Book Review
Metamorphica (2018)
by Zachary Mason
Published July 2018 by Macmillan Press
I try to keep abreast of new forms of fiction. "Flash fiction" is a term that may or may not represent a new literary genre, depending on who is asked. The
wikipedia entry for this term is illustrative noting that flash fiction has "its roots in antiquity" and has more recent antecedents in the "short short story" developed for American magazine's in the early 20th century. Recent developments in technology have given the idea of flash fiction a push, as writers experiment with stories written one tweet at a time, or in the comment section of blog posts.
As is often the case, the canon keepers have resisted flash fiction, probably because it is tough to base an entire classroom lecture around a fifty word short story, and equally hard to base a lecture on twenty different short stories that are each more than fifty words. At the same time, "real" novelists have incorporated some techniques popularized by flash fiction- I'm thinking of the many voices and perspectives of last year's Man Booker prize winner,
Lincoln in the Bardo, written by American author George Saunders.
I checked out the Audiobook of
Metamorphica by Zachary Mason based on a capsule description, "Ovid's
Metamorphoses as flash-fiction," which struck me as a potential critic and audience pleaser. Published in July of this year,
Metamorphica doesn't appear to have struck a chord with the reading public, but the reviews have been good. My choice of an Audiobook for this title, was a poor one- I don't think the Audiobook format works for fiction that progresses in units that average under one page per "story." Without the lay out of the text, the Audiobook tends to blend different stories together, and even with the chapters and sections announced by the narrator, the listener lacks a sense of the format.
Metamorphica is less confusing then another Audiobook of flash-fiction might be because he hews closely to the structure of
Metamorphoses itself- a compendium of Greek myths written for a "modern" (i.e. Roman) audience.
Metamorphica is ideal for a reader who hasn't read
Metamorphoses itself, Conversely, if you have read
Metamorphoses you might find yourself asking, as I did, whether brief snippets recounting the same stories from the view point of an Instagram model, who the Godlings of Greek myth often resemble in the original prose, is a worthwhile exercise. It doesn't help Mason that Madeline Miller has recently scored a cross over critical/popular success with a similar work,
Circe, which tells the tale of that witch with a modern voice.
For the less familiar stories, the Audiobook format was fatal- if I was reading the print or Ebook edition I would have stopped to look up the underlying myth, but you can't really do that in an Audiobook. I also remain unsold on flash fiction as a genre. Convince me.