Better when we love

A Feast of Longing Sarah Klassen. Coteau Books, 2007. 280 pages.

In A Feast of Longing, Sarah Klassen’s collection of stories, the longing is – above all – for connection. The epigraph, which also appears in the final story, is taken from Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief: “All of us are better when we’re loved.” Yet Klassen’s theme reverses the claim of the quotation, and her characters are better when they love.

One of the most poignant stories included, “Still Life,” centres on a woman taking art classes and learning to paint a still life, while simultaneously agonizing over the decision whether or not to remove her brain-dead daughter from life support. The story ends with the mother still undecided – this is not a moral treatise for or against the artificial prolonging of life. Instead it is a touching portrayal of a life. The moral dilemma is completely immersed in the mundane details of life, with the general couched in the specifics of one mother and one daughter. This is what A Feast of Longing does best.

In another of the stories the narrator – a young woman beginning her first year of university – reluctantly befriends a neighbour with a mental disability. The narrator is motivated mostly by guilt, and her interaction with the neighbour, Adelia (which, incidentally means “noble”) does little to improve Adelia’s quality of life. But along with her guilt, the narrator is motivated by an unnamed, almost unnoticed longing – a longing to love someone as Adelia’s older sister Gracie (another significant name) loves her.

The desire to love, even beyond the desire to be loved, is the unifying theme in all fourteen stories. Though most of the stories relate instances of failed connection – a longing left unfulfilled or unsatisfied – the overwhelming mood is not of despair but of hope.

Messages of hope ring hollow without a true appreciation of despair. Klassen differs here from many contemporary writers who are so engrossed in the goblins that they neglect to show any joy at all in this world. Klassen treads this narrow path with admirable grace. She is a trustworthy source, who tells us honestly about pain and loneliness, yet she is not overwhelmed by their presence. Because she is honest when she shows us pain, we can trust her when she leaves us with hope.

Unfortunately, A Feast of Longing is not without its flaws. The book would have benefited from at least one more perusal by an editor (for instance, a character named “Masha” is briefly called “Tanya”), and disappointingly Klassen’s sense of voice sometimes rings untrue. Most disappointing of all – for a poet – her prose falters at moments into stilted awkwardness. Still, there are moments of real eloquence here, and real insight.

Paul Moffett is a masters student in English literature at the University of Manitoba and attended Canadian Mennonite University.