Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Let's Call the Whole Things Off: Love Quarrels from Anton Chekhov to ZZ Packer (notice what the title cleverly does?) selected and compiled by Kasia Boddy, Ali Smith and Sarah Wood brings together some of the best short story writers on the topic of lovers' quarrels. Some of the writers I am very familiar with (Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf and Colette), others I had met but didn't know intimately or had been intending to seek out their work (Jhumpa Lahiri, Dorothy Parker and Natalia Ginzburg) and others I was completely unfamiliar with (ZZ Packer, Arnold Bennett and A.M. Homes). Some of the stories were in translation from Russian, Italian and Welsh, amongst others, and they were cleverly edited into sections -first quarrels, daily arguments, breaking up and the aftermath- and didn't quarrel but compromised and complemented each other.

The stand-out stories for me were "This Blessed House" by Jhumpa Lahiri, "He and I" by Natalia Ginzburg, "Lappin and Lapinova" by Virginia Woolf and "You Go When You Can No Longer Stay" by Jackie Kay; it was difficult to narrow it down in such a strong anthology but these four stories were particular powerful and evocative of the soul-destroying nature of quarrels or a relationship's demise. "This Blessed House" (taken from Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Interpreter of Maladies) is unique in that it takes a newly married couple -Twinkle and Sanjeev- who barely know one another as their marriage was arranged and examines their early days quarrels through which they grow to understand each other. Natalia Ginzburg is an Italian writer whose work I became aware of through the book group that Simon and Kim run; Ginzburg's A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg is a favourite book of one of our members, Armen, and now that I have had a taste of her writing I shall be seeking out more. Ginzburg has a unique style that I instantly admired from the opening lines:

He always feels hot, I always feel cold. In the summer when it really is hot he does nothing but complain about how hot he feels. He is irritated if he sees me put a jumper on in the evening.
He speaks several languages well; I do not speak any well. He manages - in his own way - to speak even the languages that he doesn't know.
He has an excellent sense of direction, I have none at all. After one day in a foreign city he can move about in it as thoughtlessly as a butterfly. I get lost in my own city; I have to ask directions so that I can get back home again.

One could argue that this is a description of opposites attracting or of couples growing estranged and no longer having anything left in common, they are so different.

Woolf's "Lappin and Lapinova" is brutal in its portrayal of a married couple once the honeymoon period is over. The sweet, affectionate way the newly married couple engage with one another is endearing; they liken one another to rabbits named Lappin and Lappinova, which they use as pet-names, and when this is lost, only a few years later, it was "the end of that marriage", a closing line that seems to be at odds with the nuanced writing of the story and yet I found it to be flippantly fitting.

"You Go When You Can No Longer Stay" very funny also brutally truthful. I know Jackie Kay's work from her beautiful novel, Trumpet, which I highly recommend; of the writer I know that she used to be in a relationship with Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. "You Go When You Can No Longer Stay" is about the demise of a long-term lesbian relationship which opens humorously "It is not so much that we are splitting up that is really worrying me, it is the fact that she keeps quoting Martin Amis"; Amis is used effectively for comic relief throughout.

Other highlights in the anthology were stories all by writers familiar to me; "The Gilded Six-Bits" by Zora Neale Hurston is a story in Ebonics that tells of a married couple's quarreling as foreplay until the wife's infidelity ceases their quarreling; "Pillow Talk" by the fabulous Alasdair Gray is short and bittersweet -a husband awakes to accuse his wife of leaving him and after she confesses that she wishes he could, he realises it was a dream; "Mr and Mrs Dove" and "A Letter" are written by two of my favourite short story writers -Katherine Mansfield and Colette- and, although not my favourites, each are perfected as always and evocative of playful quarreling; "Here We Are", written by the delightful Dorothy Parker, tells of the petty arguments and jealousies played out between a new couple on their wedding day.

I recommend this volume for its versatility in storytelling, its collection of highly-accomplished writers of the short-story form and its compelling subject matter of lovers' tiffs. This was one of the few short story anthologies that I have been able to read cover to cover without becoming frustrated by its contents.