We Don't Live Here Anymore by Andre Dubus (March 2022)
I guess this is part one of a three or four step process of reading through all of Andre Dubus's short fiction. This particular volume brings together his first two collections, Separate Flights and Adultery and Other Choices, both of which I've written about in the past - the former here (note - I still liked "The Doctor") and the latter in two posts here and here (note #2 - I still recommend "The Fat Girl", as seems to be a popular choice among other reviewers). Having said so much already about these works, I suppose there should be little to add, so I'll instead mention a comment from Ann Beattie's introduction - Dubus, following in one of Hemingway's accomplishments, forced the reader to notice how accruing details conflicted with the statements and observations of the story. I can't say all of the work speaks to this insight, but I liked how it set the stage for this first round in my Dubus mini-project.
In terms of an insight from the works, it may come down to one of a few interesting observations. I liked the idea that the most malignant lie between two people is when a topic becomes impossible to discuss, which forces a selectivity in conversation that can drive a terminal wedge into the relationship. I was amused by a couple of perspectives - the battle to remain set in one's ways underscores a certain desperation, and that cliches always linger as a ready excuse for someone who wishes to absolve responsibility in a situation. The deepest idea was that the power of a ritual is how no one needs to fully understand if they lean on the knowledge in the activity. The most powerful idea was that people sometimes don't grasp the idea of being valuable solely because someone else values them.
The Unreality of Memory by Elisa Gabbert (June 2021)
I made a couple of previous TOA mentions of her prior essay collection, The Word Pretty (here and here) over a week or so in April 2021. I enjoyed The Unreality of Memory just as much, noting "The Great Mortality" for a reread (a pre-2020 work that mentions Fauci - read it here). The essays are relatively short and I think my strong reviews are more than hint enough at my recommendation, so I'll just note a couple of the memorable insights for today. I've repeated a few times in the past year or so Paul Virilio's (paraphrased) thought that "the ship invented the shipwreck", the kind of idea that underscores the theme in a number of Gabbert's essays - progress via new technology invents problems or instabilities in the system. I was also intrigued by the insight that malaria is described as anything that responds to malarial drugs, which speaks to the significant research that went into this collection. I've been thinking about the analogy of hunger and empathy - just as hunger has no specific value unless it makes us eat, perhaps empathy has no use unless we take action, explaining the fatigue we feel when confronted with far-off events outside of our control. As a nice parting thought, Gabbert reminds us that the The New York Times suggested our understanding of global warming was completed by 1980; I guess I'll remind people, too.
