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The emphatic use of lower case
of title name and author ought to have warned me of the tome's short-cummings. The opening story flows as almost isolated stanzas linked
by verbal banalities and profanities is consummate measure, 'as far as the
esso':
No hurry or
anything.
Fuck off.
They started
to laugh.
Are we going
to fucking Garys's or what.
I think that what ought to have ended with a question mark, but who cares?
And this is an endemic problem in much of the work: one is not bothered about
the characters, the situation or Ôplot/dramatic arc'. In fact, it is more
dramatic rubble as if any story-telling construction had been hit by a tsunami
of disregard; the author could not quite be bothered building anything,
though slightly appreciative of his juvenile Lego set. A pyrrhic victory of
mutual disinterest between reader and writer.
There are sixty stories in this collection. Duty rather than desire drew me
on. Tiresome, inconsequential and dull, please, judge for yourself, 'military
vehicles':
That was the
cheapo of their newsprint, trees
in the
morning, pronged RSJs, prolonged absences
and looks of
fear. Whiskey. Telephone. And the
handsome
builders and all, coventrated.
'Matty Boy' contains a singular laugh, but for this story and the next and
the next É the rewards are meagre.
There are sixty stories in this collection, sixty too many. A pointless
collection of texts with less utility than a phone book and only slightly
more aesthetic reward. Forgive me as I absent myself to boil an egg.
© Daithidh MacEochaidh 2011
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