Month: November 2006

A big part of my difficulties with Link’s fiction has to do with the fact that I keep trying to read her as a fantasist, when actually she’s a surrealist. When a fantasy writer introduces non-realistic elements into their fiction, the conventions of the genre dictate that these elements be taken at face value–in the Harry Potter universe, cars can be made to fly and certain magical creatures can conjure flashbacks of one’s worst memories–or as a fairly straightforward metaphor for mundane objects, situations, or states of mind. Because she’s a writer rooted in genre fiction–and, more importantly, because her stories evince an almost obsessive attention to detail and are usually written in a coldly analytical, matter-of-fact voice rather than the more dreamy attitude I tend to associate with magical realism–my kneejerk reaction when reading Link’s fiction is to look for either an internally consistent fantasy world or a fairly obvious key that will allow me to decipher–to transform–her stories into everyday terms (this attitude probably has something to do with the fact that my favorite pieces in Link’s first short story collection, Stranger Things Happen, were the ones that retold and remixed traditional fairy tales. Perhaps wisely, Link has moved away from this style in her more recent fiction). If you’ve read any of Link’s fiction, you’ll guess that I am, more often than not, frustrated in my search for either of these easy solutions. When I call Link a surrealist what I mean is that it’s the gestalt effect of the fantastic elements in her stories that I should be reading for, the ambience that they–combined with her dry, almost journalistic authorial voice–create that is the point of her fiction, not any specific detail.

I don’t think she’s wrong, and I actually had much the same reaction while reading Magic for Beginners. Link is a terrific writer, one of my favorites, but she’s definitely taken a turn towards the surreal with her recent fiction. I’m reminded of Martin Earl’s brief review of the collection in Kaleidotrope, describing Link’s “penchant for the interestingly odd”:

These are stories that toy with expectations, subvert what we think we know to reveal something fundamentally more unusual and intriguing, more sinister or sublime, at the core. These stories often do have the feel of dreams to them — which of course is to say the bizarre, but not simply for its own sake. The strange and unexpected twists these stories sometimes take, the playfulness that Link displays with her words, the worlds she builds that are not quite our own — these are not an attempt to undermine reality, but to clarify it, to better understand and reveal the weird magic at reality’s heart.

1. “Halley’s Waitress” by Fountains of Wayne, guessed by Thud
   Darling don’t you know we miss you when you’re gone?
2. “Allison Road” by the Gin Blossoms
   I didn’t know I was lost at the time
3. “Double Takes” by Christine Fellows
   I don’t think life just happens to you
4. “All the Things You Are” by Ella Fitzgerald
   You are the breathless hush of evening
5. “Control” by Poe, guessed by Glen
   Not every saint is a fool
6. “People Get Ready” by Eva Cassidy
   Now there ain’t no room for the hopeless sinner
7. “Fool for Love” by Sandy Rogers
   The blushing bride was my best friend
8. “Free to Go” by Folk Implosion
   I didn’t leave my room til I learned how to drive
9. “It’s Over” by Electric Light Orchestra, almost guessed by Kim
   Searchin’ for the righteous wave
10. “Strange and Beautiful” by Aqualung
    I’ve been watching your world from afar

Last week’s answers are here. Um, except for #9. Which I seem to have forgotten and never written down. And which Google can’t seem to help me with. I swear, it’s a song lyric. Some day, in the far distant future, I’ll be listening to my playlist again, and the song will randomly come up, and I’ll know again what it was. Until then…well, c’est la vie.