Reviews:
Tiger Tiger - Julian Moore
Children at the Gate - Patrick Crudden
Listen for the Nightingale - Patrick Crudden
A Conversation with Emily and Other stories and Mavis - Patrick Crudden
Reviews
Childhood is another country. In dozen of stories and a fine Zenda Vecchio has established herself as an intrepid reporter from that land, where most adults have – sadly – forgotten they ever lived.
In Tiger! Tiger! She calls the madly, sane, or sanely mad, William Blake to her aid and explores the way in which we all (but children especially) are by turns predator and prey, fierce and gentle. We are what we are, as circumstances demand of us.
Ms Vecchio knows something else, too. In this puzzling life there are no answers, only stories. And she is painstakingly exact in writing the stories of her explorations. A brilliant book!
Edgar Castle
The poetic and graphic works of William Blake have long been inspirations for a wide range of artists in a number of disciplines. His powerful and evocative short poem ‘Tiger, tiger’, in particular, seems to have struck a chord with author Zenda Vecchio that resonates well within her short fiction. In her excellent collection of six stories, ‘Tiger! tiger!’, she takes Blake’s enigmatic visions of light and dark, of power and of meekness, and adapts them to the confused and confusing world of children and young adults. Her themes are similar to those of Blake: those of the paradox of God’s creation of predator and prey, of the challenges that the tiger throws out to the rest of the world, and of the choices that both predator and prey are forced to make.
Five of the six stories concern the experiences and roles of young women, all of whom in some way represent one side or another of Blake’s archetypes of tiger or lamb. From Ruth in ‘When the stars threw down their spears’ who is ‘obsessed with death and violence’, to Sophie in ‘The eyes of the tiger’ who appears to be ‘daring to seize fire from God Himself’, Zenda Vecchio’s protagonists are memorable if sometimes disturbingly confused individuals. Sophie, in particular, projects herself threateningly off the page in her persona as a predator who is reluctant to admit to herself what she has become.
This role confusion is also apparent in the foster child, Philippa, in ‘Burning bright’. She has experienced being the prey of a pedophile, as well, later in the story, as a predator on her former friend, Kim. Philippa’s uncertainty about her role in a succession of foster families leads her to use fire as an outlet for her emotions. This, in turn, dictates the violent nature of the story’s ending.
Lena, the ex-depressive main character of ‘In The Forests Of The Night’, is similarly confused about the roles of predator and prey. In a visit to the zoo, she is confronted with the reality of animals that typify both archetypes and is driven to observe, ‘I thought that if I watched the tiger long enough, I’d understand it.’ Later she recognises the essential innocence of both the tiger and its prey in that both are forced into their respective roles – ‘hunter and hunted, both are stained with blood’.
The sixth, and shortest of the stories is the only one that has a male main character. Farm boy Jamie is concerned with the helplessness of a ewe about to give birth at night, but he is well aware of the dangers posed by the foxes that lurk around lambing sheep. He has heard his parents fighting and so knows the two sides of a relationship that involves predator and prey. Luckily the lamb is born while he is present and he can rejoice in the banishment of the tigerish ‘shadows in the scrub’ that had threatened the new life.
The writer’s consistent use of the present tense and a first person point of view in her stories brings an immediacy that is engaging. This reviewer enjoyed reading ‘Tiger!, tiger!’ for the insights that Zenda Vecchio brings into some of the darker thoughts of young women. But where there is destruction and despair, there is also brightness and hope. It is this mixture that will engage a reader of any age and of either gender. Highly recommended.
Julian Moore
Children at the Gate
Tamba Issue 37 - Patrick Crudden
Children at the Gate is a well-titled collection of 10 stories written from the perspective of girls in or approaching their early teens. Zenda Vecchio reaches into the minds of the young people who inhabit these stories and allows them to be narrators of their intriguing, credible but not always happy relationships with parents, siblings and peers.
In one story the slightly older narrator quotes from Lord of the Flies, ‘The one thing I am certain of is the darkness of man’s heart.” This is an observation that Zenda Vecchio is prepared to explore in her stories. Fortunately she is able to probe the darkness without descending into blackness.
In An Egret Flying, for instance, a mixed group of youngsters sit around a bonfire on a lonely beach to welcome in the summer. The night is a bit too cold for their annual ritual to be entirely successful. One youngster, Finn, is preoccupied with the sea-gulls flying. “When they’re flying, they’re themselves. Their true selves.” There is an uneasy relationship between him and the dominant boy in the group. Perhaps they’ve quarrelled again. “Finn likes Damo too much. More than he should. More than he likes himself.” When the group disperses, Finn is left alone at the gathering point beneath the sculpture of a flying egret on a light tower. He appears to be reaching up toward the bird. The story ends with the narrator, who had real affection for Finn, finding out that he has taken his life during the night. In an earlier moment of introspection she had said to herself, “The burden of being myself is too much.’
Nine of these stories have been previously published in Tamba., quadrant and other magazines. Zenda Vecchio maintains her distinctive story telling voice throughout this engaging foray into the journey towards self-identity of the children at the gate.
Patrick Crudden, Shepparton, Vic
Listen for the Nightingale
Tamba Issue 33 - Patrick Crudden
NO ONE CAN TAKE THIS MOMENT FROM US
Listen for the Nightingale is Zenda Vecchio’s novella, a book of teenage fiction that tells the story of Kathleen, a teenager working through intense problems arising from her family situation. She does not know who her father is and believes she cannot come to terms with who she is or what her life is worth until she finds out. The difficulty is her mother is unwilling or unable to talk to her daughter about the circumstances of her birth. This has led over time to an impossibly strained relationship between them. Like most teenagers Kathleen resents the hurts she has experienced but is herself capable of inflicting deep hurt.
Her creator dramatises the conflict in Kathleen’s life in terms of tension between her dream world and her reality. In her dream life the conflict is between a serpent whispering despair and the nightingale of Keats’ Ode singing of courage and strength. In her real life the conflict is between destructive introspection and creative interaction with children, peers, adults and ultimately her mother. She would prefer to be left alone to brood. Her intuition comes into play as she gradually becomes aware that other people, including her mother, also have inner tensions that they can’t always handle.
The delight of the book is when Kathleen’s inner strength becomes a support through force of circumstances for virtually everyone with whom she lives. She says, for instance, when responding to a display of affection from a particularly vulnerable young child that no-one can take this moment from either of us. Such moments gradually and sometimes painfully to the point where she can say that sooner or later we’ll all hear the nightingale sing. This is a big move for a young person who is planning suicide when we first meet her.
Zenda Vecchio’s preference for short sentences and minimal use of qualifying language and abstractions is ideal for fiction of this kind. It enables her to probe issues such as the mood swings and self-doubts of her characters without interrupting the entertaining flow of the story. Her book is superbly edited. Designed and published by Greater Glider Productions. Tamba values its association with an author capable of writing so stylishly and positively for young people.
Listen for the Nightingale, Zenda Vecchio, Greater Glider Productions, 98pp.
Patrick Crudden
A Conversation with Emily and Other stories and Mavis
Tamba Issue 28 - Patrick Crudden
Zenda Vecchio’s story Talking to Sophie was first published in TAMBA. Now it is one of a collection of five stories published in a 43 page paperback by Ginninderra Press under the title A Conversation with Emily and Other Stories. This follows Zenda’s novella Mavis also published by Ginninderra. Both books are presented in an attractive, easy to read format that is well-matched to the style of writing.
A Conversation with Emily opens with the words, Yesterday afternoon I found Emily in a corner of my mind. She was sitting on a stool watching the rain. These two sentences tell us much about what is to follow. Zenda Vecchio uses clear direct language in conversational style in all her stories. She also has the good story teller’s technique of creating interest in what might happen next.
In her story A Conversation with Emily, possibly her best, we quickly discover that Emily exists only in the writer’s mind, still at an early stage of coming to life on the written page. The writer treats the minute details of life with great respect as her story unfolds. She maintains this approach in other stories that unravel the workings of a female mind through conversations with persons that exist in the mind of the narrating character. This enables her to develop plots in which fantasy becomes real and real life becomes fantasy with tragic effect.
In the case of Mavis this approach runs to a novella of 56 pages. Here the author traces a chain of consciousness from the beginning words, I think I am pregnant, through the birth of the mid-life baby Mavis and the destructive impact of this new life on her mother’s grip on reality.
In summary, Zenda Vecchio is a talented writer but I would like to see some of her fanciful characters draw on Peter Pan’s aptitude for creating happiness.
Patrick Crudden