Grace Paley. The Little Disturbances of Man (1959)

     Grace Paley. The Little Disturbances of Man (1959; Penguin edition 1985) Paley has the same melancholy realistic view of humankind, especially American humankind, as Raymond Carver, but she also has a hope and wit that he lacks. They can both break your heart with a few words characterising a relationship; but where Carver often sees a darkness that verges on despair, Paley sees glimmers of brightness in the acceptance of the way things are. Her characters have few illusions, and when they do, they know they have them. Both writers have the gift of seeing things clearly, and both escape the risk of sentimentality. Both show us people who have accepted the inevitable defeats of ordinary life yet manage to take what joy they can. The Americans believe in the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right. Paley (and Carver, along with other writers) shows that happiness is more often found in the small successes than the large, and that it’s more a matter of how you deal with life than of what life deals you. *** (2003)