Jayaprakash
05-May-2009, 04:56
'Although the sun had sunk behind the houses, the sky was still luminous and the blue of the wall had deepened. She rubbed her fingers along it: the wash was fresh and a little of the powdery stuff came off. And she remembered how once she had reached out to touch the face of a clown because it had awakened some longing. It had happened at a little circus, but not when she was a child.'
- Jane Bowles, Everything Is Nice
Jane Bowles' short stories are sharply observed and yet somehow slantwise in the telling. The stories in this slim volume often look at the chaos and madness lurking beneath the surface of prosaic characters leading outwardly mundane lives. There's the prim old widow of the title tale, who professes to prefer 'plain pleasures' and a simple life over the glamorous aspirations of her sister, only to get drunk, become flirty and finally pass out in a strange bed the first time a man asks her out in years. 'Everything Is Nice' plays on culture-shock, as an American woman adrift in Morocco tries to interact with the local women. 'Camp Cataract' is something of a tour de force, exploring hidden conflicts in a middle class household and the deep yearning for escape and potential for madness in its respectable middle-aged characters. It builds to one of the most telling and ambiguous climaxes in the book; the phrase 'telling and ambiguous' could serve as a description for the virtues of Bowles' sharp, quirky prose. To my mind, the finest story here is 'Hard Green Candy', which is a snapshot of the moment when a child's imagination starts to die in the face of the grown-up world and the process of growing up.
I haven't read Bowles' only novel, Two Serious Ladies, but these stories certainly serve as a good incentive to do so.
- Jane Bowles, Everything Is Nice
Jane Bowles' short stories are sharply observed and yet somehow slantwise in the telling. The stories in this slim volume often look at the chaos and madness lurking beneath the surface of prosaic characters leading outwardly mundane lives. There's the prim old widow of the title tale, who professes to prefer 'plain pleasures' and a simple life over the glamorous aspirations of her sister, only to get drunk, become flirty and finally pass out in a strange bed the first time a man asks her out in years. 'Everything Is Nice' plays on culture-shock, as an American woman adrift in Morocco tries to interact with the local women. 'Camp Cataract' is something of a tour de force, exploring hidden conflicts in a middle class household and the deep yearning for escape and potential for madness in its respectable middle-aged characters. It builds to one of the most telling and ambiguous climaxes in the book; the phrase 'telling and ambiguous' could serve as a description for the virtues of Bowles' sharp, quirky prose. To my mind, the finest story here is 'Hard Green Candy', which is a snapshot of the moment when a child's imagination starts to die in the face of the grown-up world and the process of growing up.
I haven't read Bowles' only novel, Two Serious Ladies, but these stories certainly serve as a good incentive to do so.