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Title: Demonology: Stories by Rick Moody ISBN: 0-316-59210-2 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 10 April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (36 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Fantastic, emotionally charged collection
Comment: I had already read several of these stories in the New Yorker and heard others at readings, but those previews took nothing away from the fact that Rick Moody's "Demonology" is a powerful collection of short fiction. Despite some weak spots (like "Pan's Fair Throng," which I couldn't bring myself to finish), Moody lays down one moving story after another, making for a diverse and satisfying read.
My favorite pieces here are the ones in which Moody does what he does best and what few of his contemporaries dare to do: strive for emotional climaxes that are well-earned, not cynical but not naïve, and incapable of being overly sentimental or cheesy. The first story, "Mansion on the Hill," is probably the best example of all that will follow. Moody leavens a heavy emotional backdrop (the narrator is writing a letter to his departed sister on the event of her fiancé's marriage to another woman) with outrageous humor (his job wearing a chicken mask, the strange inner workings of a wedding production company) and the effect is beautiful and bittersweet.
Moody has all the humor of writers like Michael Chabon and Douglas Coupland, and the same comic cultural awareness. What sets "Demonology" apart, though, are some of the cleverer, more experimental stories that aren't stories so much as, well, liner notes for a CD box set representing the evolution of a certain Wilkie Fahnstock's listening habits, from the Almann Brothers to Aphex Twin; or a book catalogue that becomes a journey into a comically unhealthy crush that the cataloguer can't seem to put behind him. This willingness to push the boundaries of his chosen format while still producing classically satisfying narratives puts Moody in a class all his own.
But the more lyrical moments are just as powerful, often reminiscent of the astonishing first chapter of "Purple America," and possessed of a motion dictated more by feel than by grammar. It is this mode (in full effect in this collection in stories like "Drawer" and "Boys") that gives many readers of Moody trouble; it is true that he can be a difficult read at times, but it's a price well worth paying for the reward his stories often carry at their end.
I loved "Demonology" and would recommend it highly, although readers should bear Moody's occasionally difficult, Virginia Woolf-ish prose in mind. In my opinion, he's worth the sweat, and each story's pay-off sticks with you for a while after you put the book down. If you prefer the blunter style of Hemingway, though, most of these stories may not be to your liking.
Rating: 4
Summary: A fine collection by a talented writer
Comment: Rick Moody is known as one of the most talented writers in the United States, and the strongest stories in this collection bear this out. When he's on, Moody's stories have the momentum of a runaway train, hurtling toward an end that never seems certain until the final word comes to rest. He can be absurdly funny and heartbreakingly insightful in the same paragraph, giving these stories a power they never would have realized at the hands of a lesser writer. His description of ostriches had me laughing out loud (and smiling now, writing of it) while the final story, in the context of all that had come before, is one of the most loving, most wounded, most sincere stories I've read of late.
Moody is not perfect, of course. Some of these stories are clearly better than others. When he's at his best, Moody allows his narrator the unselfconscious telling of events; however, occasionally the narrator steps out of the story to announce context or philosophy or an awareness of the medium, rapidly deflating the stories, the illusion gone. Perhaps Moody intended this effect (the removal of the chicken mask in the opening story), but it didn't work for me.
All in all, this is a fine collection from a fine writer. Readers of short stories should not hesitate to make this book a part of their libraries.
Rating: 5
Summary: Tour de Force that Can't Be Missed!
Comment: The collection begins and ends with stories told by a male narrator addressing his dead sister (though the two pieces have nothing in common otherwise). "The Mansion on the Hill" is the story of an underachieving, slightly unbalanced guy who fails, catastrophically, at playing the avian mascot for a fast-food fried chicken joint. He lands a job at the Mansion on the Hill, a theme-room wedding venue that feels more like a funeral home, and slowly becomes enmeshed in the pathetic, lovelorn lives of his mostly dispirited coworkers; the climax of the story comes when he learns that his sister's former fiance is scheduled to be married at the Mansion on the Hill, less than a year after the sister's death. "Mansion" attempts to balance the fine line between comedy and tragedy, but the tone is uneven, and the desired effect is often unclear: was that supposed to be funny, or sad? In the end, it's merely pathetic, in all the various meanings of the word.
"Demonology," by contrast, feels much more intimate and personal, even autobiographical. It recounts the narrator's recollections of his sister in brief, unconnected snapshot scenes, which more or less center around Halloween and trick-or-treating (hence the candy), then jumps to a dispassionate description of her last moments; finally, the narrator addresses the sister, telling her how he feels in her absence despite (and because of) her inability to hear him. Though the narrator is the surviving sibling, he removes himself from the story, placing the focus squarely on his dead sister; it's a nice twist that she becomes present by her absence, alive in memory.
The finest pieces are those told in a fluid, stream-of-consciousness narrative, where the plot must be sifted out with careful attention to the flow of words. In just two-and-a-half pages, "Drawer" recounts an estranged husband's violent destruction of a piece of furniture that is, to him, symbolic of the failure of his marriage, but this can only be determined after the fact (and, probably, after several readings). "Boys" is a beautiful, lyrical story about two brothers growing from infancy to adulthood in the same house. The phrase "boys enter the house," used again and again until it feels like a litany, anchors the story and evokes the lengthy procession of mostly identical days; in the end, it gives way to "boys, no longer boys," as the children assume the role of adults in the face of tragedy.
Not all of the stories work perfectly, of course. "Pan's Fair Throng" is a mostly vexing, overlong piece that blends present-day realism, fairy-tale convention, and Fakespearean tone into a baffling hodge-podge that defies interpretation. It appears to be the story of a young hacker who goes on trial for turning another young man into a monkey by feeding him a potion. Despite some impressively authentic medieval speech, the tone often veers alarmingly into preciously post-modern pop-culture references, and the result is a muddy, confusing pastiche that isn't nearly as funny as the author probably thinks it is. "Surplus Value Books: Catalogue Number 13" purports to be a sale listing for the narrator's rare-book collection, many of which turn out to be "valuable" only because of their connections to central figures (or romantic obsessions) in the narrator's life. The conceit of personal-history-as-catalog-notes would be more interesting if it hadn't already been used, to greater effect, earlier in the book; as it is, the premise doesn't wear well with repetition, and feels a little too cute.
On the whole, however, Moody is a strikingly original and ferociously smart writer with a knack for offbeat protagonists in unusually imagined situations. Although regretfully fond of italicizing words, phrases, and entire paragraphs at times (the reason is unclear; often, it seems intended to give a heavily ironic emphasis to the words italicized, but the author's constant and unrelenting use of the device quickly weakens its impact), Moody writes well and evocatively; the reader may be confused or frustrated at times, but will never be bored. After finishing the book, I think I may finally have found the real reason for the cover image: like Smarties, these little stories are oddly addictive, despite their bittersweet tang. I purchased this book through Amazon.com right after another great purchase, THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez, about an unlucky writer addicted to the personals. Both books are from experimental, somewhat "edgy" New York authors, but that's where the similarity ends, although I recommend each highly.
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Title: Garden State: A Novel by Rick Moody ISBN: 0316557633 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 02 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Purple America: A Novel by Rick Moody ISBN: 0316559776 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 04 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Ice Storm: A Novel by Rick Moody ISBN: 0316706000 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 10 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Black Veil: A Memoir with Digressions by Rick Moody ISBN: 0316578991 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Brief Interviews With Hideous Men : Stories by David Foster Wallace ISBN: 0316925195 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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