Ian Williams landed in my stack with his longlisting for the ReLit Award in 2011.
This is why I read prizelists: they encourage me to read in different directions, when left to my own devices, I sometimes plod along, in familiar reading territory, simply out of habit.
The title of Williams’ debut poetry collection, You Know Who You Are reminded me of Alice Munro’s story collection, Who Do You Think You Are? And he does draw his epigraph for that collection from Munro. In confirming this, in the moment of flipping through his opening pages, some of my insecurity likely slipped away, for I’m not as comfortable reading verse as I am reading prose.
And Munro? She’s one of the first authors I read who made it seem possible that ordinary things that happen in very small towns in Ontario, even more specifically in the space between farm and town, could be the stuff of stories on printed pages. That little girls from ordinary places could dare to think they might write stories. About all that ordinary stuff. And here is this poet who maybe found that idea just as comforting as I did.
And what ordinary stuff? Who hurts us and who cares for us. Those we follow and those we flee. When the plot lives in whether you take a ride or stay home in the barn. And character resides in whether we ignore the noises behind the bathroom door or are thought uppity for taking a bus to see a play. And whether you eat half a grapefruit or a bowl of porridge for breakfast presents a glimpse of the future.
That’s Munro all over. And Ian Williams is all about the ordinary too. How we love and how we lose. The ways in which we are hopeful and graceless. Why we study language and swallow the words that would leave us vulnerable. When leaving is simply returning before the door was opened. And plot is what happens when we repeat the patterns we’ve absorbed, whether riffing music or refusing intimacy.
But while there is a lot of overlap thematically between these two writers, stylistically they diverge.
Or, do they?
Munro’s narratives are complicated structurally – they spiral in loose and tight curves, so that time moves back and forth, and all of the longer stories leave you feeling that you could – should, even – reread, now that you have a better idea of where the beginning is (and not where you thought). So are Williams’ narratives. Both his poems and short stories play with form; they occupy space on a page in unusual ways. There are spaces where you long for answers. And there are no answers.
Most people probably feel like they know how to read a Munro short story, perhaps even thanks to English class. (Years ago, I read my way through Alice Munro’s stories here: these posts are still heavily trafficked and I’ve had countless requests for homework help!)
But I suspect that most people found the second half of Ian Williams’ novel Reproduction a real challenge: I did. He doesn’t make it easy for his characters. He doesn’t make it easy for his readers.
But should it be easy? Is it easy for you to repeat the cyclical motion of your everyday life? Maybe reading about ordinary life should be harder? Maybe if we’ve got our noses pressed up against the ugly bits of the lives of characters like these, we might be more likely to spot a solution for them, tug at some thin thread of hope that we could put to use ourselves.
If you’ve read this far, you might be wondering if I’m going to say anything specific about Reproduction. In the past, I’ve discussed all of his other works here: You Know Who You Are (poetry, 2010), Not Anyone’s Anything (stories, 2011), and Personals (poetry, 2012). But my review of Reproduction was published earlier this year by The Temz Review, and I’d rather not… reproduce it here – I’ll leave that tricksy stuff to an expert.
(If you click through to my review, you’ll notice there are plenty of quotations from all his books: just follow the legend and the colour-coding to see where each one belongs. And if you’re only interested in this new Giller-nominated book, just read the darker green squares, arranged in a parenthesis, because what’s in brackets, those little after-thoughts,…well, sometimes you can feel like an entire life exists in parentheses.)
SHADOW GILLER 2019: You can also follow the Shadow Giller Jury’s progress at Kevin from Canada’s site and read Naomi’s reviews at Consumed by Ink. Our reading schedule for this year’s shortlist is here, if you’d like to mark a particular title on your own calendar.
[…] I’m finishing with Ian Williams’ 2019 Giller Prize-winning Reproduction which I’ve had in my sights for a while, having spotted it on both Marcie’s Buried in Print and Naomi’s Consumed by Ink during their shadowing stints. It tells the story of nineteen-year-old Felicia, a West Indian student, and Edgar, son of rich German parents, who meet when their mothers share a hospital room. ‘Reproduction tells a crooked love story which takes strange, winding paths shaped by community, family and fleeting interactions that leave an inedible imprint’ say the publishers enticingly. If you’d like to know more Naomi’s review is here and Marcie’s is here. […]
The fun thing about authors who play with the structure of their novels is you always wonder what they’re going to do next – not just what are they going to write about, but what are they going to do with it?
And when you like to read about relationships, it’s refreshing to occasionally remain in that territory but have the reading experience be an uncommon one. How do you feel about the balance he achieves between more conventional story-telling and experimental stuff?
I’m going to click through and read your review right after this-I’m familiar with his work because he spent some time in Calgary, and I’ve worked with him (briefly) through Wordfest. I lovely man, and a well-deserved winner of the Giller if that’s how it turns out. Although, I haven’t read his book, so I suppose I shouldn’t say that until I actually READ Reproduction 🙂
It’s definitely distinct from his other work if only in terms of length and complexity. But it’s organically connected to every one of those earlier works, too, which is why my review was almost as much about all of those other books as about Reproduction. He’s reproducing his earlier writerly selves in this new book, I’d posit. And, yes, I do think one should read books (and listed competitors) before they start granting or denying prizes to them! 🙂
I have been so busy with editing I’ve hardly cast an eye at new books this year, but this really appeals. I remember meeting Ian here in Calgary when he was a writer in resident here years ago and only know him as a poet. I will have to check this out.
It’s definitely worth a read. Mostly when I read novels written by poets there is a lyricism which surfaces, at least occasionally, in their prose, but here, it’s seem like it’s more of a poet’s sensibility at work in the prose, a way of attending to certain details, a recognition of patterns, a broader sense of interconnectedness that lurks beneath the flesh of the story. I’d definitely be interested in your thoughts of this one.
[…] To read Marcie’s post in full, visit Buried in Print. […]
Such a good point about the value of prize lists. I know there are some booker prize winners that I would never have tried but for the fact I had my project to read them all. Of course not all of the ones I read were enjoyable (Midnights Children ……) but they did push me to try new writers and styles
Another new name to me. I don’t know if I’m up for a challenging read right now, but sounds like something I’d enjoy when I have the time.