There is a, uh, poignant vignette in "The Year of Getting to Know Us" wherein the narrator - a high school English teacher -catches his wife (herself a writer, a journalist) canoodling with a younger man at Denny's. Narrator sits in his booth, with little emotional reaction, sizing up the rival's hands (they are broad); before paying for his coffee and taking his leave he scrawls on a napkin: You are a forty-year-old man with no children and your wife is having an affair. Which perfectly describes the genre of late-80s white male angst that Canin - 27 at the time of this book's publication - had, uh, mastered (to the point that the bookjacket - third printing - states, in a tasteful font, that he is the Winner of A Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship).But my opinion is that Canin, at the time of the book's publication, being only 27, had not earned, through life's trials, a deep psychological perspective. So, no wonder his characters are flat and, when given the opportunity to strike, sit. ***The opening story, "Emperor of the Air", is not a steampunk adventure, folks. The titular Emperor is from a factoid drawled off by the story's antagonist - a throwaway line, really - and overheard by the protag, a 69-year-old man huddled in a bombshelter with a jarful of tree-eating bugs. (Why? No spoilers.)It's interesting. I can see why, in 1985, it was selected for the Best Short Stories of 1985. It spoke to the era of bombshelters. The antagonist/neighbor, Mr. Pike, could easily be a symbol of the USSR. The narrator (who, nudge wink, states that he's been living in his house since a czar ruled Russia) could be perceived as the USA. Their talk of diseased trees talk of nuclear proliferation or some such thing. Whatever you want it to be. ***"Lies" is a decent-enough ventriloquist act by Canin who, at the time of publication, "lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where he attends medical school" - the voice is of a proto-slacker ("It's summer and I'm out of High.") working a deadend job (future shades of Palahniuk - as a projectionist in a rundown theater) discussing how he met some girl and the two are getting married by a justice of the peace in November. Now, the "lies" are either that Canin recognizes he's just writing a story of personal circumstances which he has absolutely zero knowledge (the writer gets paid so many cents per lie per page) OR it's the I-Love-You's the teens whisper Juicy Fruitily to each other. Whatever you want it to be.***From IMDB.comCharlie Gordon (Mark Ruffalo) has marital troubles. Namely, his wife (a CGI Susan Sarandon)! She wants to move out of their crappy apartment(Scott Bakula, reprising his starmaking role as Dr. Sam Beckett) that he's completely satisfied with; and, towards that end , she insists that the first step is house hunting. But after a spooky encounter (Bernie Mac, hilarious just eating an orange) in a creepy old house (Ruth Gordon), he returns to musing on his glory days (Bruce Springsteen) as a college baseball pitcher (Kevin Bacon). Based on a fuckload of Philip Roth, "Where We Are Now" is where you'll want to be this summer (Eva Amurri)!***"We are Nighttime Travelers" is a compelling poetic meditation on aging - and turning to poetry as one ages. The rhymes and rhythms of Whitman luring us away from the "motor homes and national league standings" - a Hornbyesque koan: does what we read make us miserable? But of all things to do last, poetry is a barren choice...A man should go out swinging an axe. Instead, I shall go out in a coffee shop. (pg. 89)Also, some tender scenes of old people sitting at the kitchen table with cups of pills (the author's medical aspirations already informing his writing: pills are named - their colors and brands rattled off with authority!) bridging the gulf silence between the two souls. The collection's most sexually explicit scene (so far): frail old people, in bed, in from the cold, gumming their yappers together; parched lips and wet mouths...a tsunami of passion, considering the narrator previously claimed (not unreliable, just a fucking liar) that he hasn't held his wife for three presidents (a common pickup line at the Shriner's convention, I'm sure. I mean, I'll be using it).A story which drove me to the Potter's Vodka in the freezer and a can of Pepsi: great, but depressing. And it boggles one how a 27-year-old did this. Pulled this off. Published this in Esquire and concentrated on doctor school at the same time?Test: Which plea best stirs your willingness to provide aid?Help, my son, the doctor, is drowning!orHelp, my son, the writer, is drowning!A: Glug, glug. Last one to the coffee shop is a doctor. Race ya - GO!***In "Pitch Memory" a stereotypical Jewish mother ("Help, my daughter, the artist, if you can believe, isn't married, yet!") etc. etc. etc. two daughters (one a heart doctor) etc. etc. etc. dead husband etc. etc. etc. J.C. Penney's etc. etc. etc. easily bribed mall cops (Freddie Mercury, hilarious just standing there) etc. etc. etc. and like "Nighttime Travelers" with its insistent porpoise-heavy pornoceanography (not mentioned in the original review) - this story returns, in the end, to some MFA-approved symbology of perfect pitch.***"American Beauty" has nothing to do with the 1999 lukewarm anti-establishment Hollywood movie. No. Canin's "American Beauty" is a deeply felt, almost Biblical and, ultimately, timeless vignette about an unhappy family that is, well, let's just say it, unhappy in its own way. A true gem in the Canin canon.
What I love about these stories is that you feel like you get to know each character in so few words. How does Ethan Canin do it? Each character is so imperfectly real that I have a hard time believing Canin hasn't been each person himself in order to know what it is like.I wish I could describe why I liked this collection of stories more clearly, but you're just going to have to trust me on this one. It's a winner.Favorite bits:"This is a love story. However, its roots are tangled and involve a good bit of my life, and when I recall my life my mood turns sour and I am reminded that no man makes truly proper use of his time. We are blind and small-minded. We are dumb as snails about the importance of things. I'm an average man, without great deeds except maybe one, and that has been to love my wife.""Francine and I are married now for forty-six years, and I would be a bamboozler to say that I have loved her for any more than half of these. Let us say that for the last year I haven't; let us say that for the last ten, even. Time has made torments of our small differences and tolerances of our passions. This is our state of affairs. Now I stand by myself in our kitchen in the middle of the night; now I lead a secret life. We wake at different hours now, sleep in different corners of the bed. We like different food and different music, keep our clothing in different drawers, and if it can be said that either of us has aspirations, I believe that they are to a different bliss. Also, she is healthy and I am ill. And as for conversation–that feast of reason, that flow of the soul–our house is silent as the bone yard."- both from "We Are Nighttime Travelers"
Do You like book Emperor Of The Air (1999)?
I don't know how I heard of this book last summer. It was published some time ago by someone I am not familiar with. But I bought it (library book sale, used book store?).I started it prior to receiving Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken from the library and finished it after. At one point, I confused Canin for McCracken and McCracken for Canin. Both great books. I rated Thunderstruck a 4. This is a 5. And I'm having trouble articulating why. (Maybe I should read Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story next.)In no special order, these are my observations:- a view of the complexity of the human experience illustrated in individual, unique life stories of unexceptional people- with beautiful endings, just beautiful- about people questioning who they are, who they pretended to be, what matters to them, and to what lengths they'll go to stay true to themselves or to the people they love- at the same time curious about the people around them (not self-absorbed), like they're seeing them for the first time- heartbreaking and sad but sometimes hopeful or at least satisfactory- how good people can be mean to people they loveI found these stories incredibly moving. One made me think this: "When people die, the answers to our questions die with them."For readers who prefer more recent reads: These stories are at least 26 years old, but they felt contemporary.
—Michelle
probably 4-and-a-bit stars because there are stories that seem almost mirror images of each other, but they are still good, and I don't want to spoil my so-far 5 star March (following Alan Warner's Dead Man's Pedal and Alice Munro's Dear Life). And there are three or four stand out stories of gentle revelation or non-revelation in the lives of Californian middle class couples or old men or boys becoming men. The first one, the title story (which R has pointed out could be about US/USSR relations with its bomb shelter and date of publication: 1985) of neighbours-at-odds has an unexpected and forgiving ending and set me up for a run of finely tuned stories of family expectations and the thwarting of them, or desire and its dwindling. The collection ended with three of the strongest pieces. ‘American Beauty’ was so vivid and spiky it stayed with me as if it was a film I’d seen (not the Kevin Spacey one which has nothing to do with this), scenes playing in my head days later. ‘The Carnival Dog, the Buyer of Diamonds’ likewise featured something unforgettable, this time the character summed up in the title, the protagonist’s father who physically fights and competes against his son to keep him focused, eg to stop him drifting out of medical school. There’s something of that in the final story ‘Star Food’, set mostly on the roof of a supermarket with a dreamy boy encouraged by his mother to think big and by his father to be practical, and ends with a kind of non-epiphany. They seem remarkably mature and empathetic stories for a writer only 27 at the time of publication. Thanks R, Simon and Ryan for pointing me at this collection.
—Alan
Boring, milquetost, uninspired renderings of middle class life. For the longest time I was trying to get into Ethan Canin heeding the critical huzzahs from the lit-crit establishment. I think of Canin as the bookworld's well behaved son winning favor over its poorly behaved son's (say B.E. Ellis) for no better reason than not having any characters who engage in gay sex, swear, shoot smack, piss on the flag, vote Republican or any other activity that the clique of Manhattan-centered tastemakers would view as anti-social behavior. This book is the best example of what might be called "literary wallpaper." Decorative patterns designed to fade into background consciousness. It's boring and the people who praise it know it's boring. They need to admit what they really like finally. As opposed to what's "needed."
—Rick Bowen
