Have you ever fantasized about walking out of your life and creating another one somewhere else? I'm not sure I would ever be daring enough to really do it, but the idea has crossed my mind on more than one occasion. In Andrea Barrett's short story, "Rare Bird" from Ship Fever, that essentially what the character, Sarah Anne, does. Of course it is both easier and harder as she is a single young woman with few ties and it's 1762 when the story opens. So, her life is not one that is most pleasing to her being essentially a spinster--easy and appealing to walk away, but surely in the mid-18th century not the done thing for any woman.
Following on the story from a few weekend's ago about botanist Carl Linnaeus, he once again makes a peripheral appearance in the story. I love how the stories seem to be intermingled, either with characters crossing stories or similar themes explored in different ways. I also find it fascinating to look at nature and science through the eyes of characters living at periods when science was in some ways so very new and unknown. We take so much for granted what we know now, but in the 18th-century they were working under very different suppositions.
For example, in "Rare Bird" a group of learned men--and one woman--are having a spirited conversation.
"Just now they're discussion Linneaus's contention that swallows retired under water for the winter--that old belief, stemming from Aristotle, which Linneaus still upholds."
And he is not alone in his beliefs. Did fishermen and others really pull these birds from the ice, place them near a fire where they revived and then flew about? Sarah Anne has her doubts, as do a few of the other men. As any good scientist would do, she would put the supposition to the test and create an experiment to either back up or challenge her theory. But then, at 29 Sarah is now just a spinster.
"Sarah Anne has inherited her father's brains but Christopher inherited everything else, including his father's friends. Sarah Anne acts as hostess to these men, at Christopher's bidding. In part she's happy for their company, which represents her only intellectual companionship. In part she despises them for their lumbago and thinning hair, their greediness in the presence of good food, the stories they repeat about the scientific triumphs of their youth, and the fact that they refuse to take her seriously. Not one of them has done anything original in years."
Staunch in their beliefs, Sarah Anne listens to them but knows they are old and stodgy and not willing to look to other possibilities. So, too, is Linneaus in his ideas when he responds to her letters. It's not seemly for Sarah Anne to question, to want to experiment, even to be interested really. Her brother Christopher is soon to be wed to Juliet, and Sarah Anne knows her world is about to shrink even more since his fiancé is not especially interested in science. Sarah Anne is soon to be the third wheel, maybe just the favored aunt to their planned children, but she has already learned to be the unselfish one, the flexible one--giving up her bedroom to the new bride. What else will she have to give up?
An opportunity is going to come along in the form of a widow at one of their dinner parties. Juliet may laugh at her behind her back for her lack of dress sense, but Mrs. Pearce has her independence and a strong and inquiring mind. And maybe there is a world beyond her limited view for Sarah Anne after all.
Only three, now four, stories in and I think this is a strong collection of stories. What a varied and fascinating collection that moves between different places and periods and people with such assuredness.
Next weekend: Soroche. I haven't a clue what that means, but no doubt there will be the literal and then the figurative meaning. Here rare bird surely refers not just to the swallows, or the birds that hibernate below water, but Sarah Anne herself. There is always more than meets the eye in a story by Andrea Barrett.
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If you want to be told a story, go check out this week's (August 10) New Yorker story by Michael Cunningham, "Little Man". I decided--why read when I could have the author read it to me! It was a cool experience. I had never read any of Cunningham's work previously. The story is a retelling of the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin from the perspective of the gnome who wants a baby but can't arrange one in the more conventional manner. Who wants to marry a gnome, right? Do go check out the author's Q&A as I missed the little hint at the end of the story, which gave me that-oh, I see, moment!
The New Yorker often gives a link to an audio version of the story, so I must check those out now. I think I might have to read the free Library of America short story installment for this week, "Adventure" by Sherwood Anderson, which also happens to be read by Deborah Eisenberg. Serendipity--two stories read aloud!