Elizabeth Baines – Used To Be
Posted 4th November 2015
Category: Reviews Genres: 2010s, Paranormal, Psychological, Short Story Collections, Social
1 Comment
You may be ‘seeing things’ but that’s not always a bad thing.
Publisher: Salt
Pages: 121
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-784-63036-2
First Published: 15th September 2015
Date Reviewed: 3rd November 2015
Rating: 4.5/5
Used To Be is an anthology of short stories Baines has had published over the years. The general theme is choices – the impact of important decisions and the maybes that abound in what ifs.
Baines has a distinctive way of writing. The writing itself is mostly literary; the author has no qualms over colloquial language. It’s a nice mash-up of tradition and the present day, making the book very accessible. Various tenses and persons are involved; it’s a stylistically diverse experience. The stories themselves are subtle in their meaning. These are average, everyday situations, tales that anyone can draw comparisons to in their own lives. On the surface nothing is remarkable – it could be said that the collection is just okay and nothing more. But this is key to the point – the stories are often about things that we might like to discuss further but worry about mentioning because we’re taught it should be no big deal or we think it’s nothing or we think we worry too much about it – and Baines shows how we should be thinking twice in these situations, questioning this concept of keeping the seemingly silly hidden away.
This is the case, to some extent, in Falling, in which a woman falls and hurts herself, quite badly, and once healed goes about her life in much the same way but with a different mindset. When she falls again she questions whether she should have changed her mindset, whether she was wrong. The underlying issue is never questioned. Only, then, is it really happening or is she dreaming? And/or is the person who asks her if she’s alright also dreaming? – how, exactly is the woman falling, in which way is she ‘falling’?
One of the stand-outs is Possibility in which Baines looks at choices not from one person’s perspective but from three. It’s people who are the ‘choices’ here. A lecturer, a businessman, and a newly-arrived immigrant travel on a train chosen for a suicide. You see three reactions to the incident, the different effects a cause can have, and whilst you may ‘prefer’ one to another, reading between the lines shows the validity, if you will, of each reaction. It shows the continuing effects.
Other stand-outs include the titular story, in which a woman listens to her friend’s continual tale of how happy she is whilst the reader sees something else and That Turbulent Stillness wherein a girl gives up her middle-class life to live with a factory worker, seeing her future through rose-tinted, passion-tinted, glasses.
Sometimes the stories can feel repetitive – this is where it’s worth remembering they were written separately for various outlets. There are a couple of occasions you could speculate a more pressing relationship between the stories than the overarching theme, for example the two stories that look at the Brontë sisters.
Inevitably, as a book about choices and what ifs, you’ll end up questioning your own life. Baines doesn’t offer answers so much as a study, making you realise how important even trivial-looking decisions can be. (And in study comes ambiguity and hints rather than detailed endings.)
Used To Be shows the ordinary for what it is. It reminds you that everyone is in the same boat if not on the same deck, and it’s written with a meticulous eye to detail. It’ll blow you away when you least expect it.
I received this book for review from the author.
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November 5, 2015, 6:26 pm
I like stories about the everyday! I’ve also enjoyed every Salt book I’ve read, so sounds as if this could be for me…