From: eye2@interlog.com (eye WEEKLY)
Newsgroups: eye.news,rec.arts.books.reviews,alt.books.reviews
Subject: BOOKS: Altered Statements
Date: 16 Aug 1995 20:19:27 -0400


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eye WEEKLY                                              August 17 1995
Toronto's arts newspaper                      .....free every Thursday
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BOOKS                                                            BOOKS


                          ALTERED STATEMENTS
                          By M.A.C. Farrant
                   Arsenal Pulp Press, $12.95 paper

                                  by
                              EDWARD KAY

Canadian authors, if you accept the conventional view, are a dour 
bunch, obsessed with things like the bleakness of wilderness, winter 
and twisted and/or repressed libidos. So it should be a relief to 
encounter a writer who apparently is an exception to the rule. This 
collection of short fiction ("stories" doesn't quite describe them, 
since they only occasionally possess traditional narrative structures) 
aims to critique contemporary social life while keeping its tongue 
planted firmly in its cheek. Farrant holds a funhouse mirror up to our 
times, using the resulting distortions to re-sensitize the reader to 
the absurdities we have largely become inured to. She is eclectic in 
her choice of targets, from bureaucratic thought police to those 
infamous Kraft commercials suggesting all sorts of unlikely 
combinations of Velveeta and Softee Toffee.

Unfortunately, her humor doesn't consistently find its mark. And while 
her field of view may be wide, it isn't always deep. Sometimes the 
objects of her attentions are so inconsequential that they seem 
unworthy of the effort, and you get the sense that she is blasting 
away at gnats with an elephant gun. At such times, her writing feels 
sophomoric, her viewpoint insular and suburban. But when Farrant sets 
her sights high enough, she can be poignant and funny, as in "Big," 
where she adopts the narrative voice of a single-parent kid obsessed 
with macho trappings and the importance of being imposing. Or when she 
wryly addresses aspects of the relationships between mothers and 
teenage daughters.

Those kinds of pieces unfortunately don't make up the majority in this 
collection. Farrant is still at an early stage in her career, so that 
balance could change for the better in the future. For the moment, 
though, it appears that she isn't quite out of the woods yet.

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