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A review by arirang
Vertigo by Joanna Walsh
4.0
On the beach, sometimes you choose to pay attention to the children, and feel worthy, and sometimes you choose to read a book, and feel interested, or engaged, or intelligent, or whatever, but, whichever you are doing, I know you will be having fun because you do not worry the children might be neglected. You never have to make the choice to neglect the children. For you to read your book is not to neglect the children because you know that if you do not pay attention to the children I will. I have the choice to pay attention to the children, which I may or may not find - but must give the pretence of finding - fun, or else the whole concept of fun, and the holiday itself, tips over. Or I have a choice to read a book. But I know if I do not play with the children, you will not play with them not unless you really find it fun. My choice to read my book necessarily involves the worry of the possibility of neglecting the children. While you read your book with the attention your lack of worry affords, information enters your brain, making you more interested, or interesting, engaged or engaging, and intelligent, and so you become less like me, who, not lacking the worry of neglecting the children, does not become any of these. I can no longer see, from across the bay, which of those two things you have chosen to do. And this is why I swam the estuary.
(from Drowning, narrated by a woman on a beach holiday with her family, mentally addressing her husband)
Joanna Walsh's Vertigo is a book I've been meaning to get to for some time. Oddly un-garlanded on release - and indeed first published in the US despite Walsh being British - it has received many favourable reviews (some links below) and her profile has risen such that newer authors - particularly female writers of short stories - are already being labelled as the next Joanna Walsh.
[Indeed, as an aside, I could understand the comments of one reviewer on GR that "I'd probably have loved this if I'd read it a couple years ago. (In fairness, it was written a couple years ago." as the style is one that seems to have become more widely adopted]
This is a collection of short stories - many just 4-5 pages, the longest 16 - with a female first-person narrator (in one sense the same character in each, or at least variations on the same), with precisely honed, wry writing, full of wit. And while occasionally patchy (actually the title story Vertigo was one of my least favourite), overall it justifies its reputation.
If pushed I would describe it as a combination of [a:Lydia Davis|27427|Lydia Davis|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1434264975p2/27427.jpg], [a:Deborah Levy|147246|Deborah Levy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1309950288p2/147246.jpg], [a:Claire-Louise Bennett|6431820|Claire-Louise Bennett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1443673781p2/6431820.jpg], [a:Bae Suah|7760890|Bae Suah|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1421293272p2/7760890.jpg] and [a:Diane Williams|291600|Diane Williams|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1411499413p2/291600.jpg], all influences Walsh has acknowledged (see https://electricliterature.com/gaps-and-surfaces-an-interview-with-joanna-walsh-d3634f0a07ae for a longer list).
Many of the stories feature the characters away from the home - in hotels, hospitals, visiting family - Walsh herself observes:
Lots of the Vertigo stories are holiday or travel stories, stories about places where we’re forced to confront our own oddness, especially our oddness in groups, and particularly families whose members, travelling, have no recourse to the support structures of external relationships they have at home. I’m also concerned with how strange words are, and how difficult it is to get them to visit reality for any length of time before they peel off, start obeying their own rules. I find all writing strange or estranging.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/22/travel-souvenirs-an-interview-with-joanna-walsh/
"Vagues" (from the French word for waves) has the narrator in a seaside oyster restaurant with a potential lover, pondering on her husband's possible infidelity:
In another country my husband may be sleeping with another woman. He may have decided, having the option, being in the same city as her, finally to sleep with the woman with whom I know he has considered sleeping, although he has not slept with her up to now. Where my husband is, it is not lunchtime yet. If my husband sleeps with the woman he will do so in the evening. As he has not yet done so, as he has not yet even begun to travel to the city where she lives, to which he is obliged to travel for work whether he sleeps with her or not, and as I am here in the oyster restaurant at lunchtime in another country, there is nothing I can do to prevent this.
[...]
As I know my husband is unlikely to tell the truth about whether he sleeps with the woman or not – though he may choose either to tell me that he has, when he has not, or that he has not, when he has – I have taken the precaution of being here in the oyster restaurant with this man who may wish to sleep with me. As my husband knows that I know he is unlikely to tell me the truth about the woman with whom he will or will not have slept, so that, even if he tells me the truth, I will be unable to recognise whether or not he is being truthful, he must believe that if he sleeps with the woman, he will sleep with her entirely for his own pleasure. I, if I sleep with the man who is sitting opposite me at the restaurant, though I will not lie about whether I have slept with this man or not, will be unable to tell my husband anything he will accept as truthful, so must also, by consequence, make sure that, if I sleep with this man, it must be entirely for my own pleasure too.
while her male companion gets frustrated at the slow service:
Because he has chosen to sit at a table looking out at the sea, in order to see and approve the environment natural to oysters including the seaweed the rubbish the seagulls the stork the stones the mother and the toddler, he cannot signal to the waitress and it is because of this, or because she is insufficiently attentive, or because the oyster bar employs insufficient staff during the busy summer season, that he waitress does not arrive with his order.
[...]
He wants to punish someone for the oysters' slow pace. He wants to punish the waitress, who has not brought his order, by leaving. As he is facing the sea, he cannot signal to the waitress, so he wants to punish me by leaving. He does not leave. Because he does not leave he wants to punish someone (the waitress? me?) by failing to enjoy his lunch.
"Young Mothers" cleverly shows how new mothers are infantilised themselves. Even pregnant, we already wore dresses for massive 2 year olds. and the new social acquaintances on the first school runs are just as disorientating as for the children: n our first day at playgroup we may have been reluctant, tearful even, to be herded together by virtue of situation and approximate age.
"Online" has the narrator, herself having been caught sleeping with another man, finding her husband is now flirting with women online:
His women were young, witty and charming and they had good jobs - at least I ignored the women he had met online who were not young, witty and charming, who did not have good jobs - and so I fell more in love with my husband, reflected as he was in the words of these universally young, witty and charming women.
The subject of the narrator's thoughts in "Claustrophobia" is not her husband (in this story she is divorced) but her mother, whose houses she is visiting on a family reunion along with her brothers and their wives.
My sisters-in-law, you have come, hungry, for my father's last show and, notwithstanding, I admire each one of you. My difficulty is in admiring your mother-in-law.
[...]
My mother likes to keep things in. I prefer the feeling I have when the full fridge is relieved. I am anxious that we eat every bit (perhaps not the preserves, the condiments) before restocking. When called upon by my mother to cook for her guests (which I am called to do, after her, am I not the woman here) I am anxious to redistribute - especially - food I know diners have previously rejected: leftovers, anomalous items, boiled carrots, a spoonful of hot sauce, a single tinned apricot. I do this by introducing them into stews, pâtés and other dishes. These additions are not in the original recipes and sometimes they ruin a meal, although in ways the eaters can scarcely identify.
I am well aware I spoil things, mostly for the sake of geometry.
A wonderful read - and I look forward to Walsh's forthcoming novel.
Four excellent reviews of the book including from two of my favourite bloggers:
http://lonesomereader.com/blog/2016/8/22/vertigo-by-joanna-walsh
https://roughghosts.com/2015/10/24/a-delicate-exposition-of-the-everyday-vertigo-by-joanna-walsh/http://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/hotel-vertigo-grow-a-pair-joanna-walsh/
http://www.musicandliterature.org/reviews/2015/11/24/joanna-walshs-vertigo
(from Drowning, narrated by a woman on a beach holiday with her family, mentally addressing her husband)
Joanna Walsh's Vertigo is a book I've been meaning to get to for some time. Oddly un-garlanded on release - and indeed first published in the US despite Walsh being British - it has received many favourable reviews (some links below) and her profile has risen such that newer authors - particularly female writers of short stories - are already being labelled as the next Joanna Walsh.
[Indeed, as an aside, I could understand the comments of one reviewer on GR that "I'd probably have loved this if I'd read it a couple years ago. (In fairness, it was written a couple years ago." as the style is one that seems to have become more widely adopted]
This is a collection of short stories - many just 4-5 pages, the longest 16 - with a female first-person narrator (in one sense the same character in each, or at least variations on the same), with precisely honed, wry writing, full of wit. And while occasionally patchy (actually the title story Vertigo was one of my least favourite), overall it justifies its reputation.
If pushed I would describe it as a combination of [a:Lydia Davis|27427|Lydia Davis|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1434264975p2/27427.jpg], [a:Deborah Levy|147246|Deborah Levy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1309950288p2/147246.jpg], [a:Claire-Louise Bennett|6431820|Claire-Louise Bennett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1443673781p2/6431820.jpg], [a:Bae Suah|7760890|Bae Suah|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1421293272p2/7760890.jpg] and [a:Diane Williams|291600|Diane Williams|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1411499413p2/291600.jpg], all influences Walsh has acknowledged (see https://electricliterature.com/gaps-and-surfaces-an-interview-with-joanna-walsh-d3634f0a07ae for a longer list).
Many of the stories feature the characters away from the home - in hotels, hospitals, visiting family - Walsh herself observes:
Lots of the Vertigo stories are holiday or travel stories, stories about places where we’re forced to confront our own oddness, especially our oddness in groups, and particularly families whose members, travelling, have no recourse to the support structures of external relationships they have at home. I’m also concerned with how strange words are, and how difficult it is to get them to visit reality for any length of time before they peel off, start obeying their own rules. I find all writing strange or estranging.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/22/travel-souvenirs-an-interview-with-joanna-walsh/
"Vagues" (from the French word for waves) has the narrator in a seaside oyster restaurant with a potential lover, pondering on her husband's possible infidelity:
In another country my husband may be sleeping with another woman. He may have decided, having the option, being in the same city as her, finally to sleep with the woman with whom I know he has considered sleeping, although he has not slept with her up to now. Where my husband is, it is not lunchtime yet. If my husband sleeps with the woman he will do so in the evening. As he has not yet done so, as he has not yet even begun to travel to the city where she lives, to which he is obliged to travel for work whether he sleeps with her or not, and as I am here in the oyster restaurant at lunchtime in another country, there is nothing I can do to prevent this.
[...]
As I know my husband is unlikely to tell the truth about whether he sleeps with the woman or not – though he may choose either to tell me that he has, when he has not, or that he has not, when he has – I have taken the precaution of being here in the oyster restaurant with this man who may wish to sleep with me. As my husband knows that I know he is unlikely to tell me the truth about the woman with whom he will or will not have slept, so that, even if he tells me the truth, I will be unable to recognise whether or not he is being truthful, he must believe that if he sleeps with the woman, he will sleep with her entirely for his own pleasure. I, if I sleep with the man who is sitting opposite me at the restaurant, though I will not lie about whether I have slept with this man or not, will be unable to tell my husband anything he will accept as truthful, so must also, by consequence, make sure that, if I sleep with this man, it must be entirely for my own pleasure too.
while her male companion gets frustrated at the slow service:
Because he has chosen to sit at a table looking out at the sea, in order to see and approve the environment natural to oysters including the seaweed the rubbish the seagulls the stork the stones the mother and the toddler, he cannot signal to the waitress and it is because of this, or because she is insufficiently attentive, or because the oyster bar employs insufficient staff during the busy summer season, that he waitress does not arrive with his order.
[...]
He wants to punish someone for the oysters' slow pace. He wants to punish the waitress, who has not brought his order, by leaving. As he is facing the sea, he cannot signal to the waitress, so he wants to punish me by leaving. He does not leave. Because he does not leave he wants to punish someone (the waitress? me?) by failing to enjoy his lunch.
"Young Mothers" cleverly shows how new mothers are infantilised themselves. Even pregnant, we already wore dresses for massive 2 year olds. and the new social acquaintances on the first school runs are just as disorientating as for the children: n our first day at playgroup we may have been reluctant, tearful even, to be herded together by virtue of situation and approximate age.
"Online" has the narrator, herself having been caught sleeping with another man, finding her husband is now flirting with women online:
His women were young, witty and charming and they had good jobs - at least I ignored the women he had met online who were not young, witty and charming, who did not have good jobs - and so I fell more in love with my husband, reflected as he was in the words of these universally young, witty and charming women.
The subject of the narrator's thoughts in "Claustrophobia" is not her husband (in this story she is divorced) but her mother, whose houses she is visiting on a family reunion along with her brothers and their wives.
My sisters-in-law, you have come, hungry, for my father's last show and, notwithstanding, I admire each one of you. My difficulty is in admiring your mother-in-law.
[...]
My mother likes to keep things in. I prefer the feeling I have when the full fridge is relieved. I am anxious that we eat every bit (perhaps not the preserves, the condiments) before restocking. When called upon by my mother to cook for her guests (which I am called to do, after her, am I not the woman here) I am anxious to redistribute - especially - food I know diners have previously rejected: leftovers, anomalous items, boiled carrots, a spoonful of hot sauce, a single tinned apricot. I do this by introducing them into stews, pâtés and other dishes. These additions are not in the original recipes and sometimes they ruin a meal, although in ways the eaters can scarcely identify.
I am well aware I spoil things, mostly for the sake of geometry.
A wonderful read - and I look forward to Walsh's forthcoming novel.
Four excellent reviews of the book including from two of my favourite bloggers:
http://lonesomereader.com/blog/2016/8/22/vertigo-by-joanna-walsh
https://roughghosts.com/2015/10/24/a-delicate-exposition-of-the-everyday-vertigo-by-joanna-walsh/http://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/hotel-vertigo-grow-a-pair-joanna-walsh/
http://www.musicandliterature.org/reviews/2015/11/24/joanna-walshs-vertigo