Forrest Aguirre: Experimental Fiction | |||||||
Forrest Aguirre | |||||||
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A review by Trent Walters
Some pioneers cannot help themselves. They cannot describe popular tourist
spots, but only head out to certain territories in the realm of Dragons. R.A.
Lafferty was one. Donald Barthelme another. Forrest Aguirre may be one
of these. Forrest isn't quirky in the same vein of Lafferty and Barthelme,
the primary quality one thinks of when thinking of Lafferty and Barthelme,
but has a method of working peculiar to Aguirre: the fugue. Traditional
story structure is tossed out. The writer follows the needs of the theme.
Character? Characterized but not developed. Plot? You have to take a very
broad scope in order to recognize anything of its like. Theme is
everything.
Or is it theme? Perhaps it is the idea that best guides the Aguirrean
fiction -- much as it does in a Terry Bissonian fiction... not that the
connection would be immediately apparent without extensive study since their
styles (Aguirrean macabre, Bissonian wit) differ widely on the surface.
Moreover, Aguirre rings and wrings out the ideas in a way that he
immediately strikes one as experimental where Bisson is experimental in
theory.
Finally, another popular genre misconception is the short short, which tends
to sit in people's minds as cutesy or less significant than longer pieces
because there's more of the longer story. Is a midget less significant than
a giant because there's more giant? Aesop tried to correct this
misconception by speaking of the lion and the mouse. What makes a midget
significant is the same as what makes the giant significant: if there's
more than meets the eye. If you can read the story beyond the page, then
the story succeeds. Unfortunately, some people cannot read beyond the page,
so short shorts will always fail for them. Fortunately, for those who can,
Aguirre has a few fictions that do go beyond the number of words he has
written -- a difficult accomplishment indeed.
The first and [second] best example is "Downstream Flow: A Fugue." Each
paragraph introduces a character(s) who hands the baton of narrative to the
next character(s). The idea is at first buried -- much as any horror fiction
so this may be another reason why it is Aguirre's primary source of genre
publication -- buried in the mundane chores surrounding a river. But the
river is no ordinary river as we begin to understand and as the characters
interact with the bounty that flows within the river. Perhaps the
relationship could be made clearer, but a definite caste is cast upon the
beings in the river and those that feed upon it. Is it a commentary on
hunger? on caste and class? or on the simple way we treat humans like
refuse? I don't mind the multiple possibilities so much as a dearth of
thematic pointers although what is here gives us a strong sense of purpose
that the author has built more into the work than we can get at with the
present paucity of clues.
"It Keeps Them Coming Back" is less thematically guided although it is much
closer kin to what people might consider a story and, therefore, more likely
to please a wider audience. Billy and his mother come to a punch-n-judy
show when the mosquitoes swarm in, carrying something that kills nearly the
entire audience. Punch and Judy find that a handful of children have
survived; they have mysterious plans for the children, plans to keep them
coming back. The associations here are again left a little personal.
Perhaps had I lived with Aguirre and the mosquitoes in Wisconsin, I might
have known that the government had planted the mosquitoes with Ebola in
order to have the children...
On "Judgment Day," a far simpler story to interpret, we find ourselves
gleaning the true hierarchy of the afterlife -- a favorite topic of Aguirre's.
Henrik, another boy, has his parents peeled from him and hauled to
concentration camps while the boy comes under the protection of the Father
Blinkhelm, or Otto the Obese. This protection is paid for by services much
like those that the Catholic Church has had much criticism about of late.
Although it has little surprise, it has emotive bite that might have been
sharpened with a little more paring, especially in the first scene with
Molech who does little but sharpen his teeth and complain.
Klepto Willie has "Precognitive Myopia" in a less significant work. Willie
is stealing from his own family, but the joke's on him. A rather crude
joke. The play with form, however, rises the work above where it might have
been had it been told relatively straight-forward.
That old American figure of myth, that man who transformed America into
bounty, is transformed into Johnny Milkpodseed, a return character for both
"Return from Abaddon" and "Something Familiar about the Farm." In both he
plays the god-like narrator made manifest although in the latter, he's a
little less cognizant of the Afterlife goings-on. In the former, he sows
land from the droppings of a War in Heaven [oblique reference to Paradise
Lost] -- what is the fruit of war? In the latter, he brings a blind and
legless man back from the dead to learn what the Afterlife is like. Slowly,
the babbling man comes about to the conclusion of where he'd rather be.
"Tea Time" is reminiscent of the allegorical "Pilgrim's Progress." The
pillars of the community named in bold caps -- RESPECTED POLITICIAN, GORGEOUS
SUPERMODEL, REVERENT PREACHER, ASTUTE SCHOLAR, and GIVING
PHILANTHROPIST -- expose the others to their inner "beauties."
"The Nut Lady's Cabin" is a slight work of how a woman's life of giving, of
feeding squirrels can be sacrificed into an icon. Perhaps this is a
commentary on Christ, but if so, it neglects the literatures that build that
icon. This criticism is the same I have for "Downstream Flow: A Fugue" and
"It Keeps Them Coming Back."
"The Reverie Styx," the last and easily the best of all the shorts, stands
as a pinnacle of Aguirre's fugue form -- not only that, but the reader who
fears experiment can also enjoy it. A trio moans and chuckles about how
they're going to split their diving companion's inheritance as their
companion explores the river bottom fishing out the men of hell with his
spear. This story should be on several greatest-hits lists: experimental,
literary, horror, short-short.
The last offering is a novelette for those who prefer to read only what's on
the page and need to get their feet wet. Chadwick Giles is "The Butterfly
Artist" who illustrates in their natural habitats the butterflies that Dr.
George Chelsea collects in Africa. In a ballroom, Giles bumps into a wild
white native Afrikaner lady who will teach him the value of what is truly
Africa and not what is in the pamphlets the government circulates: a dark
secret that the rumors get only half right. While the settings are rich,
the characterizations decent, and a well-worn theme well-wrought, the story
suffers a little in the translation from the short short to the novelette,
feeling a little jerky in its episodic-ness. Still the story's strong
enough to be enjoyed by most, and a step in the right direction for the
author breaking into territory yet unfamiliar to him.
All in all, the chapbook is ideal for the collector of experiment or horror
ambiance -- as opposed straight horror fans. Since most magazines skimp on
experiment, Aguirre is probably on a lot of editors' To-Watch lists. Expect
to see his work break into a few of the larger magazines sometime in the
future, but how long will be a matter of development of craft, taste, time,
and editorial whim.
Aguirre has work forthcoming in Exquisite Corpse and a work nearly as strong
as "The Reverie Styx" in 3rd Bed called "Kaleidoscope of Africa" (it's a
little predictable but well-wrought, nonetheless). [Late breaking news:
the author was just accepted into Notre Dame Review.]
Trent Walters' work has appeared or will appear in The Distillery, Fantastical Visions, Full Unit Hookup, Futures, Glyph, Harpweaver, Nebo, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Speculon, Spires, Vacancy, The Zone and blah blah blah. He has interviewed for SFsite.com, Speculon and the Nebraska Center for Writers. More of his reviews can be found here. When he's not studying medicine, he can be seen coaching Notre Dame (formerly with the Minnesota Vikings as an assistant coach), or writing masterpieces of journalistic advertising, or making guest appearances in a novel by E. Lynn Harris. All other rumored Web appearances are lies. |
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