(no subject)
Simply must post because yesterday I finished the first book in some time that I've been truly excited about: The Age of Grief by Jane Smiley. The only other Smiley I've read is A Thousand Acres, which I thought was interesting and ambitious but not particularly affecting, so I was surprised to find myself so gripped by the stories in this book. And by almost all of them, too! The book contains five short stories and a novella, and I'd be hard-pressed to name a favorite. I loved "The Pleasure of Her Company," about a young woman who befriends the married couple next door yet never quite understands the nature of the relationships between the three of them; I loved "Long Distance," in which a man ends a relationship with a woman in Japan and then spends a very emotionally complicated weekend with his brothers and their families; I loved the title novella, which certainly belongs on the list of most realistic portrayals of marriage in fiction. I am impressed by the sharpness of Smiley's perceptions, and by how she is able to do so much with these stories of ordinary people in ordinary circumstances. And so many layers of emotion and meaning! I felt about these stories the way I feel about Alice Munro's work: they demonstrate exactly how much the short story is capable of.