As anybody familiar with the singular artistic vision of Djuna Barnes is well aware, reading anything she wrote is like entering a type of parallel universe—one that resembles our own in many ways, but also one that is no longer able to repress and erase what is odd or sad or grotesque, particularly in regards to the human condition. Once one becomes familiar with Barnes’s baroque style and bleak worldview it is difficult to not immediately recognize her writing, which helps in being able to contextualize these stories with all of the other modes she expressed herself in. Within these little slips of short stories–many no more than several pages long–Barnes is somehow able to contract and compress entire cosmos of feeling, affect, experiences, and histories (of both a personal and cultural nature) into the space of several pages. Barnes’s general technique is to introduce several eccentric characters, establish a setting and then embroider these elements in a delicate meshwork of commentary and observations that are unexpected and incisive and beautiful. Often they hardly seem like “stories” at all, but rather character sketches, all evocative description and not much else. But that impression is deceptive, for almost like clockwork in the closing lines something inevitably happens—a snippet of dialogue perhaps, or a turn of phrase—and suddenly everything comes together in a brief flash of insight. Barnes is one of the great short story writers, even if she is rarely anthologized, and I’d be quite surprised if she’s ever included as a “how-to” example in a guide to writing a “good” short story. Because by any standards these stories shouldn’t work. But somehow they do, and the results are unlike just about anything else I’ve ever encountered or had the great pleasure to read.
