Ben Marcus and "Notes from the Fog"

Ben Marcus is described as a dystopian writer, but he's far from apocalyptic when it comes to the bad news that lies ahead. Rather, Marcus sees the world as a stagnant pool with little to recommend it.

Death is a welcome development, readers learn in "Notes From the Fog," a short story published in the summer 2018 issue of "The Paris Review."  It is also the title of a new book of Marcus short stories scheduled for release next month. Among others, the book includes "Cold Little Bird" and "The Grow-Light Blues" about which I have previously written.





In "Notes From the Fog," when the protagonist's wife, Gin, dies of cancer, Jay (her husband) had the following thoughts: "When you're underground, buried dead like that, distances are different. You are close by to the others. This is understood. You can get to them, and they to you. It's not like up here in the holding room called the world where you have to walk or drive or fly."

"The holding room called the world." That pretty much says it all about Marcus' outlook. The goal in life we learn through Jay is to "control your exit. Put a little spin on how you step away from the world once and for all."

For who is man?

"The human being is a walk-on player in a spectacle that is none of its damned business, even though we get our hands on everything. Crumple it up, try to mate with it or destroy it."

I'm sure you get the idea.

Marcus writes with a sort of clever cynicism that reminds one of life at a New England prep school before coeducation.  The cool thing to do was to put everyone and everything down, but not the way Trump does it. The put-down had to be admirably done -- clever, sophisticated or at least pseudo-sophisticated.

Marcus specializes in writing about what might be called beta males -- men who are fundamentally passive.

Jay, for instance, is fired from his job as a teacher for no reason other than he "doesn't fit in."  And it doesn't seem to disturb him much. He clears out his belongings and leaves without protest.

How does it all end?  Well, another characteristic of the Marcus stories that I have so far read is that they don't actually end: they just at some point simply stop. Make of them what you will.

All of the above does not mean that Marcus, who seems to be widely admired in the critosphere, does not have his plus points as a writer.  Here are a few lines from "Notes from the Fog" that I liked.

-- "... we lifted the kids into the air and let the wind shape them." That's an interesting, poetic notion, but Marcus quickly goes on to take the air out of that particular sail.

-- "A poet I otherwise do not understand once said that we are disloyal to both things when we say that one is like the other. It is a kind of treason against difference." Could be true.

-- "The artificial face of concern. Postures of empathy and compassion." Yes. We've all seen it.

And I liked the scene where Jay takes his wife out to a field to die. I won't say what happens there other than to note that it is a bit out of character with the rest of the story.