by Michael Cunningham
A funny, penetrating novella by the author of "The Hours"
“Silly humans. Banging on a tub to make a bear dance when we would move the stars to pity.”—Michael Cunningham, “By Nightfall”
There are some works that keep the reader at a remove from its characters’ inner workings. We have to deduce thought and feeling through the finely delineated action and, in doing so, become almost a co-author of the material. They are like little plays going off in your mind.
Other works minutely detail its characters every thought and feeling. This absence of withholding can be exhilarating—all that beautifully wrought insight—but it’s a bit like watching a movie with a too forward soundtrack sawing away at you, telling you what to feel at every frame.
“By Nightfall” flirts with this. There are long, ruminative passages on the characters’ motivations, histories, idiosyncrasies—observations that mine each moment in all its intricate depth. There are long passages, too, on art, art-making and selling. On New York, its various neighborhoods and streetscapes. Even freighted with all these asides, this short novel manages to have the singular, unitary arc that I admire so much in the short story.
The method of conveyance is beautiful language. Here it’s usually not so far removed from the conversational as to be ponderous. All this observational prowess is also leavened by a serious dollop of humor. Especially in the frequently hilarious, if poignant, dialog, and in the witty and urbane interior monologues. Wryly observed is the expression usually applied to this sort of thing.
You may not like the constant arrests in the narrative so the author can wax wise about the human condition, but I’m a sucker for it. It’s one of the things I love about literature. I want all that smart-alecky prose to spring me, even if only for a few moments, from the confinement of my own peculiar and overweening consciousness.