bark review: electric literature no. 3
i declare that "electric literature no. 3" is greater than, or equal to, an entire container of fudge tracks ice cream. if you know me at all, you know this is not a small gesture.
so we’ve had a bit of chatter here about electric literature. but really, that was more about the organization, or the concept, than the stuff they’re putting out—via print, and e-book, and iPhone, and animation, and possibly invisible microwaves sent straight to your brain. seems only fair to follow up with a look at the actual work—especially since after all the hype they’ve received, i could only find one other review of this latest issue. (full disclosure: i’m currently on staff at willow springs—though i like to think of electric lit as more of a colleague than a competitor. we all just want people to read more, right?)
i read electric literature no. 3 over the course of a sunday afternoon. of the first things i noted, a few aesthetic points: it looks nice. and feels nice. it’s got some crazy painting wrapping both front & back covers, with simple, minimalist text, printed on a glossy stock. the pages inside were a soft, creamy white, occasionally punctuated with whimsical line drawings (not unlike something from mcsweeney’s), and carefully laid out. i know it’s a small thing, but it seems like *way* too many journals ignore these easy touches and print on a glaring white page loaded with text—not to mention the intimidating size of some of them. because, you know, i & the rest of america were so anxious to read their magazines in the first place. but electric lit is a travel-friendly 6″x9″ size, with only five stories; it’s a slim 120 page book, but only about 65 pages of fiction after accounting for blanks and illustrations and whatnot. totally manageable. inviting, even.
as a partial rebuttal to those concerned about electric literature focusing too heavily on already established authors: the thing is, sometimes you publish a big name because there’s a reason they’re a big name—they got game. this issue starts off with a story from aimee bender, who’s got three books out, with a fourth on the way, and publishing credits at pretty much all the places a writer wants to be published at. and you know what? her piece kicks ass.
bender’s story is mainly concerned with a sort of sexual/power negotiation going on between a married couple—and it gets into it immediately, opening with a restaurant scene in which the man tells his wife about the time his college roommates brought home hookers. on page two, the game is already well underway:
“Time for bed, honey,” she said cheerily, which was code that meant don’t touch me. But there was no real need; his back already radiated the grainy warmth of sleeping skin. She slid herself between the sheets and called up another picture, this one of Daniel, a green bill wrapped around his erection like a condom. The itch of the corners of the bill as they pricked inside her. His stuff all over the faces of the presidents.
the rest of the piece is equally compelling, with clean prose, a tight focus on these two people, pleasant surprises in character development, and—at least for me—a sense that this story is larger than just marital issues and sexual dynamics. whether the author intended it or not, i finished the story thinking about illusion and entitlement and emptiness. it was basically everything i wanted from a short story. after that, i had little choice but to hold the rest of the issue to an awfully high standard.
matt sumell’s “little things” was the second story, and you wouldn’t believe how much he packed into six pages. his take on the death of a mother felt fresh to me, and the collage writing style seemed perfectly suited for a narrator still searing in his family’s pain. somehow he incorporated dead animals in the street (not once, but twice!) without making it feel contrived. likely because he moves so quickly from one brand of pain to another, approximating for the reader just how many levels of anguish people are capable of.
the third piece was rick moody’s much ballyhooed twitter story. i was nervous going in, but quickly found myself hypnotized by the alternating narrators, with every other >140 character paragraph coming from either a middle-aged university professor or a young woman in her early 20s. their unlikely romance unfolds in quick images and flashes, almost as if the characters were tweeting the story to their friends—but, thankfully, never in that annoying/abbreviated text-speak. readers who followed the story as it was originally published (online, over three days) may have had a different take, but on the page, the story arc was more than enough to pull me through. i was also surprised by how deftly moody was able to develop his characters given the limitations of the form.
the last two pieces, “reed & dinnerstein moving” from patrick dewitt and “the tunnel” from jenny offill, each contained their moments of brilliance, but felt a little unrefined by comparison. both stories featured a knock-out premise: one with a pair of old friends struggling to start a business and find a comfort zone related to their differing sexual orientation; the other concerning a man who’s left his wife for another woman, but secretly continues to visit his ex while she’s hospitalized for an unnamed terminal illness. yet, dewitt’s story suffers from some questionable plot points and perhaps a slightly unfocused narration; offill’s story features some terrific tension, but falters a bit in setting up some crucial character history for the reader. all of this, i suppose, is the other side of publishing up-and-comers. none of which, however, should dissuade you from taking in this well-designed, well-written, and well-edited collection of short fiction. looking forward to no. 4.
[...] Original post: bark » bellow review: electric novel no. 3 [...]
courtesy of the electric lit twitter feed, i did find another review of issue no. 3.
[...] Moody, who was in the issue of Electric Literature that Jason reviewed a few days ago, isn’t exactly well-known in SFWA circles. His foray into SF is less surprising, perhaps, [...]
[...] for sex and then for other things. An exploration of the mysteries of commodification… Jason Sommer at Bark blogs that he “finished the story thinking about illusion and entitlement and emptiness.”Matt Sumell’s [...]