Jean-Michel FortierThe Electric Baths by Katherine Hastings

but also switches styles along the way. Stories interconnect with stories, pacing the worlds of small-town shopkeepers and civil servants, lending an ear to loves lost and found, often edging into madness and, not seldom, directly embroiled in it. With nervous breakdowns, obsessive-compulsive disorders, depression, and the like equally prevalent among the characters (including the doctors), the narrative’s witty bedlam is further highlighted by the contrasting dry nonchalance of the narrator’s tone. The madhouse of the novel opens up toward the madhouse that is Turkey. With its carnivalesque and multivocal style, this second novel of Ayfer Tunç (b. 1964) is a unique one among her oeuvre as well. Tunç is particularly skilled in her depictions of provincial towns and their peoples, their introverted cultures and personalities, and their consequent sense of claustrophobia and monotony. However , unlike her more sombre works, such as Dünya Ağrısı (2014, Weltschmerz), the novelist employs an amusing tone of satire and absurdity for social criticism in Madhouse . As the petty affairs of the individual characters are juxtaposed casually with key events in the country (e.g., the Wealth Tax of 1942), the disproportionate tones of “tragedies” are exposed, maintaining an excellently sharp perspective. The translation is dynamic and a pleasure to read, and the diligence of Feyza Howell is admirable. Choosing to translate such a lengthy and challenging novel is already courageous in itself, and Howell does a quality job in balancing the relationship between the source and the target languages. Her translation moves easily through the cultural specificities of Turkish and their parallels in English (including the accents) while losing neither the local essence nor the target feel. Ayfer Tunç’s first novel in English translation is a highly readable literary account of Turkey’s history and culture without the often-expected exoticism in literatures in translation. Ayfer Tunç is indeed a welcome and significant contribution to the world literary sphere as a fresh voice. Burcu Alkan London Kerry Shawn Keys Black Ice New York. Black Spruce Press. 2020. 80 pages. BLACK ICE IS A forceful confrontation with the elements, with the fates, with the self-deceptive possibilities of all human life. The work demystifies what we have so casually assumed, and the staggering images the poet employs make the demystification all the more intense. The poet’s free verse will not let readers rest easy: “It’s a quiet night. / A quiet night / to sit and listen / to the pain of the world,” even as “The sun sets / like some huge / carnivorous insect / going somewhere else to hunt.” Again, “Cicero is a raindrop. Babel a papermill . . . The body when it separates from the soul perishes / in a Heaven of sheep.” The poet’s skillful use of language has devastating consequences for the assumptions upon which we commonly rely. He wounds our presuppositions, but for all its facility, an undeniable power, even beauty marks his precise usage. In his quest for existential clarity, the poet reminds us of “the blue, monotonous sky.” He acknowledges the “monster, Death” [that] drag[s] you and everything you love / like some hapless Hector / through a brutal and inconceivable dust.” Reading Black Ice, one might be tempted to conclude the human experience may not be worth the effort, but the opposite case is equally strong. What is it worth to know the depth of our limitation and the height of our imagining? This volume of poetry seems to connect both polar extremes, bringing them full bore onto the stage of human consciousness. In this lyrical dramatization, entangled within these confrontations, readers find themselves torn between fearful vulnerability and imagined invincibility. A more truthful conclusion, somewhere in the balance, is left for readers to contemplate , to navigate. Some irksome writers deconstruct all meaning out of our received experience, then blithely tell us to appreciate the beauty of the process. Unlike those, in Black Ice, Keys confronts mortality, with its meaningful possibilities and its meaningless absurdity, but respects his readers to draw conclusions. His lyrics, therefore, offer a satisfying artistic experience. Ken Hada East Central University Jean-Michel Fortier The Electric Baths Trans. Katherine Hastings. Montreal. QC Fiction. 2020. 212 pages. IT’S A LOVE...

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