Hello Gentle Reader
“The Short Story Review,” a review of six stories from six different collections, from six different authors from all over the world, at first started off shaky, then it had matured, and now it is declining. There is a phrase that people will always say when they discuss their failed dreams, or their failure in life, or their failure to obtain a goal – “life happens.” Such is the case with “The Short Story Review.” My work schedule has increased, and allowed a little less time for reading, of both novels and short stories, at the same rate. However the stories being read currently will continue to be being read, though after the collection is done, it will not be replaced. Short story collections will be reviewed on the blog as a whole, but one story from one collection of six different authors from different walks of life, and being individually reviewed amongst another’s work will not be reviewed. The collections will be read and reviewed as a unified whole. As we approach the last stories of “Little Misunderstanding of No Importance,” and “Waves,” they will not be replaced. They will fall out of circulation. The other works from that point on will also either follow in that suit or it will be reviewed as a unified whole. Short stories are a great art form. They are small and brief. They allow for fleeting moments of feeling. Some of the greatest writers of all time have made their reputation on short stories. One of the greatest classic Russian writers alongside Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy is Anton Chekhov, who excelled and specialized in short stories. Another great contemporary author who was even on “The Short Story Review,” with her collection “Too Much Happiness,” and is coming out with another collection in the Autumn titled “Dear Life,” and is the only author to have had the exception made to have had her collection “The Beggar Maid,” allowed on the Booker Prize Shortlist; and just happens to be her only nomination for the prize. However she did win the Man Booker International Prize, in two thousand and nine. It is the one and only author Alice Munro. Cynthia Ozick had loving called her “our Chekhov.” Other great writers throughout history have excelled in the short story form. Yasunari Kawabata one of my favourite authors had shown how the shortest form of a story can have the same amount of emotional impact of a novel on the reader. His novel’s also take the appearance as his career matured and continued to develop further into ‘palm-of-the hand stories,’ only connected to each like a string of pearls. With his stories Yasunari Kawabata was able to pin point the emotion; the scene; the character; the image; the theme and then together paint a minimalist painting of startling realization. At times the distinction between prose and poetry with Kawabata’s work would cloud and swirl together like ink in water. Some of the greatest works of fiction are the short story. Their ability to be read quickly and digested easily makes them perfect, for short periods of reading. Like waiting for the bus on a crisp autumn morning. Or a winter evening warm and cozy waiting for the company to come and join you for the festivities. Perhaps a spring afternoon when the ground is soft to walk upon, the grasp a little crunchy and the tree’s beginning to bud, the smell of fresh dirt, and fresh air while walking to work. Maybe just one of those lazy summer days, when one just want to read something and mull it over. Short stories are not the novels poor cousin. Short stories have and maintain their own merit on their own. When Naguib Mahfouz was attacked and damaged, he did not give up writing. He continued to write, though the damage to the nerves in his right hand had been permanent and he could only write for short periods of time. However in those short periods of time he crafted his work on the most essential level. In the end he created some amazing compressed poetic vignettes. With it Naguib Mahfouz wrote about his dreams. With it he wrote about the ethereal pieces of life, like looking at ones reflection on the glittering Nile River. The people who had come and gone in his life. People who brought joy and others who brought ennui with them like a pestilent disease. Even Charles Baudelaire, a poet primarily; wrote some poetic prose titled “Paris Spleen,” where discussed the philosophical workings of his life, and what he saw of life around him. In it he chose the poetic mechanics with the longer bits of prose, creating hybrid prose poems. In the nineteen eighties, Raymond Carver, Amy Temple, Anne Beatie had continued the tradition of the stories in what was called an American renaissance. They wrote about the poor and the working class. Something Charles Buckowski the Dirty Old Man of American letters had started years earlier with his own work and his attempts at poetry and finished with his novels and short stories, and newspaper columns. The short story is by far, a long ways away from the novels poor relative. Maybe not as popular but it can stand on its own two feet, and it can stand on its own merit as well.
Ignacio Padilla is one of Mexico famous contemporary authors. Though not as famous as his contemporary Roberto Bolano who in the beginning of the twenty first century started a stir of a literary must have, with students and anyone who read literature that was worthwhile; much like Stieg Larsson had done as well, with his ‘Millennium Trilogy.’ After a failure at being a poet and picking up being a prose writer when he started to have a family realising early on that one could not support his family on his attempts at poetry nor could he raise children in some bohemian life. However Roberto Bolano never truly did distance himself from poetry with his work. “The Savage Detectives,” a book that I could not get into after two attempts at reading, is about a group of poets. These poets call themselves the ‘visceral realists.’
Much like the ‘visceral realists,’ of Roberto Bolano’s “The Savage Detectives,” Ignacio Padilla belonged to the Crack Movement of Mexico. Much like the Latin American Boom that had happened earlier with authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Columbia (Nobel Laureate in Literature) Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru (Nobel Laureate) and Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, where these authors wrote in a style called Magical Realism, and placed all of South America (including the Caribbean and Latin America/Central America) on the Literary Map. Now their predecessors look back at the grand masters and see them as what they are: out dated, in a new world, where the political map and the world has increasingly changed. A new movement was formed called McOndo, which celebrated the high and the low of the culture. It wrote about the urbanite, of these countries. It wrote about the drugs, violence, the very existence of day to day life of the country. It did not celebrate or glorify the rural Macondo as the other authors of previous generations had done. Instead it had celebrated the day to life, as a place of uncertainties, and of unique individuals. Of high technology and an invasion of their life and culture. Where taco bell, and McDonalds were common place on the streets, as well as corrupt police officers, drug peddlers, and a corpse possibly lying around the corner in the dumpster.
However the Crack Generation is still slightly different, in its own right. They applaud the masters of the Latin American Boom, but rather than write about the countries they live in now, they wish to escape them. They want to run. It is like growing up in a small town, and thinking of the bright lights of the city. The different coloured tubes of the fluorescent bulbs of the clubs. The drinks, the night life, the day life – the very world stops and every day is as exciting as the next, not necessarily falling into the same routine and morally back water and common place small town where nothing happens – as is supposed. It is in these respects that the authors of this new generation of writers wish to run away from their countries. They recognize and respect and are grateful for what the authors before them have; but they want to carve out their own identity. They say thank-you for putting us on the map. Now let us make new roads in that map, and prove to the world we are not just some, one trick pony. However the old masters do not look down on this. Carlos Fuentes has even praised the Crack Generation and McOndo, as the ‘junior boom.’ While others criticize the movement as not being true to their roots or to their countries and states. It is in this case that the authors of these new movements are fighting against the imitations of Magical Realism that their successors have written about. They are fighting against authors like Isabel Allende who have turned Magical Realism and Literature into simply a formula. With the perversion of the Latin American boom these authors are taking Literature into a new direction.
The stories of Ignacio Padilla are complex and elegantly written. They are short as a story should be, but allow for enough depth into the work itself to be appreciated. I would not say these stories are gold though. They have a lot of glitter to them, and a lot of weight and they are great introductions to the author but they at times felt like I was reading a postmodern version of Robertson Crusoe. The one that should be noted here is that these stories don’t really have characters. Yes there are people, that populate these stories, but they are shadows of the characters. Reduced to out focused shapes, who have long since forgotten and then found all of a sudden. Kind of like reading about a historical figure in a book. One truly does not grasp the weight of Franz Ferdinand’s character from a history text book. One could compare Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophies of Absurdism and Existentialism, but they have no real grasp of the two men themselves. They have only grasped the thoughts of the men, and their ideas. This is the main problem of “Antipodes,” by Ignacio Padilla; the human story is placed aside. Yes they sound intriguing: a Scottish engineer imagines rebuilding the city of Edinburgh in the middle of the Gobi Desert, a medical scientist finds a plague journal in the Amazon jungle (with deadly results), a cross-dresser dying of tuberculosis tries to scale Mount Everest or a British colonel in charge of the railway in Rhodesia is determined to get the trains running on schedule. If he fails, he'll shoot himself in the smoking room of the Hotel Prince Albert. But the human story is sat in the backseat for a philosophical debate and thoughts on the human races very small part in the world and the universe. How nature’s great power can destroy everyone. How the local natives can tear an individual limb by limb. No one’s immunity to disease. Not one person immortal to the fact of death. It is this that hinders Ignacio Padilla considerably but also it is his greatest strength. Insightful and philosophical at times, as well as increasingly tedious led to it becoming quite a fault at times. In the end they were more glitter then gold, because they missed the human aspect. However they were also interesting pieces of fiction as well. Well-crafted and well written. A worthy introduction. It was also a nice change of scenery from Latin America.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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M. Mary
