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![Once upon a time and again
A Contrary review by Shevi Berlinger
Horse, Flower, Bird
Kate Bernheimer
Coffee House Press
2010
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Come back to fairy tales, Kate Bernheimer’s Horse, Flower, Bird—the book itself resembling an oversized passport—seems to be saying. Inside, swaths of white space invite the reader to turn the pages of these eight tales all about girls. Instead of countries visited, the book is a record of rootless experiences. Obsessions range from the zoological to the human, and from the distinctly Jewish in theme, with invocations of the Holocaust, to the floral, with the story of a tulip bulb who is dislocated from her earthen home. In each girl’s quest, she appears intimately familiar with the minutest details of her challenging environment, yet still alone.
There’s symmetry to the titles of the first seven stories: A blank Tale. Fill in with Cuckoo, Tulip’s, Doll’s, Petting Zoo, Cageling, Garibaldi, and Star Wars. The plots of these stories include a girl named Astrid who owns (and loses) an eponymous, life-sized doll. A girl who hides a petting zoo from her husband in the basement. A girl who builds a cage for herself. Disconnected descriptions stud this canvas: “There is more to life in fish than in jewels, though diamonds do glint.” In contrast to such vivid titles and storylines, however, Bernheimer employs a deliberately understated narrative style:
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who liked to atone. She especially liked The Day of Atonement. Atoning, she felt at one.
Bernheimer breaks symmetry for the title of the eighth story, choosing one word rather than some kind of tale. Pay attention, she seems to say. Something is about to change. And it does. In “Whitework,” the narrative style suddenly blooms into a longing, operatic finish.
A candle in the shape of a bluebird sat on the floor beside the bed, and I lit it and turned it just-so toward the wall. Luminous! I felt I had not, in many years, experienced such nocturnal bliss—even though the broad daylight shone outside the curtained windows, at least a day as broad as may shine in a deep and thickly wooded forest where real and grave danger does lurk.
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This activity transfixed me for hours upon hours and days upon days.
Bernheimer’s stories, broken into short sections, resemble prose poems that use blank space to build suspense. The tales offer both pithy and aching conclusions. Rikki Ducornet’s gargoyle-like illustrations reinforce the ominous feeling. Surprisingly, the loss and loneliness endemic to each story (“I had no playmates to speak of, no playmates for miles,” one character laments) lead to hope. There may be few human connections in the end, but there is the possibility of spiritual redemption through the elimination of “every gloomy idea” in the narrator’s head. Such elimination will challenge readers who have empathized with the painful trials of the characters.
Although we may no longer turn to fairy tales, we may still need the invocation “once upon a time” to enter our imaginations. Bernheimer’s most recent attempt to draw us into this world suggests that intellect may hold the primary key to imagination. As we once wanted to read classic fairy tales over and over, the melancholy tales in Horse, Flower, Bird need to be read over and over. As the tulip bulb whispers at the end of A Tulip’s Tale,
Come back.
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Come back.
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Come back to me.
Shevi Berlinger is an Associate Editor for Contrary. She teaches English at Borough of Manhattan Community College and is at work on a book of poetry.
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© 2010 | all rights reserved
about us | xml feed | Contrary ® is a registered trademark of Contrary Magazine | donate $1 | contact us