Rosie Šnajdr

“We’re all done here, fish face.”
—Rosie Šnajdr, “Nativity Play”
This book prioritizes experimentation of form above even the writing itself, which would be extremely vexing if the new techniques did not seem truly new. Not having read every book in existence, I cannot promise that this is true originality, but it was certainly a fresh experience in navigation for me. There was a distinct lack of traceable plot in the majority of the stories, however, which both served to annoy me incredibly as a reader (I don’t want to do THAT much work) and also to make the form much more clear as the centerpiece. Šnajdr plays with direction, with time, with a number of different characters experiencing situations, and never writes the same story twice, which is impressive in a short story collection, to be honest. Among the best in terms of this surprise was the “Choose Your Own Adventure Story,” which hollowed out the form, and replaced segments which can be clearly interpreted in a variety of linear ways with a collection of fragments, only a couple of which can be connected, and this only by a large amount of conjecture. “The Lost Property” was exciting in a literally multi-directional approach. “The Interrupted Human Remains Mr Christopher O’Rourke” may be my favorite example of the kind of story which makes a dramatic production out of its own destruction of form, if only because it had the least regard for the form it was intentionally destroying, and thus was more free. The first “Nativity Play” was almost reminiscent of the community storytelling style of Berry and Anderson, but did so in clever little fragments.
A few of the stories took a more traditional format, and followed through on the corresponding need for more plot to keep them going: “A to B” and “The Cake Woman” and “Document.” It was interesting to trace the Toms throughout the book.
I say all that but here is the reason for the rating and the bad taste left in my mouth: “Postlewd” is not to my taste, and I could not even stomach finishing it. Maybe it is good and transgressive and progressive and I am just not there yet. It did disappoint.… (más)