Bark: Stories

There are reasons to feel lucky to be alive. One of them is that Lorrie Moore is writing short stories. Amongst the eight stories collected here are enough masterpieces to make you believe all over again that Moore may be the reason that the short story was invented. And the others — well, I don’t know. It’s very possible that in a year I might come round to thinking those other stories are the real masterpieces. I’ll admit that Moore is often ahead of the curve.

Some stories here have all the elements of classic Lorrie Moore. The long opening story, “Debarking”, is one of those. It is full of quirky observations, puns and half-puns and other word-play, excruciatingly poignant moments, and, well, exuberance, I guess. Even in show more the midst of what is really a sad or pathetic situation, there is exuberance. “Paper Losses” is another in this classic Lorrie Moore manner. Nearly priceless. Other stories, such as “Referential” show Moore in narrative dialogue with her peers, in this case Nabokov. In some stories, Moore seems frustrated, even angry, with the politics of America. There is a level of incredulousness that begins to creep in perhaps in stories such as “Foes” or “Subject to Search”. And there are yet other stories that don’t have any easy category. A story like “Wings” seems serious and anxious and possibly almost painful. It’s one of those ones that maybe, after a bit more thought, I’ll decide is actually a masterpiece. Moore’s writing is like that — it prompts more thought.

Warmly recommended. show less

This collection of short stories is about all those messy, complicated real lives that happen after we are no longer young adults, when our lives have begun to crystallize into the much more limited range of real options we actually get to choose from, rather than the vast universe of possibilities life seemed to hold when we were younger. Happy endings in this collection are only happy within a narrow definition of happy, or with a few caveats and footnotes, but life does not just stop after one is no longer a young adult, and the characters in these stories are busy maintaining, remaking, and enjoying their adult lives to the extent that they can. Death happens, divorce happens, kids turn out to be mentally ill, and romantic show more encounters that younger lovers might imagine as destined and forever turn out to be just temporary or not nearly as idyllic as they 'ought' to be. But life goes on. show less

The stories have a dark tone, sometimes little more than a nagging sense that something’s not quite right, but Moore is genuinely funny, and her wit and humor keep them from descending into morbidity. I liked some more than others, notably Debarked, about a divorced middle aged man returning to the dating scene, and Juniper, about a woman and her friends visiting the home of a deceased girlfriend to say goodbye. I can’t help but compare Moore’s collection to another book of short stories that I recently finished, Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell. While I loved Russells’ inventiveness, her stories lacked the depth of feeling I found in Moore’s. The characters from stories like Debarked and Juniper inspired a level show more of introspection that most of my fiction reading does not as they, often haplessly, wrestled with questions of the basic human condition like am I a good enough friend?, am I attracted to people for the right reasons?, am I seeing only what I want to see? Have not read Moore’s other books, but I will soon. show less

What a fantastic book. To use one of her own words, Lorrie Moore is the master of the wry short story. She manages a balance that seems masterful yet fully contemporary, between humor and sadness, the humor always easy and jokey, but the sadness deep and underlying everything.

Maybe one or two of these stories seems a little slight in comparison to the rest, but as a whole this is a marvelous book, and two or three of the stories are as good as I've ever read. This is wonderful work that is compulsively easy to read and yet rewards re-reading with marvels anew.

If the Nobel Prize committee had been sensible enough to ask for my opinion, the 2013 literature prize would have gone to Lorrie Moore rather than Alice Munro. Not to knock Munro, but in my estimation Moore's short stories are more real, more full of honesty and life, and more of a pleasure to read than those of Munro or any other writer.

Moore has been criticized by some for being too jokey, for writing characters who are too smart-alecky. ("Do you ever think of Dad?" a girl asks her divorced mother. "Dad who?" the woman answers.) In the midst of all sorts of painful circumstances, her characters always seem to have a ready supply of witticisms and an entertainingly skewed perspective on their situation. To my mind, this is not a thing show more to be criticized, but rather is the very core of what makes Moore's stories both delightful and deeply moving. When life plays cruel jokes with us (as it inevitably does), some people fight back with jokes of their own. Humor is their way of standing up to life, their way of struggling on, even when the battle is unwinnable. And for me, these are the sorts of people whose travails and struggles and unhappinesses I want to read about. When I read a Lorrie Moore story, I feel that her characters -- even while they're making me laugh -- are teaching me how to live.

Having said this, I should probably point out that not all of the stories in this collection follow the format of characters facing hardship with wit and humor. "The Juniper Tree" is about a woman dealing with the death of a friend, but it's lacking in the usual dosage of Moore jokiness (and is quite a beautiful story nevertheless). And in a couple of other stories the characters aren't suffering through any great hardship -- rather they're simply going through the ragged stuff of life, reflecting on what has brought them to where they are and what lies ahead.

There are 8 short stories in this collection, and to my eye each one is a beautiful, flawless gem. Each one stands among the best short stories -- and the best fiction -- I've ever read. This book is Lorrie Moore's first new collection of short stories in fifteen years, and as such it is a thing to be treasured, to be handled with loving care and given a place of honor in your bookshelf. But most of all, it's a book that should be read. show less

I loved Birds of America and had high hopes for Bark, yet I didn't feel that any of these stories touched me or impressed me the way that the stories in Elizabeth McCracken's Thunderstruck did. And yet, at the level of language (rather than the level of story), there were those sentences that made me laugh out loud, or appreciate the insightfulness in a concise turn of phrase.

Quotes

From "Debarking"

He did not like stressful moments in restaurants. They caused his mind to wander strangely to random thoughts like Why are these things callednapkins rather than lapkins? (Ira, 14)

"Every family is a family of alligators." (Zora, 15)

He had no idea why he said half the things he said. (Ira, 16)

He loved rhymes...They were harmonious and joyous in show more the face of total crap. (Ira, 28)

It wasn't the same as self-knowledge, but life was long and not that edifying, and one sometimes had to do with randomly seized tidbits. (Ira, 29)

From "The Juniper Tree"

I felt I was a person of my word, and by saying something I would make it so. It was less like integrity perhaps and more like magic. (49)

From "Paper Losses"

A woman had to choose her own particular unhappiness carefully. That was the only happiness in life: to choose the best unhappiness. An unwise move, good God, you could squander everything. (Kit, 68)

What second-rate poet had gotten hold of the divorce laws? (Kit, 70)

"If dolphins tasted good," he said, "we wouldn't even know about their language." That the intelligence of a thing could undermine your appetite for it....That deliciousness resulted in decapitation. That you could only understand something if you did not desire it. How did he know these things already? (Kit and Sam, 73)

From "Foes"

The passive voice could always be used to obscure blame. (83)

From "Wings"

The grumblings of their stomachs were intertwined and unassignable. (97)

From "Referential"

Mutilation was a language. (151)

Once her son had only wanted a distracting pain, but then soon he had wanted to tear a hole in himself and flee through it. (154)

From "Subject to Search"

"The Internet just reflects what's already in the human mind." (Tom, 166)

From "Thank You for Having Me"

If you were alone when you were born, alone when you were dying, really absolutely alone when you were dead, why "learn to be alone" in between? If you had forgotten, it would quickly come back to you. (182)

Every day there was something new to mourn and something old to celebrate: civilization had learned this long ago and continued to remind us. (190) show less

Lorrie Moore is one of my favorite writers. No one captures the awkward things we wish we didn't say out loud quite like she does. There's plenty of every-day grotesque and doomed romance to please any fan. My only complaint was that the volume was short, and some of the stories forgettable or too rooted in current events of a year or two ago.