Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

This collection reminded me of how good a traditional short story can be. The stories aren't themselves old-fashioned at all, but the structure and rigor of them feels a little old school, in the best possible way. These are stories that remind me of why I love short stories.
I found this book when it was a finalist for The Story Prize, which is a great resource for finding excellent collections. (http://thestoryprize.org)

These stories are varied and never felt repetitive. A father worries show more about his daughter as he watches her instagram feed. A burglar cases a house that he's sure will be empty when he breaks in. A writer spends much of her time at a writers's retreat walking and becomes fixated on one specific house. A trio of girls find the balances in their friendship changing with adolescence. Each story is so well crafted and I could have read an entire novel about any one of them, but each was complete in itself. This is an excellent collection. show less

National Book finalist? Really? I've only recently noticed the presence of the National Book Award, and when I checked out the website, I realize I've read a few of the finalists and winners...and have really enjoyed them. I don't know what to make of this one.

I chose this book after reading Bynum's short story in Tin House's "Fantastic Women" issue. Plus it's, in part, about carnies, and really, who doesn't like stories about carnies? The style is creative--sort of "chapters" on just about show more every page--which should have equalled a quicker read, but I was surprised to find myself trudging along. It took some time to get used to the changing perspectives, and the characters never seemed fleshed out enough. I'm thinking this is possibly due to those short "chapters" along with some really annoying structural quirks (which it appears were entirely intentional). Like incomplete sentences. And, commas, in weird places. Normally I put a book down that bugs me this much, but I kept reading for the next oddity (of which there were many) and hoping for some revelation at the end. My hopes were left unfulfilled.

I need a little more realism now. show less

Another victim of misguided marketing, although nobody will be crying for SLB, since the misguided marketing led to award nominations and many goodreads reviews. The problem can be easily summed up: Franzen's blurb describes this book--about, among other things, the uncomfortably erotic nature of teaching, divorce, the horrors of history and the difficulties of teaching it, the awfulness of puberty, the inhumane but unavoidable way we categorise each other, and the French diseases of the show more soul*--he describes *this* book as 'pure pleasure.' There are roughly two possible explanations for this. One is that Franzen, as a good GWAMA**, thinks anything written by a woman that is less than 600 pages long must, eo ipso, be entertainment rather than art. That seems unlikely.
But it's entirely possible that it happened indirectly: that this book got assimilated to the canon of American Liberal Literature, to which great purgatory moderately well written, lightly entertaining books about Democrat party approved themes like education and gender go when they die. And since this book is not only about a woman, but by one, that's its obvious resting place.

Except this is more intellectually challenging and rewarding than anything Franzen or the other GWAMAs of ALL has ever written. The episodic structure mimics the life of a teacher (one year at a time, each year succeeding the other in a weird change-but-no-change kind of way, until you realize that something incredibly strange has happened). Unlike most art about education, we see the teacher develop, rather than the students--indeed, (spoiler) she develops right out of being a teacher. The tediousness, hopelessness and outright fear of being an educator come through clearly: what right do we have to teach others? is this weirdly public life anything other than a performance? how does one balance the yearning to be loved with the need to be, often enough, hated? and how does anyone ever get to be an adult when the adults themselves are borderline failures?

Add to all that the lightly written ruminations on history and authenticity (i.e., both constructed, but not for all that meaningless), and it becomes clear that the right comparison is that other apparently charming, but deeply disturbing novel of education and social history, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.



*: see Heather Lelache in Ursula Le Guin's 'Lathe of Heaven'
**: Great White American Male Author show less

This so-called novel is more properly a collection of short stories (not unexpected, given the author's other works are short story collections), each relating to the life of Ms. Hempel, a 20-something middle school teacher. As such, there is no real plot and even a unifying theme is hard to find.

However, a prevelant theme seems to be the idea of middle/high school being the last time that you feel "extraordinary." You get a solo in chorus ... maybe you're going to be a great singer! You're show more dad thinks you're the smartest kid in the state ... maybe you are a genius! And because you believe in your own potential, it's often a time in your life when you do amazing things. Some of the kids in these tales are indeed extraordinary, and Ms. Bynum shares their stories with rare grace and insight.

And then college comes along, and adulthood, and you lose your sense of being extraordinary; and, because you no longer feel extraordinary, you give up believing you can do extraordinary things. This seems to be the fate of Ms. Hempel, whose life - as depicted in these vignettes - seems to be a quest to be recognized as extraordinary by someone for something - whether for being a rebel, a goth, an ethnic minority, or a fiance. The irony is that, since she is always measuring herself against the standards of society and/or the perceived potential of the children she teaches, she never does come to understand that the one thing that *does* make her extraordinary is the way she teaches.

She rails against the complications of life, longing to return to a simpler place/time, even though she is wise enough to understand that the "simpler times" she imagines never actually existed. Again, ironically, she never seems to learn that, like any book worth reading, life needs to be full of complications, because without complications you don't change, learn, or grow.

And that's my biggest frustration with the book. Ms. Hempel doesn't learn, and she doesn't grow. So, even though I appreciated the skill and craft that went into each one of these deftly-told tales, couldn't help feeling disatisfied in the end. Call me ageist, but Ms. Bynum, like Ms. Hempel, is in her mid-20s, and I can't help wonder if the reason her character doesn't grow is because Ms. Bynum hasn't yet grown. This feels like the juvenile effort of a writer who knows a great deal about literature but not a whole lot about life. Can't help but wonder what Ms. Bynum may one day be capable of, once she attains the sort of self-knowledge and wisdom that comes not from talent, but from time. The things Ms. Hempel might accomplish then ...! show less