50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Review-a-Day

Wonderful Disorientation

by Review-a-Day, June 13, 2011 12:00 AM
Death-in-a-BoxDeath-in-a-Box by Alta Ifland

Reviewed by Peter Grandbois

Rain Taxi

The great Argentinean writer Cesar Aira says, "The story is always about the unexplainable." Alta Ifland wrestles with the unexplainable in this collection, tossing it around before shoving it in a box for the reader to peek at -- if he dares. Death, time, and identity are just some of the ineffable topics Ifland tackles. Wisely, she does not hit them straight on but rather from behind, sneaking up on time, for example, through the mundane act of putting on shoes: "Today, as I was tying my shoelaces, it suddenly occurred to me that everything we do in life, every single insignificant gesture points to the future, whether we are conscious of it or not." Or sucker punching death with humor: "One day I entered a Jack-in-the-Box and, instead of asking for a burger, with the most candid eyes and sweet voice, I said, "Sir, could I please have some Death-in-a-box?" In most of the stories in this wonderfully disorienting collection, she demonstrates a fabulist take that allows only precarious footing in the quotidian: "When the furniture began to sweat, I knew that the world I'd known until then was gone."

Fernando Pessoa's complicating of identity clearly influences Ifland's work, as do the labyrinthine realities of Borges, Cortazar, and Kafka. However, Ifland follows her own path through the maze of artistic influence, keeping always an ironic awareness of the fictions within fictions she creates: "Others are experimenters in fiction. They experiment with words, silences, and then again, more words. I -- I am an experimenter in feeling." The most prevalent theme in Ifland's work is the slipperiness of self; as Pessoa put it, "I know that the world exists but I don't know if I do." Ifland's fictions interrogate Pessoa's ontological uncertainty. Instead of finding easy answers, they open more questions: "I grew up in the shadow of my twin sister, Hilda, who died at birth. I never managed to shake off the thought that maybe it was not she who died, but I, and the nurses made an understandable mistake. I sometimes wonder if my parents or anyone else suspects that I am the dead child, and that Hilda is among us, secretly alive." The result is that by the penultimate story -- a gem titled "What Would You Do?" -- the reader cannot answer the question of identity with any certainty. We are left only with the knowledge that in the unstable reality of Ifland's fictions, our only recourse is to imagine and re-imagine possible selves: "It seemed to me that only by shedding skin after skin could one continue to really live, so I imagined existence as a possibility, and invented many lives for myself."




{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Most Read

  1. Best Fiction of 2020 by Powell's Books
  2. 25 Books to Read Before You Die: 21st Century by Powell's Staff
  3. Midyear Roundup 2021: The Best Books of the Year (So Far) by Powell's Staff
  4. The 11 Best Places to Read by Will Schwalbe
  5. 25 Books to Read Before You Die: Pacific Northwest Edition by Powell's Staff

Blog Categories

  • Interviews
  • Original Essays
  • Lists
  • Q&As
  • Playlists
  • Portrait of a Bookseller
  • City of Readers
  • Required Reading
  • Powell's Picks Spotlight

Post a comment:

*Required Fields
Name*
Email*
  1. Please note:
  2. All comments require moderation by Powells.com staff.
  3. Comments submitted on weekends might take until Monday to appear.
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Sitemap
  • © 2022 POWELLS.COM Terms