Recent reading, online
Reading short fiction and reading fiction on screen are two things I’ve been slowly adapting to over the last year or so. I’m sure having a short story in one tab among a dozen others isn’t exactly the ideal situation for reading fiction, but it’s not without its virtues. Turns out the right names, a little Google-fu and patience can find you a lot of good short fiction, although there’s a lot more that you need to pay for. And I probably will, though I haven’t actually taken the huge step of actually buying a short story collection yet. (Yes, huge.) Anyway, some recent reading. I have a taste for speculative fiction, of the kind that speculates in content — magic realism, fantasy, science fiction, etc. — not necessarily form. Consider yourself warned.
First, a short story I haven’t been able to find online before now, by Ted Chiang (whom I can’t stop talking about). Hell is the Absence of God won both a Hugo and a Nebula when it was published. It’s set in a world in which Heaven, Hell, God and angels are indisputably, unambiguously present. Angels visit Earth at unpredictable occasions, like natural forces, spreading salvation and disaster seemingly without order or purpose. Hell is sometimes glimpsed beneath the Earth, and it is not a place characterized by torment, but simply by the complete absence of God. Souls are seen ascending to Heaven or descending to Hell as they die. And Neil Fisk has lost his wife in a visitation by an angel, and the only way for him to be reunited with her is to love God, but he has no reason nor natural inclination to do it. And what kind of love would it be if he did it only for his own selfish motives anyway? It’s good. The resolution is satisfactory, the thought experiment is interesting. It’s the sort of thing that is about religion and yet doesn’t necessarily offend either atheists or theists without trying not to offend, if that makes much sense.
Second, Steven Millhauser. I randomly stumbled on a review of his latest short story collection, Dangerous Laughter, and the name meant nothing to me. From the review he sounded like the kind of author I’d love, and also the kind who works in obscurity. I was right on one count and wrong on the other. He’s won the Pulitzer for one of his novels, and he’s the one who wrote the NY Times essay called The Ambition of the Short Story that was linked to from everywhere recently, so he can hardly be called obscure.
Cat ‘n’ Mouse is a scene-by-scene description of Tom and Jerry cartoons and an investigation into the titular characters’ psyches (!). I admire Millhauser’s ability to put that cartoon world so easily into language. The Knife Thrower contains no overtly fantastical elements, but I daresay it’s quite fantastical regardless. It employs a voice that Millhauser likes and almost no one else uses, the first person plural. In the Reign of Harad IV tells the story of a court miniaturist who becomes obsessed with making his work smaller and smaller — the creator who takes his creation too far seems to be a theme Millhauser enjoys exploring, although according to himself, he doesn’t like being described as having themes; for him, “stories are visions.” History of a Disturbance is the apologia of a man who has given up words, put into words. It’s interesting that both Millhouser and Chiang have written Tower of Babel fabels, but neither are online.
Finally, Kelly Link. A lot of people whose opinions I give weight have sung her praises, but none of the stories I started reading hooked me enough to make me want to finish. They weren’t bad, either, and that in conjunction with the general sentiment about her from others means I won’t give up on her just yet. Many plus points for the fact that a large part of her writings are online, CC-licensed, legitimately free forever, or at least so long as someone cares to host them.
