Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett review: a rewarding voyage into the interior

A new debut collection from Stinging Fly, rooted in domestic and natural worlds, delivers on its intent

Sarah Gilmartin

Sat, May 2, 2015

Claire-Louise Bennett

‘No one can know what trip is going on and on in anyone else’s mind.” Maybe not, but Claire-Louise Bennett does her best to deliver such interiority of character throughout her debut collection Pond. The arch voice from Lady of the House, a story near the end of the book, teases the reader: “Has it really become an inclination of mine to reminisce in such a gratuitous way?”

There is little doubt of the answer. Twenty stories of varying lengths comprise this ambitious and writerly collection. There are one-page odes to tomato puree, reflections on the need for alcohol to engage with the opposite sex, an EE Cummings-esque short on the demise of a stir-fry dinner, amid longer ruminations on everything from the merits of control knobs on ovens to French girls with filthy corduroy coats.

Modernist in style, Bennett’s mostly first-person narrative is rooted in the domestic and natural worlds. Gardens, “privet hedges”, the titular water mass and the weather are the backdrop to the voice’s thoughts and realisations. Household objects – an ottoman, a mirror, a cooker – appear and reappear at various points to link the stories in unusual ways.

Despite this grounding in the real world, the narrator in most of the stories lives heavily in the mind and her memories, allowing space for fantasising and digressions. Come to this collection looking for traditional stories with linear plots and dialogue and you will be disappointed. Instead, Bennett offers her unique take on the world, snapshots of a woman trying to deal with life’s peculiarities, disappointments and sudden delights.

One of three epigraphs quotes Nietzsche: “For now in every exuberant joy there is heard an undertone of terror.” Fear and anxiety about modern life is a prominent theme. There are different types of fear – the humorously related “ratcatcher” in First Thing, who controls the hungover narrator as she makes her coffee; the stunning image of a photograph as “a concentration of captured faces” in The Big Day, or the more existential fear in Words Escape Me in the form of a dragonfly swooping down a chimney to terrorise the narrator, until she realises, “after all, being terrified seems quite normal, one learns to live with it”.

From Wiltshire, Bennett studied literature and drama at the University of Roehampton before settling in Galway. Her short fiction has appeared in The Irish Times, the Moth, the Stinging Fly and Gorse. She was awarded the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize in 2013 .

Bennett’s drama background comes through in her writing. It calls to mind the work of Eimear McBride, who also used her knowledge of performance to great effect in creating a distinctive voice in A Girl is a Half- Formed Thing. Many of the pieces in Pond would work well as monologues for the stage. The discursive style, range of topics and poetic language are offset by humour, which breaks up the pontificating and helps to clarify the moments of enlightenment.

The episodic nature of Pond recalls the great modernist writer Robert Walser. In terms of structure, style and theme, there are parallels between his The Walk and Other Stories and Bennett’s stories. From one-page elegies to longer musings on the nature of everyday existence, Bennett favours the modernist style of her predecessor and is similarly unafraid of losing readers in stream of consciousness technique.

The mix of darkness and comedy in Pond is impressive, confidently handled in a debut collection. In Morning, Noon and Night, which ponders the subjects of fruit, gardens, academia, lovers, Japanese tapestries, bicycles and chopping boards, the narrator dispenses her advice on almonds: “Be careful though, be careful with flaked almonds; they are not at all suitable for morose or fainthearted types.”

Moments later, the tone has shifted: “But shake out a palmful of flaked almonds and you’ll see they closely resemble fingernails that have come away from a hand.”

Other stories, such as Finishing Touch are laugh-out-loud funny, with its exacting and neurotic narrator professing she will throw an understated party: “I’m determined you see, quite determined to host a low-key, but impeccably conceived, soirée.” The narrator issues specific orders on what gifts guests should bring. She spends the night before combing the room, making sure “everything is in its place: awakened, accomplished and vigilant.”

It is easy to get lost in Pond amid the digressions and snippets of storylines, but the author for the most part convinces us to accompany her for the ride. We have been warned, after all, by that same lady of the house: “It’s perfectly obvious by now to anyone that my head is turned by imagined elsewheres and hardly at all by present circumstances.”

THE IRISH TIMES

Claire-Louise Bennett / Finishing Touch

Finishing Touch

Claire-Louise Bennett

Issue 29, Volume 2: Winter 2014

‘Finishing Touch’ is taken from Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett’s debut collection. Pond is published by Stinging Fly Press

I think I’m going to throw a little party. A perfectly arranged but low-key soiree. I have so many glasses after all. And it is so nice in here, after all. And there’ll be plenty of places for people to sit now that I’ve brought down the ottoman— and in fact if I came here for a party on the ottoman is exactly where I’d want to sit—I’d want to sit there, on the ottoman. But I suppose I’d arrive a little later on and somebody else would already be sitting upon the ottoman very comfortably, holding a full glass most likely and talking to someone standing up, someone also holding a full glass of wine, and so I would stand with my fingertips upright on a table perhaps, which wouldn’t be so bad, and, anyway, people move about, but, all the same, I would not wish to make it very plain just how much I’d like to sit there, on the ottoman—I certainly wouldn’t make a beeline for it!—no, I’d have to dawdle in and perch upon any number of places before I’d dare go near it, so that, when finally I did come to sit on the ottoman, it would appear perfectly natural, just as if I’d ended up there with no effort or design at all.

Howsoever, I am not, and never can be, a guest here, though in fact taking up the rugs and changing everything Finishing Touch around and putting the glasses in a new place—two new places actually, there are that many glasses—does make it all quite new to me, and I have stood here and there sort of wondering what it was all for, all this rearranging, and it seems to me I must be very determined—it seems to me my mind is quite made up about who’s in and who’s out. With everything changed and in new places I can say to myself, no one has been here yet, not a soul—and now, I get a chance to choose, all over again—I must be very determined after all, to make things fresh and stay on guard this time. Yes, I get a chance to choose all over again, and so why not make use of such an opportunity in a very delightful way and throw a little party, because it is perfectly clear to me now who I will invite and who will not know a thing about it—until after perhaps, there might be some people who were not invited who might come to know a thing or two about it afterwards.

And that’s just fine, that’s fine by me. After all, isn’t a party a splendid thing not only because of the people there but also because of the people who aren’t and who suppose they ought to be? No doubt about it, there’ll be a moment, in the bathroom most likely—which will naturally exude an edgeless, living fragrance because of the flowers I picked earlier from the garden—when I feel quite triumphant for having developed the good sense at last to realise that people who are hell-bent upon getting to the bottom of you are not the sort you want around. This is my house—it doesn’t have any curtains and half the time half the door is open, that’s true. The neighbour’s dog comes in, that’s true too, and so do flies and bees, and even birds sometimes—but nobody ought to get the wrong idea— nobody ought to just turn up and stick a nose in! I wonder if it’ll become wild or whether people will stay in range of tomorrow and leave all of a sudden around midnight. I wonder actually if anyone will ask what the party is for. Because of the summer I’ll say. It’s because of the summer—this house is very nice in the summer—and that’ll be quite evident to anyone who asks. Yes! It’s for the summer, I’ll say, and that’ll take care of it.

And sure enough there’ll be martinis and Campari and champagne and bottle after bottle of something lovely from Vinsobres. And beautiful heaps of salad in huge beautiful bowls. Fennel and grapefruit and walnuts and feta cheese and all kinds of spread-eagled leaves basking in oil and vinegar. Because of the summer! Can’t you see! No doubt there’ll be some people who will be curious and will want to take a look upstairs—and perhaps I won’t mind at all but I shan’t go with them unless, unless—no, I shan’t go with them no matter who they are. Sure, I’ll say, over my shoulder, go on up and take a look. Be my guest. And, then, not long after they’ve come down and made this or that comment, I’ll find some reason to go on up there myself—I won’t be able to help myself—I’ll want to try to see what it is they saw I suppose.

I wonder who out of everyone will sit on the ottoman? Well, if you must know, that is not a spontaneous point of curiosity and I don’t wonder really because in fact I already possess a good idea—a clear picture actually—of who will sit upon the ottoman. Oh yes, a lovely picture as clear as can be. And as a matter of fact it might be the case that this vision preceded my fantasies about being a guest here myself and artlessly contriving to sit on the ottoman beneath the mirror—I’d go further and say the vision, the premonition if you will, of who exactly will sit on the ottoman very much instigated my fantasy of doing just the identical thing. What kind of a calamity would it now be if as it turned out the person I have very much in mind does not in fact sit upon the ottoman but leans in the doorway, for example? Just leans against the door frame and prods at the door jamb, actually. Would it appear so very eccentric if I suggested to them that in fact the ottoman is a very nice place to sit? Well of course it would, it would be very eccentric, and my friend, and by the way I don’t even have this woman’s phone number, would understandably feel a little unnerved that I’d singled her out in this way—in this strangely intimate way. Of course I could devise some kind of game that included everybody and involved me appointing each person a place in the room—that could work—that would work—but it would be stupid, even if they thought it was sort of charming and zany I would know it was absolutely bogus and stupid, and how would I live with myself for the rest of the night after that exactly? Still, despite all that, despite how fraught this can all become, I am quite unperturbed—I’m determined you see, quite determined to host a low-key, but impeccably conceived, soiree.

I don’t mind asking people to bring things by the way—and I’m very specific. Gone are the days when I make a lot of work for myself—that might surprise you, it surprises me. I’m very forthright on this matter, which is something people appreciate very much in fact because, naturally, people are short on time and they can’t allocate time to trying to work things out like what to bring to other people’s parties, it’s a minefield, and even if you do have time to give to working such things out the fact is there is always an anxiety that what you finally select to bring is a real clanger. It never is a clanger, not really, but who wants to sit in the back of a cab with a bowl covered with tin foil in their lap wondering if what it contains is going to be met with melodious condescension—who needs any of that? Give people a specific request and they arrive feeling pretty slick and raring to go. Not that the requests are issued in haphazard fashion of course—I know perfectly well who to ask to supply the cheese for example, and who to contribute the bread. It’s easy to notice what people enjoy eating, and from there it’s reasonable to infer that they’ll endeavour to procure the finest examples of whatever comestible treat it is they have cultivated a particular fancy for. And, naturally, there’ll be one or two you let off, simply because, gusto notwithstanding, they’ve never demonstrated any discriminating interest in what they eat. They’ll probably rock up with hash and breadsticks, and quite possibly a dim jar of drilled out green olives, and people who stay late will horse into the breadsticks and the following day there’ll be shards of breadstick all over the floor, ground to a powder in places, where people have stood on the bigger shards while talking to people they don’t usually talk to, or even when dancing about perhaps. I always enjoy the day after in fact. Slowly going over everything from the night before until it’s all just so. Everything in its place: awakened, accomplished and vigilant. 

As it turned out he came and she didn’t. They couldn’t get a babysitter you see. He came on his bicycle and his face was incredibly flushed, which he seemed to be enjoying very much. Indeed, it is nice to be flushed, whatever way it happens. I can’t recall what he brought with him, which surprises me—I’ve a feeling it was something that needed to be kept flat because I seem to remember that the minute he came in the door he was anxious to look inside his rucksack. It was a tart, I remember now. That’s right, he took a tarte normande from his rucksack and it was perfectly intact—and there was a bottle of Austrian white wine too with a distinctive neck which I put in the fridge right away and I don’t think I opened it until much later on— the neck was distinctive you see and I remember putting my hand around it again quite late, it was really chilled, possibly too much. There was lots of wine, more than enough, and I was pleased about that, in addition my friend with tenure brought beer and a bottle of my favourite gin, which was unexpected and very kind because that particular gin is astronomically expensive. Everyone came with something thoughtful in fact and now and then I’d bring some chicken wings out of the kitchen, or one of those pizzas that have such beautifully thin bases some people presume they’re home-made, and everyone already knew each other more or less so I could do whatever I liked and didn’t have to worry about whether so-and-so was enjoying themselves because anytime I looked around there wasn’t anyone who looked left out, but then it’s so small in here it would be pretty difficult for anyone to look left out even if they felt it.

For a long time a man sat on the ottoman, I don’t remember which man and perhaps it alternated. I just remember jeans and boots, and of course that wasn’t at all what I’d had in mind. Quite often I’m terribly disappointed by how things turn out, but that’s usually my own fault for the simple reason that I’m too quick to conclude that things have turned out as fully as it is possible for them to turn, when in fact, quite often, they are still on the turn and have some way to go until they have turned out completely. As my friend who lives nearby frequently reminds me, that part hasn’t been revealed yet. My fascination was short-lived in any case, perhaps it lasted a fortnight, less, and it was only brought about in the first place by a blouse she wore one day—the collar, to be precise. The way her head was bowed, actually, just above the collar. So that I could see the roots of her hair, which was parted and pulled back. She was flipping through a very thick fashion magazine. One hand flipped through the magazine and the other hand was up near her face—near her chin—near her collar. What must it be like, I thought, to stand there like that, flipping through a fashion magazine? That shows you how determined I was, how utterly determined, to overhaul everything, to convince myself anything at all was possible—and obviously I must have thought that it must feel really terrific, standing there like that, flipping through a fashion magazine, wearing discreet earrings and a diaphanous collar.

Well really, I get so carried away.

The following day I took my time and returned everything gradually. There were lots of crackers and grapes left over, and some nicely slumped cheese. In fact I discovered all sorts of things here and there. Including a small bag of jelly babies on the windowsill. There’s bed linen inside the ottoman by the way—some of which I’ve had for years.

Claire-Louise Bennett's short fiction and essays have been published in The Stinging Fly, The Penny Dreadful, The Moth, Colony, The Irish Times, The White Review and gorse. Her first book, Pond, was published by the Stinging Fly Press in 2015.

THE STINGING FLY

Top 10 contemporary short stories

Ahead of 2017’s National short story prize, Jon McGregor reluctantly chooses ‘swoony’ work from recent years showing some of the ways to write them well


Jon McGregor
Wednesday 13 September 2017 12.57 BST

T

his summer, I read the entries for this year’s BBC National short story prize, and discussed with my fellow judges the vexed question of how the “best” might be identified.

This was both a pleasure and a serious challenge: the form of the story is so capacious and diverse that at times we were comparing apples and pears, or at least looking at an unfamiliar fruit and arguing over whether to call it an apple or a pear. (Rest assured, though: the challenge is not impossible. An apple is always better than a pear.) You can assess our choices after the shortlist is announced this Friday evening on BBC Radio 4. All five finalists will then be broadcast on successive afternoons on BBC Radio 4 (and made available on iPlayer) starting on 18 September.

But this challenge has been nothing against the request to choose stories to fit the title for this piece. Guardian, please! There are approximately 17m to choose from. Where do I even begin? Where are all the stories I haven’t read, or have loved and then unfaithfully forgotten? (I am a fickle and forgetful reader.)

This list, then, is not hierarchical or canonical. My choices are, simply, 10 tales from this century that I have read and that I think do something interesting or startling or just downright swoony with the form of the short story. Clicking on the titles will lead you to the stories themselves, if you haven’t already read them. I look forward to having my reading horizons broadened in the comments.

George Saunders

1. Victory Lap by George Saunders

Sorry to be so predictable, but I do love George Saunders. With this story, and the rest of the collection it comes from, Tenth of December, he was clearly taking his gifts for voice, character, and satire, and pushing himself to do something much harder and more humane. This story starts awkwardly, in tune with its two gangly teenage protagonists, and stutters through a lovely character study to suddenly burst into an action tale and an unlikely outbreak of heroism. It also offers a dazzling response to the writer’s dilemma of whether to move to a happy ending or a sad ending. On the last page, you can see Saunders looking at the options he has created for himself and simply opening his hands a little wider and saying, ‘Yes, we’ll have both of those.’

2. Pee on Water by Rachel B Glaser

This was my personal standout in the already very strong New American Stories, edited by Ben Marcus. I’m increasingly drawn to any story that has a more expansive sense of a story’s possibility than the “snapshot of life” model insisted upon by the Carver/Hemingway school. This story begins at the dawn of time and ends round about now, which is expansive enough for anyone, I feel. It also has beautiful sentences, and there are not enough of those in the world.

Sarah Hall

3. Then Later, His Ghost by Sarah Hall

This does one of my favourite things in a story: something you weren’t expecting. It’s an apocalypse tale, of which we seem to have had many lately and for which I am quite the sucker, but it’s a whole other and new form of apocalypse, wherein a howling wind rips everything loose from the ground. A real feat of imagination, and all the more terrifying for being set in the made-newly-strange streets of my Norwich childhood.

Kevin Barry

4. Fjord of Killary by Kevin Barry

Barry is great at drawing you quickly into the confidence of his voice; the first few sentences of any of his stories have that quality of strapping you in for the ride. “So I bought an old hotel on the fjord of Killary,” the narrator tells us at the outset of this one, and we can already hear the sigh in his voice. “It rained two hundred and eighty-seven days of the year, and the locals were given to magnificent mood swings.” We lean in, and listen on.

5. The News of her Death by Pettina Gappah

Five women talking in a hair salon while one of them has her braids done: this is all the narrative structure Gappah needs to build a complex social landscape, telling these women’s stories through perfectly pitched dialogue and delicately measured details. The recurring refrain that “Kindness is late” is brilliantly deployed, and the whole story quietly makes the point that hair is always political.

 Alejandro Zambra
Photograph by Ulf Anderse

6. Thank You by Alejandro Zambra, translated by Megan McDowell

As is usually the case, I’ve only just started reading Zambra after years of being urged to do so. This story, of a robbery that starts off violent before fizzling out into a chat about football and a lift home, is told in a jarringly languorous and anecdotal tone, which both draws you in and leaves you uncomfortably dissonant.

Hassan Blasim

7. The Green Zone Rabbit by Hassan Blasim, translated by Jonathan Wright

This story, from The Iraqi Christ, published by the excellent Comma Press, is by turns terrifying and wonderfully banal. In Baghdad’s Green Zone, Hajjar keeps a rabbit while waiting to be briefed on an operation. The rabbit lays an egg. Things get stranger and darker, and Blasim lays his tale out with a wonderfully dry bar-room simplicity that makes the ending all the more explosive.

Nicole Flattery

8. Track by Nicole Flattery

This recently won the White Review short story prize, and it’s not hard to see why. Written in a misleadingly offhand deadpan, Track covers seemingly familiar ground – an abusive relationship, a young woman adrift in the big city, the pitfalls of fame and money – at such an oblique angle that it demands repeated reading. It’s also very funny, and very sad.

Claire-Louise Bennett

9. Finishing Touch by Claire-Louise Bennett

I could have chosen any of the stories from Bennett’s debut collection, Pond – and in fact I would urge you to read the collection as a whole, its sum being, unusually, greater than the parts. I have plumped for this simply because it is so painfully funny. The narrator, “determined to host a low-key, but impeccably conceived, soirée”, details at great length her preparations and in the process reveals almost everything about her own hurt and loss. Bennett’s language is an ornate and long-winded riposte to all those pared-back minimalists, and I love it.

10. The Emerald Light in the Air by Donald Antrim

This is a stone-cold masterpiece, as you will see by following the link above. It proceeds with the strange and relentless quality of a dream or fable, while being almost macabre in its realism, and feels like the story Antrim has been writing towards for his whole career. The beauty of it is hard to pin down, but it has a finished and inevitable quality – which it’s occurring to me now could be called soul.

• The National short story award will be announced on 3 October on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row.

• Jon McGregor’s latest novel is Reservoir 13, published by Fourth Estate, priced £14.99. 

THE GUARDIAN