\s mYevtew ELECTRONIC ADDITION - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWtrait of the "Doctor," a character whomight be a charlatan, an artist, a saint,or all three. After toying with a numberof answers to readers' imagined questionsabout the Memorial Room, thenarrator demurs :I can't give you the correct answers tothose questions. No authority exists thatcan, and I'm convinced that such a conditionof uncertainty is now the true one forme to be in as the writer of the story andfor you as the reader.But this is depressing theoretical stuff,you might be saying to yourself, and whylay it on me here, in what is supposed tobe an occasion for fiction. I mean, what isthis? A lecture or something?It's no lecture. I'm trying to tell my storycorrectly, and I want to set you up to thinkcarefully about what happens to storieswhen nothing in the world is going anywhere.What is supposed to happen in astory? What does narrative involve?I can imagine a reader answering, "Whynot let me decide what I'm going tothink carefully about when I read? Youdecide what is going to happen, whatnarrative involves. You write the story;I'll read it."The seven stories in Nora Keeling'schasing her own tail impress first withtheir meticulously crafted sentences.Keeling's vocabulary is as incisive as it isprecise, and her language conveys moodswith economy and real power. Herstories' major focus — which is so unremittingas to become unnervinglymonochromatic — is on the intenselyordered isolation of older women as theycreate and then endure the routines oftheir days, husbands either dead, banished,or simply absent, children gone,cats and dogs providing a strand of connectionto the natural, vital, but eminentlydangerous world beyond the women'sterribly lucid self-awareness. Men'sappearances in these women's lives havetheir own grim routine : sex is usuallymechanical and perfunctory, and men'sdealings with women in general are disruptive,intrusive, presumptuous, selfabsorbed.The five most powerful storiesin the book —• the title story, "agathe,""george's eyes & the red ball," "bigherb," and "mine," isolate women's figuresin sharp, stark, chilling portraits,usually drawn from the inside; typical inits language, tone, and mood is thisopening meditation of Katie's, the womanat the centre of "george's eyes & thered ball":I do not like to go out even though attimes I must. There is just too much spaceout there and I might even get lost in it. Ido not like to invite acquaintances to myhouse for tea: they might overstay theirwelcome. But I do not like to be alone,especially in the evening, because I like tohave someone with whom to share the settingof the sun, a phenomenon that I goupstairs to my bedroom to observe everyevening that there is one. It is not a smallthing. I could even consider it to be myfavourite hobby.The two remaining stories, "the littleaxe" and "berthilde's holiday," deal withthe trials in the relationships of twoyounger couples. They are less successfulstories, perhaps because Keeling has notfound the language through which torender these characters' inner lives asacutely as she has done with her moreisolated and solitary figures. But Keelingdemonstrates convincingly in this bookher remarkable talent for evoking boththe pathos and the pathology of loneliness.NEIL BESNER163