Savage Time
by Murray Pomerance
Oberon, 2005
Reviewed by Devon Shepherd
Savage Time is collection of stories by
Murray Pomerance about the people – family, patients, and friends –
linked, however loosely, to the emphysemic psychologist known simply as
Doc Savage. While topically, the stories vary widely – the musings of
a realtor and a decorator; a honeymoon and a riot; a vacation in Venice;
extramarital liaisons imagined; extramarital liaisons committed –
thematically, this is a collection about the tension endemic to
existence in a world indifferent to human ambition and fancy.
For most,
this tension means little more than some harmless, perhaps even healthy,
longing. But for Doc’s crew, the friction manifests itself in full
scale neuroses. From the selfabsorbed, hyperactive Trudy Kay to the
selfentitled Olga, from the arrogant and epileptic Marlowe to the
cerebral Cowrie, who lives a great deal of her life in her head, each is
plagued by struggles that stem from the inability to cope with a reality
that is cold and heedless of their wants. However, Pomerance saves his
characters from becoming merely shadowy satellites in orbit around the
Doc by allowing them the freedom to surprise.
Anomalous bubbles of
selfawareness and insight (Olga, Marlowe) or actions that, prima
facie, mystify (Cowrie having an affair that is not in her head,
Trudy Kay sitting calmly through the death of a friend), lend these
characters the uncanny veracity that is one of the greatest strengths of
this work.
However, the Doc refuses to be
concerned simply with upper class neuroses. "It is one thing for
the world not to be what you want it to be . . . and something else
entirely for the world to be what you can’t understand." This
failure to understand, this "bad fit" between a conceptual
system in the world and its physical manifestation – migraines – is
what Doc has devoted his semiretirement to.
Pomerance exploits the possibilities of
a "bad fit" between the expectations of the reader and the
density of his prose. His style produces, to great effect, a feeling of
discomfort that pervades the work.
On the Lido sand was copious, but one
was not enchanted with the sand. The sand called to mind – albeit
dilute – the stench of Venice. One did not wish stenches with one’s
sand. One wished purity, one wished an apotheoisis of texture, one
wished for one’s childhood. The pain of this was in extinguishable,
unbounded, a form of lust. Olga wished for her childhood, now and
frequently, flicking her toes in the impudent sand. The sand said,
"Empire. Antiquity" with quite a pronunciation – which was
all very good but brutal and dry, and she wanted ssomething more than
that, the ocean that came slowly rolling and toward which one could
chacha. What were power and time, after all, in the absence of
delight? (102)
Pomerance’s skill as a stylist is
perhaps most in evidence during a passage in which perceptions are
filtered through the onset of a migraine. The episode is superb, and at
the end of the three pages (2326), the reader is left bewildered and
frightened of some mysterious, yet, inevitable pain that is inextricably
bound to her existence. I have chosen not to quote from the passage here
because even a generous excerpt would break up the rhythm, shattering
the effect.
Actually, natural breaks are scarce throughout this work.
The long sentences, lack of paragraph breaks, the inclusion of
quotations within block text recall the writing of Saramago. However,
where Saramago’s work is paradoxically jaunty, and deceptively loose
in its density, Pomerance’s prose can be so packed the effect is
distressing. Perhaps it is fitting that this is actually a strength in
this strange, yet moving, work.
Devon Shepherd is a Vancouver based
writer, who will always be a Torontonian at heart. |
