Review: Consuming a world of words
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 27, 2013
In a mere 19 pages, Nancy Christie paints an amazingly vivid portrait. A complete world.A woman of indeterminate age, Alice is trapped in the walls of her mother's house. She has surrendered her life. Nothing exists but tending her bedridden shrew of a mother. Bereft of a life outside, she escapes by reading -- consuming books. Literally.Alice is beyond despair. She has lost touch with her own soul. Her life is empty and ugly. No joy, hope or companionship. Alice dreams and reads of faraway places. Dreaming has morphed into literally eating the pages she reads, as if by consuming words, they will overpower her misery and replace reality.Nancy Christie is a painter with words, creating remarkable images. She writes tightly, nothing wasted. Rarely have I read anything as evocative. So much in conveyed in so few words. Too soon over. I avoided short stories for years because they left me feeling unsatisfied, but Alice In Wonderland is a most satisfying morsel, a world in a few heartbeats.The only thing that could have improved this story would have been another story.