3 out of 4 stars
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Gary Crystal's title ,All of Us with our Pointless Worries and Inconsequential Dramas, for his collection of short stories and one scene plays aptly summarizes a dominant theme at the same time that it seems to dismiss the content as near meaningless. Most of these narratives depict the all too common scene for 30's something men and women in the big city, whether Paris, London, or New York: struggles at recovery from ruined relationships, lapses into sloth, alcohol, drugs, casual, sometimes barely civil, sexual encounters and ,of course, depression that blankets these scenes of urban discontent like a gray, palpable fog. For all this, I could not dismiss as dreary cliche' this highly entertaining and thought provoking collection. It was fun to read and at some points, downright intriguing.
A dark humor and a conversational first person narrator style preserve the several stories of an alienated young urban male from triteness. In the title story, for example, our hero says, "... and talk crap while completely avoiding the subject that I want to talk about..." He sees her eyes glaze over. She toys her with desk top miniature sand garden. And then: " ... I reel out the cliche' suicide card, because I think my therapist is actually getting bored with
me ... "
There are other situations that, if our jaded narrator did not so masterfully depict them, might be all too familiar for interest. In "The Conversationalists",for example, he endures a mercifully short relationship with the beautiful, but totally self absorbed Serena. Of her he says, "It was the personality of 'all about me'. ...sometimes she would arrive unexpectedly and then sit and have a six hour conversation...as if I was watching a hologram of a person ... speaking continually ... a detailed monologue of how her week had gone -not the highlights, not the most interesting parts, but every detail." It's the artful recreation of a scene that this reader and, I'm sure, many others have encountered in real life. The difference being that most of do not in our suffering of a "me personality" interlocutor turn the encounter into a lively and entertaining short story.
If there's any weakness in Crystal's theme of young urban male alienation it's perhaps that the stories taken together are in some ways repetitive, and that female readers might find the point of view too limited to the male perspective. There are two stories in particular that are so similar that one might be eliminated and replaced by a story that integrates the strengths of the two. As for the male point of view, there are women characters who in dialogue express cogent insights as they relentlessly pursue an evasive and emotionally remote male incapable of authentic commitment. I would think that many women readers would find strong female characters like these quite satisfying.
Fortunately, though Crystal pretty thoroughly explores young urban angst in his opening stories, he has other things to say in the remaining others and in the one scene plays. One of the most interesting pieces was also one of the shortest. In "Recorded Delivery" a young boy receives from an unknown uncle in the British Merchant Navy regular deliveries of canceled British stamps with no accompanying notes of explanation. For the boy and the reader it is a little mystery. For me the mystery remained unsolved by the story's conclusion, but I sensed that the story was a little gem and that the failure was mine as a reader. I found the story so compelling, in fact, that I went back for a second reading which was not a chore but a pleasure. There are other stories in the collection quite different from one another but with endings of intriguing ambiguity that invite one back for second and even third pleasurable readings.
If there be imperfections that mar this collection, they are minor. It's hardly worth mentioning, but some of the grammar is distracting. In particular the use of 'went' for 'gone' as in, "I should have went ..." The error is consistent throughout the book, and it's obvious that it occurs not as the dialect of a character but in the authorial voice.
I thought also that one story, "Grand Canyon", was much weaker than the others for its stereotypical villain, and that it was not credible in terms of plot details or characterizations. By excluding this story the author might have offered a book more pleasing for its even quality and thematic integration.
This collection has much to offer to readers from a broad band of tastes who enjoy good story telling. If you insist upon inspirational or "uplifting", however, you might be hard pressed to extract it here. For readers prone to induced anxiety and depressed moods these stories could pose a hazard, but for those who enjoy nuanced meaning and dark ambiguities delivered by way of succinct narration and lively dialogue, these stories are the right stuff. For these reasons I would like to rate this book higher than a 3, but, given its minor flaws, must settle for a rating of 3 out of 4.
******
All of Us With Our Pointless Worries and Inconsequential Dramas: Short Stories
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