It was hard to tell now what was happening inside the car and out. This story, like the others, fundamentally resides in relationships, but the dynamics combined with the sensory elements cinched the loop around my heart and squeezed. Here, that ‘k’ appears, with an audible and irrepressible smack. One of my favourite stories, and one which I haven’t seen discussed often, is “Ewwrrrkk”. In “Randy Travis”, for instance: “I knew my mother was no stranger to hoping it’s how we all ended up here in this country in the first place.” Sometimes a story which appears to be preoccupied by sorrow, is rooted in aspiration. And even though many of the stories contain a tragic or difficult plot element, they run the gamut of emotion.
But even though there is an undercurrent of complexity to these stories, the language is spare and direct. Several of the characters in How to Pronounce Knife are preoccupied by code-breaking and code-switching. In “Paris”, readers have a glimpse of employment in an abattoir, a place like a silent ‘k’, the kind of place most people do not want to acknowledge, the kind of characters most people do not want to acknowledge, because greed and privilege depend on an underclass. What kind of gentleness could a man who did that for a living be capable of?” She shuddered at the thought of doing anything with Somboun. He saw the chickens when they were still alive. “He was the one who slit the necks in the other room before they got to Red. Others are preoccupied with their own struggles and insecurities:
Some of Souvankham Thammavongsa’s characters are very adept at inhabiting other people’s perspectives, so much so that it becomes second-nature. In the title story of this collection, for instance, a character observes “a tiny painting with a brown bend at the centre: “That brown bend was supposed to be a bridge, and the blots of red and orange brushed in around it were supposed to be trees.” Insisting on the validity of one’s own unique vision: that can be exhausting. In some relationships, we find ourselves responsible for devoting so much of our time to understanding more about how other people view the world, that we forget how to see for ourselves. Frequently we forget, too, that one person’s way of seeing, however familiar, rehearsed even, is not necessarily anything like another’s. Often when we examine the quotidian, we fall into a habit of seeing. The stories occupy the space that that ‘k’ holds, an unexpected element amidst the rote. Readers of How to Pronounce Knife will not find solutions to age-old problems or innovation readers will find clarity and acuity, and a keen attention to everyday details. If you are considering whether or not to read Souvankham Thammavongsa’s collection of stories, you probably already know how to do it, how to pronounce the word ‘knife’.
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