Love in Infant Monkeys

Lydia Millet's "Love in Infant Monkeys" was a strange little short story collection. At first it just seemed sort of bizarre to have each story deal with a celebrity and a different animal. It didn't really make sense to me as I was reading it. However, Millet has this humor that covers up the absurdity of the stories/situations and makes it bearable to read. 

This is definitely the most creative of the cycles we have read. In fact, I wouldn't even call this a cycle. Its more of just a collection. There's no recurring characters, setting or narrator as the other cycles have had. The only connection each story has is a celebrity and an animal. And the celebrities aren't even similar. They range from Jimmy Carter to Madonna, a politician and a popstar. "Love in Infant Monkeys" is so different from a cycle such as "Dubliners" or Winesburg." There's no unifier. Each of these stories obviously is able to stand on its own, but succeeding stories do not give the reader more information on stories previously read. I don't think this collection really fits as a short story cycle. 

My main problem with the collection (which I really didn't like, but not as much as "Self-Help" which was just godawful) was that I just found it stupid. Putting themes and style aside, I felt the idea of pairing a celebrity with an animal and writing a whole short story collection is dumb. It wasn't that creative or innovative or any of the other -tives. At points the stories seemed very forced. The one story that sticks out in my mind is "Sexing the Pheasant" where Madonna goes pheasant hunting with Guy Ritchie and his pub friends. Millet painted such a stereotypical portrait of Madonna. She didn't give her any depth. She just made her like the Madonna one would expect, self-absorbed and pretending to be things she's not (Jewish and British). I would have liked to seen another level of Madonna. Maybe an animal lover or someone who is not totally in love with themselves. At one point Madonna says she wouldnt take a coat from one of her fans because the coat would "suck." Would Madonna really think that? Is she that much of a bitch or does the public just perceive her as one? 

The aspect that I liked in the collection was that the stories would rotate between first-person and third-person. There are some celebrities that I just would not want to hear from in the first person, so it was nice to have an outside narrator telling their story. This is something that I would take from this collection for my own. I don't want every story in my collection to be in first person (or third person). I like the change. You can still have unity in a collection even if there's not the same narrator the whole time. 

Other Rooms, Other Wonders

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a collection that transported the reader to another world that they probably aren’t too familiar with it. I don’t know much of anything about the people of Pakistan or this city of Lahore, so it was a nice insight to a new cultural of people I have never experienced. However, once you get past the setting and culture you find that the stories become somewhat redundant, not only in the collection itself, but in comparison to the other collections we have read.

 

In most collection we have read at least one love story, and in most of them the love doesn’t work out. In “Saleema” and “Provide, Provide” there is the same exact theme of an older man of higher social stature marries a younger female servant although they are both already married. Neither relationship works out for either parties and everyone is unhappy and their lives are ruined. There are only so many ways an author can tell a story about a love affair and this author does it twice—in a row.

 

However, other stories differ in that they have this parable feel. “Nawabdin Electrician,” the first story of the collection definitely feels like a story with a lesson coupled with the gritty realism we saw in “Jesus’ Son.” “Nawabdin Electrician” has the thief who meets a terrible fate for what he has done and in “Saleema” the eponymous character ruins her own life and her son’s by sleeping around. There are lessons to be learned by some of these stories.

 

However, other stories such as “Alice” deal with the theme of re connecting with people and finding your place in the world. It is not so much a parable, but a story that anyone can relate to because we all want connections with people and no one likes to be alone.

The same is true in “A Spoiled Man” as Sonya tries to spread her caring around and in “Our Lady of Paris” Sohail and Helen find love with each and attempt to hang on to each other.

 

The one story that really stood out to me in terms of theme (as all the stories share a similar setting and the presence of KK Harouni) was "About a Burning Girl." In this story there is no lesson to be a learn in a parable-esque way and no feelings of love between a man and a woman. Two brothers attempt to steal their father’s fortune and pin it on one man’s wife by lighting her on father and saying she committed suicide due to her guilt. It is much darker than the others. There is no love, no sex, no caring. The characters in this story all seem very superficial and uncaring, like animals, doing anything to survive, with no emotions. This is probably because half the characters in the story are lawyers.

 

For my own short story cycle I will take from “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders the concept of not having a continuing protagonist, yet having one character pop up in each story. KK Harouni felt extremely different than Winesburg’s George Willard yet they both appear in almost all of the stories in their respective collections.

I’d like to have one ruling character in my collection who controls everyone (like Harouni), but does not play a major character role in terms of dialogue and plot development. I want a character that is larger than life so he doesn’t have to show himself to make his presence known. 

Ms. Hempel Chronicles

Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum's Ms. Hempel Chronicles was able to show just how many layers a protagonist in a short story cycle can have. Each story in the cycle has a chapter-esque feel from a novel because each story builds on the one before it, revealing new aspects of Ms. Hempel's life previously unseen. While each story could be argued to have a "new" Ms. Hempel, they all have the same basic characteristics and we are given a better view of her complex personality. All people in the real world have many layers, just like an onion, and each short story peels this away. Ms. Hempels character does not stray too far away from each consecutive story, but shows us that people are very complicated and can change quickly. This makes Beatrice Hempel the most real and most relatable of any of the protagonists we have encountered. 

This collection feels as if it follows a Ms. Hempel's life in a normal order of time, save for the few stories that served as flash backs to her childhood. This also gives it that novel feel. There is a beginning, middle and an end. And, in the end, the reader is given some sense of closure not always seen in the previous cycles we have read. We know what Ms. Hempel's game plan is and presumabley how the rest of her life will wind up. If stories were added on after "Bump" there might be one about her retiring from teaching, one of her hopefully happy marriage to someone after the breakup with Amit and one with her giving birth to her child or even stories about them all living as a family together. We seen Ms. Hempel grow from a child into a grown woman and future mother/wife, 

What a writer such as myself can take from Ms. Hempel is definitely the layers of the character to make them seem more real. I'd want to reveal new information and backstory of a character in each story. Why just have on story do this? If one were to just read one story from this collection they would not have a complete knowledge of Ms. Hempel's character. You need to read every story in the cycle and have each trait build on itself to get the 100% accurate portrayal of Ms. Hempel. However, there were certain aspects of this that I didn't like too much. There was certain information about Ms. Hempel that was revealed way too casually. We don't learn off Ms Hempel's engagement until a few stories in and it is mentioned without much buildup, as if the reader has already known this. Also the fact that she is pregnant also comes as a surprise to the reader and is again not brought up in what would seem to be a life-changing event type of manner. Nevertheless, the realness of Ms. Hempel is what I want to use in my own cycle. I want a character people can not only relate to, but envision living and breathing in the real world with them. Ms. Hempel is definitely a character that pulls this off.