The Wavering Knife: Stories

When I read Brian Evenson's  Altmann's Tongue , I said that the closest I could come to describing it was to say it was like Cormac McCarthy wrote a series of Edgar Allan Poe homages, but commented that even that didn't prepare you for the psychological damage and insanity on display. The same description could easily apply to The Wavering Knife as well, but this time there's another facet to Evenson's writing I didn't expect: his bent, dark sense of humor. I'd never go so far as to call any of the stories in The Wavering Knife outright funny, but there's a dark glint to the satire in some of the stories, such as the self-righteous Promise Keepers who meet away from women for bonding time, one traveling preacher's increasingly firm efforts to bring religion to Wal-Mart, or the perversely difficult time two gravediggers have burying a body. The stories here aren't quite as abstract and disconnected as those in Altmann; Evenson seems to have moved slightly (but not entirely) away from that tendency to strip a horrific moment of all context. Instead, here he seems preoccupied with language, something that shows up best in an effort to analyze a deeply flawed and surreal mistranslation of a travel guide, or with an artist's attempt to set up a horrific art installation. Evenson writes horror for those who like their reading literate and intelligent, and his stories end up feeling like a David Lynch film, leaving you uncomfortable even if you don't entirely grasp the meaning of it all. He's a unique talent, and when he's at the top of his game - "The Installation," "Body," "The Prophets," and especially "Virtual" are all knockouts, even in the midst of tons of great stories - his work is unsettling, intense, and profound.

I am unsure how to quantify my appreciation of this book.THE WAVERING KNIFE is a short story collection, so there were stories that were intriguing and mind-bending in a way only Brian Evenson is capable of. There was no bad story to speak of here, but there are some I didn't understand. Stories like MORAN'S MEXICO : A REFUTATION, BY C. STELZMANN or BODY for example. But some of these stories, man. They're special. WHITE SQUARE is as much of a challenge to the reader than it is to its protagonist and you find SOME of the answers somewhere else in the book, so you have to remain patient and alert. THE INTRICACIES OF POST-SHOOTING ETIQUETTE is both hilarious and eerily humane. VIRTUAL is probably my favorite story of the entire book, which is about faith and obsession.Loved the book. It defeated me at times, but I loved it nonetheless.

Brian Evenson, ex-communicated from the Mormon Church and his teaching position at BYU for his writing, is a literary portal into the dark corners of everyday life. In some of these stories he takes direct aim at his former church and its followers; a great example is "The Prophets", a tale of simple men empowered with a vision from god that includes the use of a shovel and the restoration of the dead prophets of olden days. But, in others, he finds an ample target in "The Promisekeepers", where a male bonding group under the banner of the title's namesake meets in a bar and shares moments of truth and honesty - which, when one member of the group reveals a little too much information, leads to a horrific outcome. Other stories such as "The Gravediggers" are interspersed for comic relief; in this laugh-out-loud funny story, two lazy gravediggers create their own misadventures and more work than they bargained for after deciding the dirt wass just too hard to dig a large enough grave for the latest subject of the effort.Many of the stories in this volume take direct aim at our superstitions and religious beliefs; not in a direct frontal assault, but by association with the subjects of Evenson's brutal, but entertaining musings. I say musings, because even in their brutality, these stories take an amusing look at the darker side of ourselves.>>>>>>><<<<<<<A Guide to my Book Rating System:1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.