A review by julian12
Chemistry and Other Stories, by Ron Rash
5.0
Honesty from Chemistry and Other Stories
Ron Rash’s story collection Chemistry and other stories is powerful spare and beautiful work. He knows the Carolinas and the Appalachians intimately. His stories range from historical settings to a much more contemporary world. The story ‘Honesty’ shows the worlds of those who struggle colliding in a dark and unexpected way with those seemingly breezing through existence. It seems a most unlikely situation – an academic and his wife – he taking a year off to try to be a real writer as opposed to churning out what is required as a literary professor. The wife who is part of the admin at the same college has a mocking attitude to his struggle. She encourages him to answer a lonely heart personal ad and use it as material for an article. What follows perhaps seems a bit contrived. The woman he is contacting is poor and desperate and when he meets her at the restaurant things take a darker turn as he gets more out of his depth. I think the work is perhaps not to be taken as pure realism at face value – it operates perhaps more on a symbolic level. The unbridgeable distances between people’s different lives. The sacrifices and losses on both sides of the divide. The more powerful side represented by the lecturer finds himself vulnerable in a deeper way than ever could be dreamed. There is a sense of the bright glittering surface of our lives smothering unknown depths of humanity that remain stifled below – potential not ever to be realised.
The whole thing seems partly ridiculous and contemptible but with a latent power that despite the reader’s disbelief refuses to go away. Above all with Rash it is the style and the achievement of phrases that seduce irrespective of the uneasy content of the story.
Ron Rash’s story collection Chemistry and other stories is powerful spare and beautiful work. He knows the Carolinas and the Appalachians intimately. His stories range from historical settings to a much more contemporary world. The story ‘Honesty’ shows the worlds of those who struggle colliding in a dark and unexpected way with those seemingly breezing through existence. It seems a most unlikely situation – an academic and his wife – he taking a year off to try to be a real writer as opposed to churning out what is required as a literary professor. The wife who is part of the admin at the same college has a mocking attitude to his struggle. She encourages him to answer a lonely heart personal ad and use it as material for an article. What follows perhaps seems a bit contrived. The woman he is contacting is poor and desperate and when he meets her at the restaurant things take a darker turn as he gets more out of his depth. I think the work is perhaps not to be taken as pure realism at face value – it operates perhaps more on a symbolic level. The unbridgeable distances between people’s different lives. The sacrifices and losses on both sides of the divide. The more powerful side represented by the lecturer finds himself vulnerable in a deeper way than ever could be dreamed. There is a sense of the bright glittering surface of our lives smothering unknown depths of humanity that remain stifled below – potential not ever to be realised.
The whole thing seems partly ridiculous and contemptible but with a latent power that despite the reader’s disbelief refuses to go away. Above all with Rash it is the style and the achievement of phrases that seduce irrespective of the uneasy content of the story.