A Leap

The monologues in this volume are beautiful, stark and at times almost too painful to read. The first, 'Alma', portrays the dissatisfaction of Alma Mahler who sacrificed her own interests to marriage and children. I found this piece interesting, but thematically familiar; unfortunately, the story of talented women overshadowed by famous spouses is extremely common. Thus, I was interested but a little unprepared for the rest of the volume which I found infinitely more challenging.

This is not a book I would normally choose but once I started to read it I found I was completely absorbed by the monologues and particularly enjoyed 'The Doctor' and 'Cato and Leendert'. The book was thought provoking with the aforementioned stories being the most so. Ann Enquist describes beautifully the settings and the dilemmas in which the characters find themselves. Evocative reading. ( )

One of the joys of the Early Reviewers program is being pointed in the direction of new authors who you may or may not like. Although a slim volume Anna Enquist has been able to paint a clear, vivid picture of the lives, loves and losses of each of these individuals.

The book left me feeling deflated and sad and so although I'm glad I read this I didn't feel I enjoyed. ( )

a Leap consists of five short stories or monologues from the Swedish writer Anna Enquist. I found the majority of the stories enjoyable and well-written, especially the last in the book along with 'The Doctor' Overall, it's well written but I think maybe something that I'm unable to put my finger on is somehow lost in the book's translation. ( )

A Leap is a collection of six dramatic monologues according to the cover, but it really only consists of five, as two of them intertwine, demanding to be read in alternating parts. Enquist is Dutch (the monologues were translated by Jeannette K. Ringold), and all of the monologues take place in Europe, though not necessarily the Netherlands. Two of them occur during World War II, two in the early 20th century, and one in the present. All of them, however, feature, as the title might imply, characters about to step forward into the unknown, characters setting off on a journey.

Sometimes this journey is literal, as in the case of "Mendel Bronstein". A Dutch tailor sets out for America in 1912 and goes crazy. Why? Who knows. The monologue is short and undeveloped; Michael seems to descend into insanity almost instantaneously; he is obviously a little off from the beginning, but his descent is so sharp and sudden as to be uninvolving. One moment, he is pretty much fine, the next he is piercing his own eardrums. (Ouch!) There's nothing for the reader (or, I suppose, the listener) to grab onto here.

A more involving journey is depicted in the intertwined monologues, "Cato and Leendert". These are two young lovers caught in Rotterdam during the Nazi occupation of the city. Cato does not leave with her family so that she can meet up with her lover Leendert (perhaps not her brightest move), but Leendert never comes to her; he's forgotten her. He works at the city zoo and feels compelled to stay with the animals there as they await the German advance. The animals need to be killed, as it would be better for them to be shot than for them to suffer as the city burned down around them. Leendert is a coward, though: he won't fight, and he won't kill his lion when the time comes, either, preferring to set him free. Only then does he finally set out looking for Leendert, who has fallen into the grip of the terror that has consumed the city. The two lovers struggle their way through the city, trying to find one another, but only finding horror instead. They see each other in the end... but not quite. This one works very well, darkly affecting as it is, and though the two parallel stories don't have much in common in terms of plot, they both show two people struggling to come to terms with death, a coming to terms they try to find in each other, or rather their idealized versions of each other, for it never feels like Cato actually knows what Leendert is really like and vice versa. It's images of each other they seek solace in and where they ultimately find it as well, but it is a false solace.

Less literal journeys occupy the rest of the collection. "The Doctor" was probably my favorite in the book, a short, simple story about a black Dutch doctor in a hospital occupied by the Germans during World War II. He has to make a decision: does he save the life of a ruthless German colonel? It is no decision at all for him... but his choice haunts him as he goes forward. It would not have helped him to let the man die, but it did not help him to let the man live either. Perhaps ground that has been trod one too many times before, but it is covered simply and effectively.

I have mixed feelings about "Alma", which depicts the life of Gustav Mahler's wife. Alma is a budding composer who gives up her own music to be with the man she loves-- an idea I find ridiculous and abhorrent. Her journey is her married life with Gustav; her narrative is her struggle with whether or not it was the right thing for her to do; she seems to regret it, but she does really love him and want to stand by him. Alma is very well sketched in this monologue, the longest of those in the books. I may disagree with every choice she makes, but I understand them all. This monologue is (appropriately) the only one to incorporate music; it also has a level of specificity about the staging that the others do not. I don't know that I like Alma as a person, but I like her story, and this is the one I would most wish to see performed.

Last both in the book and in this review is "...And I am Sara". Sara is a modern young woman who graduates from college and finds out that the world is not quite what she expected. Her office job is tedious, yet she is almost too afraid to do anything else. The story of a disaffected college graduate is ground a little too well trod for Enquist to do anything too interesting with it. Especially disappointing is the ending: many of the monologues in the book end this same way, but here it just feels gratuitous and cruel. Sara's story resonates, but she's just not interesting enough as a person to involve me the way the stories of Alma, the doctor, and Cato and Leendert did. It's good enough, but I feel like just from this book that Enquist could do better.

Almost all of the monologues in a Leap are strong, showing people embarking on interesting and life-changing journeys. I don't have much experience with the form myself, but I would think that what a good monologue should do is get inside someone's head fully and completely, and with the sole exception of "Mendel Bronstein," this book definitely succeeds in that regard. I'd like to see almost any of these performed, to be honest.