Customer Reviews

Short Letter, Long Farewell

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Sandwiched between 'Goalie's Anxiety...' and 'Sorrow Beyond Dreams,' you couldn't help but think the statute of limitations would make 'Short Letter...' into some kind of 'token disappointment,' added to assure readers that mediocrity wasn't an American patent. How can a writer hit the nail three times? Three varying works with very different and developed themes and separate styles...the more plot-driven 'Goalie,' the nameless (and deceptively endless) wandering narration of an ex-husband, hunted and letting himself be hunted by his ex-wife in 'Short Letter...,' and the almost unspeakable 'Sorrow Beyond Dreams.'
'Short Letter' is split in two. It contains some of the most stunning prose you will ever catch. Every line reads with revelation and almost escapes the previous build up, but never quite loses the focus of narration, as it seems to want to do. The threads tie themselves as the narrator constantly re-encounters, no matter how far or where he goes, some part of his past, whether its a receipt for money he sent his brother in Oregon, the agave plant which he first encounters in a bar early on on the label of a bottle of tequila, and then later in the desert of Arizona, or his ex-wife, who though in deadly pursuit of him, he at first leaves clues to make sure the pursuit is possible. John Ford movies and then later John Ford himself. Somebody who admits to being 'social' and who needs to be around people to make sure they aren't cutting him or somebody else down (as opposed to the narrator who even with people is more without (or within) than with. Nevertheless, the director is stunned to hear the story the reader has just gone through which involves two solitudes bordering on each other, bordering on disaster itself.
Read with caution - you might forget that expectations don't have to be lowered...

Since 1999, NYRB Classics has brought back into print a series of under appreciated works in handsome paperback editions. Their website asks readers to suggest out of print books that should again be accessible. Through NYRB, I have found pleasant surprises like Stoner, Ebenezer Le Page and Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky. I have also have been disappointed with entries such as Boredom, Jakob Van Guten and Short Letter, Long Farewell.

Amazon's summary of this novel suggests a combination of personal introspection and narrative events. There really is very little in the way of plot, however, and I didn't find the nameless protagonist interesting enough, nor his internal dialogue compelling enough, to allow me to recommend the book. The anti-hero comes to America with a Gatsby-like desire to remake himself. He cannot achieve this due to his inability to experience the world outside his mind. He avoids his former wife, leaves his current lover and even refuses to meet his brother after he chances to see the latter defecate in the woods. This is far too quotidian an experience for the nameless one to countenance.

He explains, "In the world I lived in, my dreams were really fantasies, because they had no connection with anything in that world, there was nothing comparable that would have made them possible. As a result, I never became fully conscious of the world around me or my dreams, and that's why I never remember them."

An antidote to this alienation is finally provided in the unlikely person of Director John Ford, who tells the narrator: "I'm only happy when I know exactly what I want. Then I'm so happy I feel as if there were no teeth in my mouth."

The author, however, has little and wants even less. He describes himself as filthy, bedraggled and frazzled and admits, "I had been enjoying all the poses of alienation available to me for too long." These poses are challenging for the reader to endure as well. After a long farewell, I was ready for the simple advice of John Ford. It is doubtful that the unnamed hero has come to feel the same way.