Our first repeat offender (besides myself, the quintessential repeat offender here at the EWN), with an outlook on a story by Donald Barthelme, is Michael Czyzniejewski, author of the story collection, Elephants in Our Bedroom (Dzanc Books, 2009).
Since my book came out in February, I’ve been told by a
couple of people that my stories remind them of Donald Barthelme’s work. This
is a good thing, as I worship Donald Barthelme’s writing. I in no way claim to
be some second coming of this great writer (who died 1989), or to be in the
same ballpark as his skill level. But I’m honored that someone, who had also appreciated his
writing, would see the effect he’s had on me.
What I like about Barthelme, amongst many other things, is the fact that his niche is indescribable. I couldn’t pinpoint an exact audience, and if I had to put a finger on a single theme, I don’t think I could. Barthelme’s stories don’t seem to be about anything in particular, as he is not the voice of any one people, era, or movement. It seems as if he just wrote the stories that popped into his head. Yet, Barthelme has a particular style that’s as distinguishable as any great story writer’s. Barthelme is to the random, strange predicament as Flannery O’Connor is to the Southern Gothic tradition or as Stuart Dybek is to Polish Catholic Chicagoans.
Sadly, I fear Barthelme’s lack of a clear cause may lead to him being read less and less. His stories don’t particularly lend themselves to film adaptation, and his absurd speculations don’t fit into many college survey courses. Still, he did publish a great deal of work in The New Yorker, and “The School,” as well as a few other stories, are often anthologized. And everyone I know who is familiar with his work at least admires it.
Instead of writing about “The School,” which most story enthusiasts have read, or “Game,” a personal favorite that has also seen a few reprints, I want to spread the word about “Sakrete,” from Barthelme’s excellent 40 Stories (follow-up to the equally great 60 Stories). 40 Stories was published a couple of years before his death and is as keenly representative of his work as any other title in his catalogue.
“Sakrete” is told by a narrator who lives in a pretty typical suburban neighborhood, on the kind of street where the residents leave their loaded trash cans on the curb once a week, then wave to each other in bathrobes as the wheel them back to the garage in the morning. Only on this street, there has been a recent rash of garbage can theft, several receptacles on the block having been stolen in the middle of the night. The narrator simply wants to find out who is stealing garbage cans so he can put a stop to it.
The plot itself isn’t exactly Gone With the Wind-epic material, but as with most Barthelme stories, how the narrator handles the situation plays a key role in the story’s success. Upon establishing the general premise and rhythm of the piece, Barthelme quickly induces a point of view, one of paranoia—hysteria, even—that shapes the telling:
“If my wife is stealing the garbage cans, in the night, when I am drunk and asleep, what is she doing with them?”
Before this line, Barthelme never mentioned drinking or a wife. But here they are, in one great sentence, both becoming instant suspects. A grand turn is all it takes of the the story behind the story, behind the narrator, to become clear, even if the true culprit of the can-napping never does.
The simple whodunit aspect of the story isn’t the main point here; the narrator’s deconstruction of the circumstances is far more entertaining. Barthelme also has fun with the voice in this story, as he often does, turning this loquacious vanguard into a man who’s spent entirely too much time thinking about trash collection. “Sakrete” sports a lot of listing and a lot of repetition—two techniques that I love—and the narrator comes to a lot of unproven conclusions about his neighbors based on what they throw away, even by what kind of can they own, the old steel kind or the newer hard plastic ones. The neighborhood is all of a sudden as much a character as the narrator or the rats that have taken over the trash-strewn street. Most of this characterization is based on gross misconception and assumption, but a twinge of deft perception had to be mixed in somewhere.
In the end, it would be easy to pin the crimes on the narrator, for the whole story to be a wink to the reader, the true villain carrying on, redirecting attention with a sleight of hand. It’s never mattered to me, though, who is stealing the cans: I just enjoy the figure Barthelme has concocted, along with the sentences that help him get there. Barthelme is a master of taking a passing anecdote and turning into a story that reveals so much more. I’ve read exactly one hundred of his stories that I can account for, and this is one I’ve come back to time and again.
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