"That was a shiver and other stories" by James Kelman (Canongate, 2017)

The collection begins with the 35-page "Oh the days ahead" where we're in the head of a man who's in bed with a woman he hardly knows and who doesn't want sex. They chat about the coldness, toast, the evening they've had, etc while all the time the man is assessing signs and enacting strategies to have sex. It's realist, which excuses its longeurs. Quite a promising start. Amongst the other longer pieces, "Words and things to sip" and "That was a shiver" nearly work. "(Tzekovitz was another)" and "Did the pixie speak" are too long.

I liked the single page "Clinging on" (like Lydia Davis?). "A friend", also one page, doesn't work. Nor do "Out there", "The Crime has occurred" and many other short pieces. I don't think I understood the 2.5 page "The Principal's Decision". At times he seems to be trying to emulate Beckett.

"The State of Elixirism" includes (not for the first time in this book) a surprisingly articulate narrator who mixes registers. However I interpret the ending, I'm not keen on it. "The Truth that Timmy knew" involves Fable and story interpretation, which makes a change.

The most common characters are middle-aged men, operationally single, who cogitate while waiting. They don't get on with their grown-up kids. Women are 'Other'. They've innate intelligence and often like books, feeling they could have done more to develop that aspect of themselves. They're rather death-haunted. They worry about right and wrong. Here's an example

There is more than one way to live one's life and I chose wrongly. There is a heroic element to this, but where and what might that be! I cannay find it. Except in the long run, it remains a to b, always, a then b. I wonder if there exists a language where the first letter of life is 'a' and 'b' the first letter of death? The composition of the concept 'and' is what exists between. There is a language pertaining to the algebraic that somehow achieves quaternion Lest one fall to the ground in the throes of death (p.265)

and later (in a different story)

After tools came music. And cables too, he liked cables, connecting leads and all that stuff. It came in handy. It meant too if ye saw an auld computer or hi-fi separate, like an actual auld-style deck or whatever, just whatever. Ye never knew until ye found something then saw what it was for. In the auld days down the Barrows Robert aye started at the first close past Pearson's corner. Until they knocked down the building. But there was another close he liked, that one round the lane and across the wee backcourt. Dragon Pass, the auld folk called it except it wasnay 'dragon' it was 'dragoon', from when the King's dragoon guard came to quell the weavers (p.275)

It's the common realism vs interest dilemma - stream-of-consciousness as it meanders needs space to have an effect, but by then the reader might have gone. I enjoyed the view into the first character who's depicted in this book using this method, but subsequent characters were too similar to the first to offer me a reward for my efforts.

Two of the more successful stories are near the end -

• "Back in that town" features a lorry-driver between jobs, returning to his home-town having been away a while. He's familiar with the types and locations, but the details have changed. People don't recognise him as a local. It's an ideal embodiment for the writerly voice.
• The title story features an ex-boxer with anger-management issues. He's out shopping with his wife Tracy. He has a bit of spare time first. He find a rare Ernest Tubb vinyl LP, slides the record out to check for scratches, finds that a Mario Lanza record's inside. He buys it anyway, because Tracy might appreciate it. He tries to avoid tense situations, thinks he's able to detect whether men have been inside or not, doesn't like being made fun of. He just about keeps things together, carrying his wife's purchases in the end to keep his hands full.

Other reviews

• Colin Barrett (a collection of haphazard, very sketchy, at times perplexingly oblique short stories, ... The longer stories in the collection, such as the opener “Oh The Days Ahead”, “(Tzekovits was Another)”, “Back in That Town” and the title story, are in a recognisably realist mode and find Kelman in a rueful, reflective mood. “Oh The Days Ahead”, a charming, nervous two-hander between a man and woman who have not managed to consummate their one-night stand, could even be called sweet. The shorter, spikier pieces, such as “The Principal’s Decision”, “Human Resources Tract 2” and “Clinging On”, stripped bare of almost all references to the external world, are astringent language exercises ... too many of the bitty, diffuse pieces in That Was A Shiver read like minor variations on aesthetic effects he has mastered elsewhere.)
• Allan Massie (Some of the stories, many very short, are internal meditations, even essays, rather than narratives, but then one has rarely read Kelman for the story)
• scotswhayhae