Short story becomes art
Hunger by Jane Eaton Hamilton
Short fiction is a trickier trade than one would think. A good short story has to cram character development, plot, theme and an overall purpose in just a few pages. A lot of the time the result is — uh, how do I put this? — Yuck. However, when done properly, a short story can be as effective as a full-fledged novel. Hunger, by Jane Eaton Hamilton is a collection of short stories that attempts, with some success to accomplish the latter.
Most of the stories in Hunger are completely unrelated in terms of plot. However, there are connections between each stylistically and loose relations to motifs. Several are about a lesbian couple (not surprising, Hamilton is herself a lesbian who, apparently, fought tooth and nail for her marriage rights that Canada accepted country-wide in 2005) and almost all of them involve a romantic couple that is under pressure from one member possibly being unfaithful to the other.
From one story to the next, the narrative changes from first person to third person to even the literary minefield of second person (example: you read the article, you wonder what second person narration is, you remember the old “choose your own scare” Goosebumps novels and you figure it out). I understand that the second person narration was attempted purely for the sake of experimentation and I respect the effort, but it's rarely used for a reason: it doesn't work very well. It only made the storyline confusing, but the major issue is that the story isn't about “you,” it's about the characters in the story. However, this style is only in two of the stories, so it isn't a huge deal.
As I mentioned already, a lot of the stories involve a couple in which one person is having/considering/under the suspicion of having an affair. The issue works well to carry across a number of different points, it does get a little tired after a while. The repetition wouldn't matter so much if it weren't for the fact that each of these stories is supposed to be completely new and unrelated to one another, but having the same formula delivered to each story with a slight twist does hurt the overall presentation a bit.
I'm not trying to be too hard on Hunger, most of the stories are pretty good and it's the stories that stray from the formula that are the best and most memorable. Generally the stories, even if about serious subjects, are presented with a touch of humour that effectively finds its way across and nearly all of them have a similar tone of lifelike sobriety with a touch of making fun of itself. Although, the exception being the final short story of the same name as the compilation, which is leagues darker than the others.
Another thing about these short stories is that they're an actual attempt at art. Not just the things these stories talk about (art, love, fidelity, birth, family and on and on and on), but the way in which they're talked about, are definitely not presented just at face value. This makes it worthwhile to go back and read them over a few times to interpret them differently or try to get more from them. Honestly, having only read each story once or twice, I can't say that I fully “get” all of them, but that only makes them better to read over until they are understood (in my opinion, anyway).
So, to sum up, Hunger is a group of mostly “hit” and the occasional “miss” short stories that, for the most part, is worthy of the awards received. I've read that Hamilton has since retired from short story writing in 2004, which is kind of a shame since good short stories are hard to come by.
Short fiction is a trickier trade than one would think. A good short story has to cram character development, plot, theme and an overall purpose in just a few pages. A lot of the time the result is — uh, how do I put this? — Yuck. However, when done properly, a short story can be as effective as a full-fledged novel. Hunger, by Jane Eaton Hamilton is a collection of short stories that attempts, with some success to accomplish the latter.
Most of the stories in Hunger are completely unrelated in terms of plot. However, there are connections between each stylistically and loose relations to motifs. Several are about a lesbian couple (not surprising, Hamilton is herself a lesbian who, apparently, fought tooth and nail for her marriage rights that Canada accepted country-wide in 2005) and almost all of them involve a romantic couple that is under pressure from one member possibly being unfaithful to the other.
From one story to the next, the narrative changes from first person to third person to even the literary minefield of second person (example: you read the article, you wonder what second person narration is, you remember the old “choose your own scare” Goosebumps novels and you figure it out). I understand that the second person narration was attempted purely for the sake of experimentation and I respect the effort, but it's rarely used for a reason: it doesn't work very well. It only made the storyline confusing, but the major issue is that the story isn't about “you,” it's about the characters in the story. However, this style is only in two of the stories, so it isn't a huge deal.
As I mentioned already, a lot of the stories involve a couple in which one person is having/considering/under the suspicion of having an affair. The issue works well to carry across a number of different points, it does get a little tired after a while. The repetition wouldn't matter so much if it weren't for the fact that each of these stories is supposed to be completely new and unrelated to one another, but having the same formula delivered to each story with a slight twist does hurt the overall presentation a bit.
I'm not trying to be too hard on Hunger, most of the stories are pretty good and it's the stories that stray from the formula that are the best and most memorable. Generally the stories, even if about serious subjects, are presented with a touch of humour that effectively finds its way across and nearly all of them have a similar tone of lifelike sobriety with a touch of making fun of itself. Although, the exception being the final short story of the same name as the compilation, which is leagues darker than the others.
Another thing about these short stories is that they're an actual attempt at art. Not just the things these stories talk about (art, love, fidelity, birth, family and on and on and on), but the way in which they're talked about, are definitely not presented just at face value. This makes it worthwhile to go back and read them over a few times to interpret them differently or try to get more from them. Honestly, having only read each story once or twice, I can't say that I fully “get” all of them, but that only makes them better to read over until they are understood (in my opinion, anyway).
So, to sum up, Hunger is a group of mostly “hit” and the occasional “miss” short stories that, for the most part, is worthy of the awards received. I've read that Hamilton has since retired from short story writing in 2004, which is kind of a shame since good short stories are hard to come by.
