#702 Clarence and the Dead- Randall Kenan

#702 Clarence and the Dead- Randall Kenan

Clarence and the Dead is the first story in the acclaimed Randall Kenan collection, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead. I imagine, judging by those titles, there will be some dead people involved in this book. This is my first time reading Kenan.

When Clarence was born, two things happened: his mother immediately died, and Wilma Jones’ prize hog began to speak, at least according to her. When Clarence died five years later, the town would be relived to be done with a very confusing time in their history, and Wilma Jones’ hog would stop talking the very same day—again, according to her. 

It took Clarence three whole years before he spoke his first word. From then on out, he often spoke the words of the dead. They told him things that were happening to their loved ones, and things that were going to happen to their loved ones. He knew when people were going to die, and who was planning to hurt whom. This clairvoyance spooked most of the town, and attracted some undesirable characters seeking the child’s wisdom.

I’m not sure what to make of this story. On one level it’s entertaining, but also a bit scattered and—I don’t know—some of it just didn’t work for me. Especially the talking pig we don’t ever see talking. Something obviously slipped past me, I’m not sure what a talking pig is supposed to add to the story. A kid with ESP by itself would have been essentially the same story. Maybe I’ll give it another read, because I’m definitely missing something. 

Rating: 7-6-5-5 Total= 23

#701 East of the West- Miroslav Penkov

#701 East of the West- Miroslav Penkov

A village is bisected by a river. In one of the cruelties of geopolitics it is separated by war. One side is now Bulgarian and the other Serbian. They are allowed only one crossing every five years. Families are torn apart and histories are lost. In the middle of the river is a drowned church, aptly representing lost hope and faith.

Love still grows however, and Nose falls in love with his cousin Vera on the other side. It is a lifelong yearning that can never be fully realized, and ends in unbelievable heartbreak. The kind of heartbreak that occurs when holding onto the last sliver of hope can create. 

“You’re holding life by the throat. So get your shit together and learn how to choke the bastard, because the bastard already knows how to choke you.”

Out of darkness and sorrow comes beautiful art. This is a beautifully rendered story about a very dark and sad existence. What do you cling to when hope is lost, when light is gone and when faith is literally washed away? I guess the answer is: anything you can. 

Notable Passage: “The words piled on my heart like stones and I thought how much I wanted to be like the river, which had no memory, and how little like the earth, which could never forget.”

Rating: 9-9-10-10 Total= 38

#700 The Man with the Hat- Sheila Heti

#700 The Man with the Hat- Sheila Heti

The angst of a writer, the heart of a writer, the soul of a writer—these were all things embraced by the man. Unfortunately he lived the life of a writer, a failed one at that. He hasn’t written a thing, but he feels like he could. Don’t we all?

To his friends and drinking companions he is a bum, and a leach. He gets kicked out of one bar or the next, and his anger turns to self hatred, despair, and then just a little poetic hope. “What right had he to kill himself when there were stars in the sky, twinkling all innocent and not noticing him and noticing nothing.”

Heti’s stories are the epitome of the short form. Most are brain droppings of small nuggets left to ponder, rarely fully developed as stories, and that’s fine, that seems to be the point. This one is more complete, and a good look at the struggles of an unrealized creative mind.

Notable Passage: “The truth’s got nothing to do with your life.”

Rating: 8-7-7-7 Total= 29

#699 The Man Who Could See Through Fog- Henry Dumas

#699 The Man Who Could See Through Fog- Henry Dumas

Smithy arrived in a hot Texas military town early in the morning. He used to work for the rodeo up the road but a violent kick by one of the bucks did some damage he didn’t want repeated. He was here looking for a job. Suddenly he was being surrounded by a fog of some noxious smoke being emitted from an odd tractor. He ran from it, and later met the man driving the rig. 

He was assigned a job working one of those tractors and quickly adjusted to this weird little army base. The foggers spit out clouds of chemical pesticides. It’s effectiveness was questionable but the “top brass” liked to see the foggers on the grounds because it looked like it was working. It was kind of like a placebo, but actually very poisonous. Part satire, part buffoonish story, this one was a little out of the normal wheelhouse of dumas, but it was entertaining.

Rating: 7-7-7-6 Total= 27

#698 An Invocation of Incuriosity- Neil Gaiman

#698 An Invocation of Incuriosity- Neil Gaiman

Another fantastic, fantastical tale by Neil Gaiman. This world is coming to an end. The sun is burning out and all will soon be engulfed in nothingness. Farfal the unfortunate—so called because: “He had spent his life in a one-room cottage at the end of time, at the bottom of a small hill, surviving on the food his father could net in the air…”—witnesses the end of all things from his cottage he sometimes shares with his father.

Balthasar the Tardy lives two lives. One with his son Farfal and one in a world a million years in the past where he is known as Balthasar the Cunning because he brings amazing spells and technologies from the future. Farfal is unaware of his father’s second life because he is under a hex, an Invocation of Incuriosity. But when the world ends, he is whisked off to his father’s other life and loses his place at his father’s side.

“I have spared you from death, my boy…I have brought you back in time to a new life. What should it matter that is this life you are not son but servant? Life is life, and it is infinitely better than the alternative.”

In a fun mind experiment, if you could travel back in time and meet your brothers from this time, some of which have been alive less years than you, but who were born a million years in the past—who is older?

His father makes a mess of his duel dimension dealings and is lost to nothingness. No longer unfortunate, Farfal finds a way to a different time, our time, the reader’s time and is telling this story to a kind man he meets while selling ancient carvings at a flea market over a free Denny’s Breakfast. Only Neil Gaiman can make this stuff work.

Rating: 9-9-9-8 Total= 35

#697 A Bird in the House- Rebecca Makkai

#697 A Bird in the House- Rebecca Makkai

An estranged couple living halfway across the world meet for the last time in Chicago for the birth of their grand-daughter. A sparrow flies through the room, jarring and ominous, but not without elegance. This two-page interlude has more beauty and well-sculpted symbolism than most novels achieve, proving to all aspiring writers that a story should be as long as it needs to be, not as long as you can make it.

“In almost any culture, it’s an omen: of death, or of a birth, or a journey. Sometimes a bird in the house is said to be the ghost of the recently departed. We aren’t capable of seeing it rationally –especially as it falls in love with itself in our windows, as it flaps frantically past family portraits, as it kills itself against our walls.”

“The longest feathers stayed between her fingers as the bird flew on, raining small, perfect circles of blood on the kitchen tiles, on the flesh of the peeled apples…”

In this project where I’m only reading one story a day, I’m getting Makkai stories only periodically. I think that’s perfect. It’s like getting rare bottle of whiskey. You want only a taste every once in a while to keep on your tongue. Too much and you’d risk emptying the bottle too soon. This collection is just about perfect, I want it to last for a while.

Rating: 10-8-9-9 Total= 36

#696 The Toad Prince- Chuck Palahniuk

#696 The Toad Prince- Chuck Palahniuk

Well, this story reaches new levels of gross. Thank you Chuck Palahniuk, you win the prize! Not only does he create stories from topics you didn’t want to know about, he does it from places you didn’t want to know exist.

Ethan and Mona are canoodling in his bed, on the way to having sex for the first time together. It’s cute at first but Ethan is taking it slow, preparing her for something we don’t know about. But we know it’s going to be weird.

“Ethan choice her not because she’s hot. He thought she’d be more open minded…He’d found [her] in advanced placement Microbiology During a section of virology. He loves her because she loves viruses. There’s a match made in heaven.”

He tells her of the history of tattoos, body modification, and sexual mutilation. He has invented some new body-altering sexual fetish. You can’t look away, but you should. This is the epitome of grotesque. It’s Stephen King meets Penthouse Forum. Most definitely not safe for the squeamish. I’ll give Palahniuk points for originality.

Rating: 7-7-8-4 Total= 26