false 4 0 false false Mon Sep 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 16:59:58 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 17:22:45 -0700 2009 Magic for Beginners, it wasn't always a good kind of unsettled.

Link's tales ranged from nearly straight-forward fiction (the title story) to extremely surreal and dreamlike vignettes ("The Hortlak") and occupied nearly every space in the continuum between these extremes. I was least comfortable with the stories that fell somewhere in the middle--like "Lull", the tale of a poker game that abruptly becomes something about time travel and the devil halfway through, or "Stone Animals", a Year's Best winner which shoehorns supernatural elements (I think?) into a domestic story. That one reminded me quite a bit of House of Leaves, which essentially told the same story (family moves into a new house where something strange is happening) in a way that was simultaneously more affecting and--and I never thought I'd say this about House of Leaves--more straight-forward.

My problem with these stories is that Link seems to find it unnecessary to establish any sort of rules for their fantastic elements. They have a slippery quality that I found vertigo-inducing rather than thrilling. In stories like "Catskin" or "The Hortlak" the surreal elements work because they're clearly part of the rules of both the universe-at-hand and the story. But, when she casually mentions that the characters in "Magic for Beginners" are fictional television characters, despite the fact that they otherwise seems completely grounded in our reality, I couldn't help but wonder: Why? To what end? How is the story enhanced by this? Unfortunately, those were questions that remained unaddressed.

Similarly unsettling was Link's tendency not just to leave stories open-ended, but to end them at the absolutely worse time, often introducing new elements into the story in the same breath. There's no anticipating the endings here, and by the last story I read, I came to dread the last few pages, despite the fact I'd enjoyed the process of reading.

These are issues of control, I think, and it's a shame--Link is clearly a strong writer. Her characters are vivid and her universes believable, but her stories would be a more satisfying read if she could stay true to either.]]>