552
PARTISAN REVIEW
could talk," announces one nonchalant narrator, "They'd say
that they didn't enjoy flying."
It
is sad that the children of
Beattie's world are afraid, confused, disenchanted; it may be sad–
der that their elders are no wiser and no better off.
It
cannot
be
denied that Beattie's stories are perfect mirror
images of the protagonists and predicaments they describe. But
that may
be
their problem. They surrender to diminishtd expec–
tations; they change location and little else; they loiter and go
nowhere. Because her theme so rarely varies or evolves (save for
one gay and giddy
jeu d'esprit
called "Happy," an exception to
prove the rule), Beattie's tales seem almost massproduced. One
can say that first person narratives suit her dispassion beller than
third, that she seems at sea in those segments set in Los Angeles, or
that stories like "Playback" have occasional epiphanies. But
nearly all the off-beat tunes she plays are in the same (minor) key,
and after reading a few, one feels that one could write a few. Col–
lect some characters and name them Jason, say, or Hilary, or
Barrell (not Tom, Dick, or Harry-Beattie people invariably
wear slightly upper-middle class, faintly original names midway
between Zowie Bowie and John Smith). Give them trendy occu–
pations and engaging idiosyncrasies. Place their homes in the
woods, and supply them with shaggy dogs, coffee, and conversa–
tions around the kitchen table. Make it a grey day in winter. Let
there be a phone call from a former lover, a child from a sometime
marriage. Ensure that someone takes Valium and someone refers
to a gynecological operation. Write in a withered present tense
and end before the conclusion.
This is not to deny or disparage Beattie's commanding tal–
ents. Her spare, soft-spoken prose is singularly observant: she can
conjure up a dog without a single physical detail, so keen is her
sense of gesture. She dearly knows the very pulse and heartbeat
of her dreamless drifters-indeed, with her long fair hair, air of
seraphic funkiness, and apparently itinerant, makeshift lifestyle
she seems
to
belong in their midst. She performs many narrative
tasks with unrivaled skill: conveying the weary braveness of
children who secretly long to be children again, or the poignancy
of the grown men, equally eager and equally desperate, who long
to entertain them; pinning down voguish tastes, brandname allu–
sions, and aimless dialogue; sketching pale, lead-colored skies.
