Two More From The Vinyl Cafe (Vinyl Cafe Unplugged, Vinyl Cafe Diaries)

Stuart McLean. Vinyl Café Unplugged (2000) #3. It begins with a story about Arthur the dog, who figures out how to insinuate himself into Dave and Morley’s bedroom and onto the bed. It includes the story of Eugene and the fig tree, and how Sam helps Eugene bury the and later resurrect the tree.

McLean’s stories are classified as humour or light reading, differentiated from more serious fare. “More serious” usually means “more gloomy” when applied to literature and the other arts. When I see “realistic” in some blurb or review, I know that there will be blood, if not on the saddle (1) then elsewhere. I think there’s  a misclassification, aka “category error”, in these descriptions. Yes, McLean’s stories are humorous. They are also profoundly serious. Dave’s errors of judgement could lead to catastrophe. That they don’t comes down to kindness, love, forgiveness, extended to him by Morley, his children, and his neighbours. And Arthur the dog.

To affirm that these virtues exist, and that without them we would lead Hobbesian nasty, brutish, and short lives, is a serious matter. The cynic will raise his eyebrows, the pessimist will roll her eyes, the moralist will frown and prepare a sharp rebuke. But they’re all wrong. Life isn’t perfect, humans are flawed, and that will cause pain and sometimes worse. But life is a gift, family and friends are treasures, and joys large and small enrich our lives. That’s what McLean’s stories affirm.

Read any of the Vinyl Café collections. Read them all. ****

1) Blood on the saddle
blood on the ground,
great big gobs of blood all around.
Pity the cowboy
lying in the gore,
he ain’t gonna ride the range no more.

Stuart McLean.  Vinyl Café Diaries (2003)These stories fill in the back story of Dave and

Morley and their family. I’m still bingeing, haven’t yet tired of McLean’s bitter-sweet humour, more certain than ever that he’s a major writer.

Humour may be a matter of temperament, but writing humour takes great skill. Getting the timing right is essential, and that’s hard enough live, and  much more difficult in writing. McLean is a master of the momentarily distracting detail, the aside that pauses the narrative just long enough, the word that triggers the insight that makes us laugh. Merely as examples of skill, his stories are masterpieces. In their apparently artless evocations of everyday life, they raise deep questions about what makes life worth living. He occasionally suggests answers, but these at best merely hint at the meanings of his tales. ****