Leonora Carrington, British citizen who adopted Mexico as home, wife of Max Ernst, and a premier female member of the Surrealist art group is also known for being a writer of fiction. Her novel The Hearing Trumpet is possibly the greatest work of Surrealist literature ever written. Her collection of short stories, called The Skeleton’s Holiday, doesn’t quite live up to her other achievements though.
In this slim collection of seven stories, spanning less than fifty pages, we get a variety of wildly imaginative vignettes. In “White Rabbits”, a girl gets invited into a home owned by an older couple whose elegant mansion is filled with rabbits. In “The Debutante”, a teenage girl convinces a hyena to take her place at her debutante ball. In “The Oval Lady”, a teenage girl gets punished by her father for magically transforming herself into a horse. In “The Skeleton’s Holiday”, we get introduced to a mischievous skeleton who likes pranks.
Certain motifs and themes reoccur throughout the stories. Houses are used as symbols of the unconscious and whatever else is hidden from public view. Animals, especially horses, are used as alter egos. Family conflict is another theme taken up by Carrington. The girl in “The Debutante” is at a crossroads with her mother because she doesn’t want to attend her own party. The magical powers of the teenage girl in “The Oval Lady” are a source of discord with her stern and unimaginative father. In “Uncle Sam Carrington”, a family dispute is solved by two women in the forest who torture vegetables. This style of irrationality is another theme in these stories since the solutions to family dysfunction involve things that make no sense. Likewise, the father in “The Oval Lady” punishes his daughter for her magical transformations by whipping an imaginary horse. One other theme is social dislocation. Some of these stories are narrated by a teenage girl who penetrates into a world she cannot understand, one in which she can only observe without participating. In “The Debutante” she outright refuses to be a participant and in “My Flannel Knickers” we have a story about a girl who gets forced out of society and publicly humiliated, again in a way that is incomprehensible to rationalists.
Carrington is a great writer. The whole problem with these stories is that they are so short that it makes it almost impossible to draw definite conclusions about what she is trying to say. They are more like sketches, vignettes, or introductions than actual stories. She feeds us scraps of information and then cuts off our nourishment just as we begin to chew on it. It’s hard to interpret these vignettes when there is just enough information to arouse our interest and then abruptly stop just when the stories should be picking up and moving along. The sense of incompleteness just makes them fall flat. It’s hard to tell if this is intentional since Surrealism is all about relinquishing control of rationality and allowing psychological content to run free. Carrington may have intended to break off the narratives just when we begin to analyze her symbolism by recognizing patterns. I’m not convinced that is the case though. These stories just feel like literary sketches that she probably intended to build on at a later date and then never got around to doing so.
In this brief volume, almost so thin it is difficult to even think of it as a book, the author gives us some unique and provocative ideas. They are so unique and provocative that it is disappointing they aren’t drawn out further. We are given canapes when we are in the mood for a banquet. If you’re interested in Leonora Carrington, then The Hearing Trumpet is a far more fulfilling read. She really developed her talents in her paintings though, and the sorely underrated book Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement by Whitney Chadwick gives an excellent introduction and critical analysis of her art. The Skeleton’s Holiday is an interesting diversion, but it probably works best for diehards of Carrington and devotees of Surrealism.
No comments:
Post a Comment