Flytrap, Issue 8, November 2007

Tropism Press’s webpage for Flytrap describes the magazine as “a wunderkammer…between cardstock covers.” My first thought on reading that was, “What is a wunderkammer?” So, extra points for making me reach for a dictionary when reading their marketing copy (in case you don’t have a dictionary handy, a wunderkammer is, basically, a museum of curiosities). My second thought was, “Shame about the cardstock covers.” Flytrap does have remarkably high production values for being a publication with cardstock covers; the paper is very white and text is crisp and black when seen from normal reading distances, even if it is set a little too tight for my tastes. However, I’m concerned that the cover isn’t going to be strong enough to protect the magazine from the ravages of my bachelor lifestyle. Usually, this isn’t much of a problem, but, after reading it, I want to keep it around for a while.

Issue eight starts with Haddayr Copley-Woods’s legend of the world before water: “Dust.” The story’s slightly stilted voice does a wonderful job of invoking the feel of the stories told before the written word, as does the innocent illogic of its description of the first meeting of woman and man. Because of this, it’s probably not best experienced read quietly at home, alone. Sure, that’s how I read it, and I enjoyed it, but this is a story best suited for being told aloud to friends gathered around a bonfire. If you don’t have a bonfire ready, well, consider this your excuse.

While two of my favorite authors have written novels heavily influenced by Norse mythology—Douglas Adams in The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul and Neil Gaiman in American Gods—neither really got me interested in reading the old legends. “Hermod’s Ride” by Greg van Eekhout has. The story opens with Hermod wandering the world, having failed his mission to spring Baldr from the land of the dead, but half-remembered song and an encounter with a girl and her wolf pup give him the chance to atone for his failure. So, why has this story stoked my interest in Norse mythology? I think it’s because I was able to identify with Hermod. His very human incompetence in the face of tasks of cosmic consequence spoke to me in a way that tales of Odin and Thor never have. At the least, van Eekhout’s story was able to present a good character well, but I suspect the author’s subtle hand was far more active than that. Either way, he was able to open the world of Norse mythology to me where some of the best writers have failed. For that, I thank him.

Of all the stories in this issue, Stephanie Burgis’s “It’s All About the Shoes” was the hardest to review. Without question, it’s the best story, complete with a message that is Important. The trouble is, the message is specific to women, which makes reviewing it while possessing a Y chromosome difficult. It’s a bit like being an American and reviewing a film for Japanese audiences. I know whether or not it works for me, but I don’t have the experience to say whether it’ll work for its intended audience.

So, what is the story about? Kate is a recovering heroine. After years of being sent by fairy godmother after fairy godmother to save Prince Charming, only to find that Prince Charming’s ego can’t handle being saved by a woman, she retired from the adventuring racket and swore off romance for good. Cheryl is a former fairy godmother, long retired from her job of finding happily-ever-afters for heroines, but she can’t seem to break her romance novel habit. The two become unlikely friends, swapping war stories over coffee, until the kidnapping of a single wealthy male raises questions about just how retired either of them are.

The theme is the struggles of modern women, balancing their newfound liberation against the expectations of their unliberated relatives and the general cluelessness of men. The message: you’ll never be happy settling for the choices of the past; the world is open to you, so forge your own path. Why is this Important? After all, it’s not like there is a shortage of women’s empowerment stories. That’s true, but we are overcoming thousands of years of gender relations here, so we need as many of these stories as we can get.

I also like the fact that the story subverts the fairy-tale fairy godmother story. Fairy godmothers have always been creepy. Sure, they may save Cinderella from a future of abuse and penury, but they do so my marrying her off to the first prince that comes along. It’s a bit like saving someone from becoming a human sacrifice by selling them into slavery.

Wrap all that up in a witty and charming package, and that’s “It’s All About the Shoes.” For me, it’s entertaining and meaningful, which is about the best you can get. But, as I said above, I’m a guy. “The world is open to you, so forge your own path” seems like the obvious way to live to me. Whether that will be true for the women who read this, I can’t say, but I hope so.

“The Laughing Bambino” is a paean to the Boston Red Sox’s inability to win a World Series since they traded away Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920, while pointing out that Red Sox fans tend to take baseball way too seriously. Jan Wildt’s clipped sentences sketch out the agony of the die-hard Bosox fan and the future of the sport while invoking the staticy radio broadcasts and sepia film footage of baseball past. It’s fairly well done.

One problem, though: I’m a Cardinals fan.

I watched every painful game as Boston swept my team to win the series in 2004. Any curse which may have existed is now long broken. Now St. Louis fans are supposed to be as well known for their magnanimity and good sportsmanship as Boston fans are for their agonized fanaticism (or so says the play-by-play team for the Cardinals’ Radio Network), but there is a limit to the number of times I can read something relating to the Boston’s World Series drought before I start feeling like my nose is being rubbed in the 2004 loss. That’s just me, though. If you are looking for a nice piece of 20th century Americana and lack my negative associations with the subject, I’d say give this story a shot.

Jon Hansen’s “Breathe” feels familiar. This tale of how night and day came to be echoes with the dreamlike mysticism of ancient creation myths. Natural cycles aren’t the inevitable outcome of physics; they are characters with motives and personality. It has the dark edge that is common to legends from before we decided that legends were for children, and children are too fragile to be told that the world isn’t safe. Yet, the first person narrative feels very modern. It’s always a little tricky saying that a written short story is better than the old legends. The legends were primarily spoken word pieces, which is a very different art than writing for readers. They are also often translations from other languages, and so at the mercy of the talent and opinions of the translator. “Breathe,” however, if not better than its predecessors, at least assures me that the millennia have not dimmed the creativity and wonder that first led humanity to tell stories.

“Hunh,” is my reaction to Sonya Taaffe’s description of boys that split time between shore and tide: “Upon the Land, On the Sea.” It’s pretty. Its lyrical phrasing more resembles poetry than prose, as does its lack of plot. Frankly, I would have preferred it be typeset in verse. As is, it lacks paragraph breaks. This does give it a good stream-of-consciousness feel but makes untangling its mass of metaphors tiring work. Were this story any longer, the density of the text would be deadly. At a little over half a page, however, I didn’t begrudge it the time it took to break down the language and find the beauty within. And, so, there you are, dense, plotless beauty. Hunh.

Thus concludes the review of the six stories of Flytrap #8. It was as good a collection of stories that I’ve read in a magazine in a long time. Kudos to the Flytrap crew, and keep up the good work.

Now all I have to do is find somewhere safe to store the issue.