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Something Like Happy by John Burnside (view source)
Revision as of 11:21, 5 April 2014
, 11:21, 5 April 2014no edit summary
|summary=A very solid story collection, all the richer for the mood of the title piece being reflected in so many fashions.
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How do you pick a name for a short story collection? It seems to me the ''...and other stories'' add-on is like picking a favourite child, a promotion of one portion of the content above the rest. [[:Category:John Burnside:|John Burnside]] has got a title story here, but such is the mood of the book that he seems to have nailed the matter, and picked the most apposite name. ''Something Like Happy'' could in a way be the title for practically every piece here.
The title story, which sets us off in a bravura fashion – utterly convincing female first-person narrative, measured tone through a balance of crafted vocabulary and the voice of a young working-class person – concerns two sisters, two brothers and a sweater. It makes you wonder if it might not be better to avoid love, but some people are something like happy. We meet a male hurting a female through love, leaving her to grasp on to something that might not be there for her happiness in the cleverly-titled sequel (I'm sure I'm right in thinking 'Slut's Hair' is the translation of a type of pasta's name, and you'll have to see why that's relevant). A peach Melba becomes a Proustian foodstuff; an academic finds their annual private routine broken; two young friends laying claim to the dangerous sands outside their coastal home find risk elsewhere.