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Title: A Thing Among Things an Event Among Events by Carolyn Bennett ISBN: 0-913559-23-7 Publisher: Birch Brook Pr Pub. Date: December, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: 5 Stars
Comment: Also feel that some of the stories require at least two readings. Read the following excerpt a time or two:

"From my window this morning I can see the smoke from each chimney stack being blown towards the west. The skies appear as a child's finger painting, a mere representation of clouds.
Behind this morning's sky I have imagined another, sterner sky. A sky that lingers over my rooftop as if sitting in state, magnificent and omnipotent. Certain of its power, it waits only to pass final judgement on me. Rabbit, Bear and Hyena, these are the clouds above my roof. These are my accusers.
A caesura of light appears in the smoke-filled sky overhead like the tear that appeared in my mother's womb as a result of my birth..."

A thing of beauty. I may never look at the sky the same again! The story, titled "The Courtyard of the Heart", envisions that laughing/crying instant when a person's life passes before them on the point of death.

Another tale arrives at the instant of waking from a dream, not knowing whether to rejoice or sorrow:

"She could see their faces, clear and dazzling, as they stood over the coffin. Then, quite suddenly, she felt as though she could move, if she really wanted to. She would try to rise from the coffin; she would struggle to sit up. Then she would hear the voice of her mother, telling her to lie down, lie down, what will people think?"

A secret smile seems to pass between author and reader at times. There are also sighs! This reader loved the way various impressions, sighs and smiles flow together - into something uncompromisingly real.

In "The Interior Garden" a dark-spirited man considers the wonder and power of beauty in the abstract. A black magic incantation abstracts the "ideal" of woman as an avatar, who speaks and questions. A real woman friend comes to call, as he makes his momentous choice: The lady or the avatar? The reader felt a pang - from some choices there is no turnaround. In a sense "The Interior Garden", in which the ideal of woman comes together from odds and ends, could be a commentary about the stories themselves. The presence of the storyteller, appearing no less fascinating, is created from moody intimacies.

It is fascinating that some of the stories yield an immediate realization, while others need the familiarization process of a second or third reading. One was too dense entirely! If I had to choose one book for an entire month, or a year, or perhaps to carry off into a life of exile, it would be this, or one like it.

Rating: 4
Summary: Nocturne
Comment: It seems almost futile to review - there is probably a course in modern writing in the book. The first starts off a journey into dark and mysterious places, it seems that the author is the tour guide. I read the first story six times for reading comprehension, it was difficult going, but I enjoyed it, and somehow believed I understood it completely. Maybe not! The next was so different. The author distilled a mystery, and sense of beauty in plain spoken language. I paused there feeling that it had changed me and deepened my awe with sense of sad beauty. I looked forward to the rest of the banquet, but no two courses were alike. The sadness deepened, things I never realized about a woman's point of view, a stunning and difficult coming of age, I thought for someone not so unlike me - well worth the price of admission. The last few chapters did not feed the soul quit the same as the earlier courses in some sense, though they were great writing if you fancy Pynchon or later Vonnegut. The sadness became shifting moods, perhaps moods that could not be expressed in any other style. I sensed it was partly autobiographic. I did wish there were more, the book changed me a bit I think. Much about situations when words fail, we all empathize with that. I developed enough rapport to empathize with the last bit - travelling into chaos. Against the intent of the story I found myself caring for the soul that had touched my soul! This was more worthwhile than most.