The second short story for this goal also came from Aimee Bender's collection, The Color Master, and the story is "Americca." It was another story that I absolutely loved, but then again, I don't think there was a story that I disliked in this collection. With this story, the whole concept of "magical realism" really clicked for me. I understand what the concept is....using fantasy elements in a seemingly real, natural environment to illustrate a point, but I don't think I ever really appreciated the style until reading Aimee Bender. She truly is a master of it. Her story "Tiger Mending" is when it first really struck me and when it did strike me, it hit me like an Amtrak train.
The thing with Aimee Bender's stories, and with magical realism in general, I'm learning, is that the "why?" doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why the weird/magical/fantastical elements happen. You don't always get the answer to that question. You just have to accept that in the world of this story, it IS happening. But it's happening to illustrate a bigger point.
In "Americca," items are showing up in the home of a family that struggles to get by. They wake up one morning and there are gourmet soups in their pantry that they would never buy for themselves. Trinkets appear on their nightstands that they would never splurge on. They end up donating the nicest thanksgiving basket to school for the homeless shelter when normally, they might be on the receiving end of one of those baskets.
But we see how this mysterious arrival of riches affects the family. We see them adjust to how life is now. At first it's disturbing that these things are showing up and then it's almost as if they expect them. When this stops happening for ahwile, the family finds themselves missing it. One of the daughters wants a hat that she sees and the mother of the family spends her hard earned money on this hat for her daughter even though the hat is too big. And the daughter cherishes the hat and wears it proudly despite the fact that it's too big. But when she gets home, the gift giving thing has seemingly come back and there's a hat that fits waiting for her. She's made fun of for wearing the hat that's too big and as predicted wears the hat that fits.
Bender paints a picture of American greed here. We don't need to know why the things are magically showing up in people's houses. What the focus is on instead is how people go from appreciating the small pleasures in life to those things suddenly not being good enough when greed becomes a factor...when we get a taste of a different side of life and I know that I've certainly been guilty of that myself.
I'm frustrated right now because I just can't quite put into words exactly what Bender did with this story, but she did it SO WELL. Highly recommended.
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The last story in Bender's book, and my third story for this goal was "The Devourings," and this story returns Bender to fairy tale retellings. This is the story of a human girl who falls in love with an ogre because she finds herself to be ugly. However, she truly does love the ogre and the ogre truly does love her. However, ogres eat humans. The ogre and his wife have children together and they are ogre children. One night a group of humans come by the house wearing crowns and the human cannot turn them away. They go to sleep in the bed with the ogre children but switch their crowns with the caps of the ogre children. The ogre father comes home drunk and smells humans and eats his own children thinking that they are the humans when he sees the crowns. This is all in the first couple of pages of the story.
After this, the human wife leaves the ogre and sets off on her own journey to spend time alone. She finds her heart returning to her husband and her husband finds his thoughts returning to her. There's also a cake that replinishes itself and a blanket that hides the wife and the ogre eats the woman's uncle and I have to say, I don't completely understand this story, but I still loved it. That's what Bender does. For me, it was a good old fashioned fairy tale on the limits of the heart and the nature of things and things being what they are. And maybe that's exactly what this story is about. Ogres eat humans...humans feel loss when they lose loved ones....magical cakes will always replinish themselves.....life goes on.
Would I recommend this collection to everyone I know? Absolutely!!!! Will everyone love it? Hmmm....Put it this way...Tiger Mending is one of my favorite stories I've ever read and many people who have read that story say "what the FUCK?" What kind of ending is that???? If you read this book, remind yourself that these stories are not about getting answers to the fantastical elements. They're not even about the fantastical elements. The fantastical elements are there as a catalyst to tell a bigger story. And that makes all the difference I think.
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