The BURIED Book Club discussion

From the Independent, Forgotten Authors (5th Oct 2008) (via Scribble Orca):

William Sansom was once described as London's closest equivalent to Franz Kafka. He wrote in hallucinatory detail, bringing every image into pin-sharp focus. It was his strength and weakness; it made his stories hauntingly memorable, but his technique often left his characters feeling under-developed.

The 1948 novella "The Equilibriad" owes a little too much to Kafka but shares the same strangeness, as the hero awakes to find himself able to walk only at a 45-degree angle. Sansom was also good with an opening hook. One story starts, "How did the three boys ever come to spend their lives in the water-main junction?"

Sansom's publisher described his work as "modern fables", but what makes them so ripe for rediscovery is their freshness and currency. His characters face inscrutable futures with patience and resignation, knowing that they can do little to influence the outcome of their lives. Sometimes terrible events, such as the collapse of a burning wall, slow down and expand to engulf the reader.

Novels

The Body (1949)
The Face of Innocence (1951)
A Bed of Roses (1954)
The Loving Eye (1956)
The Cautious Heart (1958)
The Last Hours of Sandra Lee (1961)
The Guilt in Wandering (1963)
Goodbye (1966)
Hans Feet in Love (1971)
Skimpy (1974)
A Young Wife's Tale (1974)

Short novels

The Equilibriad (1948)

Short story collections

Fireman Flower (1944)
Three (1946)
Something Terrible, Something Lovely (1948)
The Passionate North (1950)
A Touch of the Sun (1952)
Lord Love Us (1954)
A Contest of Ladies (1956)
Among the Dahlias (1957)
The Stories of William Sansom (1963)
The Ulcerated Milkman (1966)
The Marmalade Bird (1973)
Various Temptations [Collection] (2002)

I read Sansom's first novel The Body not too long ago and really enjoyed it. He is good at building suspense with an accompanying sense of mild dread. Now I'm reading a collection of his short stories, The Stories of William Sansom. He was quite a prolific short story writer and had built up a good reputation in that form before turning to novels. I'm about two-thirds of the way through what is a 400+ page collection. Compared to the novel I read, there is generally less narrative in his stories. I guess I can see the 'modern fables' description, but also the lack of character development, as mentioned above in MJ's post. I'm still struggling to see him as 'London's closest equivalent to Kafka'. He strikes me as a restless writer; these stories are all over the place in terms of theme and, to a lesser extent, style. His exposition sometimes grows a bit long in the tooth, although it's all pretty fine writing, just not always desired in short stories that don't end up getting much past the set-up, with an occasional twist ending. He often starts off strong, but then appears to lose interest. I'm about to start a novella-length story, though, so perhaps that will be more rewarding.