... the Soul of Wit - Short Reviews

Enjoy the new short reviews and the beautiful summer!

Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima

A lovely collection of short stories predominantly about life in the USA as a person born somewhere else. Ananda Lima's eight stories are each roughly divided into two sections; the first part is the actual, fictional short story and the second, meta fictional part about the author of the stories and how her life ties in with what she is writing. The two sometimes merge by recurring characters or events, which transcend the line between fiction and autofiction, offering no clear-cut separation.

I can imagine there being discontent about this not being a horror collection, and it's risky of the publisher to rank it so, since it does not aim at scaring, or grossing out, or terrorizing and other than the titular Devil, there are barely any horror elements. (I have to add the devil is so mellow, it could have been god as well as the devil, but “Stories I Wrote for God” would have attracted a different crowd, I guess.) If you go in with the expectation of not horror, but a literary fiction collection, these will be top-notch stories, They just didn't work as horror stories for me.

My highlights were:

Antropófaga, in which a cleaning-lady gets addicted to the unhealthy habit of quickly eating Americans from a vending machine at the hospital she works in.

Idle Hands, a story told in the form of the comments and critiques of students in a creative writing class, fragments bringing the bigger story together. Daring and experimental but it worked!

Finally Porcelain, which draws a picture of my absolute nightmare - What would I do if a rat climbed out my toilet?

I loved the humor and the political commentary and would recommend this book.

Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías

Pink Slime is a book which mostly concentrates on painting a dystopic world in which some mysterious pandemic related to algae keeps the world in its grip. The plot, which unfortunately remains weak compared to the effort put in describing this dark universe in which the titular pink slime, pulverized animal remains, is the main nutrition, follows a woman who takes care of a disabled child whose parents didn't want and pay her to nanny him, and her relationships with her own mother and her ex-husband who is death-bound in hospital.

The kid, Mauro, has some weird syndrome which prevents him from ever feeling full, so he's constantly hungry and to satisfy that need is his primary motivation in life in a world, where food scarcity ravages. The bond between the two takes center stage, much like the strong bond between the protagonist and her own nanny.

For me, this is a beautifully written account of a world dealing with environmental collapse, and the condition of Mauro amplifying the misery. Unfortunately I would have wished a stronger, more imposing plot to go with the dystopia.

Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste

In this narrative, the focus points of Dracula and Jane Eyre shift respectively on their forgotten female side characters, the corrupted Lucy Westenra and Bertha Mason, ex-wife of Jane Eyre's love interest Mr. Rochester whom he locked in the attic under the pretense of being "crazy". These two "reluctant immortals" have found each other and in order to break free, need to confront their tormentors in a final showdown.

As much as I loved the friendship between the female characters, their healing, acknowledging and respecting each other, the story didn't really grip me, especially not from the get-go. It does get more interesting when the baddies make their entrance, though. Speaking of which, the two male antagonists were way too black and white, which might be intentional, but they ended up feeling like caricatures of evil for me.

Still a nice read if you're into spins on the vampire story. I really disliked Jane Eyre.

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Horror Movie is narrated in two time lines - June 1993 when a group of guerilla filmmakers make a disturbing, art-house horror flick and three decades later, when a horror convention takes place, in which the only surviving cast member of this "cursed" film will meet fans and also when a remake is due.

I'm at a tipping point concerning Tremblay's work – I love an equal amount of books by him than books I can't with. Unfortunately Horror Movie falls into the second category, as it also bears similarities to his previous novel The Pall Bearers' Club, which was way too experimental for me and which I couldn't enjoy either.

There were some parts in Horror Movie that still were able to move me; group dynamics which generate violence, or the mysterious and creepy nature of Thin Kid, for instance. However, it was overall too thinly stretched and drags, especially in the first half where we basically follow a group of filmmakers trying to make a film, which is never as glamorous as it sounds, and lacks suspense.

If I hadn't read this for the September Shine&Shadow dark read, I probably would have dnf'ed it. Maybe I'll stick with Tremblay's short story collections which still appeal to me.