The Incomparable, Edward P. Jones

My favorite short story writers are Edward P. Jones and Jhumpa Lahiri. Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies" from the book of the same name, is just brilliant. Of Jones' stories, my favorite by far (I haven't read Lost in the City, yet) is "Adam Robinson." I chose this story, first published by the The New Yorker in the December 2004 issue, for a short fiction class I took in college. My peers were peeved because it is a rather long story and we all had to read each other's picks and discuss...but, after reading it, most were glad that they had.

I bring up this story, because the Royksopp video I posted earlier reminds me of the sparsity and cavernous tone of Adam Robinson. Both have a heart and soul that feels, to me, to be holding to a kind of life force taproot as they navigate the post-modern, sort of dystopian, world that exists today (for me). There is this take your breath away, small and quiet witness to the end of old ways; an agoraphobic free fall setting in "Robinson" that I pick up also watching and listening to "Drug." It's like a zombie apocalypse, right before the first zombie staggers out; only the zombies are in the wrong movie. They are in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, loping largely, not undetected, but opaquely. Integrating  infecting, overtaking, absorbing the small, brilliant red and beating hearts of the old ways.

I find comfort in both works of art. There is a connective thread, for me.