| chad
prevost
Nathan Leslie. Reverse
Negative. Ravenna Press: WA. 179 pages.
A reverse negative is a
photographic image in negative light, which also appears literally
reversed. In a sense, it may be a double removal from
the “reality” of the photograph. In the
title piece of Reverse Negative, the female narrator says,
“This is a shadow of what most people normally see.
This is the opposite, the reverse negative.” The
story portrays the mundane existence of a couple who have
recently learned about the death of their son, and their difficult
time trying to find out what happened somewhere in Hungary.
A good natured “playboy” lives next door to the
couple. Fascinated with the young man, the woman concludes
the story with these thoughts:
He assumes everything will always go his way, that he lives
in a balmy and benevolent universe far from danger.
His defenses aren’t in place because he doesn’t
have any. So if it’s not a movement to completion
and fulfillment, then at least I have its opposite.
There is always that.
Nathan Leslie’s
latest collection of short fiction has been a delight to read.
Within only 179 pages, Leslie offers the short fiction reading
world fifty-eight stories arranged alphabetically. I
love the genre of short fiction and Reverse Negative has only
added to the reasons why. Short fiction, also called
“sudden” and “micro” fiction, is generally
understood to be fiction between 1,000 and 2,000 words.
The power of a short, intense, well-wrought piece can have
at least the same power of a longer story and at the same
time the lingering metaphoric and lyrical possibilities of
a poem. More obviously, a work of short fiction is a
quick read. Also, to my mind, such stories make great
teaching tools. One can analyze point of view, plot
and other narrative techniques in a much more compact and
realized space—not to mention that the leading practitioners
of the form seem more willing to experiment than one might
find in longer fiction, and Reverse Negative is no exception.
Leslie’s huge imagination
provides a cornucopia of techniques related to narrative and
point of view strategies. “Brauner’s Muse”
is an excellent example of wild, associative metaphors describing
this “thing” which is constantly mutating, but
also seems to have some kind of acting consciousness.
With all this going on, I also love the way the narrative
progresses from one figure to the next. Does it matter
who Brauner is?
“The Canasazi”
is a hilarious story told with a clear journalistic style.
The story is interesting at least for its point of view—the
narrator and characters distanced from the story through their
text. The chronological dates also sequence the span
of the four page story (from April 17-November 20).
For a class, I might cross-reference something like this with
an essay like “Whatever Happened to the Anasazi?”
or Horace Miner’s social satire piece, “The Nacirema.”
The following story ”Centralia,” in just over
four pages, spans an altogether different chronological sequence
spanning 1962 to 1987.
The limitations of short
fiction, however, can be challenging in terms of moving against
what most expect and value in traditional fiction. For
instance, Reverse Negative offers a mind boggling cast of
characters without a centralized setting, and no continuous
narrative thread. The collection simply offers something
different: a montage of characters and places, ranging from
real, fabled, and imagined places within the “real”
and imagined United States.
Admittedly, in pieces
such as “Chronometer” and “The Bull Session,”
I felt a little left out, disconnected. Perhaps it was
the philosophy that made up their basic subject matter?
I did think about “Chronomoter” later after I’d
given more thought to the speaker’s persuasive argument
that “time is greater than the human spirit.”
Also, in spite of my reaction to “The Bull Session”,
the dialogue is sharp, and the metaphor of the “dump”
remains in the mind as a powerful backdrop to the conversation/quarrel
between a boyfriend and girlfriend, if a bit heavy handed.
But these are only lesser
examples of Leslie’s wide cast of characters and techniques.
I experienced real pathos for the characters involved in such
pieces as “The Coloring Book” (reminded me of
Raymond Carver’s “Neighbors”), and “The
Day Job.” Narrated in the present tense, “The
Day Job” moves back and forth between time in Kit’s
life: an excellent example of how complicated narrative technique
can be, but also how simply achieved. Kit’s day job
is just trying to make people happy.
Leslie often seems to
be under the influence of Barthleme with his satire, bizarre
incidents, and the “anti” fable quality of “The
Girl with the Silver Hands.” I’m also reminded
even a little of Robert Coover. In “B2”
the speaker accidentally pushes button B2 of the elevator
and witnesses a large man putting a small man into his stomach.
He then swears he’ll never tell on them, but does.
The story is strange in an urban magical realism sort of way.
Yet, somehow, too, the
characters in Reverse Negative do manage to represent a multi-faceted
United States; a shadowy, strange, satirized America perhaps,
but a fascinating one nonetheless. Above all, I admire Leslie’s
ability to portray larger social, psychological, political
and economic issues by way of very small, keenly particular
slices of these characters’ lives and voices.
Speakers of all types, black and white and Hispanic mostly,
young and old, men and women, marginalized, intellectual,
urban, rural, and wealthy, parade through Nathan Leslie’s
wide-ranging, far-flung collection.
.
|
|
