Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Thursday 14 October 2004

"Looking for the Possible Dance" by A.L. Kennedy (Minerva, 1994)

I preferred this to Angela Carter's "Love". Kennedy's default characters have a self-awareness and detachment that lends itself to irony and gentle comedy. They tend to be indecisive, attracted to quirky characters who might help them change.

I'm not keen on the dream sequences, but there's much else to like: "She was a single person when people were always expected in pairs, like eyebrows or like gloves"; "And that was all it took to make you miss things, a mild impossibility, a slight difference of birds."

Scenes jump forwards and backwards in time between storylines, at a smaller scale than the chapter. There's some adumbration within and between the storylines: "Another year will pass before Colin has his pain, a pain which will surprise them both".

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