etc., etc.
The October issue of Open Letters Monthly is up and ready for your perusal (has been these eight days). It’s the best-seller issue, so you can read clever takes on those books which are currently absorbing your hard-earned dollars.
I wrote something different, i.e., not about a best-seller, and it was my first attempt at a criticism of a collection of short stories. What I admire most about Maile Meloy (and there are many things to admire) is the cleanliness of her prose and plotting. The notions, the ideas, at work in her story may be complex, may bother you long after you put the story down – but everything about the writing is so tidy, so neat, that it’s a wonder that such complexities can unfold.
Viz.:
Because what Meloy is singularly skilled in is articulating the simultaneous acknowledgment of a desire contrary to plausibility and the desire – deep, unrelenting, maddening, painful – for the fulfillment of that desire. Rather, situations, characters, even life itself hang poised above this and in her stories. The stories could easily frustrate a reader in their resistance to narrative and emotional resolution, yet Meloy’s simple, unhurried, at times plaintive writing leave one pensive more than anything else. How do we ourselves deal with this and?
Ok, so: you need to read the review (and the A.R. Ammons poem from which Meloy takes the title of her collection) to get the italicized ands. So, you know, have at it. And suchlike.
