Conjunctions: 39 -- The New Wave Fabulists | |||||
edited by Bradford Morrow; Peter Straub, guest-editor | |||||
Bard College, 436 pages | |||||
A review by William Thompson
This collection, however, suffers from a crisis of identity. Despite its New Wave identification, much of the work contributed
here is oddly muted in its use of fantastical elements, certain stories, such as those by John Crowley, M. John Harrison, John
Kessel and Karen Joy Fowler, incorporating little that could be called fabulation, possessing characteristics more readily
identifiable as mainstream than anything remotely approximating fantasy or science fiction, almost as if the authors had
tailored their contributions (especially so in the case of Kessel and Harrison) to conform with what was perceived as most
palatable for an academic venue and audience. And while the credentials of many are without doubt, the inclusion of
others -- Karen Joy Fowler, Joe Haldeman, and Peter Straub among them -- seem dubious within the context of the collection's
promoted identity; as a knowledgeable acquaintance remarked: "several of those authors wouldn't be considered New Wave
anything!" Finally, this collection reflects a quality that many academic literary publications seem to share: a certain
overall homogeneity of style and tone.
Still, except for a few inconsequential stories -- Peter Straub's long "Little Red's Tango;" Joe Haldeman's excerpt
from Guardian; Andy Duncan's "The Big Rock Candy Mountain;" John Kessel's "The Invisible Empire;" and, surprisingly, Neil Gaiman's
closing "October in the Chair" -- the level of writing is consistently high throughout. And it does offer a few gems. Though
John Crowley's opening "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" is decidedly mainstream in character, it reflects his usual
mastery of prose. Set in rural Indiana during the late 50s, it is ostensibly a coming-of-age story that occurs around the
inauguration of a Shakespeare festival run on a shoe-string budget. Crowley uses this occasion to delve into another of his
beloved secret histories, this time focusing upon the true and speculated identity of the great playwright, a conjecture that
has occupied various academics and armchair historians for years, and still continues, much as others guess at Jack the Ripper. Here
the usual suspects appear, as well as others less obvious, which the author uses as a stage to explore free will, love, and an
affirmation of the human spirit.
Far more adventurous, both in composition and theme, is Kelly Link's "Lull" -- in fact, it is the most daring contribution to
the collection. A revolving series of encircling stories, or, as the author suggests, palindromes -- which somehow in device
brings to mind Emerson's analogy of existence as an onion skin -- through temporal and shifting perspective the author constructs
a challenging labyrinth of narratives that starts as a card game that prompts a call to a phone sex line. However, the woman
on the other end creates stories that can be sexy or not, depending upon the caller's preference, said to be like "Stephen King
and sci-fi and the Arabian Nights and Penthouse Letters all at once." Asked to tell a tale that "goes backward," and essentially
offers a bit of everything -- scary, sexy, funny and "about good and evil and true love," lacking a moral but "some sort of
revelation" when thought back upon -- Link launches into but one of many parenthetical yet parallel stories, The Devil and the
Cheerleader. At a party, after losing a spin (or is it a win?) of the bottle, a cheerleader finds herself stuck inside a closet
alone with the Devil. Mulling over existence, she recalls her adult future, all the while regressing toward her childhood. The
world is second by second evolving back to its original state, in the process reducing the cheerleader's life to a mere five
minutes. Realizing she'll soon cease to exist, she elects to tell a story so that the Devil at least -- immortal -- will
remember her. Without time to start at the beginning, or to reach an end, she begins her tale in the middle, concerning a man
named Ed, who just happens to be the card game caller who requested a story in the first place. The narrative then jumps forward
in time to where Ed is unhappily divorced, living among clones of his wife as they await the arrival of aliens. Bizarre and
convoluted, this story will challenge and delight the more adventuresome reader, offering perhaps the best example of what could
have been expected from this collection.
"Familiar," by China Miéville, imagines a surreal and whimsical fable of a familiar conjured by a witch. Intended to increase
and focus his power, the witch soon discovers that the creature, with its feral curiosity, disgusts him. Unable to destroy it,
like a kitten in a sack, he tosses it into a river. But the familiar is able to incorporate elements of its surroundings into
its corporeal self, growing into a bizarre amalgam of industrial waste, machinery and animals parts as it learns and matures
through assimilation. The world is a resource of "infinite tools" which it tirelessly adapts to its use, changing and evolving
as knowledge and circumstance allow. Set within modern day London, or a near future wherein magic and reality blur, Miéville's
conceit in some ways becomes a reflection of his own imaginative fiction, a fabrication at once familiar and fanciful.
Gene Wolfe gives a tantalizing glimpse of his forthcoming novel, Knight, due out sometime in September. A short excerpt from the
novel, the main character, Able, is a contemporary young man who by some strange coincidence -- not entirely explained in this
segment -- finds himself transported to the realm of Mythgarthr. Unprepared for the magical and medieval land in which he finds
himself, and plagued by gaps of memory, he sets off in search of the town where he originally lived, hoping thereby to return to
a world he recognizes. But though a village of similar name exists in Mythgarthr, it was destroyed long ago by giants. Borrowing
elements of both romance and faerie, Wolfe again appears to be constructing a crosshatch of interconnected stories, perhaps
similar in approach to his writing in Peace. With a cadence and wonder reminiscent of Arthurian archetypes, but a narrative
sense -- and, I suspect, themes -- all his own, this introductory look at his new novel should excite many readers, as well as
amply suggests why the author is generally recognized as one of the more important masters of contemporary fantasy.
In "Simon's House of Lipstick" Jonathan Carroll returns, in much smaller scale, to themes and characters familiar
from White Apples. Centered upon a cad, "call him a rat, call him a weasel; call him a disease with a head..." Simon Haden is a man
whose career options have come to an end. Strikingly handsome, his appearance has long deceived everyone: women, his employers,
erstwhile friends, good looks hiding the self-absorbed superficiality within. But as he's grown older the bloom has faded, and
he's burned every bridge behind him. Now middle-aged, reduced to working as a tour bus guide, he's on notice that one more
infraction, one more failure to perform his duties, and he's out of work, with no where left to turn. He hates his job and
despises its patrons, mainly elderly women whom he ridicules. His only friend is an octopus. But a chance encounter on the bus
will change his life dramatically... indeed, will question his very existence. Carroll again displays his seeming effortless
talent to transform the every day world into a surreality of dream and fantasy, a mirror often reflecting all too closely, if
distorted, our human condition, as well as calling into doubt some of our most essential perceptions and assumptions. And he
accomplishes this so seamlessly that it becomes quite easy to undervalue the achievement.
The final notable story in this collection is Elizabeth Hand's "The Least Trumps." Initially masquerading as mainstream, the
author slowly develops the narrative around her central figure, Ivy, who lives in a storybook cottage on an island on an
island (no typo) off the coast of Maine. The daughter of a famous children's book author, Ivy has inherited her mother's house,
where she has largely retreated from the world. Though isolated, she is able to support herself as a tattoo artist, her
reputation and skill attracting an exclusively female clientele wealthy enough to be willing to ride the ferryboat to reach her
home and studio. Though she often journeys to the mainland to visit her mother, or accomplish errands, separation from the
island often brings on episodes of panic, which she has suffered from since the break up with her lover and
mentor, Julia Sa'adah. Eleven years have passed since Julia left her, and since then she has increasingly sought
solitude. Yet she has grown accustomed to her lonely existence, no longer seeking company, her world reassuringly defined by
the four walls of her cottage, her work, and a few well-loved books. But the tranquility of this self-contained existence is
about to become threatened by the purchase of an antique deck of Tarot cards and the unexpected appearance of a visitor.
Hand subtly masters the shift between reality and fabulation in a way that quietly builds suspense, and with results that are
only partially anticipated. Rich in metaphor, and multi-faceted in the themes it attempts to cover, this was a story that
surprised me, both by its depth as well as the well-integrated use of fabulation, which is largely and dramatically sprung upon
the reader near the end, although a sense of mystery exists throughout, helping to sustain an underlying tension. One of the
longer stories in this collection, the author effectively interweaves background, character and allusions to reach an epiphany
that could not have been accomplished without all the understated development prior, and that is to be applauded for its lack
of definitive closure, leaving possibilities to be imagined. Even amidst the exceptional contributions mentioned above, this
story quietly stand outs, notable for its superb and seamless development, as well as the rich and complex nature of the
narrative. A mature narrative by an author in full mastery of her craft, and unlooked for, as I have not always cared for her past work.
Finally, mention should be made of the excellent essay contributions by Gary K. Wolfe and John Clute at the back of the
book. Broadly examining in tandem the history of fabulation, as well as its recent role within our larger literature, both
authors discuss fantastic fiction's degeneration into genre over the last century and a half, as well as the vital and prominent
role fantasy has played in our literary tradition, both now and in the past. Since dismissed and largely overlooked in favor
of mimesis and realism, a persuasive argument is made that this attempt at elision of fantasy from the literary canon not only
ignores its continued presence, at times variously disguised, but overlooks its significant and fundamental contribution to
our literary heritage, one that is inseparable from traditions of realism that, especially since the nineteenth century,
equally inform it. As has been pointed out elsewhere, whether as Magic Realism or in some other guise, fantasy has
been ""arguably the major fictional mode of the late twentieth century."1 And, as John
Clute concludes, fantasy and realism offer different, rather than mutually exclusive or better, ways of expressing and
conversing with the world and ourselves and "the Ocean of Story." Hopefully the inclusion of such stories within an academic
venue is but another sign of a long overdue shift in modern academia's short-sighted, blind and sometimes bigoted attitude
towards the fantastic in literature. As some of these stories show, not everything written, either in the past or the
present, has its roots in ten-penny dreadfuls or the pulp fiction traditions of the earlier half of the past century.
That said, it is unfortunate that this collection unevenly represents the best literary work the genre has to offer. The
inclusion of certain authors remains questionable in the face of work that is available elsewhere, as well as misleading in
terms of the collection's title. Further, some of the selections chosen -- one thinks particularly of Harrison and Gaiman
in this regard -- either are not among the authors' best, seem significantly understated in any use of fabulation, or appear
unrepresentative of much of the writers' work. Granted, in his introductory note, guest-editor Peter Straub regrets the
absence of authors such as Geoff Ryman, Jeffrey Ford, Jeff VanderMeer, or Carol Emshwiller, amongst others, but I would
suggest that their inclusion would have done much to make this collection more representative of the writing its title
promises, as well as probably improved the excellence overall. Despite the high quality of writing present, this collection
fails to be consistent, or fully succeed in living up to what its title implies. Therefore I can only recommend it
halfheartedly. An opportunity missed.
William Thompson is a regular contributor to SF Site and Interzone magazine. His reviews have also appeared in Revolution Science Fiction and Locus Online. In addition to his own writing, he possesses an MLS degree in Special Collections, and serves as an advisor to the Lilly Library for their collection of fantasy and science fiction. He is currently working with scifi/fantasy bibliographer Hal Hall, at the Cushing Collection at Texas A&M on the Moorcock manuscripts, and is a contributor to the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Themes in Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Gary Westfahl. |
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