The Birth of Emma K., Zsolt Láng

The Birth of Emma K. and Other Stories, Zsolt Láng, 2023, translated from the Hungarian by Owen Good & Ottilie Mulzet, 2023.

Often, while reading these stories, I was lost as to what was going on. It turns out, though, this uncertainty is partly what makes these stories so beautiful. Strange characters in strange settings and situations feed the uncertainty and kept my interest high as each story unfolded. The first story in the collection begins with ‘Our Lord’ sitting on a hill in Budapest contemplating who gave him the power to create the world. While this never gets resolved, we see him wrestle with his problem throughout the narrative, which seemingly has nothing to do with him. Lang describes this approach in the later story Chestnut where the narrator states, ‘We could go on in this banal but well-oiled style, because the external events aren’t important, rather it’s the invisible line of force of the internal happenings that guides the thread, woven from these sentences into a new pattern.’

Another invisible aspect of each story is an observer, sometimes seen but often not. He or she may be observing from a window or while sitting at a bus stop. We never learn if the observer is the narrator or simply a bystander but it is a powerful tool within the narrative, like the reader is sharing the observation, living alongside the characters and their ruminations. The story Loneliness takes place entirely at rubbish bin with the protagonist, Ildiko, standing by the bin while being observed by a stranger several floors above her. The narrative involves her observations, thoughts, and memories while taking out the trash but we know there is someone watching her and this ads a bit of menace and again, uncertainty to the story.

How The Birth of Emma K. informs my writing.

I found this collection intriguing and incredibly enjoyable. Not sure how I could pull off Lang’s style as I do not completely understand his accomplishment. However, I have experimented with the style in my stories such as Tiny Points of Contact and The Remove, both included in my collection Not So You’d Notice which is available at Amazon. In the former, the plot basically involves a kayak outing to observe manatees but there is a lot more going on in the protagonist’s head. And in the latter, the protagonist begins a car collection but it is what he is struggling with internally that holds greater importance.

Lang’s collection is worthy of a second read: for pure enjoyment but also to investigate his artistry, his building of a philosophical view of the world, and the comfort of dwelling in uncertainty.

The Loser, Thomas Bernhard

Ahh! To read Bernhard again! Thoroughly enjoyed this single paragraph interior monologue. I’ve read most of Bernhard’s work in the past and wanted to reread his oeuvre once again so I started with The Loser. The story involves three main characters: Glenn Gould, Wertheimer, and the narrator. They become friends at the Mozarteum in Vienna while attending a Horowitz class for aspiring concert pianists. The plot that exists revolves around the life of Wertheimer, considered ‘the loser’ of the group. But both Wertheimer and the narrator have ‘loser’ characteristics, evident as the story unfolds. Both are devastated in the goal of musical virtuosity by the already brilliant Gould. Once they hear Gould play they abandon their quest for musical virtuosity, feeling that if one cannot be the best one should not even try.

The novel displays Bernhard’s typical misanthropic and extremely bleak prose which might be off-putting to many but I find rewarding. I’ve changed my world views since I first read Bernhard when I completely absorbed his views and conclusions. This time around I find I agree with his evaluations but not so much with his conclusions. Still, The Loser is a challenging and enjoyable read.

How The Loser informs my writing.

I have tried using this monologue style before, specifically in my short story Owning Scars, included in my collection Not So You’d Notice (available at Amazon). In it I imagine a man reminiscing on his past cruelty towards his siblings and the story take place primarily in his head. Not sure if I pulled it off but it is one of my favorite stories in the collection. I am also experimenting with the style in my work-in-progress so it is good to get a refresher course from Bernhard.

Most of my stories are fairly bleak seeing as Bernhard has long been an inspiration for my writing but as mentioned, I have a different mindset these days. I still deal with topics which can fall on the bleak side but I am trying to find a more positive spin for my narrative, much along the lines of ‘yes, this is how bad things are but here is how we can change that.’ We’ll see how successful I am with this as I conclude my manuscript.

The Best of Everything, Kit de Waal, 2025

The power of kindness! Paulette, the main character in this beautiful novel, is a model of kindness. It is her primary defining characteristic in the many relationships she nurtures throughout the story. Not that she is without flaws: she can be impatient, angry, judgmental, and demanding. But at her core is the belief in humanity and the overwhelming benefits of treating others with love and respect. We meet Paulette when she is single at 29 years old and watch her development as she approaches 50. Along the way is plenty of heartache, challenges, and major losses. She doesn’t always handle them well.

A book about kindness and gentleness, grief and recovery, redemption and forgiveness. And de Waal is very good at narrating the morass of feelings her characters experience or refuse to acknowledge. I love her handling of inner thought processes, as well as relational dynamics, and there are many in this novel. What I truly enjoyed is how kindness is woven throughout the narrative, despite the excruciating pain that was evident on the page. A tremendous meditation on the power of kindness.

How The Best of Everything informs my writing.

I am impressed with the comfortable flow of this novel, skating effortlessly over the passage of time and the ups and downs along the way. I would like to accomplish that in the novel I am writing as my protagonist develops over time. De Waal expertly explores her many themes without stating them clearly, something I struggle with and have previously posted about. Her themes are clear though in the plot development and character interactions. It is a model I can use in my writing.

I love the theme of kindness and read an awful lot about it. I’m not sure though that it has been a theme in my stories. Basically I have been meditating on what might be considered the opposite: cruelty. In the stories I have published and those I am currently submitting, I address the victims of cruelty and the suffering they experience. Perhaps I can create more rounded plots and characters if I switched my focus and explored the power of kindness as an antidote against cruelty. De Waal’s novel is a great example of this.

A Modern Priest Looks At His Outdated Church, James Kavanaugh

A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church, Father James Kavanaugh, 1967.

At first glance, this nonfiction work may seem out of place on my reading list seeing as it is about the Catholic Church and was written in the late 60’s. I picked it up though because Kavanaugh is the author of the poetry collection There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves which features prominently in my novel-in-progress and I was interested in his antecedent thoughts leading up to the poems. Turns out this is a great read. Early in the book Kavanaugh writes that the book stands as a protest to the suffering he and his Church have caused in the name of protecting ‘arrogant and ignorant’ absolutes, while ignoring the humanity and circumstances within each person. I also read it as a sort of apology to all those he served poorly by not listening to his heart as they shared their problems and concerns with him.

Though the book is dated I found the protest and the ideas within relevant to contemporary society. It really can be seen as an indictment against any monolithic organization that prioritizes its own survival and progress over the welfare of the people who are part of that organization. Obviously this is true of most organized religions, but also true of both political parties in the US, especially Trump and his oligarchic organization. Kavanaugh, however, only speaks of the Catholic Church, never straying into politics. It is simply my interpretation that the suffering he speaks of, the killing of the hearts, minds, and souls of the populace, exists today throughout the USA.

How A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church informs my writing.

Kavanaugh states that he ‘will protest with words that are written in the memory of the senseless suffering I have known and seen’ and that is the spirit in which much of my writing is done. My collection Not So You’d Notice includes such protest stories as The Antipodal Point of Fear (gun violence), Bluebird (bullying), Thought it was Enough (homelessness), and Owning Scars (generational abuse). My newest collection which I am currently sending to agents includes protest stories primarily against the cruelty and dehumanizing behavior of the current administration. And finally, my novel-in-progress is a protest against the current push to eliminate empathy and kindness from our daily lives.

I found many worthwhile nuggets of thought in Kavanaugh’s argument which are pertinent to the research and writing I am doing. I can use both sides of his presentation as models for character development and for creating a sense of place in which my protagonist struggles. Beyond that, the work stands alone as a worthwhile read and a booster shot to support his suggestion that ‘I prize the uniqueness that is mine.’

George Saunders & Joy Williams

Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders, 2017.

This is a challenging but very fun novel. Entirely told in quotes, the story begins with the death of Lincoln’s son and goes on to explore grief, suffering, and loss on both sides of death: what happens to the living after death and where the dead go. In the novel the dead are in the bardo and provide the bulk of the story. They wrestle with their own losses (the living) and the challenge of moving on. In the cemetery where the story unfolds, Abraham Lincoln suffers extreme grief and there are plenty of eyewitness accounts of his behavior and his expressions of loss. A very intriguing subplot is the juxtaposition of Lincoln’s grief over the loss of his son and the loss of multitudes of soldiers during the Civil War. I found it to be one of the more interesting conversations in the story. But I also enjoyed many of the other conversations and debates in the novel. Lincoln in the Bardo was a great read, especially its mix of fiction and history (sometimes difficult to see their separation) and really cool experimental style.

The Quick & the Dead, Joy Williams, 2000.

Like Lincoln in the Bardo, this Williams novel is saturated with the dead, including a ghost, dead loved ones, the living dead of a nursing home, and a lot of dead animals. It is the background for the story of several adolescent girls making their way through the world seemingly alone: they experiment with environmentalism, silence, and privilege. Most of the adult characters are examples of ways not to live a life, souls filled with regrets, dissatisfaction, and bitterness. It is a beautiful story and incredibly well told by Williams. I’m looking forward to reading her most recent short story collection, The Pelican Child.

Under the Skin, Michel Faber

Under the Skin, Michel Faber, 2000. What an awesome novel! I first became aware of Michel Faber through his wonderful nonfiction book, Listen: On Music, Sound and Us and then went on to read his short story collection Some Rain Must Fall. His themes and ideas are intriguing and his writing is impressive. It’s the same with Under the Skin. Isserley drives Scotland roads picking up hitchhikers and as she uses them for her own purposes we learn who she is and about the organization she serves. It’s a nice mix of science fiction, literary fiction, gender study, and psychological study. Faber presents a microcosm of the problems we face with tribalism, nationalism, and xenophobia without ever mentioning those terms. He also expertly presents the evolution of Isserley in terms of her view of the natural world and her awareness of it. Glad I read this novel and I am looking forward to reading more of his work.

How Under the Skin informs my writing.

Faber’s pacing is wonderful with clues being presented from the early pages without revealing too much. I have been attempting the same with my novel-in-progress in terms of how much I reveal of the situation. I tend to blurt things out and then discuss them rather than letting the action and dialogue slowly reveal my message. I would love to create a manuscript that is as engaging and suspenseful as Faber’s.

Under the Skin also delivers a beautiful message: whether one agrees with it or not is irrelevant. The art of storytelling used to present this message is inspiring. I too have an overall message I would like to present through my current novel and can use Faber’s novel as a model to strive for. If my manuscript turns out to be a quarter as successful as Faber’s I would be satisfied. Thanks Michel Faber!

Ada Limón & Lászlo Krasznahorkai

The Hurting Kind, Ada Limon, 2022. I don’t read much poetry so I find it difficult to respond to this collection but I’m glad I was introduced to it. I learned about Limon, a former US poet laureate, through Tricycle’s Daily Dharma. In these poems, Limon eloquently discusses the interconnections between people and with nature. She focuses on moments of what might be called ultimate presence which she mostly finds in nature, such as a kingfisher simply existing in its environment, or a half burned tree living what is left of its life despite its dead half. I read these poems as suggestions of how we could live our lives, being more in tune with our surroundings and accepting the simplicity of embracing our inner lives. Or as Limón says in the poem In the Shadow, ‘Why can’t I just love the flower for being a flower?’

A Mountain to the North, A Lake to the South, Paths to the West, A River to the East, László Krasznahorkai, 2003. Translated from Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet, 2022. A very enjoyable novella from Krasznahorkai with typical cryptic meanings and beautiful meandering thought passages. The core of the novel is about the grandson of Prince Genji who searches for the perfect garden hidden in a monastery. There are wonderful descriptions of exquisite building procedures, architecture, and nature but also a great deal of more disturbing images like dead goldfish, a dying dog, and a Buddha with a turned head so he would not have to see ‘this wretched world.’ A book worth spending time with teasing out the imagery and meditations on less than perfect human behavior.

Austral, Carlos Fonseca

Austral, Carlos Fonseca, 2023. Translated from the Spanish (Costa Rica) by Megan McDowell.

Another fantastic novel by Fonseca: I found his Natural History to be excellent and I have ordered his first novel, Colonel Lágrimas. Very pleased to be spending time with his prose.

Austral, structurally similar to Natural History, includes a fascination with books, multiple texts within texts, an interest in land art, and a central focus on memory. It involves an academic’s quest to complete the final, unfinished novel of a recently deceased friend. He travels from the United States to Argentina and Guatemala to uncover the meaning of her text and along the way the reader is treated to intriguing characters and intense ruminations on the nature of memory, feeling the pain of others, and the development of culture.

Though I’ve finished the novel, I feel there are many more threads I need to untangle. Sometimes challenging, often requiring further research, but always engaging and thought provoking, Austral is a must read.

How Austral informs my writing.

I love this style of storytelling which uses embedded texts so successfully. Fonseca is so good at it and so is Lucy Ives, who I may read more of in the future. I am using it in my current writing and gave it a try in my short story Hypocrites Among Us, which has not yet found a publisher. In my story, I use song titles and lyrics, a university syllabus, and various fictional essays to tell the story of a young man learning about his father and the prevalence and common acceptance of hypocrisy in politics. I don’t know if I pulled it off well enough to earn an acceptance letter but it was fun utilizing this technique and I will continue to practice it.

I also found Fonseca’s prose about books and how children often respond to the world by seeking refuge within them beautifully written. I have a tendency in my writing to bluntly state a fact while Fonseca delicately plants suggestions and comments that unveil his thoughts about these issues. My new novel incorporates this very basic but difficult practice but I can always improve upon it by emulating the writing in Austral.

Thanks to Carlos Fonseca for writing such wonderful texts, and Megan McDowell for translating him!

Almost No Memory, Lydia Davis

Almost No Memory, Lydia Davis, 1997. Included in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, 2011.

Davis’ short stories have been labeled as miniatures, prose poems, and contemplations, among other descriptors as a way to understand what she is doing in her work. I do find myself questioning what each small offering is supposed to be but ultimately it really doesn’t matter. Davis explores the inner workings of the mind as it works to make sense of relationships and reality and her form is an excellent way to do so. While sometimes confused as to the message of a particular story I was intrigued with each piece. The Thirteenth Woman, where the first twelve women completely ignore the thirteenth, is simply delightful. In Foucault and Pencil, a woman strives to understand the meaning and cause of an argument with her partner. And my favorite, The Race of the Patient Motorcyclists, reads like a paean to slowness.

There is a scene I love in a Samuel Beckett story about a character holding three pebbles as he goes through the iterations in his mind of how he can put them in two pockets one at a time: an incredible scene. Many of the stories in Almost No Memory are like this: characters thinking through the possibilities of doing a particular task but being unable to reach a conclusion. Other stories are essentially lists but read like dynamic and meaning-filled short stories.

How Almost No Memory informs my writing.

As I read these stories, I did have some confusion of what the meaning was, especially in light of the title of the collection. Ultimately, my take away is that Davis is suggesting that in our present conflicts or disagreements we have no memory of how we got into that situation or into that particular relationship with the partner we are having a conflict with: we are totally consumed with thinking through the current problem. I realize this is a simplistic interpretation but with it I was better able to process each story. And I am not suggesting that I know what Davis meant with the individual stories or with the collection as a whole. But what I appreciate is that her art is not really about a particular meaning or take away. The stories stand on their own but they also work well as a unified whole. This is what I would like to accomplish with my newest short story collection I have been putting together. My stories are about the current US political situation and the effect many of their dictates have on everyday people. I am hopeful that the stories add up to a powerful message but one that I am not blatantly proclaiming. I would like it to be as subtle as Davis’.

My story Fragility comes closest to the method Davis uses, though I am in no way comparing my work to hers: hers is a genius I will most likely never attain. In my story a mother is tormented by her son’s behavior of talking to his dead grandfather and is put off by the ‘help’ his school offers. It is a mere 1700 words and I have been told that people love it or hate it; there doesn’t seem to be any in-between. But I mention it because I feel it is short on explanations and simply presents a situation that I hope the reader will analyze independently. Fragility was first published by the now defunct Slag Review but can be found in my collection Not So You’d Notice, available at Amazon.

My story collection!

In a Human Voice, Carol Gilligan

In a Human Voice, Carol Gilligan, 2023.

In a Human Voice is a follow-up to Gilligan’s 1982 book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, after she challenged her own use of the word ‘different’ to explain the “feminine” voice she heard when considering moral development. Here, she redefines the different voice as a human voice, or an ethic of care. After reviewing her original studies for In a Different Voice, discussing how boys and girls are initiated into patriarchy, Gilligan goes on to suggest that “relational capacities such as empathy and emotional intelligence…are recognized for what they are: human strengths” in care ethics. This is an incredible read and a powerful antidote to the dominant view circulating about how strength is the ability to use force and take whatever you want from whoever you want. Gilligan’s writing is clear and well supported, incredibly descriptive concerning child development, and most importantly, hopeful in the quest for a more decent society.

How In a Human Voice informs my writing.

Voice is central to Gilligan’s text and of special interest to me is how voices are silenced. I have explored silence in much of my writing. I have an unpublished short story called Let There Be Silence where the protagonist spends years attempting to leave his/her abuser and desires above all to be free from the oppression of another’s harmful words. In another, Bluebird, a school bus driver bullied throughout her childhood escapes into silence to escape her memories and her own hated voice. Bluebird is available online at the journal Twelve Winters who first published it and in my short story collection Not So You’d Notice available at Amazon.

Resistance is another important element in this text, primarily in children’s potential resistance to the masculine and feminine roles dictated by a patriarchal society. Gilligan suggests that most human beings do not resist these roles, hence its ongoing repetition, but that it is possible and necessary in order to realize our human capacity for care. I address this resistance in The Arc of His Sword, available in the same story collection. In this story, a young girl’s father attempts to break the generational abusive childrearing he grew up with by building a more nurturing and understanding parent-child relationship with his daughter. I developed the character in order to explore the possibility of challenging traditional roles and Gilligan’s text would have been perfect to better understand this process.

I will use In a Human Voice a great deal as I further develop my characters in my ongoing novel project. The idea of a silenced voice and possible resistance are central to the novel. I envision my main character resisting with the help of others who have been resisting and the information I have gleamed from Gilligan’s book will be invaluable.