I Read Christos Ikonomou’s ‘Good Will Come From the Sea.’
I did not know that this was a collection of short stories when I picked it up. I did not know that it was a small, compact little number that would pack such a wallop. I did not know it would speak from the heart of Greece, from a place of alienation and desperation. I did not know anything about it, other than it came as a recommendation from Danielewski and that carried enough weight, enough power, for me to grab it, no questions asked.
I read this in three sittings. One was a quick jolt, a brief time with it, getting it swirled around my brain, learning its place, its timbre. The second was a long jaunt, unable to put down the book from story to story, from character to character, like sitting on a bus filled with a municipality of friends, families, and enemies, all of whom were neighbors. Loving, hating, warring, fighting, but all in some communion with another, whether through sin or through celebration. The third and final sitting with it took me through the final story, my favorite of all, and one which really placed the book up in a high tier of accomplishment for me.
These stories are all told from the perspective of people who seem to be yelling from the bottom. They seem to be standing at the base of some mountain, some well, and looking up and shouting for something more. They cry less for help, more for hope. Everything that stands in the way of these characters is bared, an unhidden enemy who has pressed them up against a corner of desperation, and we watch as the bows break, we read as the breaking points come, and whether what we read is violent, beautiful or devastating varies from tale to tale. But while the outcomes of each is wildly different, the flourish is all in the same arc, affecting and within earshot of all the others. We learn that the island on which they live is smaller than even they can comprehend and that the ripples of each other’s actions will ignore the specifics and rock up against the walls of every life, engaged or otherwise.
My favorite of the four stories is the final one, Kites In July, which tells of a couple who have a shot at their dream. This story tells a very beautiful story of love, a realistic and playful telling of how the deliberate act of Love can smooth the devastation of any blow. It’s told in an almost French New Wave style, which never truly shows us some of the most pertinent events of the story, instead giving us character’s reactions, warnings and resolutions from the issues that stemmed from the climaxes that were waged. Rarely have I read an encounter that illustrates love and its shape so eloquently, and without overpulsing the beauty, instead isolating the genuine articles of how two individuals are known to one another like continents once joined, but broken and drifting forever in one another’s wake. The fact that Ikonomou is able to do this in 50 pages is powerful to me, a true achievement of writing. I only wish I was able to read it in his native Greek, though the translation by Karen Emmerich has illustrated his point with immaculate vision.
Highly recommend this book! It gives a great deal of attention to human emotion without making them maudlin or overcharacterized, instead giving heaping doses of our species lathered to the brim with circumstance.
