HE FIRST question to ask yourself about this book is _ “Why is it called Raw Materia?” Because it is. Un- : . He tamed ideas wandering, sometimes routeless, in what _ Brian Fawcett once termed “the interzone between the ‘The cover's screaming teapot on a windowsill hints at the anarchy inside, The book traps me in yet another post-modern critic’s con- undrum ~~ how to criticize short fictions for which the author claims as their foundation “floating just above any possible basis of explanation?” “i'm not convinced M.A.C, Far- _ tam’s collection of short fictions are, in fact, “postmodern,” ~ 1 They are certainly self- . consclous, outrageous parodies of the narmal, But, like an untended ingrown toenail, they grow in on ’ themselves, - “Mast of the fictions (you see, _ they're not really “‘stories’’), pro- ceed ina very straightforward, " almost blase narrative, then - balloon with hyperbole, transfor- ming the domestic-normal to the tidiculous, .~ A visit (o Kmart turns into at coffee-room hastage-taking inci- “dent; a hypochondriac becomes a “living shrine; a husband begins iving in the closet. "The idea behind some of the fic- ians is very clever, it’s just that | didn’t really enjoy reading them. They were repetitious. 2. -They tried too hard to startle me, They insisted too much on themselves, . --Farrant's humor does shin - through some of the less dark ‘pleces, | * wt t RAN DO orn-out Cartesian urtiverse and the wilderness.” uw 7 BOOK REVIEW In The Comma Threatihe nar- rator discusses various uses for the comma: “Il gave some to ry aunt to decorate her curtains; she flung handfuls of them against ler drapes hoping for a Jackson Pollock effect.” She describes the little punctua- tion devices as ‘slowing down the universe just long enough for the light to shine through; they are little warriors hammering away at chaos,” The fictions in Raw Material have a skewed perspective, They parody, but with a very dark edge. In the title story, the narrator's nine-year-old daughter feeds her caged father in a weird reversal of parent-child roles, The father lives in a cage, In order to provide in- spiration for their writer mother. In Score, in which a wife moves next door so that her husband can remarry his ex-wife, Farrant com- ments on the meaning of memory: vag “history is a whole world of meanings and not just memorable events strung out in a hopscotch ine, Raw Material succeeds where Farrant’s “obscure impulse” sheds light on the normal, but not where it leads to empty im- plausibility. Black Light, by Ren Shaw, Cacanadadada Press, 174 pp., paper. In & more traditional vein is Ron Shaw's Black Light, a compas- sionate collection of short stories exploring black and white culture in Africa, While the subject matter of his stories is often bleak, Shaw manages to uncover the dignity in suffering, creating characters who struggle to survive in a world of cruelty, indifference or rank mate- rialism, He portrays the unfairness of poverty and the sadness of human frailty. Some characters triumph in conditions weighed heavily against them, others are crushed. The main character of the story Bend Bend Man is a polio-cripple named Tankou wha makes his money selling cigarettes, Shaw creates the complex emo- tional environment which leads from Tankou's infatuation to a desperate bid for revenge on his object of love. But although Tankou's act of revenge is fucled by bitterness, it comes out vic- torious, not pathetic, Tankou is assured of his own worth and ref- uses to be the victim, Shaw writes ‘In place of physi- Wednesday, October 6, 1993 - North Shore News - 3 cal strength and grace stolen away, the mean spirits of disease planted in Tankou’s heart a burn- ing determination and fierce pride.’ Other characters are not as suc- cessful at thumbing their nose at the world, In Wrist Watch Liengu is a self- made woman, university-trained and financially independent. Un- fortunately, the socicty she lives and works in sees her only as a 34-year-old spinster. Her lack of association with a man casts her character in doubt. She fears her attempt to secure a profession has failed. We meet her at the beginning of the story in a downpour, coi templating the absurdity of her ex- pensive wristwatch (a gift from a suitor) — even with her meagre salary she cannot afford the cab- fare to get out of the rain. The wristwatch comes to repre- sent the female bargain of the old society, the deal whereby a woman is fronted by a man in ex- change for financial security and social status. The expensive wristwatch can buy Liengu a certain type of freedom and credibility, but at the expense of her dignity, | enjoyed every story in this col- lection. Shavwe's writing in incisive, like a sharp knife slicing through the vulnerable flesh of a tomato. 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