Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology [Anglais] [Broché]

Feeling Very Strange was one of the most celebrated anthologies of last year. It took me a while to get around to reading it, partly because I had read most of the stories already. But I finally did read it. I reread the stories I had already read, and was darned happy to do so. It really is an outstanding book.

It includes some surprising and very effective pieces from outside the core SF/Fantasy genre -- notably Michael Chabon's "The God of Dark Laughter" and George Saunders's "Sea Oak". It includes some stories from within the genre that I had liked a lot (and praised highly in public) but that I didn't really see as slipstream -- though I see the editors' point in including them now I think -- stuff like Benjamin Rosenbaum's "Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Airplanes', by Benjamin Rosenbaum", and Theodora Goss's "The Rose in Twelve Petals", and Ted Chiang's "Hell is the Absence of God". It includes Kelly Link's magnificent "The Specialist's Hat", easily one of the spookiest stories I have ever read. It includes Howard Waldrop's Alternate History of an ascendant Africa, "The Lions are Asleep This Night" -- another story I wouldn't have at first blush called slipstream (and it does seem that the editors consider certain types of AH slipstream (the Rosenbaum story being another example), but that works that way, and reads a bit differently in that context.) There is also a fine new story by M. Rickert, "You Have Never Been Here", and good stories by Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Aimee Bender, Bruce Sterling, Jeff VanderMeer, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jeffrey Ford. Highly recommended.

After reading this anthology, I'm still not sure what qualifies as "slipstream". This puts me in good company, I suppose. The book features some interstitial discussion among authors in the genre, who can't seem agree on what is or isn't slipstream, or whether they want themselves or others to be included. This discussion didn't help me warm to the genre, unfortunately. I'd rather just enjoy the stories, without having the curtain pulled back to expose insiders reveling in their obscurity and pontificating on the importance of "SFnal tropes".

I found the stories themselves to be of mixed quality. Rather, they're all high quality writing, but most of them just didn't do much for me as stories. A few of them are very enjoyable. Some because they're wittily written and vividly painted (Sea Oak, Light and the Sufferer) and others because they stay just far enough out of reach to force you to stop reading and let the story sink in before moving on (Lieserl, You Have Never Been Here Before). But many of them seemed to me like well-executed creative writing exercises. The author has come up with a twist on reality and explored some interesting consequences, but that's as far as it goes. It's mildly entertaining, but without much point. (The Healer, The Lions Are Asleep This Night). And some of them are self-consciously postmodern, caught somewhere between fiction, autobiography and intellectual self-gratification. (Bright Morning, Biographical Notes...) If that's your thing, then you'll find them worthwhile. But like with some modern art, I just can't get over the feeling that the artist/author is laughing at me, along with the rest of the world.

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book.

In the introduction to this anthology of slipstream fiction, editors Kelly and Kessel wrestle with the definition of "slipstream." There's some disagreement over this issue, but basically Kelly and Kessel see slipstream as denoting stories that seek to "make the familiar strange or the strange familiar." Slipstream is the literature of "strangeness triumphant"; literature that "abandons the assumption [...] that the world can be seen whole, and described accurately in words."

In short, "strange" is the watchword for these stories. And strange can be a difficult row to hoe. "Strange" plus "humorous" runs the risk of adding up to "silly," while "strange" combined with "dark" can easily become simply "pointlessly repellent" (see my opinion of George Saunders' story below). Another potential problem with stories that focus on the strange is that they may be too removed from the familiar touchstones of life to have much emotional impact. And yet another is that they can result in simple frustration for the reader -- a sense of "I dunno WTF is going on here and that's pissin' me off."

Do the stories in this collection avoid these various pitfalls? Yes and no. Following are notes on some selected stories:

"Light and the Sufferer" by Jonathan Letham could be a straightforward mainstream story about a crack addict and the mean streets of New York, but there are some aliens thrown in -- aliens who say nothing and do nothing and who contribute nothing to the story. A fine example of how a fumbled attempt at "strange" can end up being "annoyingly pointless."

George Saunders' "Sea Oak" is certainly strange, and I suppose some will find it darkly humorous. I found it sufficiently squalid, wretched, and ugly that it made me resolve to never again read anything by Saunders. I've read a fair amount of his stuff lately, and I've had it with him grinding his pathological depression into my face.

And speaking of dark... "Hell is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang is a story that I read the first half of some years ago. I think it's a remarkably good story, but I will never finish it; there's just too much misery and hate in it for me to get through. Unlike the Saunders story, I didn't feel that this one is ugly and wretched without purpose; I think it's loaded with purpose, meaning and even artistry, but I just couldn't stomach it.

"Lieserl" by Karen Joy Fowler is a sweet, delicate story about Albert Einstein's first child. In reality, it's unknown what happened to this girl, who was born before Einstein and her mother were married; she may have died in infancy or she may have been given up for adoption. (This bit of history isn't related in the story, but I think it helps the story to know it.) In Fowler's piece, time and reality are set somewhat askew so that this phantom child can be brought to a kind of life.

"Bright Morning" by Jeffrey Ford might have been a similarly delicate, mildly amusing little tale about a mysterious lost story by Franz Kafka. Might have been, if it were one quarter of its actual length. As it is, I found it tedious and dull.

"Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes' by Benjamin Rosenbaum" (yes, all of that, including the author's name, is the title of the story) is a delightfully fun steampunk-esque romp in an alternate universe. It includes some philosophical meditations on reality, and a protagonist who's as charmingly offbeat and unlikely as the setting of the story.

For me, "You Have Never Been Here" by M. Rickert was an unfortunate example of the "strange = frustrating" brand of story. I didn't know WTF was going on, nothing made any sense, and it just left me feeling annoyed.

So as you can see, this book had a lot of misses along with a few mild hits. But still I'm glad I read it. It was an interesting, informative look at what's been done in this genre, (or sub-genre, or non-genre, or style, or whatever one wants to call it).