The Breakdown So Far

The Breakdown So Far, by M.A.C. Farrant is a hard book to describe. It is a collection of short, short stories, that are extremely witty and poetic and just short of the Jabberwocky in their imaginative, spooky, and thought provoking images. These stories are fictional in nature but are so absurdly expository that they seem to almost mirror the readers tiny everyday truths. I can not begin to compare The Breakdown So Far to anything I have ever read but what I can say is that it is very, very good. Farrant's collection of stories is arranged in five sections, the last story in each bearing the title for the section, and the last story in the book is titled Breakdown So Far. It's subject is on the work of writing and art and more like art working than a work of art. I love the lines, "A kind of exaltation prose, but precise, not hysterical like hunger; prose that tends the fire and the shop; about the fascination with things; and living errant; in randomness and beautiful days;..." and also the line, "Could not shut up for wondering," these are the lines that best describes the book. The stories I loved the best were in the third section titled A Talent for Subversion. The Cinderella story entitled Ever After in which Prince Charming gives a series of workshops revealing his foot fetish, knack for redecorating, and insight "on being charming," is fantastic. I love that "everyone in the class agreed: Of the two, Cinderella was the more charming." I also liked the Budgie stories especially Funeral. Farrant writes, "I thought I might experience something grand." This is what I love best about her writing, that she can take a small everyday experience and expect something more of it. She makes the mundane into something extraordinary. If I seem to gush lately about Talonbooks, it is only because they have a high standard for distictly unique literature. M.A.C. Farrant's book The Breakdown So Far is feverishly unique and is the type of book I would wish into every dentist's waiting room. If it could but replace Reader Digest for the coveted spot in my mother-in-law's washroom, what a better world this would be.