Claire-Louise Bennett – Pond (2015)
“In solitude, you don’t need to make an impression on the world, so the world has some opportunity to make an impression on you.”
October 2024 • Fiction
Shortly before the halfway mark of this book, there's a tiny story named Stir-Fry. It goes as follows:
I just threw my dinner in the bin. I knew as I was making it I was going to do that, so put in it all the things I never want to see again.
Stir-Fry is followed by a delightful seven-page story named Finishing Touch about throwing a little party (“I have so many glasses after all”), which I loved. After that comes Control Knobs, my favourite in the entire book, about the deteriorating knobs on the narrator's outdated Salton mini-kitchen.
I don't often read books of short stories. And, as I'm sure you can tell by now, this book is not your average book of short stories, either. But, it struck a chord. It moved me.
You see, when you live alone, how you see the space around you changes. When you're not required to move along with the rhythm of another, you may start doing things at odd hours: eating dinner when others don't, or doing your laundry when others sleep. Noticing peculiar things on objects, the growth of a plant, or the way the sunlight hits the bookcase—thinking deeply about things you otherwise wouldn't grant the freedom to roam in your head.
Pond consists of twenty stories outlining such moments in the life of a woman who lives alone, in a cottage on the coast of Ireland. I'd say they're daydreams, more so than stories—vignettes or observations of time spent alone. There is no overarching narrative, and reading the book is akin to experiencing time and space in the same way its writer did when she wrote it. Because of that, and despite its lack of narrative, it leaves a mark—I haven't stopped thinking about it since I closed it over a week ago.
As Bennett wrote in The Irish Times, “in solitude, you don’t need to make an impression on the world, so the world has some opportunity to make an impression on you”. With her way of writing she achieves a perfect translation of those impressions—reading her thoughts, a calm enclosed me, and it felt like I was floating through the space with her, making me want to inhabit a cottage in a village somewhere for an extended period of time or, at the very least, try to achieve a similar sense of peace throughout my days—rekindling an appreciation for life's every nook and cranny.
Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett
Published by The Stinging Fly Press in 2015
Re-published Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2022
One book recommendation, once per month.
Book #20 • October 2024
