Lisa Moore’un ödüllü romanı Timsah, Newfoundland’de süren uzak yaÅŸam üzerine biçimlenmiÅŸ öykülerden kurulmuÅŸ. Edebiyat tarihindeki çok merkezli anlatım yöntemi benimsenerek yazılmış bu romanda, yer yer Faulkner’in DöÅŸeÄŸimde Ölürken’inden yer yer de Alfred Döblin’in Berlin-Aleksander Meydanı’ından esintiler var. On yedi yaşındaki ekolojik-terör yanlısı Colleen, annesinin kanserden ölümünden sonra yaÅŸamını bir yola koymaya çalışan Frank, belgesel film yapımcısı ve Colleen’in teyzesi Madeleine ve annesi Beverly, eski film yıldızı Ä°sobel ve ona ÅŸiddet uygulayan Valentin arasında geliÅŸen hikâye bir yanda geleceÄŸe doÄŸru sarmallar halinde ilerlerken, diÄŸer yanda geçmiÅŸteki kimi olayların aydınlatılmasıyla giderek derinleÅŸtirilmiÅŸ. Hikâyeye karışan bütün kahramanların yaÅŸamlarındaki küçük ayrıntılar, romanın ilerlemesinde önemli bir yere sahip. Onların izole edilmiÅŸ, soÄŸuk ve çoÄŸu zaman çıkışsız hayallerinin kurbanları olduklarını gözlemliyoruz.Yazgının esiriHer birinin geçmiÅŸleriyle olan saplantılı iliÅŸkileri, birbirlerine verdikleri zarar ölçüsünde önem kazanıyor. Her yerde sınanan, bir biçimde aşılmaya çalışılan trajik bir yazgının esiri olmuÅŸlar sanki. Oysa taşıdıkları eÄŸilimler ve içlerindeki güç, engelleri aÅŸmak yerine, yenilerini yaratır. YaÅŸam karşıda bir yerlerde tüm ışıltısıyla Colleen, Frank ve Madeleine için parlamaktadır ancak aldatıcı bir hayalden, tatlı bir vaatten baÅŸka bir ÅŸey deÄŸildir. Sonra en küçük bir eylem, hayata geçirilmiÅŸ bir edim sınırların arkasını kolayca görünür kılar. Böylece geri dönüÅŸler, kabullenmeler ve insana özgü o büyük boyun eÄŸme gerçekleÅŸir. Colleen romanın başında etkisinden kurtulamadığı o timsah eÄŸitmeninin yanında, Beverly ölen kocasının onu bir türlü terketmeyen güçlü imgesi karşısında, Frank kanserden ölen annesi için yeterince çaba harcamadığı için ve Madeleine eski sevgisilisin tatlı hayalleri içinde bir umutsuzluÄŸa sürüklenirler. Valentin ise eski bir Rus denizcisi olarak bütün bu kötü gidiÅŸatın aslında tersten bakıldığında çözülmenin taÅŸ tetikleyicisidir.Hepsinin tutundukları dallar kırılmıştır, ama içlerindeki soÄŸukluk onları bir araya gelmekten alıkoyar. Asıl mesele burada baÅŸlar. Tümden bir yalnızlığın hüküm sürdüÄŸü topraklarda, hayal kırıklığına uÄŸramış bu insanlar avunmak için kendi yalnızlıklarına geri dönmek zorunda kalırlar. Orada ise acıların en büyüÄŸü zaten büyüyüp durmaktadır. Yalnızca kahramanlarına sunduÄŸu bu gerçekçi tavır nedeniyle deÄŸil, Kanada’nın soÄŸuk ve insansız topraklarında insanların içinde bulundukları zorlayıcı atmosferi okurun da duyması için elinden geleni yapar, Moore. Entelektüel bir birikimle, alıntılarla, okurlarına da adımladıkları sokaklarda benzer hikâyelerin yaÅŸandığını hissettirmeye çalışır. Bir alışveriÅŸ merkezinde ya da bir sinemada Collenn yanımızda oturmakta ya da Frank, sosisli arabasında bir köÅŸede yaptığı iÅŸi kusursuzlaÅŸtırırken gözlemlenebilir.Lisa Moore’un ayrımsadığı önemli bir gösterge daha var. Bu zamansız, neredeyse gündelik yaÅŸam gerçeÄŸine sıkışıp kalmış insanların hikâyelerini ustaca kurgulamayı baÅŸarmış. Küçük ayrıntılar, entelektüel müdahaleler ve kusursuz geçiÅŸlerle pekiÅŸtirilen Timsah, bütün duyarlılığıyla yaÅŸama bakışlarını doÄŸrultmuÅŸ bir kadının romanı. Gerçekten bu roman için bir kadının romanı demek yerinde olacak, çünkü hassasiyetlerimiz, modern çağın açmazları, aile iliÅŸkileri ve çok ciddiye aldığımız yaÅŸamımızın aynı zamanda parodisini yapmakta ustalaÅŸtığımız bir sahne olduÄŸunu kanıtlıyor bize. Åžeffat, yalın, iddiasız ve hepsinden önemlisi edebi manevralar yapmadan okuru usulca içine çekiyor: tıpkı bir nehir boyunca yürünen ve türlü manzaraları bize sunan küçük patikalara benziyor. Ama dikkat etmelidir insan: “kafasını timsahın aÄŸzına sokmadan önce her zaman suratındaki teri siler adam, çünkü eÄŸer bir damla ter bile timsahın diline deÄŸerse, içgüdüsel bir tetiklenmeye neden olur ve timsahın aÄŸzı anında kapanır.”
Since I cried and snuffled my way through February, I was really looking forward to reading Alligator, and perhaps I was expecting too much, especially since this book was Lisa Moore's first novel. I didn't find the multiple first person narratives and time jumping particularly confusing (which seems to be the chief complaint from other readers), in fact the time shifting in February and Open was a definite stylistic point in their favour, but here the complicated structure came off as masking more sizzle than steak.Even in this early work, Moore writes some lovely bits I enjoyed rereading, such as:The anticipation of the hurling mass of the next wave, which is cold and mounting triumphantly and about crotch high, is huge, and if this wave hits her she's getting all the way in. Like the world exhaling. A hammering home of the truth. A refusal to be a wave any longer. The wave accepts the absurdity of being a wave, but also recognises the beach for what it is: a reckoning. Who said it would go on forever? Nobody said.They said quite the opposite.There is no cold on earth as unequivocal as this wave that is higher than her head and about to smash itself against her skull. It is as cold as cold can be. Because how can matter be so blasted with sunlight, so sparkle-riven, and curve with such blood lust and be so soul numbing? A wave is the bone around the marrow of light. "A wave is the bone around the marrow of light." That took some figuring out, but I enjoyed rolling it on my tongue. I think what's nagging at me is the bleakness of everyone's situation in this book, that everyone will eventually be hit by the bone around the marrow of light, be attacked by the alligator that is lurking for each of us. And in the imagery, this notion felt a little heavy-handed. Did anyone not lose at least one parent at some point?Illustrative of this:She had come to think of life not as a progression of days full of minor dramas, some tragedies, small joys, and carefully won accomplishments, as she figures most people think of life -- but rather a stillness that would occasionally be interrupted by blasts of chaos. And more so:The water was deep and I screamed and I could feel weeds clinging to my jeans and he hauled the boat in and I tried to get onto the little island of mud he was on but the land kept giving way under me and he jumped onto the boat and I saw an alligator slide off the shore.I had not seen it before and then I saw it. I thought I saw it. A shape that sank almost below the surface, just the ridge of its back visible, gliding quickly toward me. It moved with the same slow-fastness that things in dreams move with, it dipped under the surface but the wake, a soft V in the water, plaiting itself behind some invisible thing coming my way.And then he had me in the boat. He reached over the side and hauled me up, which, how he lifted me I don't know. I lost a shoe and he was screaming how stupid I was how crazy and stupid and he stopped and he got me a blanket and he was crying with his face all screwed up with rage, tears rolling down his cheeks, and then he just stood over me patting the blanket and he stared for thirty seconds or so and I said his name and he didn't hear me and then he started shouting at me again. How stupid I was.I said but there weren't any alligators around. There weren't any around, I screamed back at him and I was crying too, and when I said that there weren't any alligators around, there was a whack against the side of the boat. Ah, so the teenage girl has been behaving recklessly because, due to her youth and protective upbringing, she didn't yet realise that the alligators are always lurking? It's a small complaint, no doubt compounded by my big expectations, and I will gladly read anything Lisa Moore comes up with next.
What do You think about Alligator (2006)?
The nice thing about unravelling a Sudoku is: in the end it either fits or it doesn't; if a mistake has been made, whether by a careless realignment or a lapse in logic, it's clear that I've got it wrong. When trying to put together the shards of Lisa Moore's Alligator the solution does not appear upside down after the acknowledgements. I may have it wrong. Embarrassingly so. But the writing so deliciously excites the imagination paragraph after paragraph that I feel like I can't be alone in wanting there to be some trail of breadcrumbs to a real story. Moore makes me green with envy with her razor sharp delineation of characters, her dance along the tightrope of emphasis or effect—precision or excess. Where does she come up with these backgrounds, these descriptions, these deafening understatements that end almost every scene? It can't be accidental, then, that only one of the many character vignettes is actually written in the first person: that of Colleen, the teenage rebel. It is Colleen that gives shape to her mother, her aunt, to a young hot dog vendor, his assailant, Frank's friends, an alligator farm proprietor, and others. And while, for a reason I cannot fathom, Colleen is not given the final (or even one of the final eight) voices in the book, she is, in the end, finally nudged back onto a hopeful path. She is neither eaten nor alienated nor dedicated to a life of crime and that, perhaps, is as much as anyone can wish for a teenager in the post-modern world.
—Brian
I wanted to like it, I really wanted to like it but I just didn't find any of the characters likeable. I think each chapter is very well written, and I think as a series of short stories it could be a decent collection but as a novel I found the lack of continuity between chapters jarring. The subject of each chapter shifts between characters, and because I really didn't like any of them, I found it difficult to keep track of what was happening to whom. I also felt let down by the lack of resolution at the end... The quality of the writing is technically very good but I found it impossible to be engaged in the stories.
—Geoff Seymour
This book is full of beautiful prose and characters that are full of vibrancy. I loved the style; the way it bounced back and forth through memories and moments the way your mind runs off on a tangent when you are thinking of something. I might have preferred the book to have 1 or 2 less characters and more of a focus on the people who are in it from the beginning but it seemed that the more I read about some of them, the less I knew about their characters. People became defined by sets of actions, and like narrative of the film that the character Madeleine is making, they all seem to become caricatures of a certain aesthetic instead of real people. It is the tiny moments in their lives described with precision and simile that really stand out in this book; a hand on someone's arm, the way a sales girl can sometimes make you desire something you don't like and don't need. These things are its strongest moments and make it a definite worthwhile read.
—Jesse
