The Golden Pot: A Fairy Tale for Our Time by Dennis McCort
One of the most notable characteristics of our modern age is our preference for — perhaps even reliance on — bite-sized and easy to digest content. This focus on simple content has bled into nearly every facet of our culture, some areas more obviously than others. While Instagram, Tiktok, feeds and algorithms immediately come to mind, the reality is that even more traditional mediums such as books have been influenced.
All it takes is a trip to Barnes and Noble and a brief comparison of books published over the last decade or so to see how things have changed. Less series, shorter lengths, increased reliance on shock and controversy in lieu of complexity are all hallmarks of modern storytelling in 2022.
While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, readers looking for content a bit more thought-provoking and challenging might be finding it harder and harder to find stories that interest them. Thankfully, scholar and author Dennis McCort’s new novel The Golden Pot: A Fairy Tale for Our Time is poised to scratch that itch perfectly.
The book, a modernization of an old and celebrated German art fairy tale, is a humorous novel for all ages and tells the story of graduate student Anselm MacGregor, as he braves the perils of a spiritual journey from ignorance to enlightenment.
THOUGHT PROVOKING AND CHALLENGING
Set in the grey expanse of the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area (a locale one would hardly associate with fairy tales), young Anselm, A Ph.D candidate in English literature lives a simple life. Subsisting on naught more than peanut butter sandwiches and people watching for food and entertainment, the grad student is all too happy to take a part-time job transcribing manuscripts for a local archivist.
Little does he know, this seemingly simple part time job becomes the catalyst for Anselm’s ensuing psycho-spiritual awakening, which includes a perplexing relationship with Franz Kafka, a stint of being trapped in a glass bottle, and the competition between two beautiful women for his love.
One of McCort’s greatest strengths, and immediately noticeable from the very first page, is the strength of his prose. McCort’s writing is simultaneously poetic, direct and engaging. Whereas other authors may only be able to pick one or two while sacrificing the remainder, McCort effortlessly blends the three traits, making for a writing style that grabs you from the outset and challenges you throughout without breaking the immersion to do so.
A LITERARY GEM
One of my favorite passages is purred by Kafka as he teases Anselm early on in the novel:
“A death must take place. A total letting go. Not, of course, biological death, a death before death, which, precisely, because it is voluntary, is much harder to realize. This death had to happen to Robinson Crusoe before he could feel free to explore the island. He had to give up all hope of rescue, all hope of returning to his old life, in order to make room for the new.”
While this passage certainly embodies the thoughtfulness of the McCort’s prose, it also sets the tone for the narrative and hints at Anselm’s transformative arc. McCort’s storytelling ability is just as winning as his writing style, at times both grippingly serpentine and wonderfully surreal. At times I often found myself rereading passages to make sure I picked up on every nuance McCort nestled between the pages.
As I mentioned earlier, although the stories are just as entertaining, I’ve found the way modern books are telling them a tad lackluster. Provoking thought while retaining the classical engaging narrative, McCort has managed to compose a literary gem that readers of not just literature or magical realism should read, but society as a whole.
