A Review of Movement by Nancy Fulda

In a world in which evolution seems to have speeded up, Hannah, the narrator, who suffers from a form of autism, is possibly the next stage in human development. She is almost entirely absorbed by her preternatural receptivity to the subtle undercurrents of reality and has no interest in mere quotidian human interaction. Her brother is a normal kid of the future, which is to say, permanently linked to the internet. He is quite as dissociated from the physical world as his sister is from society.

Evolution by no means implies progress and I would have assumed Movement to be a dystopian vision of the future where human beings are either doomed to turn into appendages of machines, or into helpless wards, isolated by introspection.

But is this a dystopia? There is the possibility Hannah can be cured. True, she may loose her exceptional talent as a dancer, but she will at least become a normal person (hopefully without wi fi inserted into her skull). A future that offers a cure for autism isn’t so bad after all . . . except the whole point of Movement is to question whether such at cure, at least in some cases, isn’t a retrograde, or even a reactionary step.

Curiously, while Ms Fulda’s ostensible answer is to this question is that Hannah’s chronic introversion is something to be preserved, the actual effect of the story is quite the reverse. By far the best strand of Movement is its depiction of Hannah’s world. Ms Fulda evokes a real sense of how language is rendered impotent for someone when they are wholly preoccupied by a torrent of sensations that have no meaning for anyone else. And then, Hannah can take weeks to formulate a verbal response to a situation, by which time the situation has been forgotten by everyone else. It is a condition of terrible loneliness no normal person would exchange their mediocrity for. A loneliness exemplified by the image of Hannah dancing (if superbly) in a deserted church.

A very well written piece.

Available here

A Torn Page

A Torn Page
The Spring 2012 Short Fiction Anthology

available here

Dan O’Brien, the editor, sent me an ARC of this new anthology. There are some very well-written stories here and they range from social commentary to surrealism. Well worth a look.

Bacon, Mike McGarr The world viewed from the fridge

Losing Mind, N J Hanson Absent minded murder

Clarinet, Kenneth Weene Reconstructing a shattered life in the shape of a clarinet

Silky, Cheyanne Pogue Problematic child-adoption scheme

A Boy’s Luck, L D White Never a silver lining without a dark cloud

There was a Naked Man on the Terrace, Larry Kostroff It’s not easy selling the Watchtower in NY

Remnants, Kyle Owens Abandoned coal mine is still heavy on the atmosphere

Therapy, Philip Koblarz Simile of the month: Frisco Bay as a toilet bowl

Sky Box, Thor Benson A travelling landscape

Cliche General, Sam Goldsmith The pains of unrequited apathy

So Fine and Subtle Were They, Meg Stivison The modern complications of fidelity

I Will Sing to my Beloved a Song of my Beloved, Robert Dart Doppelgangers have affairs too

Billiards, Joel Buckle Display of superhuman cool, in a burning house

The Day I Met Jesus Christ, Shannon Ketting Was he for real?

The Circle Unbroken, Carl Conrad What happens when we die? An awful lot, it seems

Porter at the Hell o’Day Inn, Mike Bagwell My dream job

Darkroom of Life, Christopher Thompson A photograph is born?

Bridge Partners, Joe Abbott Realpolitik under a freeway bridge – with a nice twist

A Smart Gift, Sam Mansourou The future’s too good to be true

Little Boxes, Kristy Webster Some observations on charity

Conspirators of the Lock Sock Army and the Loose Change Collection Agency, Dan O’Brien A mash up of Leprechaun, Gremlin and Laundromat

Threshold, Alec House Politics is a virus

Easter Meditation

Christopher Hitchens may not have gone to heaven, but he’s got his own section in the local bookshop. Although I agree with what he says in God is Not Great, thinking back, I found his prose oddly cumbersome. A great number of sub clauses strangle his sentences. Perhaps the point he’s trying to make is simpler than he thinks. It certainly feels like he goes to wearisome lengths to state the obvious. Actually, organised religion is a entirely human power structure, prone to all the failings such entities have, while mysticism cannot be put into words. It doesn’t leave much to be said. But the fact is, Hitchens reads like a disappointed man. He’s angry and his tone is bad tempered. He believed as a child and was let down. Personally, I never harboured the slightest feeling about any supreme being one way or another. At best, I was puzzled by how someone who patently wasn’t there got away with so much. And on that level, I occasionally like to hear what the apologists have to say.

And in fact, these very people happen to have something to say about those of us who were never exercised about religion – the born teetotallers, so to speak.

So, we come first to Theism and Infant’s Preoperational Stage of Brain by "Nelson" which is described as a term paper written while studying at the Unification Theological Seminary. It’s bonkers. A prime example of how to say something simple in the most contorted and obscurantist fashion possible, dissolving reason itself into empty (and non grammatical) academic-speak.

However, the point is this – all human beings, the author claims, are born religious.

The same claim is made by Dr Bilal Philips in his The True Religion of God. Actually, this is a well-written piece, in so far as it follows the rules of the language.

The good doctor begins by stating the obvious – we are born into a particular culture and what we believe is therefore a matter of chance. When we’re older, granted a modicum of intelligence, we have the opportunity to judge whether our received beliefs stand or fall.

This might sound like Dr Philips would be sympathetic about someone born a muslim later choosing a different religion. But apostasy is not countenanced by islam. I have a notion that in incurs the death penalty. Sounds about right for the crime of thinking for oneself.

Furthermore, Dr Philips cannot even contemplate the possibility that someone born into a faith might actually think for themselves and come to the decision that they don’t believe what they’re told by the clerics and the priests, and commentators like Dr Philips.

In fact, Dr Philips believes, like "Nelson", that people have an instinctive belief in a god. Or as he puts it, "man’s in-born inclination to worship Him".

In other words, if you don’t have a belief, if you are not inclined to worship anything, you’re not human and, no doubt, you will not be accorded the rights of a human being in the world Dr Philips longs for.