i love them because i could find myself inside them and i wasn’t afraid? or did i love them simply because they weren’t as horrible (for whatever reason) as the ones i hated?
[yeah. and. well. sorry to get all existential.]
and rebecca, i meant to comment on your comment about the ubiquity of sex through the stories. i don’t think sex is so important as the fact that bender is playing on base human urges: lust, power, etc.
it’s interesting, too, to see how these “uglier” aspects of humanity rub up against the themes she highlights in some of her other stories: the fragility of hope, the need to be a mother, to be understood, to be saved.
I feel like a jerk because I actually read the book way back in the middle of March and then forgot to comment on it on the 31st. And the 1st. And the 2nd. Sigh.
It’s tricky for me to find a cohesive comment, because I didn’t read many of the stories all the way through. The one that I did read completely was about the dying men (sorry I can’t remember the title). I found myself identifying with the man who was completely healthy but thought he was dying. His limited-time-only view of life made everything so much sweeter because he was ready for the love and pity of people in a short amount of time. I often find myself with my overactive imagination thinking of all the horrible things that can happen to me (maybe that crane will fall on my head. maybe that car will break my legs. maybe i’ll be diagnosed with a brain tumor) and almost romanticising it all. I happily think of who will be shocked and who will cry and what people will say at my funeral. Of course, it only works in the imagination. Once that crappy thing actually happens to you, or once you realize that you really are going to live, nothing much is exciting anymore. Reality is just there to kick you in the pants and you still have to deal with it. For many, many years. (Man, I’m getting fatalistic here, sorry.)
But I think that strange edge between that glorified imagination of horrificness and the brunt of reality is something that Aimee Bender is intrigued with. And rightly so.
i’m always imagining myself smashed into one of those concrete pylons along the road. and you, KT, bemoan my loss in a beautiful and poetic way.