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Sing to It

Here's the title story from Amy Hempel's new book, "Sing to It," a book causing waves:

At the end, he said, No metaphors! Nothing is like anything else. Except he said to me before he said that, Make your hands a hammock for me. So there was one.

He said, Not even the rain--he quoted the poet--not even the rain has such small hands. So there was another.

At the end, I wanted to comfort him. But what I said was, Sing to it. The Arab proverb: When danger approaches, sing to it.

Except I said to him before that, No metaphors! No one is like anyone else. And he said, Please.

So--at the end, I made my hands a hammock for him.

My arms the trees.

That's the story in its entirety. James Wood compares Amy Hempel to Grace Paley; Paley was another writer of fiction who sometimes blurred the line between fiction and poetry. Paley has a famous story, "Wants," in which a marriage has ended, and the separated partners meet on the steps of a library. That's similar to "Sing to It," where we seem to be following two people in their final moments together.

I'm moved by this story because the two main characters seem so foolish and vulnerable. They declare a moratorium on metaphors, but then all they can use is metaphors. We can laugh at them. But that's life. We have lofty principles, and then we fall short.

It's also moving to consider the idea of danger. Most of want to avoid confrontation and risk and have a safe life. But Hempel's speaker says that danger should be greeted as a visitor; we should "sing to it." (There's another pesky metaphor again.) Singing to danger--an act similar to dancing in the rain or laughing in the face of adversity.

The story ends with the two reaching some kind of compromise. They have been bickering, but the woman realizes she can do one thing for the man. (After all, he has said, "Please.") The woman can make her hands into a hammock--for the man's head? And this leads to another moment of metaphorical thinking: If my hands are a hammock, then my arms must be trees. This seems to be a moment of confidence; the narrator discovers she has strength, the strength of two trees, even as she is mourning a loss and fearing a big transition. At least that's how I see it. The story seems spare enough to support several interpretations.

Who knew you could make a story out of such apparently modest material? At the very least, Hempel's work might make you want to pay closer attention to words.

P.S. Notice the last sentence is a kind of hiccup. Hempel is trying to avoid metaphors, presumably. But the business about arms and trees still spills out of her. She, Amy Hempel, is in conflict with Amy Hempel. The Divided Self. Writers will make metaphors; they'll do that even when they seem not to want to do that. We should all try to have compassion for one another.

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