Like You'd Understand, Anyway
Jim Shepard
Single-author short story collections can do a variety of different things, from encapsulating several points of view on a theme or showcasing the diversity of an author's talent. Jim Shepard's offering, Like You'd Understand, Anyway, does a bit of both, exploring a range of individual perspectives across geography and time in a series of intimate character portraits. While Shepard clearly has- and displays- a keen ear for voice and style, however, some elements within the stories in this collection arise often enough to become repetitive rather than uniquely elucidating and enough stories offer too little in the way of closure to make the collection resonate as powerfully as it could. The great poise and potential of Shepard's work are clear from the outset, and "The Zero Meter Diving Team" serves as an excellent opener with its moving depiction of one man's guilt following the meltdown at Chernobyl. As in "Eros 7," Shepard subtly evokes the inner lives of Soviet citizens, paying attention to those differences in societal upbringing that offer degrees of internal differentiation but carefully avoiding a lazy resignation to their Soviet-ness as a sole defining characteristic. Indeed, it is main character Valentina Tereshkova's relentless and unsympathetic immaturity that sinks "Eros 7," just as the brilliantly rendered and almost bewildered familial guilt of nuclear engineer Boris Prushinsky, combined with a sense of beautifully desolate hopelessness, that allows "The Zero Meter Diving Team" to soar.
It is not merely a matter of unlikable protagonists that might make readers hesitant about Shepard's stories. While Parisian executioner and narrator Charles-Henri Sanson waxes self-piteous in "Sans Farine," the story nonetheless achieves an emotional impact other stories only grasp for, often desperately in final sentences. One can feel Shepard's Serious Literary Instincts fighting, and unfortunately beating, common sense as one story after another ends with interesting poetic strains but without any hint of true resolution. There is much to be said for subtlety, and it is certainly not always desirable for an author to beat theme into readers' heads with the Obvious Hammer, but Shepard's elusiveness almost becomes insulting as he bows to the gods of Serious Literary Merit. His stories suffer for this pandering and sadly become inaccessible for all but a select group of readers, a true shame given the clear depth and quality of Shepard's talents. Using first-person narration throughout his stories, Shepard deftly navigates everyone from a Nazi-funded anthropologist ("Ancestral Legacies," though said scientist's story ultimately comes across as silly for a lack of narrative thrust) to troubled American seventh graders during the Vietnam Era ("Proto-Scorpions of the Silurian" and the tragically close to meaningful "Courtesy for Beginners"). It is these latter two that make the collection become truly onerous, however, each displaying a similar enough story and narrative voice that readers will become distracted from the matter at hand and merely think, "Wait, didn't I just read this?"
Despite its flaws, however, there is significant merit in Shepard's stories, from his unceasing sympathy to his short, effective sentences. In fact, when the author allows himself to unwind and become engrossed in particular narrative territory, the stories shine and attain far more meaning than the groping ambitiousness of their Serious Literary counterparts. "The First South Central Australian Expedition" even manages to pull off the lyrical ending while offering closure and maintaining an air of ambiguity and nuance, proving that the best literature can successfully combine both intimate character portraiture and, shocker this, an actual story. Nonetheless, none of the stories in this collection are for the weak of heart, and while some will reward due attention others remain just a small step away from the lack of self-consciousness that would make them truly resonate. Each offers a rare complexity of character more remarkable for the range of personas Shepard tackles in the collection. Particularly worth reading are the aforementioned "The Zero Meter Diving Team" and "The First South Central Australian Expedition," as well as the very timely look at the brutality of high school masculinity and (not, as one may expect, wholly unrelated) high school football in "Trample the Dead, Hurdle the Weak." A failure to evoke Ancient Greece in "My Aeschylus" is countered by the success of "Hadrian's Wall" and "Sans Farine," and in its first half even the painfully immature "Eros 7" has a few moments of insightful observation. Though father and family issues are beaten to death by the time "Courtesy for Beginners" rolls around, as a standalone story it offers an interesting perspective on these issues, even if it cuts out just before becoming truly powerful. Like You'd Understand, Anyway is, in its way, a tragic collection, bursting with ambition and showcasing an immense talent hampered by conventions of style and woefully inadequate standards for determining merit; regardless, the stories within offer a range of carefully rendered psychological portraits that will evoke in readers sympathy and the feeling that Jim Shepard is so close to crafting something truly magical.
Grade: B+
Jim Shepard
Single-author short story collections can do a variety of different things, from encapsulating several points of view on a theme or showcasing the diversity of an author's talent. Jim Shepard's offering, Like You'd Understand, Anyway, does a bit of both, exploring a range of individual perspectives across geography and time in a series of intimate character portraits. While Shepard clearly has- and displays- a keen ear for voice and style, however, some elements within the stories in this collection arise often enough to become repetitive rather than uniquely elucidating and enough stories offer too little in the way of closure to make the collection resonate as powerfully as it could. The great poise and potential of Shepard's work are clear from the outset, and "The Zero Meter Diving Team" serves as an excellent opener with its moving depiction of one man's guilt following the meltdown at Chernobyl. As in "Eros 7," Shepard subtly evokes the inner lives of Soviet citizens, paying attention to those differences in societal upbringing that offer degrees of internal differentiation but carefully avoiding a lazy resignation to their Soviet-ness as a sole defining characteristic. Indeed, it is main character Valentina Tereshkova's relentless and unsympathetic immaturity that sinks "Eros 7," just as the brilliantly rendered and almost bewildered familial guilt of nuclear engineer Boris Prushinsky, combined with a sense of beautifully desolate hopelessness, that allows "The Zero Meter Diving Team" to soar.
It is not merely a matter of unlikable protagonists that might make readers hesitant about Shepard's stories. While Parisian executioner and narrator Charles-Henri Sanson waxes self-piteous in "Sans Farine," the story nonetheless achieves an emotional impact other stories only grasp for, often desperately in final sentences. One can feel Shepard's Serious Literary Instincts fighting, and unfortunately beating, common sense as one story after another ends with interesting poetic strains but without any hint of true resolution. There is much to be said for subtlety, and it is certainly not always desirable for an author to beat theme into readers' heads with the Obvious Hammer, but Shepard's elusiveness almost becomes insulting as he bows to the gods of Serious Literary Merit. His stories suffer for this pandering and sadly become inaccessible for all but a select group of readers, a true shame given the clear depth and quality of Shepard's talents. Using first-person narration throughout his stories, Shepard deftly navigates everyone from a Nazi-funded anthropologist ("Ancestral Legacies," though said scientist's story ultimately comes across as silly for a lack of narrative thrust) to troubled American seventh graders during the Vietnam Era ("Proto-Scorpions of the Silurian" and the tragically close to meaningful "Courtesy for Beginners"). It is these latter two that make the collection become truly onerous, however, each displaying a similar enough story and narrative voice that readers will become distracted from the matter at hand and merely think, "Wait, didn't I just read this?"
Despite its flaws, however, there is significant merit in Shepard's stories, from his unceasing sympathy to his short, effective sentences. In fact, when the author allows himself to unwind and become engrossed in particular narrative territory, the stories shine and attain far more meaning than the groping ambitiousness of their Serious Literary counterparts. "The First South Central Australian Expedition" even manages to pull off the lyrical ending while offering closure and maintaining an air of ambiguity and nuance, proving that the best literature can successfully combine both intimate character portraiture and, shocker this, an actual story. Nonetheless, none of the stories in this collection are for the weak of heart, and while some will reward due attention others remain just a small step away from the lack of self-consciousness that would make them truly resonate. Each offers a rare complexity of character more remarkable for the range of personas Shepard tackles in the collection. Particularly worth reading are the aforementioned "The Zero Meter Diving Team" and "The First South Central Australian Expedition," as well as the very timely look at the brutality of high school masculinity and (not, as one may expect, wholly unrelated) high school football in "Trample the Dead, Hurdle the Weak." A failure to evoke Ancient Greece in "My Aeschylus" is countered by the success of "Hadrian's Wall" and "Sans Farine," and in its first half even the painfully immature "Eros 7" has a few moments of insightful observation. Though father and family issues are beaten to death by the time "Courtesy for Beginners" rolls around, as a standalone story it offers an interesting perspective on these issues, even if it cuts out just before becoming truly powerful. Like You'd Understand, Anyway is, in its way, a tragic collection, bursting with ambition and showcasing an immense talent hampered by conventions of style and woefully inadequate standards for determining merit; regardless, the stories within offer a range of carefully rendered psychological portraits that will evoke in readers sympathy and the feeling that Jim Shepard is so close to crafting something truly magical.
Grade: B+
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