Editorial: Fiction
issue #19
by Michael Bryson
June 4, 2007
In my last editorial,
I suggested that the "common thread through the stories . . . was
the obvious one: relationships are hard."
Since then, I'm glad to report, I've
become engaged to be married. What's so hard about relationships? They're
infinitely rewarding!
Ah, yes. Reality is more complicated
than either of these statements suggests. Relationships are both hard
and rewarding. It is also through relations with, in relation to, that
we define ourselves. Or seek to.
Leonard Cohen was recently interviewed
in The Globe and Mail. The interviewer asked him about desire and youth.
Cohen said there was nothing like feeling desire as a young person and
believing that through the consummation of that love you would emerge
into a new reality.
Yes, but, the interviewer interjected.
Then you discover that you are still alone.
What's left of you, Cohen replied.
I smiled at this. Yes, through
confrontation with others we seek to transcend ourselves and are thrown
back on our own resources, which we discover have been altered by the
contact. And then we go back for more, perhaps risking less the next
time around, perhaps not. Eventually, if we are lucky, we find another
to connect with who refreshes us. We stop expecting transcendence and
settle for a truth more grounded, but no less mysterious. One still
charged with risk; it offers the hope of protection without ever
giving up the possibility of destruction.
So it goes, Vonnegut would have said.
Sage wisdom.
The stories in the current issue of TDR
move in these spaces. They are about complex relationships that operate
on both the light and dark sides of the force. These are them:
Brown
Bottles
by Kathryn Mockler
Night of the
Comet
by Clayton McCann
The Tough
Cookie
by Salvatore Difalco
Eels
by Sandra Huber
Michael Bryson is the
editor of TDR. His website is www.michaelbryson.com.
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