"Who's there?
There were several reasons at that particular time in Anna Hardie's life for her wondering what it meant, herself, to be there." - There but for the by Ali Smith
There were several reasons at that particular time in Anna Hardie's life for her wondering what it meant, herself, to be there." - There but for the by Ali Smith
Le sigh.
I did not like this book.
(One indicator of that is probably the fact that it has taken me over a year to post about it.)
(Still wasn't as blah as Tigers in Red Weather. Oy.)
I'm not averse to short stories. In fact, I've been known to write a few here and there, though I always give up before I reach anything worth noting. Perhaps that's why I find it so difficult to keep focused on short story anthologies. Now, this isn't exactly one of them, to be fair. This book is made up of four sections, each written from a particular character's point of view, with one central character and plot line woven throughout. Kind of like Amores Perros. Or Babel. But without Iñàrritu.
The story begins innocently enough with a dinner party. It quickly takes a turn when one guest Miles, locks himself in the upstairs toilet and refuses to exit. The rest of the book deals with the aforementioned four characters who are linked to Miles in some way: Anna, whose email address is found in Miles' phone and therefore is contacted by the diner hosts in the hope that she might get him out of the bathroom; Mark, a photo-researcher who invited Miles to the dinner party and has some serious mommy issues (like her-ghost-talks-to-him kind of issues); May, a woman who lives in a care home that is visited by Miles once a year; and Brooke, the daughter of two party guests who makes contact with Miles while he is in the bathroom.
I did not like this book.
(One indicator of that is probably the fact that it has taken me over a year to post about it.)
(Still wasn't as blah as Tigers in Red Weather. Oy.)
I'm not averse to short stories. In fact, I've been known to write a few here and there, though I always give up before I reach anything worth noting. Perhaps that's why I find it so difficult to keep focused on short story anthologies. Now, this isn't exactly one of them, to be fair. This book is made up of four sections, each written from a particular character's point of view, with one central character and plot line woven throughout. Kind of like Amores Perros. Or Babel. But without Iñàrritu.
The story begins innocently enough with a dinner party. It quickly takes a turn when one guest Miles, locks himself in the upstairs toilet and refuses to exit. The rest of the book deals with the aforementioned four characters who are linked to Miles in some way: Anna, whose email address is found in Miles' phone and therefore is contacted by the diner hosts in the hope that she might get him out of the bathroom; Mark, a photo-researcher who invited Miles to the dinner party and has some serious mommy issues (like her-ghost-talks-to-him kind of issues); May, a woman who lives in a care home that is visited by Miles once a year; and Brooke, the daughter of two party guests who makes contact with Miles while he is in the bathroom.
I did find a few bits I enjoyed in each of the four sections. Perhaps if each character had their own story more fully realised and we left out the main thread, I would have liked it better, in a way. I don't know. But Anna has a few musings on "stuff" that I found interesting:
"Imagine if people decided at birth never ever to throw away any of the shoes they wore over the whole course of a life, and had a special cupboard where they kept all these old shoes they'd walked about the world in. What would there be in such a shoe museum, when you opened its doors? Row upon row, perfectly preserved, the exact shapes we took at certain points in our lives? Or row upon row, rack upon rack, of nothing but old soiled leather, old stale smell?"
Wow. Imagine that. You know, as a woman with a US 11/UK 9 shoe size (shoutout to Jenn, Sarah and Emma), it can be very hard for me to find shoes, let alone get rid of them once they've done their time. And actually, I tend to remember where I've been and what I've done in each pair. My memory is very odd in that I can remember what I spent on an item and what I did on a particular day in said item, without having to check photographs. Very odd indeed. So this idea of a shoe museum kind of appeals to me. It's more tangible than photographs and I think, in a more literal sense, surely, it helps you to retrace the steps you took over the course of your life. It would be really interesting, I think, to have a look at the shoes you owned over, say, the first 25 years of your life. If we looked at mine, I can think of a few stand-out pairs... baby shoes to start, some cute little ballet slippers at age 4 or 5, followed by gold spray-painted Kids for dance when I was probably 6 or 7, epic purple velcro trainers at 7ish, sparkly jelly sandals around 8, imitation red Converse (more like clown shoes, really) at 9-10 to be cool and fit in (nope), some forgettable and practical flats for school between 12-15 (yay uniform), my first pair of heels (off-white with a road toe and a bow, from Payless) at 15 (super profesh for a receptionist gig), then a bunch of whatever from Payless until I found out about Shoedazzle and bought 6-7 pairs of superbly impractical (but gorgeous) heels. Follow that up with some Birkenstocks (yup - flat feet and proper alignment overruled) and a few more expensive, well-made shoes (not so many heels now, thanks cobbles), and here we are.
(If you didn't think that last part was cool, then sorry. But I hope it led you down your own shoe-lined memory lane, even just a li'l bit. RIP all of those pairs of shoes that have come and gone in my life.)
I have written about Mom's obsession with shopping before, and if you looked at her wardrobe over the course of her life, I think you'd definitely be able to pick out when she was young and carefree, when she was pregnant (the massive smocks would be the clue here - I mean, she had twins, okay?), when she worked in an office, when she had chemo and reconstructive surgery and lost a bunch of weight, and when she and my dad split up. All of these chapters in her life would be well-documented, just in clothing and accessories. Morbidly fascinating, isn't it? Perhaps this is why I enjoy the history of fashion so much (check out the V & A for more about that): you can really see how necessity and desire and society shaped how people dressed and imagine what their lives would really have been like while wearing these garments. I love it.
You might find my take on Mark's story - with his mother's ghost as a central figure - is telling. As he walks around Greenwich, he revisits time the two spent together, noting details that swirl around him in the breeze: "His mother's sleeve on her tweed dogtooth coat, the one with the big vapes, is turned back on itself at the cuff and the rough cuff is rubbing his wrist as they hurry along. The wisps of her hair beyond her hat are wet, pretty in the rain." I liked that, but not because I revisit those types of memories. Rather, slightly depressingly, I suppose, I like to imagine what memories my mom and i could have had here in London (perhaps even in Greenwich itself) should she have fought the cancer off for good (or at least a bit longer). Especially over the last year, I have experienced some incredible highs both personally and professionally, and as I walk the Thames I wish she could be there with me. I know exactly what she'd wear, and what she might say, and how excited she would be to just be in those moments with me. I don't know if I've written about it before, but I still have the urge when something great happens to call Mom, even though she has been gone for four and a half years. It's just one of those aches, I guess.
So all in all, a resounding meh from me - though to be fair, it hasn't stopped me from picking up an actual anthology of short stories by the same author that I saw at the library a little while back - aptly titled Public Library and Other Stories. It is actually a defence of public libraries, and I think it couldn't have come at a better time than in these last few years as more and more libraries seem to be closing up. It opens with an anecdote about the author and one of her editors (I think) going into a place in London with the word "Library" over the door, only to find that it's a boutique hotel and shop.
Not a library at all, then.
It's quite good, so far, actually. So there's that.
"Imagine if people decided at birth never ever to throw away any of the shoes they wore over the whole course of a life, and had a special cupboard where they kept all these old shoes they'd walked about the world in. What would there be in such a shoe museum, when you opened its doors? Row upon row, perfectly preserved, the exact shapes we took at certain points in our lives? Or row upon row, rack upon rack, of nothing but old soiled leather, old stale smell?"
Wow. Imagine that. You know, as a woman with a US 11/UK 9 shoe size (shoutout to Jenn, Sarah and Emma), it can be very hard for me to find shoes, let alone get rid of them once they've done their time. And actually, I tend to remember where I've been and what I've done in each pair. My memory is very odd in that I can remember what I spent on an item and what I did on a particular day in said item, without having to check photographs. Very odd indeed. So this idea of a shoe museum kind of appeals to me. It's more tangible than photographs and I think, in a more literal sense, surely, it helps you to retrace the steps you took over the course of your life. It would be really interesting, I think, to have a look at the shoes you owned over, say, the first 25 years of your life. If we looked at mine, I can think of a few stand-out pairs... baby shoes to start, some cute little ballet slippers at age 4 or 5, followed by gold spray-painted Kids for dance when I was probably 6 or 7, epic purple velcro trainers at 7ish, sparkly jelly sandals around 8, imitation red Converse (more like clown shoes, really) at 9-10 to be cool and fit in (nope), some forgettable and practical flats for school between 12-15 (yay uniform), my first pair of heels (off-white with a road toe and a bow, from Payless) at 15 (super profesh for a receptionist gig), then a bunch of whatever from Payless until I found out about Shoedazzle and bought 6-7 pairs of superbly impractical (but gorgeous) heels. Follow that up with some Birkenstocks (yup - flat feet and proper alignment overruled) and a few more expensive, well-made shoes (not so many heels now, thanks cobbles), and here we are.
(If you didn't think that last part was cool, then sorry. But I hope it led you down your own shoe-lined memory lane, even just a li'l bit. RIP all of those pairs of shoes that have come and gone in my life.)
I have written about Mom's obsession with shopping before, and if you looked at her wardrobe over the course of her life, I think you'd definitely be able to pick out when she was young and carefree, when she was pregnant (the massive smocks would be the clue here - I mean, she had twins, okay?), when she worked in an office, when she had chemo and reconstructive surgery and lost a bunch of weight, and when she and my dad split up. All of these chapters in her life would be well-documented, just in clothing and accessories. Morbidly fascinating, isn't it? Perhaps this is why I enjoy the history of fashion so much (check out the V & A for more about that): you can really see how necessity and desire and society shaped how people dressed and imagine what their lives would really have been like while wearing these garments. I love it.
You might find my take on Mark's story - with his mother's ghost as a central figure - is telling. As he walks around Greenwich, he revisits time the two spent together, noting details that swirl around him in the breeze: "His mother's sleeve on her tweed dogtooth coat, the one with the big vapes, is turned back on itself at the cuff and the rough cuff is rubbing his wrist as they hurry along. The wisps of her hair beyond her hat are wet, pretty in the rain." I liked that, but not because I revisit those types of memories. Rather, slightly depressingly, I suppose, I like to imagine what memories my mom and i could have had here in London (perhaps even in Greenwich itself) should she have fought the cancer off for good (or at least a bit longer). Especially over the last year, I have experienced some incredible highs both personally and professionally, and as I walk the Thames I wish she could be there with me. I know exactly what she'd wear, and what she might say, and how excited she would be to just be in those moments with me. I don't know if I've written about it before, but I still have the urge when something great happens to call Mom, even though she has been gone for four and a half years. It's just one of those aches, I guess.
So all in all, a resounding meh from me - though to be fair, it hasn't stopped me from picking up an actual anthology of short stories by the same author that I saw at the library a little while back - aptly titled Public Library and Other Stories. It is actually a defence of public libraries, and I think it couldn't have come at a better time than in these last few years as more and more libraries seem to be closing up. It opens with an anecdote about the author and one of her editors (I think) going into a place in London with the word "Library" over the door, only to find that it's a boutique hotel and shop.
Not a library at all, then.
It's quite good, so far, actually. So there's that.
One plaque says this thing: ' They were lovely in their lives.' It means the dead people. The dead people were lovely in their lives.