I came to this work because I liked Dubus’s Broken Vessels, an essay collection filled with various simple but profound insights into the challenges of daily living. I enjoyed similar types of observations throughout Adultery and Other Choices, his second short story collection.
Dubus seems to have little patience for conversations about other people’s bodies. In one story, he notes that talking about another person’s appearance reveals much about the speaker’s character. It’s a true enough comment, I suppose, and one that underscores fiction’s advantage over the essay – a story is always better able to generalize about a ubiquitous and widely accepted behavior than any nonfiction piece.
A thought from his title story resonated with me – when people are betrayed, their actions are separated from how they lived before the betrayal. Again, a similar insight to the above in how its importance comes not from its universal applicability but rather in how knowing this may sometimes apply. In meeting the challenge of relating to and understanding others, knowing this kind of information strikes me as invaluable.
A final thought I liked revealed a hard-won understanding about routines – when a routine is described with reverence, it is certain to prepare a person for the day or task ahead. Like I suspect is the case for any writer, Dubus probably relied on a strict routine to energize himself for the day of work ahead. When such a routine is described in hallowed tones, a listener can immediately understand the energy it creates. On the other hand, the routine completed with a sense of obligation or duty cannot be described in such a way. Over time, this kind of routine is sure to slowly drain away all natural energy.
Footnotes / recommended…
0. After I finished…
I chose to reread ‘The Bully’, ‘The Fat Girl’, and ‘Andromache’. Of these, I would definitely recommend those first two – for some reason, the latter didn’t quite have the same resonance with me on the second reading.
