‘Blank Pages’ by Bernard MacLaverty, stories (2021) – 259 pages

Since this is ‘Blank Pages’, it was a very quick read. Just kidding.

I had the good luck, though not actually good luck since I do pay attention to what’s going on in the world of fiction, to discover Bernard MacLaverty quite early in his career in the early 1980s. At that point, he had written two novellas, ‘Cal’ and ‘Lamb’, and only two collections of stories. I have been keeping up with his work ever since.

His latest collection of stories, ‘Blank Pages’ is another winner as his collections of stories usually are.

In these stories, MacLaverty captures the poignancy of everyday routine domestic life. Most of these stories take place or at least start out in the home, usually in Ireland or Scotland. His characters frequently live alone or with one close relative in an often seedy apartment. MacLaverty has always been able to find the pathos and feeling without resorting to wild plots or flashy techniques.

In ‘The Fairly Good Samaritan’, a man in his fifties spends most of his days and nights drinking at the bar or in his room. Here his landlady talks to him:

“You need someone to help you mend your ways, m’boy.”

“I’m much too old to change now.”

“It matters not how crooked the hook, the picture can be hung straight.”

That’s the kind of stuff she comes out with all the time. When the lecturing starts, he always nods his head and stares vaguely in the direction of the window.

In the story the man comes back from the bar to find her lying on the floor. Drunk as he is, he saves her life.

Many of these stories manage to deal with mortality without becoming morbid. The final story is about a man escaping almost certain death. Yet the stories are quite sociable with a lot of dialogue.

In MacLaverty’s previous novella called ‘Midwinter Break’, I was somewhat overwhelmed by the mundane circumstances of the few characters, and I downgraded it for that reason. However, here, with 12 different stories and different characters in each story, I feel MacLaverty is just sketching ordinary plain life as it is lived. With the everydayness spread and dispersed over so many different stories and characters and each separate story so moving, it presented no problem at all in this excellent collection.

My favorite story in the ‘Blank Pages’ collection is the first story, “A Love Picture”. Nothing is more unexpected or moving than a small act of kindness given by one person to another person.

Grade:   A

‘Midwinter Break’ by Bernard MacLaverty    (2017) – 243 pages

I have read nearly all of the fiction of Bernard MacLaverty, and in each of his other novels and stories I was ultimately touched by the plights of his characters.  MacLaverty is known as a master of the quotidian and his quiet work has had a strong effect on me in the past.   However while reading his latest work, ‘Midwinter Break’, I constantly felt like I was drowning in a sea of mundanity, and I never did feel the poignancy I was supposed to feel for these characters.

In ‘Midwinter Break’, we have an old couple Gerry and Stella.  He is a retired architect, she is a housewife. He has a drinking problem; she is a devout Catholic.  Gerry is constantly sneaking drinks of Jameson behind Stella’s back. Even at this late stage after being married for several decades, Stella is still considering leaving Gerry.  She wants to join a group that is like a convent, however does not require vows of poverty or chastity.

Gerry and Stella are taking a short winter vacation in Amsterdam, and that is where most of the novel takes place.

Everything about this old couple is relentlessly ordinary.  I almost feel it is unfair to quote the dialogue here but I must to give you an idea of what you will encounter if you read this novel.

“What’s that?” said Gerry.

“Styling mousse.”

“And what’s that supposed to do?”

“It adds body to my – sadly – limp hair.”

“I wonder would it do anything for me,” Gerry said. 

“Volumising hold, as the can says.  Have you never seen me do this before?”

“Not that I remember.”

“At home I do all this in the bathroom.” 

There are pages and pages of this not exactly scintillating conversation about pigeons, flowers, coffee, etc., between Gerry and Stella.   I believe this story of Gerry and Stella would have worked much better as a short story rather than a novel.  That way MacLaverty could have given us the impression of the ordinariness of their lives without delivering us the full load.

There is one event that happened to Stella when she was pregnant many years ago that seems almost preposterous given the boredom of their current lives, but I suppose anything can happen to anyone at any time.

I must consider ‘Midwinter Break’ a disappointment, but Bernard MacLaverty is still in my pantheon of great writers due to his previous profound and moving work.

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Grade :    C