|
Pif Magazine
Pif Magazine |
At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom
It's almost too easy to start out this review with a metaphor based on a line from a story in this book. Never mind that it's a line from the best story in here ("The Harvest") and that it seems ample: "I leave a lot out when I tell the truth." This seems too easy a start, and it doesn't feel all that original. I'd only be repeating an idea some other reviewer must have come up with, an idea that probably seemed cute at the time, and since I find most review writing stale and tedious, I'd prefer to take a different route. So let's go with a reaction that feels more individuated: I read this book four times before I could even hope to talk about it, half of those readings accomplished in one train ride from Philadelphia to New York City (not all that long an expanse, so you can imagine my intensity, for I am not that quick a reader). Aside from the aforementioned quotation that I had hoped not to aforemention, I doubt I could successfully pull out many more lines from this collection of stories and have them sing out of context the way they do in the deep fray of reading. Hempel's work thrives inside its context. Sentences and words and ideas and syllables build upon each other—such as in a scene where slicing mosquito bites becomes exquisite foreplay—creating moments of synergy between reader and text that mere description or analysis can not hope to recapture. Perhaps my personal reactions to this work stem from my recognition that reading Hempel makes me mindful of my own aesthetics as an artist—makes me put my own demands as a reader to the fore. This is very active, very front-brain reading, tinged with exquisite, visceral pleasure-oddities, base humor, and deep sadness. This book is like eating fresh-water eel: soft and palatable, firing neurons that make you feel squishy and a little too wrapped up in the moment. Give me a moment, and it is easy for me to jump up on any self-made lectern and spout about the need to set alight the all-too-high refuse pile of stale creativity in the world. "Elephant dung on the Virgin Mary! Huzzah!" If a "masterpiece" does not provoke an immediate gut reaction, if we can only look at it with intellectual distance, then make a place mat out of it and let it do something for us finally. But Hempel's work draws me from my lectern, as I ride on a train, somewhere in the hinterlands of the Trenton, New Jersey area. I want to pull on people's sleeves and read lines aloud. The sheer relevance of Hempel's fiction had me sitting back and waiting for things to unfold. I was content to be patient, certain each story would fulfill my needs. Any work of art that so reaches the reader in the present deserves to remain available in the present. Discovering that this book was out of print only put me on another lectern—this one facing the printing press—so I could demand of it some conscience. Reading is a lonely enough pastime without being limited by the publisher's failure to keep a fine book in print. "Spread the gospel" my artistic imp demands! Choice moments from the Book of Hempel? Consider:
Amy Hempel perhaps shows what is best about this style people want to call minimalism. She leaves much out, but only through such restraint is she able to tell the truth. Her characters perform in a theater of great pathos. Hempel has enough compassion for them to let them insult us, aggravate us or weep for us (or us them). And in every case, they have something very directly to do with us—and not in any sentimental way. We may want to deny a connection, but I think we'll consistently fail, and if we don't fail, we'll be cheating ourselves out of a damn good read. Tell us what you think. Email talkback@pifmagazine.com Want Pif to review your book? Richard Weems teaches in Philadelphia and eats a lot of Thai food nowadays. The tattoo count is up to five. He will be teaching fiction once again at the Cape May Poetry & Prose Getaway this January. |
|||||||||
