Editorial Content for Pond
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Delivered through an unnamed narrator, Claire-Louise Bennett’s POND is a captivating, challenging and uniquely compelling collection of short stories that combine the mundane with the endlessly fascinating.
Although our narrator is anonymous, we know immediately that she is a woman living in a small coastal town in Ireland, nearly a village, and that she is consumed by the minute details of everyday life. She has a keen eye and an even sharper sense of routine and ritual, yet she is not what one would call fussy. Through her thoughtful gaze, we learn about her daily life, from her ideal breakfast to visits with neighbors and even some casual sex. The collection that makes up POND is being called a set of short stories, but that is only half-true, as it is really a collection of musings.
"...a captivating, challenging and uniquely compelling collection of short stories that combine the mundane with the endlessly fascinating."
In beautiful, darkly funny passages, we join our narrator as she walks us through her most intimate thoughts, complete with humiliating details and painfully observant social commentary. In one particular section that made me deliciously uncomfortable, the narrator remarks on two tapestries she has ordered, noting that she does not want to open them in front of anyone. She knows that if she does, she will have to comment upon them and her visitor will have to agree, as per a social contract to which we have all silently agreed. She explains, however, that she does not want to force herself to say something “smart” about the tapestries she has already paid for and received, preferring instead to admire them alone and really bask in their beauty. In passages like this, Bennett relays to us a very common situation, but unpacks it so thoroughly and so carefully that one cannot help but marvel at both society and the author’s immense talent.
There are several uncomfortable situations like this one in POND, from overstaying a visit at a neighbor’s to feeling like a stranger in a country one calls home, and yet the book is simmering with quiet beauty and perfectly poised language. Never before have I felt so tapped into a character’s psyche --- nearly trapped in it, in fact --- while still enjoying every moment and phrase. If the narrator’s keen eye can become overwhelming at times, it is only because Bennett has taken such care to target our most intimate thoughts in the most unassuming of objects. Throughout POND, there is an overpowering sense of connectedness between the narrator and her surroundings, from the stone window sill of her kitchen to the signpost near her pond, and that is what makes the book such a success. After all, anyone can write about an average woman observing ordinary things, but Bennett has elevated this model to something astoundingly universal, yet nearly disarmingly personal.
At the same time, there is a casual humor to POND that you may miss if you read the book too quickly. In one section, a “Portaloo” arrives near the author’s home and she remarks, “I hadn’t seen it coming, that’s to say I wasn’t here when it was delivered.” Given Bennett’s careful diction, this initially misleading statement really catches the reader off guard, making the humor that much funnier. There is a gentle comedy to nearly every chapter of POND, but it is never any less surprising, given the ruminative nature of the majority of the book. This, too, is a delightful balance that Bennett navigates splendidly.
Although Bennett has not written a plot- or even character-driven book, the consistency of her language ties every section together flawlessly. Her mastery of the English language is, at least in my experience, unparalleled. In fact, while reading POND, I was often reminded of preparing for my high school AP test and learning about alliteration, assonance and rhythm, as Bennett has clearly studied these and many other literary techniques. Again, this is something any writer could do, but her ability to tie these devices together without ever committing to a plot reveals an extraordinary talent. If Bennett can do this, the reader must wonder what she could do with a more typical storyline. I imagine the results would blow many contemporary authors out of the water.
Teaser
Claire-Louise Bennett’s debut captures the interior reality of its unnamed protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on the outskirts of a small coastal village. Sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative, the novel focuses on the details of a young woman’s daily experience --- rendered sometimes in story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost synesthetic intensity of the physical world that we remember from childhood.
Promo
Claire-Louise Bennett’s debut captures the interior reality of its unnamed protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on the outskirts of a small coastal village. Sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative, the novel focuses on the details of a young woman’s daily experience --- rendered sometimes in story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost synesthetic intensity of the physical world that we remember from childhood.
About the Book
Immediately upon its publication in Ireland, Claire-Louise Bennett’s debut began to attract attention well beyond the expectations of the tiny Irish press that published it. A deceptively slender volume, it captures with utterly mesmerizing virtuosity the interior reality of its unnamed protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on the outskirts of a small coastal village.
Sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative, it focuses on the details of her daily experience --- from the best way to eat porridge or bananas to an encounter with cows --- rendered sometimes in story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost synesthetic intensity of the physical world that we remember from childhood. The effect is of character refracted and ventriloquized by environment, catching as it bounces her longings, frustrations and disappointments --- the ending of an affair, or the ambivalent beginning with a new lover. As the narrator’s persona emerges in all its eccentricity, sometimes painfully and often hilariously, we cannot help but see mirrored there our own fraught desires and limitations, and our own fugitive desire, despite everything, to be known.
Shimmering and unusual, POND demands to be devoured in a single sitting that will linger long after the last page.
