Isla McKetta, MFA, Author at A Geography of Reading

Relaxing with a Few of the Best Mystery Novels

February 16, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

It’s been a busy few months. While I was finalizing Clear Out the Static in Your Attic for Write Bloody Publishing, I found out that Editions Checkpointed wanted to publish Polska, 1994. Wonderful, happy news all around, but it means that I’ve been editing, proofing, creating marketing schedules, and sending/receiving emails pretty much constantly since the middle of December. Did I mention I have a day job? Oh, and at the same time I agreed to write two articles on spec for a really well respected publication.

I’ve been rejected enough to know that when the literary world rains happy acceptances on you, you take them. And I am not complaining. But I am exhausted. I am months behind in my correspondence and I really miss my friends, who, by now, might be wondering if I even remember how to return an email. I do. I will return them all soon. I swear.

But first I needed to recover, and for me recovery always means reading. So this week I took a break from my normal “reading to challenge myself and learn more about writing” routine and picked up all the unread mysteries I could find around the house. It’s been a wonderful experience and I learned some things along the way.

The Plot

Mystery novels are a tradition in my family. My beloved grandmother (I called her Baba) read as much as one whole mystery novel a day. She’d then pass on her favorite Ngaio Marsh, Dick Francis, Agatha Christie, Gregory McDonald, or Lilian Jackson Braun to whomever she thought would love it. February is her month for a lot of reasons–her birthday, the day she passed away in 2011 and then her memorial service. It’s also a quiet but potent month with all the activity of a full month packed into a little space. Anyway, it feels like a good time to be near her memory and to read books she would have loved.

The Suspects

The books I’ve read this week are Avalanche by Patrick F. McManus because my dad used to read us McManus stories when I was a kid, Murdock Cracks Ice by Robert J. Ray because it’s set in Seattle and I know and like the author, and The Vanishing Smile by Earl Emerson because my dad likes him.

A Lovable PI

What I’ve learned from these books is that you need a lovable PI as your protagonist. I know this is not universally true for mysteries, but it’s a good start. He’s usually an ex-cop. Actually, I think Bo Tully in Avalanche is still a cop. I read these books really fast so details… The cop/PI angle is part of what talked me out of writing my own mystery series. I did consider it for a few minutes while reading these books–partly because they are a lot of fun to read and partly because I think they have a better chance of affording me that dream of living off my writing that’s been tugging at my heart so hard lately. He’s usually a man. Again, lots of writers have flipped this, but lots of them haven’t. He’s also usually a little rough around the edges–like he needs you to love him or cook him a good dinner.

Dames

Speaking of love, there’s always a love interest or story of some sort. This is actually my favorite part of most of these books. The love interests are usually a little more on the ball than the PI (especially Kathy in The Vanishing Smile) and I like that too. The characters aren’t terrifically well-rounded, but they are human enough and the days of a tomato with a great pair of pins are mercifully over. I’m fine with a great-looking woman, but not if that’s all she is.

The Stiff

I think the real art in a mystery novel seems to be in bringing to life (haha) the murder victim. These characters are invariably dead by the time we first hear of them (or will be in a page or two), but the reader’s engagement hinges on how well the character is, um, reanimated. In Avalanche, we come to hate Mike Wilson. The victim in Murdock Cracks Ice is wonderfully complex which really adds to the plot and subplots, and Marian Wright in The Vanishing Smile was on a mission that only gets more interesting the more we learn about it.

The Setting

I do love reading books about places I don’t know. But when it comes to a mystery, a good part of the charm for me is reading about places I do know. In the past I have been thrilled to read about the Cascade Mountains in Mary Daheim’s novels and about a familiar restaurant on Eastlake in GM Ford’s novels. In the case of Murdock Cracks Ice Bob Ray actually mentioned a restaurant I ate at about a week ago. Swoon.
The setting is definitely part of the character in these books. I don’t think I’ve ever loved one where the city it’s set in didn’t come alive.

Action, Action, Action

I actually skim over a lot of the action. Another reason why I can’t write mysteries. When Thomas Black gets attacked by a man in the dark of his driveway in The Vanishing Smile, I skim ahead to make sure it works out okay. No offense to the writers, but I think that “all will soon be right with the world” feeling is part of the allure of a good mystery. I trust the writers to get me there. I don’t need all of the details.

The Underworld

Reading these books this week, I learned about misappropriation of funds, the meth industry, and the tangled web of HIV infection. It’s fun to step away from my normal world and go someplace darker without any of the actual risk. It’s like the classes I took in Criminology without the tests at the end.

The Doer

I actually don’t care at all about the villain or who the real murderer is. That’s just one more reason I shouldn’t write mysteries. It’s also one of the reasons I can read them over and over and over. I like guessing along the way as the writer throws suspects at me. I like being fooled a little. And, like I said, I have no idea who killed any of the people in any of the books I just read.

Okay, so you can see that I wasn’t able to actually put down my “reading like a writer” glasses. Except for the parts about me skimming rapidly through the bits I can’t relate to. But I had a great time slipping into the genre and it did make me feel closer to Baba. Maybe the best part of this week is that these mystery novels are helping me reconnect with loved ones. I gave some of the mysteries I finished this week to my dad and to a dear friend who’d had dinner with me in one of the locales.

I won’t be writing mysteries anytime soon. I just don’t have the knack for action. But if you want to connect with someone who is, my friend Icess Fernandez is currently writing her own mystery series and blogging about it.

The wonderfully busy times aren’t over yet. I’ll be reading the night before AWP at 7pm at Ravenna Third Place Books. And I’ll be moderating a panel at AWP on February 27 called “Four Ways Blogging Benefits a Writer.” If you’re coming to the conference, we’re up first thing in the morning in room 604.

I hope you’re enjoying the long weekend. If you have a chance, I’d love to hear about the books you read to relax or if you have a favorite mystery writer I should put on my list.

The Foreign and the Familiar in Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber

February 9, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA 2 Comments

I avoided reading Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber for almost a year. It looked too thick for my purse or the back matter was too fluffy for my mood. When I finally picked up the book, I realized what I’d been missing all this time. And although I lost myself in the story of Sirine and Han so much that I barely annotated the book, it was impossible to ignore how well-crafted this novel is.

The Observer Between Worlds

Abu-Jaber sets up the perfect observer of cultures in Sirine, a half-Iraqi, half-American chef living in California with her Iraq-born uncle. Sirine barely knew her parents when they died and although she used to cook “American” food, she feels herself drawn back into Iraqi side of her heritage. It’s the perfect setup for a reader to explore it with her. Sirine has the natural curiosity because of the allure of tracing one’s ancestry, and even if you were never interested in Arab culture in general, her interest is contagious.

And then Abu-Jaber puts Sirine in the perfect place to observe culture–cooking at an Arab cafe near a university. Some of the characters Sirine sees on a daily basis are people she might have interacted with through her uncle who is also a professor at the university, but putting Sirine in front of them on her own terms makes her form her own relationships with characters like professor Aziz, American Nathan who photographed Iraq years ago, and the brilliant Han who will so haunt Sirine that a love match is inevitable.

“Trying to translate Hemingway into Arabic is like trying to translate a bird into a river.” – Diana Abu-Jaber, Crescent

Although many of the predominant characters in this book are male (besides Sirine), there’s also a wonderful world of rich female characters like Um-Nadia and Rana. They may be less pushy about getting themselves included in the narrative, but the lessons they impart are equally important.

Conflict and Tension

Sirine’s attraction to Han is so strong that it seems inevitable they will get together. And when they do, it is not at all disappointing. But I was so invested in their relationship that as it went on and started to grow (Abu-Jaber does amazing things with anticipation), I remembered that happy relationships don’t make for good fiction. I knew the writing was too good to just dissolve into happy fun times, but I also really wanted Sirine and Han to ride off into the sunset. I won’t spoil what happens. I will say that their relationship is handled very well and nothing in it feels at all arbitrary. I kind of want to go read it again now…

Setting the Stakes

Remember the old adage, “Those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it”? The best novels put that to use by laying out hints of the moral or the pattern that the character will repeat over and over until he or she learns what is necessary to escape that ring of hell and advance. Throw in a little of Chekhov’s gun (everything in the story must be necessary to the telling of it) and you have a gripping story where the reader has all the tools to get deeply rooted in the protagonist’s struggles. All of this makes for damned compelling fiction that’s hard to put down.

Abu-Jaber does a beautiful job setting these stakes for Sirine and laying out the necessary elements of telling the story. I won’t tell you here what main struggles I think Sirine is trying to overcome (for me there were two, maybe three) because part of the joy of a good book is finding the ones you personally identify with–it makes your bond with the character stronger. But I will say that Abu-Jaber doesn’t waste one element in her storytelling and I really appreciated that.

One of the reasons I think my first book was a novella is that I knew I had to be in control of all those elements and I didn’t have the tools yet to do that on a large scale. I only hope I can someday write something that merits 400 pages like Abu-Jaber has done with Crescent.

Food Porn

“There’s time for baklava if they make it together.

She hunts in the big drawer for another apron, shows him where to stand, how to pick up the sheet of filo dough from its edge, the careful, precise unpeeling, the quick movement from the folded sheets to the tray, and finally, the positioning on top of the tray. He watches everything closely, asks no questions, and then aligns the next pastry sheet perfectly. She paints the dough with clarified butter. And while Sirine has never known how to dance, always stiffening and trying to lead while her partner murmurs relax, relax–and while there are very few people who know how to cook and move with her in the kitchen–it seems that she and Han know how to make baklava together.” – Diana Abu-Jaber, Crescent

One of the ways this book dances along the romance or chick lit line is Abu-Jaber’s lush descriptions of making and eating foods. That statement sounds pejorative, but as much as I liked the Sirine and Han storyline, this food porn might be what I remember longest from the book. I actually had to run to my favorite Turkish restaurant in Pioneer Square during the Seahawks’ Super Bowl victory parade (no mean feat in such a crowd) to get a taste of the reality. And when I came home to the lentil stew my husband had lovingly prepared…

Food is sustenance and as such it’s often ignored in books. That’s fine. But I’m finding that there’s this genre of books that helps us understand foreign cultures through their foods (Like Water for Chocolate is an early example). Maybe because eating is so universal that it’s something we can all relate to–it makes a good entry point into a new culture. I know when I was writing Polska, 1994 that food was a very important part of the book for me because I remembered how important the act of making and the act of eating were. Maybe it’s the very fact that as an American in a city I can have anything I want any time I want it (even when surrounded by 700,000 people chanting fans) that makes me crave this elemental look at nourishment. Oh, and some of the scenes where Sirine and Han cook together are pretty hot.

I don’t feel like I know a lot more facts about Iraqi culture than I did before I read Crescent but I do understand more of the nuance and the book made me hungry (on many levels) to explore more. It’s a beautiful book and an easy read. I wish I hadn’t let it sit on the shelf as long as I did.

If this review made you hungry to read Diana Abu-Jaber, pick up a copy of Crescent from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Lost in The End of the Story by Liliana Heker

February 2, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Some books are so important that if you care at all about understanding the history of a place, you have to read them. The End of the Story by Liliana Heker is one of those books. And although the book is gorgeously written, it is not an easy read. If you’re interested in Latin America or stories of how people rise up against tyranny, read it anyway–it’s worth it.

Revealing History

I asked for a review copy of this book because it’s about a time in Argentinian history that I desperately want to know more about–the Dirty War. When I visited the country in the mid 1980’s, their political turmoil had settled down compared to Chile’s. But I’ve always felt that by understanding what happened in Argentina, I would understand more of what was happening in Chile while I was there and who I was because of it. Still, my investigations have been limited to watching movies like La Historia Oficial which is about a woman who starts to wonder what really happened to the parents of her adoptive daughter.

Heker doesn’t flinch as she tells the story of Leonora’s abduction in Buenos Aires and what it was like for Leonora as one of the desaparecidos–locked in a dungeon and tortured. What makes the book even more interesting is the narration of Diana Glass, a writer and friend of Leonora’s who clearly idolizes her.

Telling it Slant

“Diana feels she has reached something, the end of the beginning, she thinks, a moment of supreme hope or supreme beauty from which all paths radiate to change the world.” – Liliana Heker

But Leonora is a human, not necessarily a heroine. I’m going to reveal a few spoilers here, so skip to the next section if you don’t want to know. I loved how Heker took all of Leonora’s ideals and intellectual curiosity and used them to turn her character 180 degrees from where we expect her to be.

Although there are plenty of clues that she will become the lover of one of her torturers, it still hits you in the gut. But it also seems natural. Some have written that she does so to save her daughter, but I think that’s a cop out. I strongly believe that Leonora used her grand IQ to find empathy for the enemy. And as the book unfolded, I couldn’t blame her for it. As much as I disliked her decision, the writing is good enough to make the decision seem weighty and wrought as opposed to flighty and self-serving.

That said, many could blame her for it and there was apparently much discussion when this book came out in Argentina because people felt it betrayed the revolutionary spirit. Read an essay by the translator, Andrea G. Labinger, for more insight on that. As much as I loved Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows, Leonora is no Irene Beltrán and I liked The End of the Story better for her complexity.

Framing a Story

“‘The story I wanted to tell ends, it always ended, in that first chapter. Because the awaited woman will never fight, never wanted to fight, the same revolution as the one who awaited her hoped for.'” – Liliana Heker

Heker accomplishes a stunning feat of framing this story as though it begins and ends in the same place. She plays with Diana’s nearsightedness in a way that could be a cloying metaphor and yet isn’t. The writing is beautiful and subtle. There is a depth in the way the stories of Diana and Leonora converge that I haven’t quite processed yet, but it did make me turn from the last page back to the first and start reading again.

Lost in Time

“The late October afternoon when Diana ran into Professor Ordaz, the word disappeared had not just become limited in scope.” – Liliana Heker

But I didn’t start reading over again just because I loved the book. I also started reading the book over again because I’d spent a majority of the book trying to parse out where exactly I was in time. As Heker’s scenes drifted between 1971 and 1976, I kept wishing I knew more details of the history because I was honestly lost. I tried writing the year in the margins but kept finding myself lost. There were some markers–like budding trees–that should have made finding my place in time easier, but because the seasons in South America are reversed from those in North America, I only found myself more confused by the mention of October.

When I eventually gave up trying to understand when what was happening, I liked the book better for it. Because the ethical and moral complexities are rich enough on their own. I didn’t need things that felt like “facts” because they were only a distraction from the deep exploration of human behavior under stress. And really, in the best of ways, there is nothing simple about this book.

If you can surrender to being lost in time (or if you’re a more meticulous reader than I), you must read this book. It will challenge what you think you know about yourself and your politics and you will be richer for it. I know I am.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The End of the Story from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Living and Sustaining a Creative Life by Sharon Louden

January 25, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA 4 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a writer and how I can do this thing that feeds my soul and still feed myself and my family. I was thrilled to achieve one of the markers of success as a writer this past year, but it hasn’t made “being a writer” easier. So when I saw Living and Sustaining a Creative Life by Sharon Louden, I knew I had to read this book.

Living and Sustaining a Creative Life is a collection of 40 essays by visual artists about how they are making art and life work together, and it should be required reading in any MFA program for artists of any kind. Here are a few things that really connected with me.

What does Success Look Like?

“I remember the first time someone told me that many artists with apparently thriving careers and gallery representation still had day jobs. It was the first of a very long series of realizations that the art world is at least 50% smoke and mirrors. At the time I felt an almost personal betrayal at the realization that artists I had already perceived as incredibly, unattainably successful still had to find another way to pay the bills.” – Jennifer Dalton

I loved this quote because I could feel the anger and disappointment in it. We all want to succeed at what we love in life. But I don’t think most of us know what that means until we’ve already “succeeded” which can make it hard to help others get past the goal line. In the case of writers, I feel like we’re pushing to get published in a magazine and then the next goal is the first book.

On the outside, my writing career looks very successful right now. I’m publishing two books this year, Polska, 1994 and Clear Out the Static in Your Attic: A Writer’s Guide to Turning Artifacts into Art. If I was an established writer, I think that would still be cause for celebration. As a newbie, I’m ecstatic. But it doesn’t mean I can quit my day job, nor can I retire to the beach and write full time and that leaves me feeling a little disappointed. I’m sure some part of me knew I wouldn’t retire off my first book (or my 20th), but I was so excited to get past that goal line that I thought everything would be magical fairy princess unicorn land afterwards.

I’ve been wonder where my skewed vision of success comes from. I think part of it is that it’s gauche to complain when you’ve gotten the thing that you and so many people have been striving for. In that spirit, I’m doing my best to enjoy every round of edits and compiling databases and checking contracts. But I am aware, too, that by not talking about that process, I’m helping to hide how much work takes place after you get the “we’d love to publish your book” gold star.

Another part is that it’s easier to shoot for a dream than a reality. To be perfectly honest, friends have told me some of the work that goes into publishing, but I just stared at them and concentrated on the “yes, but you’ve gotten what I dream of” look in my eyes while covering my ears to the reality. I think I could only process one step at a time. If denial about the amount of work that goes in after the writing is part of what got me to this step, then I suppose I have to embrace the denial because I am happy to be here. And even knowing now that the process is a lot more time-consuming than I could have imagined, I still want to write.

It does all leave me a little shy about what happens next in the land beyond the goal posts, but I will report on it here. I have no idea if my experience is universal, but I am happy to share it in case it can help writers in the way reading Living and Sustaining a Creative Life did for me.

Non-creative Work

“These tasks also include things like packaging artworks for shipping, preparing canvases and panels for painting, writing press releases and artist’s statements, keeping records for tax purposes, and vacuuming dog hair off the rug and furniture before it has a chance to migrate to the surface of my works in progress.” – Laurie Hogan

Obviously some of the tasks visual artists have to do are different from writers. Some of the things I find I have to do to maintain a creative life are: gathering tax info, cleaning my office, maintaining my computer, social media, reorganizing my drafts and my bookshelf, editing, more editing, even more editing, compiling lists of people who might be interested in my book, writing a glossary and translation notes, research.

There is a lot of work that I do which isn’t typing my next book. I try to maintain what Laurie Hogan describes as a “conscious effort towards efficiency” and use each task as a way to learn about myself and my process. I’m surprised sometimes at the ways those little things are an important part of the process and can be nurturing if I let them. For example, as I wrote a glossary for Polska, 1994, I remembered part of what had made me excited to write the book in the first place which is information I’ll share later in an interview. Vacuuming is time away from words when I can let creativity germinate. Social media is a chance to find new inspiration. Even these book reviews are part of that process and as I find a way to communicate with you what I have learned from a book, taking initial impressions and forming them into complete thoughts, I’m teaching myself too.

Creative Community

The way I have found to balance art/life is to try to maintain an equilibrium between social space and solitary space. I need a lot of solitary space both to work and to just ‘be.'” – Julie Langsam

Artists need each other. Sometimes to feel sane, sometimes for honest feedback in a world that doesn’t yet understand the boundaries you’re trying to break. But the more I’ve worked on my books, the less time I have to spend with my friends and that hurts sometimes.

I’ve been worried lately that I’ve withdrawn so far into the work that when I’m ready to come back out, there will be no one to play with. Luckily I have fabulously interesting friends with full lives. By being forced to retreat just from the sheer volume of things I have to do, I am learning that sometimes when I don’t hear from those wonderful people, it’s because they are this busy (or even busier). I miss them when they retreat and I miss them now, but I am grateful for a community that understands.

Partners and Families

“Because we shared everything, we enriched one another’s education.” – Maggie Michael

I feel amazingly blessed to share my life with a creative man. My husband is a visual artist and got his BFA in painting and photography before I could even admit that I wanted to be a writer. Unfortunately for him, when he graduated, neither one of us knew enough to know that the likelihood of him getting to be just an artist was slim. I pushed and prodded and I think a lot of the fun of the art went away for him. We’re in a place now where he’s starting to explore that again, but I wish I could have been as good of a creative partner to him when he graduated as he was to me when I did.

But I am grateful to share my life with someone who values aesthetics as much as I do and who can talk about art movements and big ideas. I don’t expect him to care about epistrophe, but the way he looks at the world enriches my thinking every day. And sometimes, when I’m on deadline, he takes over the cooking for weeks at a time (and does a better job at it then we do together).

Parenthood

“Many people seem to give us extra credit because we involve our child in our life as artists.” – Dan Steinhilber

One thing I have been very concerned about in choosing a creative life is how to support kids both emotionally and financially and still finding time to write. I’ve been very impressed by my writer friends who’ve had children and continue to write. Some say it teaches you efficiency. I think if I get any more efficient I might just crack, but I’m willing to try.

On the financial front, we’ll figure something out when the time comes, but I was very heartened to read Julie Blackmon’s essay and how she handles parenthood. She says, ” I give myself permission to be a really bad mother for a few days” and the way she describes chips for dinner and other insanity makes me realize that it’s a vacation for the kids too. We all need to let our hair down sometimes.

Living

“Life has to be nourished first. Creativity follows sustenance.” – Justin Quinn

Today I will let my hair down. I’ve turned in final edits on two books in the last month. I’ve written that glossary and those translation notes. I’m halfway done compiling a marketing list. I’m way behind on organizing a panel for AWP, and I had to ask for an extension on a magazine writing project I care very deeply about. But it’s time to recharge so I’m off to Port Townsend for the day with my husband and his camera.

I realize I’ve told you very little about Living and Sustaining a Creative Life and rather focused on how I live and sustain mine. It’s an essential book, and I hope you’ll read it when you are feeling the pressure of deadlines or your day job or just wishing your friends could come out and discuss what it feels like to lead a creative life.

We learn from each other I’d love to hear more about how you do it all in the comments below.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Living and Sustaining a Creative Life from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

The Art of Writing: Under the Jaguar Sun by Italo Calvino

January 19, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA 4 Comments

There are a very few authors whose work I love so much that I covet and then hide their books away so I don’t read all of them at once. Italo Calvino is at the top of that list. So when my husband gave me Under the Jaguar Sun for Christmas, I thought I’d stumble on it some day in the future when I really needed a good read.

But something he said about the title story and love and adventure made me read the book just a few days later, and I’m so glad I did. I was performing final edits on two manuscripts at the time and if there is ever a time in a writer’s life that she needs a good book, it’s during those final edits when you think you’ve done everything you can to a book and need a little boost. I’ve always loved Calvino, but what he showed me in just a few pages made my work infinitely better.

Be warned: I’m going to spoil (a little) some plots in this review, but I don’t think that will take very much away from the pleasure of reading this book for the first time. If you’re worried, though, stop reading here and come back and chat with me when you’ve read the book. It’s only 86 pages so don’t be too long.

Writing for All Senses

This book was conceived as a series of stories that each focus on one sense. Although Calvino worked on it over a period of 13 years, he only completed three. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say I didn’t realize that was the conceit of the book until the end, but that also tells you a bit about how I surrender to Calvino and just let him do whatever he wants with my brain.

It’s not uncommon in writing workshops to draft a story that focuses on a sense. I wish I could do it as well as Calvino does and I love the way that his focus shapes the very nature of the story. “Under the Jaguar Sun” is a relatively traditional narrative about a couple visiting Mexico that focuses on taste. The story is gorgeous and well-written, which I’ll go into more in a moment, but it didn’t prepare me at all for “A King Listens.” That second story is a monologue told in second person to you, the reader, the king. The way the focus of the narration shifts from quotidian advice to implications of rumor that breed suspicion and paranoia is flat-out brilliant. It played with the fleeting nature of hearing and how we interpret the implications of what people tell us.

“Epigraphs in an undecipherable language, half their letters rubbed away y the sand-laden wind: this is what you will be, O parfumeries, for the noseless man of the future.” – Italo Calvino, “The Name, the Nose.”

The third story, “The Name, the Nose” captures the ineffable magic of scent as a man seeks to find the woman who so bewitched him with her perfume. The story plays with the power of our sense of smell to provoke memory and also the way that memory sometimes shifts as we recall it. The way the story unfolds is a huge part of the magic, so that I will not spoil here.

Showing Your Hand

The art of writing, in the hands of masters, is about manipulating the experience of the reader so the words you put on the page evoke what you want them to, even though each person brings his or her lifetime of connotations into their reading of it. Like a magician, one of the ways Calvino does this is by telling you what he’s going to do to you before he does it.

This is most obvious in “Under the Jaguar Sun” when the couple encounters Salustiano who becomes a sort of guide. The narrator describes him thusly:

“It was his way of speaking–or, rather one of his ways; the copious information Salustiano supplied (about the history and customs and nature of his country his erudition was inexhaustible) was either stated emphatically like a war proclamation or slyly insinuated as if it were charged with all sorts of implied meanings.” – Italo Calvino, “Under the Jaguar Sun”

Okay, that’s all a pretty cool description of character. But it’s also the key to what the narrator is interested in about the man and about what he’s just learned from this character and will soon try out on us.

“From one locality to the next the gastronomic lexicon varied, always offering new terms to be recorded and new sensations to be defined. Instead [of chiles en nogada], we found guacamole, to be scooped up with crisp tortillas that snap into many shards and dip like spoons into the thick cream (the fat softness of the aguacate–the Mexican national fruit, known to the rest of the world under the distorted name of “avocado”–is accompanied and underlined by the angular dryness of the tortilla, which, for its part, can have many flavors, pretending to have none)” – Italo Calvino, “Under the Jaguar Sun”

What Calvino is doing here, besides giving me a wicked craving for guacamole, is deconstructing the sensation of encountering these things so that they are new to us by calling attention to the renaming of the avocado. He’s insinuating that the things we encounter that seem bland–the tortilla chips–have a flavor and rich experience all their own. In the context of the story, this passage also has implications about how we fail to appreciate the flavors of our lovers.

Because Calvino is so adept at this sleight of writing, this manipulation expands and enhances the story for me. I enjoy it rather than bucking against it.

Repetition

A friend once told me that things need to be repeated seven times in a book for a reader to really catch on. I’m not sure if that same number holds for a short story, but Calvino definitely uses repetition as emphasis and he does it so subtly that you’re constantly re-encountering information without feeling like you’ve heard that all before.

In the case of “Under the Jaguar Sun,” some of the most powerful repetition revolves around Olivia, the narrator’s lover, and eating. At first he very carefully observes her eating, following as she chewed “the tension as it moved from her lips to her nostrils, flaring one moment, contracting the next.” Later, they are at a temple having just heard about human sacrifice and he focuses on her “strong, sharp teeth and sensed there a restrained desire, an expectation.”

The subtle repetition of theme slowly sinks in as you read, and the way Calvino handles eating, especially in relation to Olivia, evolves very quickly throughout the story. What it ultimately says about her relationship to the narrator made me glad this wasn’t the story of my relationship. But the story is very evocative and I think we’ve all been in that place at least once.

I’ll return to this book, as I plan to return to all my Calvinos, when I need that boost of writing excellence. Who are the writers who speak to the way you write and who teach you with every word they put on paper?

If this review made you want to learn from Calvino, pick up a copy of Under the Jaguar Sun from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.