Literary Horror discussion

Please join S̶e̶a̶n̶ and me (and possibly Vavita) for another May buddy read: Cristina Garza's newly translated collection New and Selected Stories.

A couple reviews:
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue...
https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/new...

It appears to be available in paper only. I've really enjoyed Garza's novel The Taiga Syndrome, and the essay collection Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country. Really looking forward to this.

S̶e̶a̶n̶ and I both have our copies, and are ready to start soon. If you're planning to join and need a little time to pick up a copy, please let us know.

Will be lurking.
Invigorating choice y'all.

I didn't get much out of the brief prelude, "Yoko Ono's Yes". Maybe an early piece? There's no publication history in the book.

But "Unknowing" has a lot of what I love in Garza: a chance encounter, uneasy social interactions, a sensual but cryptic liaison that just seems to drift apart in the wind.

I fell asleep reading the intro last night but I promise to make headway and weigh in this weekend.

I started this, but I think I need to read a few stories to get a handle on things, as I've never read Garza before.

Unlike Bill, I liked the prelude. I'm a sucker for the setting up of the theater. And knowing that Garza's themes involve identity and feminism, the choice of works by Yoko Ono seems appropriate, since she's someone who has been so completely and unfairly defined by a misogynistic and racist society.

The main work referenced, Ceiling Piece, is inviting in its affirmative message; but it makes you work for it. I will assume I need to approach these stories the same way (while not forgetting to breath).

I'd never previously heard of Garza. I'm looking forward to this.
Unknowing was great.
I loved; "I'm going to outwit it all. I'm going to laugh at everything."

Welcome to the buddy read, Whitney and David!

Moving along, I also have recurring dream settings, and really enjoyed the treatment in "Nostalgia". Garza captures small details that seem mostly irrelevant but poignant, and meandering dream quests with vague goals. I'm not sure about the turnaround at the end though.

I liked 'Unknowing' and 'Like Bitches, Like She-Devils' in part due to the shared character of Xian, who is intriguing, but also in general how Rivera Garza treats names and identities as fluid in these two stories. In the latter story I found it exhilarating how Xian is able to diffuse the power of the kidnapper solely through her attitude.

'Nostalgia' didn't overwhelm me. I only found the dream intermittently interesting, and I'm with Bill in uncertainty over my feelings toward the ending.

I've never read Rulfo; are there references in"The Day Juan Rulfo Died"? I loved the first half, the encounter with the ex and her new lover, not sure about the rest.

"Pascal's Last Summer" is charming enough, but I probably won't remember much of it.

I loved 'Nostalgia'. Best story so far..
I love it when people get their horror from the mundane.
What inspired his feelings of terror in the west of the dream city?
'The plaza was full of trash, plastic bags, dog droppings, broken dolls.'
The ending (when his wife discovers his secret dream maps) felt a bit forced and melodramatic at first, but then I thought perhaps the whole thing is structured a bit like an old fashioned ghost story (it certainly has Door in the Wall vibes). The final gasp of horror that retroactively explains everything, in this case that we think of dreaming as a form of immigration/emmigration.
I also felt that about the ending in 'Unknowing' when she says, 'I understood that we had talked about death.' at the end. Was she was pushing her idea of the story too hard and maybe trying to give it some extra depth?
Generally what I'm enjoying about the writing is the drama and passion. As I'm reading, I keep wanting to edit, edit, edit, but I'm always wanting to take out the heightened emotion and drama. And it's probably just that I'm more uncomfortable and embarrassed by these things not that they're bad.
Anyway, I'm loving the book.

"I wanted to own the world, the whole world, just to have the opportunity to wrap it up in wrapping paper and place it in her lap."
I loved that from The Day man Rulfo Died.
I've already said this, but I'm enjoying the passion and romance in these stories.
On the opposite page is this line; "The memory of our passionate flights followed by the hours of olympic sex left me unfazed.' Which reminds me of a gripe I have with Bolano. All the sex is olympic, it's never pedestrian or awkward or embarrassing. I suppose olympic level sex makes me feel inadequate.
Pascal's Last Summer was great, But Autoethnography with the Other was really great. It has such a fascinating conceit that you wish it was a novel. And I loved the image of the secret man in lipstick and mascara.
The quote about cinema, colonialism and anthropology being born at the same time was at first irritating for me, but by repeating it, Garza, gave it another quality. It wasn't just the author directing the reader how to interpret the story. It became poetic.
The stories are getting better. I can't believe I haven't heard of Garza before

Glad you're enjoying the collection, David.

Interesting comments on the "drama and passion". I'm usually not a fan of overt drama. But I love Garza's quiet prose and open-ended, incomplete treatments.

I enjoyed "Autoethnography with the Other", with its interesting ideas and hybrid essay/short story form. I agree that the cinema/colonialism/anthropology remark makes more sense with repetition.

Part III, which contains excerpts from her third collection La frontera más distante, has yielded my favorites so far. Both 'Autoethnography with the Other' and 'Carpathian Mountain Woman' come closest to what I've really enjoyed in Rivera Garza's novels. I'll borrow from her description to explain what I like about these stories:

'eschewing realism, places and characters in these stories bear no recognizable human or social names, identifying themselves by fleeting features or the activities they engage with at specific points in space and time.'

Some contain 'a sudden break with the rules of the real that trigger hesitation in both characters and readers' while others 'worked closely with the parameters of the detective story.' As she also notes, some of these stories contain elements of 'the eerie and the weird' as well as the fantastic. This inventive blending of styles and genres in service to social commentary is where I think she excels most.

I'm enjoying Part 3 more than the earlier pieces as well.

"Carpathian Mountain Woman" and "City of Men" seem to be somewhat connected, with Garza's interesting take on gender politics, and the theme of the forest as a seemingly safe space to shelter, but which also has its dangers. "Carpathian Mountain Woman" has a dream-like quality I find very attractive. "City of Men" reminds me of some of Brian Evenson's dark science fiction-y pieces: the journey to an unfamiliar environment, seemingly innocent interactions that turn unsettling and transition into unsettling revelations, and a final disappearance. I love Garza's endings:

Soon, too, I will stop understanding. When someone snatches this piece of paper from my hands, I will no longer understand.

I've been continuing to enjoy the stories in Part III. Rivera Garza's preoccupation with otherness and outsider status, as well as crossing borders, really comes to the forefront in these. There's also an interesting commonality between them wherein the unnamed protagonists, ostensibly neutral investigators (e.g., journalist, detective), inevitably feel drawn at a personal level into the situations they are investigating. They feel this pull even to the point of uncontrollably imagining themselves entwined with the often violent and/or erotic lives of the people/victims in these situations. They seem to always be walking this edge of neutrality--wavering and sometimes about to fall. Perhaps she is showing that no one can ever be fully neutral, that we all have vulnerabilities with the potential to be exposed or compromised at any time.

"The Last Sign" plays games with detective and romance tropes that remind me a bit of Robbe-Grillet. Nushu (woman's script) apparently existed, though this is the first I've heard of it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nüshu

"Offside" has a dream-like quality, in addition to the warped romance and family tropes, that I find very attractive. Rivera Garza's prose is as usual a pleasure.

David and Whitney, how are you doing on the collection?

"Simple Pleasure. Pure Pleasure". The Detective is back. There is identity confusion, a disappearance and an investigation. And rings. The kind of Rivera Garza narrative that just slips deliciously through the cracks.

I must admit "Strange is the Bird..." is a bit too slippery for me. I couldn't make much of it.

I love the Detective. And I loved 'Strange Is the Bird...'

I finished the collection earlier today. The last part, containing short pieces, is a diverse mix, including some that relate to earlier stories from other parts of the book. I enjoyed the diversity of this section even though it wasn't my favorite. 'My Voice in Sin Narrates' and 'Revenge' we're standouts for me, but I also liked the ones that connected to 'Strange Is the Bird...'

I enjoyed Part IV, all short dream-like pieces, with motifs that reappear, and musings on language. My favorite is "The Date", so many surprises in just four pages. That tasty dinner, and the unexpected resolution.

Can't say I got much out of the two Rothko pieces, and the second Pripyat story. Curious to hear more detailed thoughts, S̶e̶a̶n̶.