Rhyme is one of the first ways we are introduced to language. There is evidence to suggest that it helps with language acquisition and other semantic development, and studies have also observed a link between rhyme and our aesthetic enjoyment of poetry. But among some literary circles, there is a snobbery about its use. Sceptics deride the use of rhyme as an artistic crutch, believing that it stands in way of achieving deeper, loftier literary aspirations. A common target of their ire is the rhyming dictionary—a handy manual full of avenues that poets of all abilities can run down. But while they may scoff, the long history of rhyming dictionaries shows their curious role in making poetry accessible to the masses.
Imagine two couples, each at home for dinner. The first couple spends the whole meal caressing each other’s hair, calling each other cheesy monikers and, after the meal is finished, holding hands across the table, staring affectionately into each other’s eyes. Before long, they are in bed together. The other couple eats quietly, barely talking and, when the meal is through, they load the dishwasher. Later, they sit in the same room, but apart, both reading.
Both couples are in love. They just express it differently. The philosopher Karen Jones at the University of Melbourne has an important insight into what is going on here. Love is what she calls an interpretation-sensitive trajectory. Trajectories are processes. One isn’t really in love for a fleeting moment, in the same way that one doesn’t have a profession or a hobby for a fleeting moment. The fact that an episode counts as love for a certain person – like another episode counts for a certain person being a writer or a knitter – depends on things that have happened before, or will happen after, that episode.
My friendship with Alex began as most still do: in person. We met as volunteers at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in SoHo, where we talked about novels while alphabetizing the shelves. Before long, we were in friend-love: walking my dog together in Central Park, working together in coffee shops and going on movie dates — until a little over a year ago, when Alex and her husband moved back to Australia. This had always been their plan, yet anticipating the loss didn’t dull the experience of it. Our friendship could have transitioned to a neutered, text-only version of itself at that point, as many do, or even ended altogether.
Instead, we turned to the telephone. People in my age cohort are notorious for using their phones for everything besides actually making calls. But I’ve only become more dependent on phone calls over the years, and never more so than when trying to conjure Alex’s presence from across the world. We usually talk at least once a week and for more than an hour, and often call each other in idle moments. The 14-hour time difference is actually an aid; we might talk while I’m walking my dog in my night and Alex is strolling with her baby in her morning. We call each other when we’re sad, when we’re panicking, when we’re agitated, when we’re bored. We call each other when we want to brainstorm (who do you think suggested the idea for this piece?). Friendship has become folded into daily ritual, and daily ritual has become folded into friendship.
What’s fascinating about the stories inside Ho Sok Fong’s latest short story collection, Lake Like A Mirror translated by Natascha Bruce, is that they hit the reader hard, and at the same time they frustrate the ability of the reader to parse her scenes. With all of the ambiguity and occult that punctuate her stories, there seems to be something special in Ho’s writing that evokes such forceful emotion.
The novel considers desire and sexuality through Mina’s eyes, while also unpacking complex family histories through Oscar’s relationship with his father. Buchanan’s prose is able to weave these narrative threads together in a way that feels organic when so many differing threads might come across as cacophonous if not handled deftly. While mental illness is a key theme in the novel, the story is propelled more by the way characters interact with one another and how their own emotional struggles affect how they treat others. Mental illness is just presented as one of many human struggles.
Notched out
on this crust of field—in the day
that comes after us,
Hafiz, old nightingale, what fires there have been
in the groves, white dust, wretchedness,
how could you ever get your song together?