The Man Who Wasn't Feeling Himself
By Chad Taylor
David Ling Publishing Ltd.
Review by Thomas J. Hubschman
I hate fiction reviews--not writing them, reading them.
500 to a 1,000 words of gush extolling some novelist's
"uncanny mastery of the idiosyncrasies" of this or that
regional dialect or social class, his or her "Joycean sense
for the irony and pathos of what it means to be human." Then
I pick up one of these masterpieces (hopefully in a public
library) only to find drab language and no sense at all for
either Joycean or any other irony or pathos.
Some reviewers are, of course, worth reading for their
own sake, without any thought at all of whether to buy the
book under review. V.S. Pritchett is the consummate example
of this. Like Plutarch or Trollope, you read Pritchett just
to enjoy the company of his mind. He makes a compelling case
for the writers he reviews, it's true, but though I have made
list after list of obscure 19th and 20th century novelists he
has praised, I've never gotten around to reading any of
them, while I do return again and again to Pritchett's essays
about them.
So before proceeding any further, let me not try to tell
you why Chad Taylor's new collection of short stories is
worth your time and attention. Let me give you a free sample
and you can make up your own mind whether or not he is your
cup of tea:
'On Alice Mills' first day of attendance at West Eden
Primary, an elder classmate named Natalie Brinks stole her
pencil, ran with it to the other end of the playground and
rested it on the edge of the drain behind Room 10. Natalie
then ran back across the schoolyard and confronted Alice with
an ultimatum: her pencil was in a position of danger, and the
only course of action available to her was to become
Natalie's slave.... Alice refused, and demanded that her
pencil be returned. The onlookers jeered and turned
breathless towards Natalie, whose jutting lip was already
set. A small crowd followed her as she sprinted back across
the basketball courts, past the staff room and into the shade
of Room 10. The pencil was still there on the edge of the
drain, hovering on the metal grille. Natalie pushed it
in.... Alice Mills wanted to cry but did not. She contained
her anger. From that day forth, she decided she would devote
herself only to doing good. One week later she entered the
world of medicine....
'Doctor Mills' consultancy dealt mainly in dolls and
stuffed toys, including bears. Doctor Mills was speedy in her
diagnosis. The doll has a headache: she needs some aspirin.
This bear has bad breathing. This doll has eaten something
that is making her sick: she needs to drink some milk.
'One day Natalie Brinks turned up in the waiting room
behind Room 10, ashen-faced, clutching her doll to her
breast. Glances were exchanged by the children there, but
Doctor Mills was impartial where the sick were concerned. She
smiled and asked Natalie to step into the surgery. "It's my
dollie," Natalie said, handing over a large, round-headed
infant, the plastic worn to a shine by years of cuddling and
dress-ups. "She hasn't been sleeping at all."
'"I see," said Doctor Mills. "What have you been feeding
her?"
'"Milk and cake," Natalie said. "On the weekend she had
salad... But what's wrong with her, Doctor? Why isn't she
well?"
'Doctor Mills appraised the doll and gave a heavy sigh.
"She's not in pain," she said, and then laid the body on the
grass with grim reverence. When she spoke to Natalie it was
with directness and clarity. "This dolly," she told her, "is
dead."'
You may or may not consider this the most representative
writing from the collection (it probably isn't). You may not
even find the story from which it is taken, "Calling Doctor
Dollywell," to be, as I do, a favorite. But, by God, you'll
have to agree that the man can write.
My own prejudice is that this is the sort of writing
that is at the heart of his talent. But there is plenty of
less traditional material in this short compendium, most of
which takes place in his native New Zealand: a computer
technician who identifies, literally, with his favorite
machine; a revolting and then oddly moving story of two
sado-masochists lovers (called "Archie and Veronica); a
famous actor who every now and then abruptly loses his
identity and has to be "coached" by his long-suffering wife
into pretending he is someone he no longer is.
But the best moments, for my money, are still the ones
where we get the sense that, yes, this is right, this is
life, and feel thankful for his putting it so well. Sometimes
the moment occurs when we least expect it, when we're
expecting more cyber-hijinks or metaphysical twists: a
lesbian's first kiss which is anything but sentimental or
titillating; Archie and Veronica's refreshing lovemaking
after a day of mutual torture.
Which is not to say that this collection is ordinary in
any sense, about ordinary people or ordinary situations.
Everything in the book is in a sense contained in the passage
quoted above, especially the author's preoccupation with sado-
masochism, (in one story a lover insists on making love to
his girlfriend whom he has just accidentally run down before
calling an ambulance for her; in another the roommate of
someone who engages in S and M stands in for the roommate, then
punches him out; and of course Archie and Veronica, who force
each other to endure everything from heat prostration to car
sickness before finally making love with such gentleness
under the stars--how's that for turning S and M on its head?)
Throughout it all there is a sure and confident prose.
There are, to be sure, for a couple of clinkers, but show me
a collection without a clinker or two. What matters is the
author's vision, and kinky though it may be much of the time,
Taylor's is both broad and penetrating. All the creative
writing courses in the world can't produce vision. It's why,
and perhaps despite the establishment's approval, we read and
go on reading Cervantes and Pritchett. It's why we
cherish authors whose prose is barely adequate to the task
and why we become bored with other authors who are masters of
the mot juste but can't see behind the tips of their own
noses.
A short story collection, as Frank O'Connor pointed out,
is an embodiment of a writer's vision at a particular period
of his life, much like a painter's "blue period." Collected
works destroy this sense of coherence in time (unless like
Eudora Welty's the "collected works" actually is a reprint, in
chronicle order, of all her earlier collections, so that what
you have is a book of books). The Man Who Wasn't Feeling
Himself represents such a compendium of the world according
to Taylor, seen from several distinct angles perceived at a
particular stage of the author's development. It either works
or it doesn't. If it works well--and it surely does in this
book--the result is a revelation. If it doesn't...well, we
all know what that's like.
For those who can't get enough of Taylor--and I'm not yet
there myself--there's also Pack of Lies and Heaven, two
books published previous to this. He's currently at work on a
new novel.
The Man Who Wasn't Feeling Himself is available through
Unity Books, 19 High Street, Auckland, NZ (Fax: 64-9 373-
4883).
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