Pop Culture Consolations

Abstract

Pop Culture Consolations Jane Rosenberg LaForge (bio) Anhedonia Patrick Chapman BlazeVOX Books www.blazevox.org/index.php/Shop/fiction/anhedonia-by-patrick-chapman-526/ 190 Pages; Print, $18.00 Any aficionado of 1970's pop culture knows what "anhedonia" is: it's the title Woody Allen originally wanted for his Oscar-winning 1977 movie Annie Hall. Luckily for the rest of us, the studio bigwigs said no to the use of a psychiatric term to market a funny, if not sad, love story. Most often used to describe a symptom of clinical depression, "anhedonia" denotes the inability to experience joy or pleasure, especially from activities that were once diverting or entertaining. While it might not have been the most appropriate title summing up the romance between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton—or their alter egos—it's more adept for the novella "Anhedonia," in Patrick Chapman's new collection of stories under the same name. It's worth noting that Chapman's Allen-esque references seem to hail from the writer/director's Golden Age, and do not address the morally compromised Allen now in the public eye. What this means for Chapman's work isn't necessarily clear; Chapman's people are, like Allen's characters, selectively self-aware or prone to torture themselves to the point of self-destruction. Women in particular are doomed to grind down all hope of contentment in their present through the sheer force of their miserable pasts. That his men suffer from a similar frustration is a given, and through the bon mots of popular movies and television programs, it's also possible to glean the source of their disregard. Tony Bright is to Allen's Alvy Singer as Dora Potts is to Keaton's Annie Hall in the novella. And the author's use of Allen's preferred appellation to frame Tony and Dora's story is more than homage. The characters watch Annie Hall as their relationship begins to ripen. Everything that ripens also must rot, and so do Tony and Dora as a couple. The reasons seem simple: she wants to settle down; he doesn't. But he can't put his convictions into words that Dora, or anyone else, might understand. If there is any explanation, it's that some people found redemption in their kids but all he could see were the desiccated eyes, the premature baldness, the middleaged spreads. These used-up specimens were the human equivalent of flowers that lose their lustre once they've released their pollen. Tony wants to avoid aging by placing himself above, or outside, the evolutionary imperative. His complaint is not with Dora, or the conventions of coupling, but with the world, fate, and human nature, as it conspires to rid him of his hair and his identifiable waistline. When Dora inadvertently takes the next step in their relationship, it's easy to imagine just how Tony will react. Mourning the love of a woman he once thought unattainable, Tony will later scold himself for sounding like a different Allen alter-ego in another film inspired by Allen and Keaton's history of collaboration and coming apart, Manhattan (1979). At the abortion clinic, where Tony has escorted Dora along the path of least resistance, the counselors and nurses don't understand why Tony is there, how he is necessary to the story: "Tony wished things were different. … Now there was nothing that could be done but accept whatever Dora decided. He had no autonomy here." So Tony does what he is told, a solution Chapman's other male protagonists quickly resort to when finding themselves in similar situations. Doing what he's told is what Jamie does despite his misgivings over a disabled man standing with him at the urinal, in "Eel." Another man daydreams about doing what he's told once he receives a letter from the government announcing his share of the peace dividend, in "The Rocket Curator." And it's what Jeffrey, a business consultant with a chest infection, opts for when the doctor tries to convince him to quit smoking, lose weight, and start exercising. Not that Jeffrey precisely heeds to his doctor's advice. Doing...