The Little Disturbances of Man

“Grace Paley, beni güldüren, ağlatan öyküler yazıyor. Paley, kimseye benzemeyen komik, enerjik, sade ve hüzünlü bir sese sahip bir yazar.” Susan Sontag

Genç bir askere tutulan işveli bir ergen, banliyölerdeki iki yüzlü babalar, arabada yaşayan bir iş bulma danışmanı, Noel piyesinde oynayan yahudi çocuklar, didişen aşık bir çift. Bu, gündelik hayatların kuytusunda kalan insanın küçük rahatsızlıklarını keşfe çıkan bir kitap. Paley insan olma halinin yalnızlığını, dokunaklı komikliğini usta bir kulakla ve ironik bir dille resmedebiliyor.

Many of these stories were written more than fifty years ago, yet their humor, humanity and life still literally leap off the pages to make you chuckle, wince and empathize with the various characters that populate them. And the collection's subtitle is particularly apropo - "Stories of Women and Men at Love." Not "in" love, you should note, but "at" love. Because, after reading these sharply hewn tales, you begin to suspect that Grace Paley does not put all that much stock in romance, or the kind of love that the women and men here are engaged in. The title itself, THE LITTLE DISTURBANCES OF MAN, might even indicate that man is not quite so important as he'd like to think. Indeed, that subtitle again: note that "women" come show more first.

Before I forget to say it: I loved these little stories. Grace Paley was not a prolific writer, producing only a few collections of stories. But she was good, damn good. She spent much of her life engaged as a political activist, marching, protesting and demonstrating. Married a couple times, with a couple of kids, writing was something she worked into the creases of her active and busy life. Perhaps the proof of this can be found here in "Two Sad Stories from a Long and Happy Life."
The first, "1. The Used-Boy Raisers," introduces us to Faith, along with her current husband, 'Pallid,' and her ex-husband, 'Livid.' Who are both hanging out in her kitchen complaining about the food, but the husbands seem to get along, to understand each other - and their names fit well. Livid needles her about another "old boyfriend Clifford," who shows up int the second sad story, "2. A Subject of Childhood." Clifford comes across as a self-absorbed creep, who she throws out after he accuses her of doing "a rotten job" as a mother, "lousy," in fact. She beans him with an ashtray, then considers -

"For I have raised these kids, with one hand typing behind my back to earn a living. I have raised them all alone without a father ..."

Reading these lines, I strongly suspected, Yup. This is how Grace Paley lived her life. Raising her two kids alone, writing when she had to, to make a living. In the same story, the boyfriend gone, the kids sleeping, she continues -

"I organized comfort in the armchair, poured the coffee black into a white mug that said MAMA, tapped cigarette ash into a ceramic hand - hollowed by Richard. I looked into the square bright window of daylight to ask myself the sapping question: What is man that woman lies down to adore him?"

What is man indeed? In another story he might be "The Pale Pink Roast." In another a washed-up Yiddish actor who likes to keep a mistress on the side. In another, Charles C. Charley, an air conditioning guy in his late thirties who gets involved with a teenager ("An Irrevocable Diameter"), or a sleazy Army corporal who romances a thirteen year-old at the same time he's dating her aunt ("A Woman, Young and Old"). Bottom line: men are mostly cads and opportunists. And Grace Paley is a very discerning and FUNNY writer. Philip Roth called these stories "splendidly comic and unladylike." Bingo!

Grace Paley, I suspect, enjoyed the men in her life - until she didn't. And she was not above poking gentle fun at herself either. That's a great trait in a writer. I'll say it again. I loved these stories. Thank you, Ms. Paley, and R.I.P.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

I had never heard of Paley when I picked up this book and after reading the first story, I was astounded I hadn't. The quality of her writing is incredible with rich juxtapositions of words that create perfect images. Her style of cold observation never takes away from the deep emotion and turmoil.
Despite the day-to-day and seemingly simple writing, I found her stories very difficult to read - the layers of meaning carefully intertwined, each word weighed and important.
This is a real gem.

1950's Jewish Bronx Quirkiness
A review of the Plume Book hardcover (1973) of the Doubleday hardcover original (1959) which collected stories from 1956-1959.

Anna had read that cannibals, tasting man, saw him thereafter as the great pig, the pale pink roast.
...
Then easy and impervious, in full control, he cartwheeled eastward into the source of night.
...
I myself, although I lost God a long time ago, have never lost faith.
...
Then through the short fat fingers of my son, interred forever, like a black and white barred king in Alcatraz, my heart lit up in stripes.
...
They swilled Coke like a regiment which has captured all the enemy pinball machines without registering a single tilt. - excerpts from various stories in The Little Disturbances

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of Man.

[A 3.6 average out of 5 for the 10 stories, rounded up to a GR 4]
This discovery of an author previously unknown to me was thanks to GR friend Berengaria's enthusiastic review. I was lucky enough to source a copy in the Toronto Public Library, which remarkably still had a 1973 edition in good condition in circulation. GR says this is a paperback, but my copy was actually a hardcover.

These are often quirky stories, many of which involve male abandonment and/or plucky children, the females usually coming off the winners in the end. Some get a bit too outlandish or absurd for my taste, but overall this was a delightful collection and the discovery of a rather unique voice who had a knack for some odd turns of phrase and similes as you can read from the above examples.

See photo at https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f4f4a8_ccfbdda5637a4f11bbd9cfac64b528e1~mv2.j...
Walk up tenements in the Bronx, NYC 1950s. Image sourced from Growing Up in the Bronx.

The following are individual story synopses and ratings, mostly not spoilerish.
1. Goodbye and Good Luck **** A wayward aunt tells her life story to her niece, esp about becoming the mistress of a married actor at the Yiddish Theatre in NYC. A life with no regrets!

2. A Woman, Young and Old **** A young girl flirts with her older sister's? (but she calls her Aunty Lizzy) soldier boyfriend and even suggests marriage with him. There is a gut punch reveal when we learn her age. A consummation is fortunately averted thanks to a Wassermann test. Yes, I had to look it up 😳.

3. The Pale Pink Roast **** A wastrel husband returns home to a wife and child he abandoned. He helps the wife with various chores at her new apartment and then events take their natural course. A gut-punch reveal comes along and he moves on down the road after she has enjoyed what she felt was owed to her.

4. The Loudest Voice ***** The charmer of the collection. A young Jewish girl is asked to be the narrator of the school Christmas play due to her voice being the loudest in the class. Her mother is taken aback, but her father takes it all in stride.

5. The Contest **** A jilted girlfriend ensnares her faithless lover into a get rich scheme involving a newspaper contest.

6. An Interest in Life **** A husband abandons his wife and four children and joins the army. The son of a downstairs neighbour lends a comforting ear.

7. An Irrevocable Diameter ** Doesn’t read as being quite believable, another young girl / older man story, but with a shocking outcome. The final line is at least realistic.

8. Two Short Sad Stories from a Long and Happy Life ***
a) The Used-Boy Raisers Quirky story of a woman with two husbands nicknamed Livid and Pallid, also her two sons Richard and Tonto (Anthony). Yet another abandonment story, except husband #1 comes back occasionally.
b) A Subject of Childhood Carries on with the mother fighting with husband #2 I think. Then carrying on with the sons Richard and Tonto. Getting a bit tiresome now with the nicknames and the fighting.

9. In Time Which Made a Monkey of us All ** The longest story in the collection but it overstayed its welcome. Some kids in the Bronx set up a “laboratory” to create inventions from which only a cockroach killer and a massive stink bomb seem to be produced.

10. The Floating Truth **** Unrealistic but fun, a recent graduate with no real references consults an employment counsellor who fakes their resume for them and manages to get them an office job. The counsellor runs his business out of his car. show less

Disturbing well describes several of the stories in Grace Paley’s first published collection of short stories. More than one story involved an adult male’s physical relationship with an underage girl, and I found these stories disturbing. The stories with the most appeal for me were “The Loudest Voice”, a holiday story that explores Jewish attitudes toward the Christian traditions of Christmas, and “An Interest in Life,” about the gradual loosening of the morals of a single mother and her relationship with a married gentleman friend. I am glad to have sampled Paley’s work, but she’s not an author I’ll seek out again.

Little disturbances starts off strong with the gentle humor of "Goodbye and Good Luck,"
which I immediately read again.

Many of the women continue on happy and assertive and unexpectedly funny as in "The Contest"
which features "Jews in The News."

The title story was too predictable and others were simply sad and boring.

The sweetly titled "An Irrevocable Diameter" was otherwise shallow, followed by odd and boring
stories and ending with an idiosyncratic and scattered one featuring horrifying animal abuse.

I bought this because she is supposed to be among the best short story writers, and while I normally don't mind darkness in my characters/plots, these stories seem mean-hearted in a way that just doesn't work for me. Each is about "men and women at love", but as the choice of "at" rather than "in" for the subtitle suggests, there is very little love to be found in these stories.

There were stories where men left because there were too many kids, where young girls seduced older men, where women were mistresses to much older men. The book was published in 1959 so perhaps men and women were really sooooo different then that never did the twain meet and live in some kind of peace. Yet the collection doesn't feel feminist or aimed at any show more kind of truth-telling but rather as if Paley was smirking at the plight of the fools it portrayed. I will admit, I did smile a time or two at her cleverness.

I'm not a short story aficianado, and this did nothing to move me in that direction. It got a book off my shelf, but I didn't enjoy it. Had it been longer, I probably would have given up. Given the respect this collection claims, I'm sure I missed something so feel free to try it yourself and let me know what has gone over my head. show less