BIRDS OF AMERICA (BY) LORRIE MOORE

Published 1998, 291 pages

Characters: B
Writing: A-
Plot/Pacing: N/A
Poignancy: B

When I suggest that someone is or is not a good "writer", it's rather frustrating that I could easily mean one of two things (or two of two things).  Writing can be successful on both a small and large scale, and the actual construction of sentences, imagery and metaphors is essentially as important as the overall impact of a piece.  Writing is one of the few mediums in which the quality of the craftsmanship is immediately obvious to any observer — Dan Brown can tell a compelling story, and thus is a decent "storyteller", but seeing him struggle with the English language is as embarrassing and uncomfortable as watching a retarded blind double-amputee try to win an Iron Chef competition.  So when I say that Lorrie Moore is a fantastic writer, there are a few caveats (I got caveats like Dan Brown has plot twists, buddy), but whether or not she succeeds as a storyteller is ultimately going to be up to the reader's personality and view on life.

How does this sound: stories that render ordinary, hopeless lives with astounding accuracy, scooping up many poignant details and observations along the way but, as a result of never developing any genuine conflict, ending abruptly and without payoff.  Does that sound like it has the potential to be beautiful and revelatory to you, or just tedious?  Being as objective as it's possible for me to be, I'd say it's a bit of both.  Moore makes some truly great insights, though of the "subtle implication" sort, but she also gets a bit too caught up in what she's doing.  Birds of America practically runs on metaphors and similes, which one senses are meant to carry the narrative in lieu of other more conventional propellants.  This isn't a plot-heavy book, after all.  It's about small characters leading pathetic lives, doing little with those lives, and reaching no real fulfillment in the end.  The details they notice along the way are what's meant to endear Birds of America to us as well — and mostly, this works.  Moore's writing is usually sublime and profound, and is enough on its own to push the stories forward.  Unfortunately, Moore is hyper-aware that over-studied details and cute linguistic tricks are her selling-point, and she's quite relentless in making sure we get our money's worth.  There were a few sentences that made me stop and stare at the page for a moment — in the very best of ways, in appreciation, understanding and a bit of jealousy — but there were also some similes so forced and stupid that I had to close the book and take a moment to recover.  While the bad ones were rare, the real issue is that Moore has surprisingly little restraint for a writer dealing which such low-key subject matter.  The first time she used a double or triple simile to describe something, I nodded my head in agreement and respect.  Her words are undeniably powerful.  But she doesn't stop.  Is there a malfunctioning toaster that can be compared to a bird with a broken wing as part of a deeper metaphor for the futility of our protagonist's life?  Expect at least three pretty, whimsical metaphors to follow.  There's not enough happening in the background to justify getting stuck on every line, and her stories quickly run the risk of becoming over-long poems.  Why am I being so harsh on her writing, when I gave it a rare "A"?  Because nothing bothers me more than a writer who's become so impressed with themselves that they lose control, and with just a bit of editing and restraint (or even more variety in the actual stories), Moore's writing could be damn near perfect.

As for the larger picture, there's not a lot to say, which is another of the damn Catch 22's that seem to go hand-in-hand with Moore's writing.  Moore has an exceptional command of voice, and every character in this collection is vivid and believable — however, I get the sense that I was reading the same character over and over, a bit like how Woody Allen will try to convince us that he's a sports writer in one movie and a comedy writer in the next, and you wish he'd just drop the damn pretense and play himself already.  In almost every story, our third-person protagonist is a middle-aged woman with a repressed, whimsical sense of humor and a feeling of crushed pride, who faces the fact that her life has gone nowhere and that she's dating / married to some slovenly Joe Average dipshit who isn't good enough for her, although she's so passive aggressive that he ends up being the one to screw her over.  There are slight variations on this theme, of course, sometimes introducing cats, children or cancer — the Big 3, innit — but ultimately, each explores a character stoically dealing with the slow, sad atrophy of their life.

Just writing this out makes it sound as if Moore has created a swan song for horribly stereotypical suburban housewives, but don't get me wrong — these stories are powerful enough to transcend their simple material and become something much more universal.  And though I was overall impressed by Birds of America, it began to grate on me by the end for reasons I expect have become obvious by now.  Since I didn't particularly care for any of the characters that much on their own monotonous merits, I was increasingly unmoved by their awkward revelations, their "Oh!  Isn't life like that!" moments.  Moore is such a good writer and observer that everything here is compellingly relatable, but it's also exhausting.  I've been told that Moore's writing is "funny", and though I don't think she ever really goes for outright laughter, I can see how some might find humor in these situations.  Personally, I'd describe them as "amusing" — frivolous in tone, generally placing us in awkward social entanglements without ever condescending to its characters the way that, say, The Office does. Each story on its own is a fine accomplishment, with few outright weak points, and for the right person in the right circumstances, Birds of America could be quite powerful.  For others, to whom these characters aren't quite so endearing, Moore's book should at least serve as an engaging tutorial on the usage of simile and metaphor.

THE MANTLE (BY) AGALLOCH

Neofolk / Metal / Progressive / Soundscape
Released 2002

[For an explanation of Season Albums and Pivotal Albums, please go here.]

Agalloch is one of those bands that, if I bothered to organize and write out my Top 50 Albums of All Time, would so easily dominate the top of the list that the effort would seem to be pointless in the end.  They'd have two albums in the Top 10 and an EP in the Top 15 — it just wouldn't seem fair, though it would reflect how important (pivotal, if you will) their music has become to me. Agalloch is one of those bands — and I hope everyone has at least a few of their own — that is so perfectly tapped into what I desire and enjoy in music that their albums are literally flawless to me, every element so shockingly interesting and engaging with every listen that, no matter how many times I've heard it before, each time I'm surprised to find just how much I like them.

Despite forming over a decade ago, Agalloch's blend of dark atmospheric folk, post-rock soundscapes and black metal gravitas has proven too intricate and complex to spawn any successful imitators.  Those who try seem to capture no more than one or two elements of Agalloch's sound, dividing it up until the result is meaningless, or silly.  On paper, Agalloch doesn't seem all that far removed from the many gimmicky "folk metal" bands out there, but Agalloch isn't interested in simply re-appropriating some traditional musical style — despite my usage of the genre term "folk."  What they're playing sounds folky, but the actual elements are not stolen specifically from anywhere.  There are some unique pieces of instrumentation, sure, but you almost don't notice them, and they're certainly not the focus.  In "The Lodge", for instance, Agalloch creates a surreal echo by striking a deer skull — but you would never realize what you were hearing unless you read it somewhere.  Other songs feature the deep, creepy menace of a cello, or sound clips of footsteps crunching snow, but the songs are driven by simple, standard instrumentation, written in such a way as to evoke a cold winter landscape and carried to perfection by the harsh, dual-vocals and lyrical paganism.

Perhaps the problem of capturing Agalloch's success (or even getting Pandora to recommend anything remotely similar) lies in the term "folk".  Not only has it been around forever (literally), it's currently one of the most re-interpreted and re-imagined genres out there, other than metal.  There's a reason why folk music is forced to embrace every bearded, flannel wearing dude who just wants to strum his acoustic and recite poetry in a breathy voice — well, other than the fact that "I want to have sex with the largest possible number of girls with the least amount of effort" is too long to catch on as a genre term.  Folk has always been around because it is traditional music, which is by necessity always in flux, played by "the people," so to speak.  Traditional instruments can be a part of it, but "folk" literally means "people," and thus singer-songwriters are always sort-of folk regardless of their actual musical orientation.  Thus, for all its vagueyness and ability to transform into confusing other things, folk is a terrible term when you're trying to denote an incredibly specific sound — as anyone who wishes to describe Agalloch's music certainly is.  I'd argue that there should, in fact, be an invented genre term so bands who actually evoke the feeling of being in nature can distinguish themselves — I've heard the term "soundscape" used before, though seldomly, and I'd argue that it's a far more accurate indicator than just another "folk" subbranch with a silly name.

Since this is not a review, I'm not going to spend much time analyzing the actual music of The Mantle.  It's complex in a shifting, understated way, though deceptively straightforward in execution, and as is the case with pretty much every band I editorialize on here, I feel like I would spend the majority of my words just defending the fact that cross-genre hybrids can work without feeling cluttered and disjointed.  There's a clear trend in what I enjoy: textured, layered music that doesn't just borrow from one genre, and even after combining its elements together into a coherent sound, doesn't fit easily into another.  Songs on The Mantle are long and patiently crafted, unhurried and expansive, pagan, cold, eerie; they make you feel like you're stranded in a lodge in the middle of the woods, in winter. The vocals — the most metal aspect of the band — are likely difficult for new listeners, but match the cold textures and dynamics of Agalloch's songwriting, both harsh and clean vocals soon blending into the layered sounds surrounding them.  If you listen to The Mantle in summer, it will still sound like winter (Agalloch has another album for summer).  If you listen to it driving through the Catskills in a fancy SUV, you will still feel desolate and trapped and cold.  Though it's never particularly heavy, fast-paced or intimidating in the way that most metal is, this is a brutal album as much as it is a beautiful album.  The Mantle isn't made to be played at festivals or Burning Man; it isn't a commentary on the fastidiousness or overproduction of modern music; it isn't a reproduction of the bloody good old days of European battle-songs and beer-filled taverns; it has nothing at all to do with people — it is the outdoors, and the influence is inescapable.

PIVOTAL ALBUMS & SEASONAL MUSIC: AN EXPLANATION

In an effort to give myself the opportunity to write about music more often, I'm "launching" a new "feature" on The Luxury Yacht Review.  I never review new albums outright on here, for a variety of reasons that I won't get into, but I would like to discuss music, as it's of equal importance as books to me — and so, I will post editorials instead of reviews, focusing on pivotal albums in my collection, albums that are significant with regards to how I listen to music.  The first of these two overlapping features, Seasonal Albums, is meant to discuss albums that highlight how I listen to music.  Certain albums, regardless of when I discovered them, create extremely vivid soundscapes for me, transporting me to a time or place or often conjuring a whole season.  Many albums with this power have greatly affected my mindset and preferences for music, and their evocative power makes them far more than just "entertainment" to me.

These seasonal albums will, for obvious reasons, often overlap with my second, also loosely structured feature — a sort of unranked Top 50 Albums of All Time deal, generalized here as Pivotal Albums.  Instead of actually making such a list and stressing about its order, by posting editorials at random, I can feature albums that likely would place without having to pit them against one another.  These albums will provide a window into my constantly-shifting musical tastes, as they are the albums which have determined that taste and then weathered my peculiar, inscrutable whims.  They may yet fall or rise in my favor with time, but these are the albums which will continue to influence me until I turn into a crotchety old man who only listens to Led Zeppelin while sitting on his porch drinking beer.