Dunce Cap

by Alison Bundy

Fiction. "A truly epigrammatic prose can be difficult to pull off in English. The thirty-one fictions[']...economy is at once playful and finely controlled, reticent and suggestive.... Bundy is at her best tracing the persistence of desire with a mournful wit reminiscent of the best work of Lydia Davis.... The real virtues of DUNCECAP, though, are formal. It reads like the contents of a costume jewelry box—each item oddly wrought in a new way, with a philosophic modesty that's rare in self-conscious 'play'"—Brian Lennon.

Paperback

First published November 1, 1998

Reviews

[W.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This enjoyable collection consists of mostly very short microfiction with two longer stories. These are often unclassifable, genre-bridging writings. It's almost irrelevant whether the reader wants to call them prose poems or sketches or vignettes or whatever term is currently enjoying a vogue. Some of the miniature tales have a whiff of Edson about them. The tone is often acerbic or one of wry amusement at human excess, such as the piece mulling the natural history of chihuahuas as wild creatures in Mexico, long before the species was forced into miniature Santa suits or worse. Some of Bundy's stories are deliciously weird and almost sound like Mary Ruefle poems. Here's an example of that, a microfiction in its entirety:

DETAILS FROM THE STORY OF MY MOTHER'S LIFE

1. THE PITTED TIN PLATE. The back stairs. Dark.

2. WINTER, AND the father in Germany. Walked out into the Wisconsin snow in her nightgown, going to stop Hitler. Brought back by neighbors, she insisted it was not a dream.

3. THE YOUNG GIRLS, the young girls taking instruction. Beautiful voices came from their throats but they were not like birds. In the great hall they wore white and their voices rose in an arc and they were nothing like birds.

[Ashley Harrington · Rating 3 out of 5]

The short-short stories (there are many - standouts are "Story of the Beefsteak" and "Onset of His Sickness") are great, but the two longer ones aren't as interesting or well-written.