She tried to remember what Ezra Pound looked like, and imagines her looking similarly to George Eliot, whom she had also, at one point, thought was a man. Why did Fellow 2 refer to Ezra Pound as a woman? Fellow 1 begins to think that maybe she did know Ezra Pound was a woman, but had for some reason forgotten. When one of the interlocutors becomes aware of the other’s blundering of facts, instead of calling the person out on the error, they instead look inward. This isn’t The Ways of Seeing, although I’d bet that some of the characters have heavily thumbed copies resting on their bedside tables.Ī standout story, “Winners,” takes the simple premise of two people engaged in casual conversation. In this collection-twenty-six short stories spread across four sections-attention is constantly being drawn to the performer in mid-action, fully aware of themselves as the observed, and reacting in interesting ways. Watching, you can sense that, just offstage, the performers are in full-blown panic-but the show must go on-and it’s better for it.ĭrawing attention to artifice can be a dangerous game, but in Polek’s hands it is clear that the very awareness that threatens to ruin the spell of engaged reading is essential in understanding the characters within these stories, and why they act the way they do.
The brief scenes found within have the rare ability to create just that sort of effect: in which the hurriedness, the odd figure ushering you in and out of the story as quickly as possible (lest you become aware of the absurdity behind the absurdity) all add to the joy of the experience. If you find that you are the type of person who is constantly at war with these two alternating states of self-where obligations can be ditched at a moment’s notice, or begrudgingly followed through-then you will feel right at home in the world of Imaginary Museums (Soft Skull Press, 2020) by Nicolette Polek. But, despite its slapdash manner, the supposed garden is just “gardenly enough” for you to allow yourself to watch the scene unfurl, and you actually end up kind of enjoying yourself. Or: You’re on time for the play, but it’s a high school performance, and a “not particularly exceptional” one at that-especially the set design.
Consider the following: You’re running late to see a play, and forty-five minutes into your shower you decide to not bother showing up at all.
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