'The Blink That Killed The Eye'. It is an interesting title, one which draws the reader in with very little effort. A blink is a momentary lapse in our eyesight as the eye closes to rehydrate the eyeball after it has been open too long, or to shield from glare, dust, and wind. Maybe the inference is that his stories will highlight the things we miss in the blink of an eye when we are concentrating too hard on the obvious. Maybe the blink is a metaphor for us protecting ourselves from the shit flying at us as we speed through life, causing us to miss vital points that might have helped us find peace or understanding (or to avoid the shit better!). Maybe it is a broader warning to society; telling us that blinking to avoid the questions and challenges that we don't like is killing us socially. All of these are valid interpretations, and I could extract more, but to try and determine the author's meaning we must read more than the title.
Anthony begins with a man's description of his father under the chapter heading 'Bad Company'. It is written in the past tense while he describes his father, soon shifting to describe events in an imagined present; the subject is re-living experiences in his mind. The description of the father comes from a place of respect and admiration but does not immortalise the patriarch like a child might be expected to. It is written from a perspective making attempt to understand rather than pass judgement, invariably a trait attained through maturity. It hints at imperfections in the man, but attempts, successfully I believe, to place them in the wider context of his person, and they cease to be imperfections and are accepted as simply part of 'who he is'. The father is used to set the scene for the son, who is enduring physical hardships working for his uncle in the present. The story jumps between poetic descriptions of his physical struggle to successfully perform the tasks assigned to him by his uncle, his undirected, as-yet untapped interest in poetry, and the aggressive relationship with his girlfriend, who has her own undisclosed issues and is very violent in her confrontation with him. I cannot help but feel that this chapter represents the author's struggles to achieve his dreams of writing 'professionally', the physical work on his uncles roof being metaphor for the social demand for 'work', and 'paying your way', while the girlfriend plays the part of every misunderstanding skeptic and critic, not of his work, but of his personal philosophies and ambitions: 'Bad Company'. Something his father says at the beginning of the chapter echoes in my mind: "Know your worth Alex."
In the next story Anthony goes on to describe an extremely abusive marital relationship, and the psychological effect on the victim from her own perspective, drawing her torment around the reader. I feel myself wishing that every abusive husband would read this, and feel the weight of the vile abuse the subject receives. It horrifies and upsets me to read it, but I am not enduring the horrible reality of this abuse, so I count myself lucky. Anthony follows this with a story centred around security guards in a office block. They refuse to allow a woman in as she has forgotten her ID, and by the end it becomes clear that we know this woman. It links the first two stories together sweetly and subtly, and I feel water in my eyes as I come to the end of the chapter, where we start a new page joining a bunch of men in the security department of an office building. There is a minor incident with one of the workers, and this story follows the interaction between the others as they try to decide what to do. At first I am confused as to the part this story plays. It is the shortest in the book. It then hits me. I don't spot it at first because I am so used to it. The men are horrible to each other. They are aggressive, rude and abusive to each other, in the casual manner that is commonplace in many male dominated working class industries: 'banter'. It doesn't take me long to hypothesise that we have encountered one of these men in the book already, echoing his daily experiences in the most unconstructive way to his partner. The author isn't excusing anything. He isn't justifying anything. This is an examination; a study. This is an attempt to understand human beings in their overt and covert suffering. To understand why people do the things they do. No judgement.
We are taken to a prison where a man has begun serving time for murdering his wife. We are informed of his being a victim of rape and other physical abuse as a child. The author does not make excuse for him on account of this, it is simple fact: this man, this murderer, this monster, this human being was once a child with a clean slate that was dirtied by the inherent corruption in the world. No father ever told him to 'know his worth'. His perception of worth was dictated by his abusers, left to deduce his place in this world off the back of the contempt shown for his existence. No justification, just facts. Here they are. Don't flinch.
Young love. Anthony takes us into the setting of a single solitary mother living with her daughter, the mother having few friends and relying on alcohol to numb her loneliness, the daughter growing up in an environment where the dominant male role model in her life is a plastic cowboy figurine planted amidst her doll collection. We are quickly spirited across a decade or so to the point the daughter has her first boyfriend, a man who reminds her of her cowboy figurine. This precipitates a violent confrontation between mother and daughter. I imagine the mother filled with the fear that her daughter is going to leave her, for a man who in her mind will undoubtedly leave her like she was left, while simultaneously robbing her of her only child and source of companionship. He would hurt her like she was hurt. The author however, alludes to jealousy as the source of her anger and aggression. I think loneliness and depression are the root cause of that jealousy. Under the influence of these negative emotions, coupled with the angry confusion brought on by the alcohol she consumes, the mother succumbs to her misery and assaults her daughter after being told that she is moving out to be with 'Alex', which, I remember, was the name of the young aspiring poet from the beginning of the book, but this Alex does not sound like the aspiring poet from earlier. We follow this story with one of separation, and Alex's sorrowful reminiscence connects us back to the young man in 'Bad Company'. We explore a young man's first encounter with love's rejection. His attempts to rationalise his feelings of sadness and loss. His reminiscence of times passed. Most of us can relate.
'The Blink That Killed The Eye': The final story briefly explores Alex's emotional recovery, his attempts at writing, then taking us into a world of physically and mentally disabled persons as he tries his hand as a carer. He meets people who have 'acquired brain injury', leaving them incapable of taking care of themselves or living 'normal' lives. The blink is our inability or refusal to see past the surface of these poor souls' lives, past the often barely intelligible speech to scratch the surface of the person that once shone from within, the person now trapped within; the happy child, the doting parent, the motivated worker; within the broken body we are presented with, within the fragmented speech and simple conceptualisation are the memories of a human being; memories of being considered a human being. The blink is the means by which we maintain a position of judgement. The blink is the mechanism of wilful ignorance with which we dismiss that which we are too damn lazy to consider: that behind every short story is a wider biography, experienced in the singular realm of the person, waiting eagerly in a lonely corner of the library for a willing reader. This book is not an easy read though. It requires patience and consideration. Empathy. Open eyes and open ears. Open heart and open mind. Realities that are too broad for newspaper headlines, too elaborate for teleprompters, yet elusive enough to be missed in the blink of an eye. Anthony is asking us, encouraging us, pleading with us, for our own sake, to consider, reflect, contemplate what makes a person who they are, the ugly and the beautiful, the good and the evil. Each thing has it's origin. Is the seed evil? Or the rain? Or the farmer? Or the very ground itself? We all too often accept the most basic explanations of the world, of society, of people, but the individual realities are infinite in their number and complexity. We hide behind our ignorant, externally imposed preconceptions of people, society, life. At those moments when we catch a glimpse of something truly real, really true, we panic, flinch, turn away, blink. We hide from that which might cause us to change the hard coded beliefs that come with 'maturity'. Anthony wants us to stop this cycle of stagnation, to face that which terrifies is most - that which we do not understand. This extends further than human interaction. It extends to encompass the entire sphere of human experience - when you are confronted with that which makes you uncomfortable, that which challenges you, that which you are most afraid of, face it! Stare it down without flinching and observe without the fog of pre-conceived thoughts. Try to learn that which you did not already know. In the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti:
"The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning."
The blink hides that lesson that we don't like, that we find difficult, but this is not mathematics, science or language, this is humanity. Every person has the ability and capacity to learn and improve their understanding, if we keep our eyes open long enough.
