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A review by jdscott50
The Miniature Wife and Other Stories by Manuel Gonzales
3.0
The stories center around a loss of self. Not necessarily an unravelling of a character, but aspects of that character disappear with surreal and bizarre reasons as the cause. A man on a hijacked plane that's been circling for 20 years wonders what will be left for the passengers if they land. Do they restart their old lives or start anew? A man who shrinks his wife contemplates what's missing in his life. His state becomes reduced, yet she gains beyond what he thought capable.
Most of the stories have an emotional punch with a good use of metaphor to emphasize points in the story. Gonzales covers a far range of topics from the surreal, to crime, to zombies. Many of the stories have insightful passages, but generally a weak pull. They lack the full punch that some of the stories could deliver. At times the stories are brilliant, but too often they fell flat.
Favorite parts:
I began to take notes for a story and the notes for a novel, and then notes for another novel and another story, but all they have been are notes. P. 8
"Is twenty years long enough to wipe away bad marriages, poor career choices, too many long hours spent following someone else's dreams?" P. 21
"...that I don't understand how hard it can be to keep our baser selves in check or how much easier it is, ultimately, to go back to the evil we know and understand, the evil we have lived with for so long that it feels an inherent and important part of ourselves, to go back to this evil and tell ourselves we had no other choice, that we didn't opt for this decision, but that really there were never any other options for us to take. I know about choices and about not having choices and how it feels when it seems you have no other choice. P. 149
“We had an impression of ourselves, of who we were, right or wrong, and we acted out our lives accordingly, and as I sat in my car I wondered when we had come to some reckoning of ourselves, some rethinking of ourselves as guys who did exciting, adventurous childish things, when I stopped believing in that story we told about ourselves, because, miserable or not, Ralph was still doing things. Things, for the most part, I wouldn’t do. Things I had no interest in doing, but things, nonetheless, and he had eked out a life for himself that, though just a shadow of the lives we had imagined for ourselves, was at least closer to those lives than anything I had made for myself, and that had now brought him to a Chinaman with a unicorn to sell for cheap.” P. 235
“I think to myself, 'This was for the best. All of this.' And maybe I should feel worse for Roger and the security guard and the reset of the human race, but I can’t help but wonder that maybe we need these kinds of moments. Not moments of quiet, but moments when our lives are upended by violent tragedy, monsters, zombies, because without them, how would we meet the men and women of our dreams? How would we make up for the sins of our pasts? How would we show our true natures—brave, caring, strong, intelligent?” p. 300
Most of the stories have an emotional punch with a good use of metaphor to emphasize points in the story. Gonzales covers a far range of topics from the surreal, to crime, to zombies. Many of the stories have insightful passages, but generally a weak pull. They lack the full punch that some of the stories could deliver. At times the stories are brilliant, but too often they fell flat.
Favorite parts:
I began to take notes for a story and the notes for a novel, and then notes for another novel and another story, but all they have been are notes. P. 8
"Is twenty years long enough to wipe away bad marriages, poor career choices, too many long hours spent following someone else's dreams?" P. 21
"...that I don't understand how hard it can be to keep our baser selves in check or how much easier it is, ultimately, to go back to the evil we know and understand, the evil we have lived with for so long that it feels an inherent and important part of ourselves, to go back to this evil and tell ourselves we had no other choice, that we didn't opt for this decision, but that really there were never any other options for us to take. I know about choices and about not having choices and how it feels when it seems you have no other choice. P. 149
“We had an impression of ourselves, of who we were, right or wrong, and we acted out our lives accordingly, and as I sat in my car I wondered when we had come to some reckoning of ourselves, some rethinking of ourselves as guys who did exciting, adventurous childish things, when I stopped believing in that story we told about ourselves, because, miserable or not, Ralph was still doing things. Things, for the most part, I wouldn’t do. Things I had no interest in doing, but things, nonetheless, and he had eked out a life for himself that, though just a shadow of the lives we had imagined for ourselves, was at least closer to those lives than anything I had made for myself, and that had now brought him to a Chinaman with a unicorn to sell for cheap.” P. 235
“I think to myself, 'This was for the best. All of this.' And maybe I should feel worse for Roger and the security guard and the reset of the human race, but I can’t help but wonder that maybe we need these kinds of moments. Not moments of quiet, but moments when our lives are upended by violent tragedy, monsters, zombies, because without them, how would we meet the men and women of our dreams? How would we make up for the sins of our pasts? How would we show our true natures—brave, caring, strong, intelligent?” p. 300