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'This debut collection is energisingly, awe-inspiringly, intimidatingly good.' --Guardian
Review
'It is all ideal storytelling, really - lean, lovely, powerful. More please.'
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Clare Wigfall's debut collection is a masterpiece of multiplicity. The narrators and protagonists range from fictional re-imaginings of historical figures (Folks Like Us) to the muted thoughts of a young girl on a tiny Scottish island who has a mania for maths (Numbers). The range and scope of the work is achieved through the proliferation and sensitivity of the voices. It is easy to understand why both the full collection and single stories have been nominated for prizes (the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the BBC National Short Story Award) and why the stories have been anthologized and recorded for radio. The lightness and ease of the telling of these tales betrays a depth of imagination and the accretion of storytelling skill throughout years of writing.
The thing which struck me most about the collection when I first read it was the synaesthesiac quality of the work. There are three occasions where the author describes 'seeing sound', and several more occasions where there is a blurring between the senses. The title of the work relates to sound of course, and Clare Wigfall has said that she finds music a catalyst to work. This parity between writing and music in this collection is heightened by the stories which invoke parties, dancing and song, ranging from the desperate decay of 'Hero I Have Lost' to the rhythmic clarity of Bonnie's poem in 'Folks Like Us' and the eternally distracting music in 'The Party's Just Getting Started'. One of the most beautiful lines in the collection is in 'Caro at the Pool': 'Caroline watched the surface of the water as she walked back to the changing cubicles. It shimmered brightly, catching the light, she thought, in a way that looked almost like a sound too high to hear.'
'On Pale Green Walls' can be read as an antidote to all the music, a sublimation of all sound into silence. By expertly unfurling the truth, we learn from the writer that the narrator's thoughts are available only to us, that she is a mute child. Her pain, frustration and above all delicate imagination are all misinterpreted by those around her. This study of voicelessness becomes paradoxically one of the stories most concerned with communication. If this is a story without sound, it is vivid with colour and visual detail. The silent narrator creates her world and words through images.
These stories haunt like a melody and manufacture a kind of nostalgia. The characters are not easily forgotten, but recur in voice and phrase like a half-forgotten tune.
The thing which struck me most about the collection when I first read it was the synaesthesiac quality of the work. There are three occasions where the author describes 'seeing sound', and several more occasions where there is a blurring between the senses. The title of the work relates to sound of course, and Clare Wigfall has said that she finds music a catalyst to work. This parity between writing and music in this collection is heightened by the stories which invoke parties, dancing and song, ranging from the desperate decay of 'Hero I Have Lost' to the rhythmic clarity of Bonnie's poem in 'Folks Like Us' and the eternally distracting music in 'The Party's Just Getting Started'. One of the most beautiful lines in the collection is in 'Caro at the Pool': 'Caroline watched the surface of the water as she walked back to the changing cubicles. It shimmered brightly, catching the light, she thought, in a way that looked almost like a sound too high to hear.'
'On Pale Green Walls' can be read as an antidote to all the music, a sublimation of all sound into silence. By expertly unfurling the truth, we learn from the writer that the narrator's thoughts are available only to us, that she is a mute child. Her pain, frustration and above all delicate imagination are all misinterpreted by those around her. This study of voicelessness becomes paradoxically one of the stories most concerned with communication. If this is a story without sound, it is vivid with colour and visual detail. The silent narrator creates her world and words through images.
These stories haunt like a melody and manufacture a kind of nostalgia. The characters are not easily forgotten, but recur in voice and phrase like a half-forgotten tune.
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