Author: Lindsay

Weird in the Telling: Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-formed Thing

/ Lindsay / Leave a comment

When it comes to weird fiction, it seems to me that many readers define “weird” in terms of plot or character or what actually happens in the story.  Said strange stories might contain monsters or the supernatural, or perhaps skewed realities that make us uncomfortable. This definition is only one side of weird fiction, though.  Weird fiction can take place in our reality and still be puzzling, still make us feel slightly weird.

Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is the latter sort of weird text.  In terms of story, the tale the words on the page formed, there was really very little that surprised me in this book (spoilers follow).  This is the story of a girl born to a family consisting of a single mother, an absent father, and a brain cancer-surviving older brother.  The girl and her family have been metaphorically diseased by her brother’s cancer, and it is this disease that affects the girl’s entire life.  Through a trajectory that seems inevitable, the girl is raped by her uncle, after which point she spends her life seeking out sexual abuse at the hands of her uncle and others in order to cope with the extraordinary emotional pain she feels.

I think you’ll agree that this summary does not depict an altogether unfamiliar story, horrific and sad though it certainly is.  What, then, is so strange about this tale?  What makes A Girl is a Half-formed Thing weird?

If you’ve heard about A Girl is a Half-formed Thing, it was likely in the context of its publication history or its narrative structure.  The book had been turned down several times before being published (after nearly a decade!), and after McBride began to win scads of prizes, her novel received a good deal of press about how challenging the language is.

It is, then, McBride’s extraordinary language that makes her story strange.  A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is told in a style that might be best described in McBride’s words: it makes use of “stream of pre-consciousness, because it’s about gut reaction rather than processed thought, about before language has begun to form pre-thought.”

The novel, written entirely in this pre-consciousness format, can be said to authentically capture feeling, pre-thought. Take, for instance, this example:

“I the morning. I the day.  When the air was.  The air is.  Today.  Today.  When the bones hurt no I’m young.  When the everything’s sitting like.  Right.  What’s happened?  For the radio’s somewhere play.  In the house.  I’m the house” (171-2).

Here, we experience the moment when the narrator first wakes up; here, we’re in the space between dream and thought, where we’re too incoherent for words.  But it’s weird, right?  As readers we aren’t used to encountering sentences like this.  Heck, we can hardly be said to dwell in the incoherence that precedes our own thoughts.

So what’s the point of writing like this?  It makes a book difficult to read, to be sure, though no less rewarding, and I doubt this style was easy for McBride to write.  So what’s the deal here?  Why tell this story in this particular way?

I have two thoughts about this:

  • McBride has made use of storyline that is already somewhat familiar to us so that she can tell it in an entirely fresh way.  I’m not sure this story would have been as interesting if told in straightforward prose; however, McBride’s use of such novel language reinjects this story with urgency and desperation that I’m not sure would be there otherwise. The telling makes the story weird and unsettling (which, as we all know, is a good thing). In some ways, this book does what much weird fiction does well: it makes the familiar strange.  In the strange telling of this familiar story, McBride has energized this familiar storyline.
  • My second thought is that this fragmented language is essential to convey the extent of pain the protagonist feels in her life. Story is only partially able to convey this pain; the language is responsible for completing our understanding of this girl’s life, which has been a parade of misery.  To grasp this girl’s pain, why would we need to be told or shown anything beyond this: “There is no Jesus here these days just come all you fucking lads.  I’ll have you every one any day.  Breakfast dinner lunch and tea.  The human frame.  The human frame.  The human frame requires.  Give them something.  A good hock spit for what it’s worth.  They’ll say my name forever shame but do exactly what I say.  I’m a laughing skirt up around my knees and feathery boy rosen cheek between.  I found the shell I’ll rap until it breaks” (83)?  What else could fully formed thought, complete sentences, and prosaic prose contribute to our understanding of the sadness, the repression this girl experienes?

For McBride’s story, one of what is, in our world, a far too common narrative of abuse and pain, maybe it’s okay that the story isn’t new.  The language, the way McBride uses it, is fractured, it isn’t all there; still, the fragments let just enough coherence between the gaps for a reader to form a narrative, but the language is broken enough to mirror our girl.

The takeaway: A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is strange.  It is uncomfortable.  It is worth reading to appreciate the full capabilities of language, and to see how “weird” might look in a realistic, not at all fantastical or otherworldly genre.

Advertisement

My Weird Travel Bucket List

/ Lindsay / Leave a comment

One of the reasons to travel is to experience the feeling of immersion that comes from being in an unfamiliar place.  Even if you’re not into “weird,” experiences that are memorable, that stand out, are those that are out of the ordinary, however you define it.

Since we’re here, clearly we have a predilection for the weird; weird places are no exception.  I’m not talking about the places that make you feel like maybe you’ve accidentally walked into your last night on earth, but places that startle or unsettle you and make you feel somehow different, more aware.

I’ve had this feeling before in sculpture parks, places where the ordinary and extraordinary meet.  Walking in a park is an ordinary experience; walking in a park and encountering a giant eyeball is extraordinary.  There are countless weird places in the world, little magical portals that appear in unexpected places; if I have to pick just a few places to go, though, here’s my current top list of strange places where I’d like to immerse myself, to experience their incredible unordinariness:

Museo Subacuático de Arte

Sculpture and art parks are fantastic, but the Museo Subacuático de Arte is one better: it’s an underwater sculpture park, featuring work by Jason deCaires Taylor.  To get to the Museo, you have to snorkel/scuba dive to the sculptures, which also serve as structures to support the regrowth of coral.  I’m totally captivated by the idea of these sculptures that are meant to merge with nature, to be transformed and become unrecognizable.  I imagine this experience would be made even more otherworldly because of the silence and pressure of being underwater.

Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo/Parco dei Mostri (Park of Monsters)

Just LOOK at this fabulous creation.  The Parco dei Mostri was designed by Prince Vincino Orsini and architect Pirro Ligorio in 1552, which is amazing to me as some of the sculptures feel contemporary, or perhaps timeless.  In the Parco dei Mostri, awesome (literally) moss- and lichen-covered stone sculptures and grotesque monsters loom out of the grounds.    I love the way nature has partially reclaimed the sculptures (which were apparently neglected for centuries); in this way, the Sacro Bosco seems like an unintentional cousin of the Museo Subacuático.  In both parks, the art has merged with the land.

While I’m sure these sculptures were beautiful in their new, pristine state, the moss and lichen is what draws me in, giving these images a haunting eternal feel.  I’d have to visit in person to see if I felt the same way.

Sedlec Ossuary

Did someone say bone church!?  Located in the Czech Repuplic, the Sedlec Ossuary is a Roman Catholic chapel containing decorations made from the overabundant remains of 40,000 people, artfully arranged by a Czech woodcarver in 1870.  It’s not hard to find contemporary references to the Sedlec Ossuary, as it routinely pops up in movies, shows, and on lists about the creepiest places on earth.  (I suspect that this song might be a reference to the Ossuary as well).

The Sedlec Ossuary will, I’m sure, always attract substantial attention; places like this walk and/or cross the line between reverence and sacrilege, the practical and the macabre.  Even thinking about being in this church and breathing air that has clearly passed through and around human remains sets me a little on edge.  However, the point of visiting weird places—much like weird art, or weird writing—is not to make a person feel comfortable.  Because I have a visceral reaction to even just the photos, I’m very curious to know how the place itself would make me feel.

It strikes me that even though these places are so very different, they also share a certain similarity, and it is the sameness that has drawn me in.  Sacro Bosco and the Museo both let nature turn something already eerie into something stirring; life grows upon relics, which somehow makes it feel like human presence has been erased, like these structures cannot possibly have been created by people.  These are temples of forgotten, monstrous gods.

Though the Sedlec Ossuary ostensibly doesn’t fit the character of manmade thing turned marvelous by nature, the idea of an absent human hand seems relevant.  It is difficult for me, if not impossible, to picture one human sorting through other humans’ remains, combining various parts and pieces and people, turning those bones into chandeliers, bells, and arches.

What else is there to say about these places?  I feel as though I’m drawn to them for the same reason I’m drawn to weird writing.  Much like weird fiction, these places writing fill me with amazement, with wonder, with marvel for how humanity possibly managed to dream up and create such works as these.  Strange works are both beautiful and terrifying; artful displays of imagination and utterly absorbing worlds that challenge me to reassess my notion of fiction, art, or my vision of the world.

For now, I’ll fantasize about visiting the Ossuary, the Museo, and the Parco dei Mostri, imagining them to be immersive, unsettling, and utterly captivating, but I  very much hope to experience these places in person.

 

Weird Rec: “Ancient Ham” by Meredith Alling

/ Lindsay / 1 Comment

I may not want Meredith Alling to cook dinner for me anytime soon, but she can write me a story any day.

In “Ancient Ham,” a delectable morsel of flash fiction, Alling tells the story of a magic ham with predictive powers.  “Once a year,” we’re told, “the Ancient Ham crawls out of the sewer to sit on a curb and answer questions.”

People flock to the Ancient Ham to ask it yes or no questions.  How, you might ask, does a ham answer such questions?  Well, one simply pokes the Ancient Ham with sewing needles laden with offerings, and then the Ancient Ham bobs left for no, right for yes.

“Ancient Ham” is especially brilliant in the way the story’s heart emerges in the last few lines.  I won’t spoil the ending for you, but just know that it has me bobbing to the right, just like the Ancient Ham.

Yes, you should read this story; yes, this writer is fab; yes, I am salivating over the prospect of Alling’s forthcoming debut collection.

Click here to read “Ancient Ham,” published on Tin House‘s blog, The Open Bar.

Immersed in the Fiction of the Museum of Jurassic Technology

/ Lindsay / Leave a comment

To finish out our weekend at AWP, we make our way to the museum, which is in Culver City around the corner from a surprisingly unassuming, corporate-looking Sony Studios lot.  We leave the sun and heat and enter the eye-straining gloom of the museum.  In the dark I find myself bowing down to read the peeling placards—pale text on black backgrounds—leaning so close my eyes hurt.  The first exhibit I see is a glass box bearing a sign that reads, “Exhibit out of order.”

In the display case box are five glass dishes, each filled with a powder and labeled with numbers 1 through 5.  Beneath the box is a legend: each number, it seems, correlates to a word.

One of the five glass dishes is smashed, glass dish number 5.

Lean closer, and you’ll see that number 5 is labeled “Reason.”

And so begins the immersive experience that is the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a world filled with the inescapable allure of the illogical and haunting sounds that pull you from room to room.

In a way, the Museum draws our attention to the experience of living in fiction.  Is the exhibit with glass dishes truly out of order, or am I meant to interpret it as a symbol, a warning, that this is a place where reason is to be left at the door?

The magic of the Museum of Jurassic Technology is that its exhibits function like good fiction, perhaps even especially like good fairytales or well-done flash fiction.  The placards present self-contained worlds; at the same time, we are invited to follow the narrative as it spirals beyond the displays in front of us, to consider implications and the logic of what remains unsaid.

Take, for instance, another display: in this glass case, there is a model bed, tiny and disheveled.

The caption reads: “A woman after childbirth is the most dangerous thing on earth.  All sorts of uncanny things are around the mother and infant, and if she goes to a river to wash, the fish will go away.”

I found myself agreeing with this caption: yes, this conveys a certain truth.  A woman after childbirth is a strange and dangerous thing; in giving birth, she has, as Maggie Nelson says, “touched death along the way.”  It is no wonder that a person who has experienced such an uncanny thing could be said to drive the fish away.

The caption’s turn to the river is an unexpected turn, but one that feels natural.  It’s an example of Kate Bernheimer’s “just-so stories”: because of the way the description is written, we as readers believe (we want to believe) that the events of the caption happened exactly as we’ve been told.  That is, a woman has a child; a woman after childbirth is an uncanny thing; the uncanny woman thing drives the fish away.

Beyond telling a fiction (or is it?) in which we might recognize an aspect of human experience, this caption calls beyond itself and invites the visitor to contemplate the exhibit’s implications.  For instance, for how long will a new mother keep the fish away?  Is our uncanny woman supernatural in nature, able to pollute the river and banish the fish forever?  Is it possible that the woman is simply a particularly aggressive bather, and her splashing scared the fish away?

Put aside the caption; consider again the stark display of the empty, unmade bed.  Now we’re left wondering: for how long has our uncanny mother been gone?

AWP 2016: Beyond the Definition of Weird

/ Lindsay / Leave a comment

Unreality was the name of our game last weekend at AWP in LA.  On the last full day of the conference, Carlea and I attended two panels concerned with the “unreal,” what some might call “weird.”

The first panel, “In the Realms of the Real and the Unreal,” featured panelists Sofia Samatar, Kelly Link, Carmen Machado, and Alice Sola Kim, moderated by Katharine Beutner.  This panel addressed a question we as readers and writers of weird fiction likely often encounter: what exactly is weird fiction?  Readers and writers of any genre are likely familiar with this question and the difficulty of establishing what, exactly, weird fiction is.  What is this thing?  Can we even pin it down?  How does it work?  What are its rules?

In response to this impulse to define and name, moderator Katharine Beutner asked Sofia Samatar about her belief that her “favorite sub-genre is both over-named and nameless, but it still believes in the power of names.”  When we talk about weird fiction, what do we mean?  The weird?  Slipstream? Literary fantasy?  Interstitial?  Sci-fi, speculative, absurd?  The list is endless, and this is what Samatar is getting at when she points to the abundance of names for this particular genre.  The impulse to categorize fiction is indisputable, but as Sofia Samatar said on Saturday, “defining stories piece by piece might be making us dumber.”

The question of definition will likely be one that we at Read Weird will take up sooner or later, but putting aside the question of definition allowed the aforementioned panelists to productively discuss how to make speculative/unreal fiction successful.  For Kelly Link, weird fiction works through the language, in the way its pattern, repetition, and code resemble music, and the way in which the “musicality or stasis of a story moves a reader through a series of emotional responses.”  Samatar, too, focused on language, saying that the “strangeness of fiction returns language to itself.”

Ultimately, the panel turned to a discussion of the underpinning ideas of unreal fiction, and these underpinnings align remarkably across genres: writing is play, there’s beauty in precision and pattern and rhythm, but also in having our expectations upended.  I’d be surprised if we couldn’t all agree that these are the reasons we keep reading and writing, regardless of our respective pet genres.

So then, as moderator Rob Spillman asked at the final panel of the day (“Speculative Fiction: Defining the Rules of a Rule-Breaking Genre,” featuring Ramona Ausubel, Marie-Helene Bertino, Manuel Gonzales, and Aimee Bender): what is at the emotional core of why not hyperreal?  Why pursue genres that make any use of the unreal?

This question, though it contains interesting theoretical implications, seemed to elicit emotional responses.  The panelists each offered their own beautiful and telling insights: responses included the ideas that the “magical feels so much cleaner than the real world,” and that it’s “boring for writers to tackle the realist stuff”; Bertino also told of needing to defend the weirdness in her stories, that “that’s just what it’s like inside [her] head.”

It seems like certain types of readers and writers have an affinity for weird genres, that for one reason or another, weird fiction can do something, scratch some itch, in a way that realistic fiction cannot.  Weird stories, the “Speculative Fiction” panelists decided, can make simultaneous use of literal and metaphorical readings; speculative fiction is not weird simply for the sake of being weird, but rather that weirdness allows readers and writers to access a fragile, emotional core at the heart of an experience.