Claire-Louise Bennett
Pond
[The Stinging Fly]
Pond is a defiant book. It is ostensibly a collection of short stories, with a strong but intangible sense of unity throughout; yet it is impossible to pin down any kind of linear plot or setting. It could almost be read as a novel, with longer pieces interspersed with short, poetic fragments, but the gaps in Pond are perhaps its most important feature.
The central character of the stories is an eccentric, semi-reclusive, elegant woman, who is starkly aware of her lack of roots. She rents a cottage converted from an outhouse, leaves her windows and doors open, and enjoys the image of dirt beneath her fingernails as an indication that she grows things. She knows she has no sense of belonging to where she lives, but she has minimal awareness, and possibly a fear, of the goings-on beyond her immediate environment. At the same time, she meditates at length on blurry memories, relationships and objects of interest. She is an unusually unreliable but equally intriguing narrator, softened and lit up by Bennett’s supremely skilful prose.
In the fashion of Jean Rhys and Maeve Brennan, Bennett has a keen eye for beauty in the midst of loneliness, and there is incredible beauty here.
Words: Anna-Grace Scullion
