In "The Moor," by Russell Banks, a middle-aged white Freemason is reacquainted with a woman who was his first, tender love, and those are the ones we never really forget. He gives her a birthday present too - the treasure of remembering, and of the memory of a betrayal, not unlike that of Othello, yet more tender and precious.
Denis Johnson's "Dundun" is a vignette of bone-hard and bone-brittle violence, of the burnt-out heart of middle America, and of a birthday where "all the false visions had been erased."
"Timothy's Birthday" from William Johnson captures the bleakness of the Irish countryside, of old-age, and of children turned sour. It also reflects a 'lifetime celebration of love', between parents more than for children.
They were not bewildered as their birthday visitor was: they easily understood. Their own way of life was so much debris around them, but since they were no longer in their prime that hardly mattered. Once it would have, Odo reflected now; Charlotte had known that years ago. Their love of each other had survived the vicissitudes and the struggle there had been; not even the bleakness of the day that had passed could affect it."The Birthday Cake" by Daniel Lyons is a tale about a birthday and a weekly unbirthday. An old woman makes her weekly trip to purchase a birthday cake for her darling Nico, and insists on having it despite it being a little girl's birthday, who would so enjoy the cake. All the better to demonstrate the depths of her suffering and devotion and loneliness, perhaps.
In Lynda Sexson's "Turning," three old ladies visit a young boy, whose birthday it is, and tell him a collaborative story. It's an old one, about "The Emperor Who Had No Skin" and about three princesses who came to answer his riddle and hopefully be his wife. The little boy fathoms the riddle, and wishes he had a tail, which I'm sure you agree would be a grand thing to have.
The excellent David Forster Wallace contributes "Forever Overhead", a tale of rites of transition, of diving boards, and of the relativity of time outside versus time inside.
So which is the lie? Hard or soft? Silence or time?
Article comments
1 - chancelucky
Fine review. I'll try to get a copy of the book some time soon.