you've got mysteries you can't hide
May. 9th, 2008 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maribouSharp Teeth, by Toby Barlow
So I either want my werewolf books to move fast and have a gripping plot, or to have compelling characterization, or to be lyrically & powerfully written. Sometimes I get lucky and get all three (cf. A Companion to Wolves), but mostly I'm happy to settle for one of those. The problem I had with this book is that I get splashes of all three things I want, but not any one of them all the way through. This is not to say it's a bad book; it's not, I rather enjoyed it. But I ...
I think it's because it's written as blank verse, and thus bumps up against my Extremely Demanding Poetry Standards. If you want me to read your poem, it damn well better be polished and repolished and every damn word better be exactly the right word and you better have agonized over euphonic word choice vs. clarity of meaning for every. single. word. you. put. down. Or something close to that. I really don't think a novel about werewolves in modern L.A. should have to stand up to that kind of scrutiny, but the choice of format triggers my most precise attention. And that's an awfully high bar to clear, over the course of 308 pages. Still and all, the tasty bits were more than worth the bits where I wanted wanted wanted it to live up to its potential a little bit more. And the plot/story/characters were interesting enough that I'll keep reading Barlow's stuff, should he make more of it.
She knows people can only
stand so close
for so long
but her body tries to hold as much of him as she can find
as her mouth measures the length of his neck
the width of his shoulders.
*
Her body has as many scars as a choppy sea.
*
Morning and she's sitting in the bright kitchen
wearing his robe, stirring her tea.
How is it? How is this so? How is she here?
Her body worn delicious in exhaustion,
wrapped in wisps of his scent.
But wondering how long it can last.
We are all china barely mended,
clumsily glued together
just waiting
for the hot water and lemon
to seep through our seams.
*
Look, she's wearing a small shadow on her expression
but, there, see, it fades, his smile chases it off
just as the sun
chases away the mournful moon.
These days things are stupid
and good like that.
His hands are sore from all the back rubs he's given her
his stomach full from all the meals she's cooked.
Their love is just about the weight
of the casserole she's taking out of the oven right now.
Their love is eternal because time
seems to have fled, embarrassed
to be sharing such a small apartment
with so much dumb affection.
*
She comes,
cries for an hour,
bathes, puts on some lipstick
and heads off to meet Lark.
In the silence of the car,
she wonders about the easiest
way to kill yourself. Quaaludes and red wine
seem to be topping the list these days.
But a quick hot shower of silver-tipped bullets
sounds pretty good too.
In the coffee shop,
she sips her tea and watches
each one of the people coming and going,
thinking, yes, my fury could eat all of you, it really could
the barrista boy, the fat woman with the scone, all of you,
your warm blood would fill my throat
the flesh from your limbs would be chewed and gnawed
the snapping of my teeth would splinter your bones,
your pickled livers would be licked and swallowed,
and finally, the points of my incisors would cut down
into the steaming, warm meat of your hearts.
I would wolf you down
in big, chomping bites.
And you would be gone, all of you,
the planet emptier and quiet,
all your busy rushing silenced
while my unquenchable fury
screams on.
*
And see, there, with that last one? Every word is exactly the right word, until the last two. *sighs* And that probably has to do with the larger purpose of the scene (those last two words end a sub-chapter) and I should be less arrogant about saying when things sound wrong and blah blah blah, but when I'm reading stuff parsed as poetry, and something like that happens, I get Very Distracted trying to figure out what that last bit should have been and it takes away from the story as a story and it makes me all snappish and overly demanding and really, it's a good book, and if you're less grumpy than me you should give it a go.
(74/300)
So I either want my werewolf books to move fast and have a gripping plot, or to have compelling characterization, or to be lyrically & powerfully written. Sometimes I get lucky and get all three (cf. A Companion to Wolves), but mostly I'm happy to settle for one of those. The problem I had with this book is that I get splashes of all three things I want, but not any one of them all the way through. This is not to say it's a bad book; it's not, I rather enjoyed it. But I ...
I think it's because it's written as blank verse, and thus bumps up against my Extremely Demanding Poetry Standards. If you want me to read your poem, it damn well better be polished and repolished and every damn word better be exactly the right word and you better have agonized over euphonic word choice vs. clarity of meaning for every. single. word. you. put. down. Or something close to that. I really don't think a novel about werewolves in modern L.A. should have to stand up to that kind of scrutiny, but the choice of format triggers my most precise attention. And that's an awfully high bar to clear, over the course of 308 pages. Still and all, the tasty bits were more than worth the bits where I wanted wanted wanted it to live up to its potential a little bit more. And the plot/story/characters were interesting enough that I'll keep reading Barlow's stuff, should he make more of it.
She knows people can only
stand so close
for so long
but her body tries to hold as much of him as she can find
as her mouth measures the length of his neck
the width of his shoulders.
*
Her body has as many scars as a choppy sea.
*
Morning and she's sitting in the bright kitchen
wearing his robe, stirring her tea.
How is it? How is this so? How is she here?
Her body worn delicious in exhaustion,
wrapped in wisps of his scent.
But wondering how long it can last.
We are all china barely mended,
clumsily glued together
just waiting
for the hot water and lemon
to seep through our seams.
*
Look, she's wearing a small shadow on her expression
but, there, see, it fades, his smile chases it off
just as the sun
chases away the mournful moon.
These days things are stupid
and good like that.
His hands are sore from all the back rubs he's given her
his stomach full from all the meals she's cooked.
Their love is just about the weight
of the casserole she's taking out of the oven right now.
Their love is eternal because time
seems to have fled, embarrassed
to be sharing such a small apartment
with so much dumb affection.
*
She comes,
cries for an hour,
bathes, puts on some lipstick
and heads off to meet Lark.
In the silence of the car,
she wonders about the easiest
way to kill yourself. Quaaludes and red wine
seem to be topping the list these days.
But a quick hot shower of silver-tipped bullets
sounds pretty good too.
In the coffee shop,
she sips her tea and watches
each one of the people coming and going,
thinking, yes, my fury could eat all of you, it really could
the barrista boy, the fat woman with the scone, all of you,
your warm blood would fill my throat
the flesh from your limbs would be chewed and gnawed
the snapping of my teeth would splinter your bones,
your pickled livers would be licked and swallowed,
and finally, the points of my incisors would cut down
into the steaming, warm meat of your hearts.
I would wolf you down
in big, chomping bites.
And you would be gone, all of you,
the planet emptier and quiet,
all your busy rushing silenced
while my unquenchable fury
screams on.
*
And see, there, with that last one? Every word is exactly the right word, until the last two. *sighs* And that probably has to do with the larger purpose of the scene (those last two words end a sub-chapter) and I should be less arrogant about saying when things sound wrong and blah blah blah, but when I'm reading stuff parsed as poetry, and something like that happens, I get Very Distracted trying to figure out what that last bit should have been and it takes away from the story as a story and it makes me all snappish and overly demanding and really, it's a good book, and if you're less grumpy than me you should give it a go.
(74/300)
