Monday, October 31, 2011

Short Story 4 Workshop

“Server/Actor”

John had just moved into a new apartment in downtown LA. As a stand up comedian, he had been getting noticed as of late and all that attention had allowed for a bit of a lifestyle upgrade. His balcony on the fourteenth floor of the high rise had an amazing view. You could see the entire Sunset Strip and, in the distance, you could see the rolling Hollywood Hills. The building was designed so that another wall of balconies ran parallel to his, but not in a way that detracted from the view. John enjoyed spending time on the balcony.

In the late afternoon, the hot winds rustled through John’s partially unbuttoned shirt and the breeze carried with it the grime of the city and the faintest tinge of saltwater. The sun was setting fast, but John still wore his sunglasses. He liked that they allowed for him to watch without being seen, or at least, that they gave the feeling of such. Enjoying himself while he sipped his beer, John remembered what someone had once mentioned to him about the Santa Ana’s, how the hot dry winds drove people off of the edge, and how it’s a proven fact that the crime rates soar when they occur. He laughed to himself and thought about how ridiculously sensitive some people could be. It sounded like superstitious bullshit to him and like most things that didn’t make sense to him, he quickly forgot about it. He enjoyed the warm breeze against his skin and felt lucky, basking in his good fortune. Everything good was going for him. His success as a writer on a popular TV show had gotten him hired as a writer for an upcoming awards show. An iconic actor who was hosting would be reading his words off a teleprompter. There were also talks with HBO producers and his own comedy special was in the works. He finished off the last of his beer and cracked open another as he let it all soak in. As a newly initiated Hollywood hotshot, he was on top of the world.

His gaze had been resting on the hazy hills but a sudden gust of warm dry heat from that direction brought him out of his daydreams and his vision, now slightly more in focus, was directed to what was no more than thirty feet in front of him. Up and down, left and right, his eyes slowly scaled the huge pattern of rectangles and lines in front of him. Like a small town investigator with nothing to investigate, John casually inspected each of the glass and concrete enclosures looking for nothing in particular. Rows and rows of empty rectangular boxes massaged his eyeballs with their pleasant consistency. It seemed that no one was home to enjoy a leisure afternoon on their balcony but him.

After a few more moments spent in vacant meditation, John noticed a man seated on the balcony almost directly facing him. How long had he been there? He wondered if the man has been watching him, but realized that he seemed to be in his own kind of personal trance. John raised his arm and gave a stiff salute kind of a wave, holding it there for a second before letting his hand drop back down to his side.

The tanned figure mirrored John as if in slow motion. He was a good looking guy with the kind of looks you’d expect in a soap opera star, with longish light brown hair, a square jaw, and a tall lean build. From what John could see he was relatively young, probably in his mid to late twenties. John laughed to himself as he looked down at the beer he had resting on his potbelly.

The next day in the elevator, John met his neighbor, whose name was Tim. He welcomed John to the building and told him he was an actor. John believed it because he was dressed as a waiter. Over the next several weeks, John would bump into Tim on occasion and they would make small talk. Usually, it was after getting home after a night out somewhere that John would run into Tim in the lobby, who was usually coming off work or looking worn out in some sweats.

For the most part he thought nothing of it, but from time to time he felt for the guy. Over the course of their conversations, John had learned that Tim had been in LA for a little over two years and hadn’t managed to land a single acting job. He had been working at one of the trendy and overpriced restaurants frequented by the Hollywood elite and others who could afford it, serving expensive French dishes while scrounging up doggy bags at the end of his shifts. John, who knew what it was like to be hard up, made it a point to try and get at least a chuckle out of him whenever he saw the opportunity and he’d invite him over sometimes when he had guests, although Tim never took him up on it. John never sensed that Tim felt any animosity toward him. He knew the guy was going through a low point and probably didn’t feel it was in his best emotional interest to surround himself with a bunch of people who had made it even though John knew that if he was in Tim’s boat he’d most likely be trying to meet as many made people as possible. Either way, the two were on friendly terms and John didn’t really pay attention to Tim and his woes.

One late night, after arriving back from the awards show John and his date stepped out onto his balcony to share one of John’s cigars. John was surprised to see Tim sitting outside, as if frozen. It was as if he hadn’t moved since John had last seen him there hours earlier.

For whatever reason, Tim didn’t seem to notice when John waved and John forgot about the pitiful sight. He took a puff of his cigar and turned back toward the beautiful brunette in front of him. If John felt any sort of guilt he wasn’t acknowledging it. He had worked hard and got lucky and it wasn’t his problem if Tim hadn’t. There was no danger of Tim bringing John down from the high life.

Early the next morning, John left town for some gigs outside the state. He was gone for a few weeks. When he got back from his trip, tired but invigorated from the travelling, he entered the lobby and immediately sensed that something was off. The place was completely deserted. There was a strange vibe and he wondered if the building had been evacuated. Still carrying his bags, John walked out to the pool deck where he was relieved to find Sean, the head of security.

“Sean, is everybody on vacation or something? It’s like a ghost town in here.”

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?” He guessed Sean hadn’t missed him while he was gone.

“Your neighbor Tim? He killed himself.”

“You’re messing with me,” John replied. Something didn’t add up.

“He jumped. He jumped off his balcony. ”

John imagined Tim’s mangled corpse floating in the pool below him. It didn’t seem real. At the same time, he was glad that he had been gone when it happened. When he got inside his apartment, he wasn’t in the mood for a beer on the balcony.

In bed a few nights later, John was awakened by what sounded like a person howling. He would have brushed it off except it wouldn’t stop. He wondered if he had forgot to close door to the balcony, but realized that was impossible. He hadn’t set foot out there since he heard about Tim. What used to be his favorite place was now quarantined. He didn’t know what else to do besides ignore the strange noises and even after they ceased, John spent hours with one eye open trying to get back to sleep.

Suddenly he was awake again. A loud bang had him sitting straight up. He was terrified but tried to remind himself that there were hundreds of people in the building who could have made the noise. Again, there was a bang, and then again and again. It was coming from his apartment: from the living room. He hid under the covers, not knowing what to do. His cell phone was out there so he couldn’t call anyone.

After what seemed like hours spent in terror, John had reached a level beyond horrified and walked out into the living room. The gigantic wooden picture frame that was hanging from the wall was making the noise, as if being lifted and dropped back against the wall. Half amazed and out of his mind with fear, John thought he was dreaming. It was Tim, but why? He stepped out onto the balcony and started talking to the presence, not being able to think of another way to end the nightmare.

“I’m sorry about what you had to go through. I will make it a point to remember you.” He continued on like this and eventually he felt the presence fade. John knew that Tim was trying to let him know how lucky he was, and not to take it for granted.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Reading Response to "Powder"

I really enjoyed reading the short story “Powder” by Tobias Wolff. I found it to be a prime example of scene and summary, show and tell. The story begins with a brief summary about the fight that the narrator’s father has with the mother to take their son on a ski trip just before Christmas. The summary is brief, but informative. Through it we learn that there are marital troubles between the parents, and that the father is somewhat unreliable and not a very parental figure. There is another summary about getting in one last run before their departure from the ski lodge, and how the father is indifferent to the time, the snow, and his son’s fears. The scene begins with their departure from the lodge in the middle of the storm. We hear the father speak to his son, cajoling him with a pet phrase “right doctor.” We also hear the father trying to persuade the state trooper into letting him through the blocked roach. There is another quick dialogue in the diner, when the father seeks permission from the son for the reckless act he is about to undertake. Then there is the act itself, that of breaking the barricade and virgin snow. Through the dialogue and the action, we experience the father as a pleading, persuasive, dishonorable, yet confident individual. And, in the end some of the father’s influence rubs off on his worrisome son, who finally surrenders his fretting, and just enjoys the ride and this memorable experience with his father before his parents make their final split. What a roller coaster of emotions this story takes us on, with this artful combination of showing and telling.

Reading Repsonse - Flannery O'Connor

This is not the first time that I have read this story, but every time I read it I like it more and more. The story identifies the whole idea between good and bad, that's pretty obvious from the constant dialogue in the story that refers constantly to the idea of what is a good man. I decided to use it as an inspiration to write my own story for the workshop. (I like the idea of using other's examples as inspiration jeje).

I find it funny how when the Misfit encounters the grandmother she claims him to be a good man, but only for the sake of saving herself, and in that he disapproves and kills her anyway. Then I come to think who is actually good in the story? The grandmother's personality in my opinion isn't a "good" person for the sake of having basically caused the whole situation. There's also a lot of religious context inside the story and a lot of symbolism based on the idea of being saved by a higher power.

This story makes me think about human nature and whether being good or bad is a truth based upon the ideas that society influences the basis of moral on us. I've thought about this before and always end up losing myself, but in this story there is some kind of clarity regarding the subject because what we may believe to be good, based on status or position, may actually turn out to be just as bad as what we know to be bad, for example killing others or letting go of what you believe in order to save yourself, and only yourself, which is what the grandmother tried to do before the misfit killed her.

Reading Response - A Good Man Is Hard To Find

The author begins the story with a casual family weekend trip, haphazardly planned. A fair amount of foreshadowing portends a bad ending, which is shortly delivered (within a few pages) with the untimely demise of an entire family. The story is told almost entirely from the perspective of the grandmother, with her "settling herself in comfortably" and revealing things about her thoughts that we can't see from the other characters.

The character is an unreliable witness to events. She forgets things, and spends the majority of the trip reminiscing about the past, and not focused on the present. Every chance she gets, she talks to someone of the past. When she meets Red Sammy, she embarks on a conversation about the lack of trust in society and how it's the Europeans fault. Interestingly, she makes several generalizations of the poor black community as well. The dialog between grandmother and the Misfit outlines a lot about the selfish nature of her character. It's interesting that during the entire conversation, the grandmother didn't plead once for the survival of anyone else in her family. While her entire family is getting slaughtered, she is bargaining for her own life (or trying to bring the Misfit to god, but probably the former).

The Misfit was surprisingly real for as two-dimensional as he was. He was definitely the villain, and stayed the villain, but the author managed to give, through the relationship with the grandmother, a little hope that maybe he wasn't all bad (even while the rest of the family was being killed). This is something I will take away from the story - sometimes a relationship, even with someone as seemingly obtuse and selfish as the grandmother was, developed between the reader and a character can help to breath life into other characters as well.

Reading Response 9: The Unreliable Narrator in "The Story"

Out of all of the stories we had to read this week, I thought “The Story” by Amy Bloom was one of the more intriguing reads, specifically because of the quasi-unreliable narrator. We’ve had unreliable narrators before: the man in “Bigfoot Stole My Wife”, for instance, does not inspire much confidence. But readers go into that story expecting an unreliable narrator. Except for fantasy stories anyone who claims that their wife was abducted by Sasquatch is asking to be laughed at. But what is so chilling and so interesting about the narrator in “The Story” is that she is believable. Readers accept her version of events as true simply because they seem plausible. Until the section of the story in which she admits that the first part of her tale is a story she’s spun, readers have no reason to disbelieve anything she’s written. Oh, we knew she was a writer, but so are we, and so there is no reason to doubt that her memoir is as true as any story possibly can be.

And yet... what is the truth? Every story ever told, even the ones we tell ourselves are unreliable. Nothing, not even a police report is ever entirely accurate. Humans NEED stories, need to create some order out of the chaos of life; so we impose an internal narration. This is the reason that no two people have the same memory of an event. Everything is interpreted through that person’s individual experiences, memories, personality.

So is there such a thing as a reliable narrator? I don’t think so, and I don’t think Bloom does either. Even as her narrator delineates and defends her lies, she is still telling a story. Why should we believe this new story any more than her first take on the narrative? How do we know the things she described happened to this narrator at all? How can we believe anything she writes? And what’s more, why should we?

In the end, I suppose, one has to trust their narrator, at least far enough to get into the meat of the story. Whether or not we can give trust them beyond that point must be up to individual readers and their own internal narrations.

Reading response 9: The Story

Amy Bloom's The Story is a disturbing insight into the mind of a vengeful writer. The way she details this supposedly fictional account is surprisingly realistic and engrossingly cerebral. The protagonists distaste for the over-privileged, disloyal, and irresponsible mother Sandy fuels her directive to to absolve Miranda's and Sam's unfortunate living circumstances. She tricks the mother into getting farther and farther away from the family by encouraging her into making the wrong decisions and framing it in Sandy's best interest. The greatest example of this is when the main character consistently called Sandy's boyfriend, Joe, and fed him false info about what Sandy's doing. This led him to abusing Sandy and crashing his car into the back of the Goldust's house. The protagonist is unusually manipulative, given her usually submissive and self-subordinating background. This contrasting character development arose from how she described her courtship with her first husband, which basically boiled down to "he liked me so I liked him", how she described that relationship as emotionally vapid, and how she went from that to self-righteously plotting against someone else who really has never done her, personally, any wrong. However, the ending confused me. She recalled her grad school days and the death of someone she knew. I'm not sure what it was supposed to represent, but it was a gentle way to end a quietly tumultuous tale. Overall, The Story was a captivating read and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to start reading short stories.

Reading Response: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"

I have read some other works by Flannery O'Connor and know that many of her stories revolve around the issues of morality and ethics."A Good Man Is Hard to Find", in particular, deals heavily with morality and social behavior. In the beginning of the story, we are introduced to the grandmother who is absurdly obsessed with femininity, roots, and ethical superiority. She believes that she is morally superior to others, namely Bailey, whom she criticizes for taking the children to Florida despite the Misfit being at large. Throughout out the story, however, her appearance as a moral lady deteriorates as she lies to the children about the house, fails to tell the family that she was mistaken about its location, and ultimately acts selfishly when the Misfit and the other criminals begin killing the family off. She pretends to be pious, when in reality she has doubts about the divinity of Jesus, demonstrating her lack of integrity.
On the other hand, the Misfit has stronger moral convictions. He strongly doubts religion and believes that you should enjoy "the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him." While his belief-system deviates greatly from what is accepted, he is strong in his views unlike the grandmother. O'Connor seems to be saying that morals are subjective and that good and bad are meaningless terms.
At the end of the story, the grandmother finally comes to the realization that the Misfit is just another human being. "You're one of my children!" she says, right before the Misfit shoots her three times through the chest. The grandmother has acknowledged the fact that she is no more moral than the Misfit, but it is too late.

Reading Response: The Story


Amy Bloom’s story, The Story, really confused me. I think it might be an example of an unsuccessful story. Pages 275-278 were alright, but after that the story spiraled out of control. While reading the first few pages I thought the narrator’s life was quite sad. She described her husband as being cold and indifferent, though she praised him for sticking with her until he died. She also mentioned that their baby died. Then she went on to describe a rich family she helped with finances and babysitting. About mid way down page 278, she suddenly she started changing everyone's names and their stories. Sandra went from being a friendly, well-meaning mother to an irresponsible, abusive mother who was cheating on her husband. It was basically a series of lies. Once one lie finished the narrator would admit to lying and then replace the lie with another lie. I’m confused just writing about it. Bloom also had the narrator go on a tangent about Sandra’s boyfriend, Joe, who was just plopped in the story and had nothing to do with her life. I couldn't figure out the main character’s desire or the point of the story. She was completely unreliable. The Story I kept my attention only because I wanted to see if the ending would make sense of everything, but it didn’t. It was just rambling that became more tangled and misguided with every paragraph. The only part I liked about The Story was the narrator’s description of the stained glass windows her husband made and how they lit the house up in different colors. I thought the imagery was nice, and the idea of people flocking to their house to view the windows was interesting. Other then that I missed the value of the story, if there is any.

Reading Response-The Story

I found "The Story" to be a lot more interesting and easily comprehensible than the stories from the previous week. Right from the very beginning I was hooked and the story held my attention right to the very end. Bloom's characters seem very important to her because she takes the time to carefully create never missing any detail that makes the character his/her own. I find it refreshing, because unlike last week's characters, I can create a mental picture and form some kind of idea of what these people would be like if they were real. I have either seen or read plot lines with characters like Sandra, a neglecting mother who could care less about the effects of her action which eventually tear her family apart;she may be trying and mean well but even in her adult age she has a naive, childlike behavior. As a reader, I believe that a story is interesting if the characters are developed and have levels. Through the lives and personalities of a set a characters a really great story can be created, but if there is no depth or interesting quality to the person you are creating then how can they evolve along with the story.

Also, even though it was a bit distracting from the actual story, Bloom did her own character analysis which I found slightly helpful with my own writing. Some of her character had bits and pieces of personality traits taken from her friends and family. I never thought about using people that I know to write a story but if I think about it, I can create some very entertaining characters through people that I know in my life.

Week 9 Response

"A Good Man is Hard to Find"


Wow, what a short story! I must admit that when I was reading the story, I kept on wondering what is the point? I guess I'm one of the those readers who loses interest easily. However once I saw where the story was going I was hooked. I kind of figured that the clan would encounter Mr. Misfit on the journey because the grandma kept on mentioning him (she couldn't keep her mouth shut). However where does "a good man is hard to find" come into the picture? It is a true statement but it's also applicable to the granny too. She is not as good as she makes herself out to be. I felt bad for the granny at first because everyone ignored her and there was a lack of respect given to her as an elder. However, couldn't she have kept her mouth shut for 5 minutes and spared the lives of her family but NOT identifying Misfit? She deters the journey of the entire group just so she can do something that she wishes which is inconsiderate. I did do some research on the story because I felt like there was a greater meaning which has influenced my current feelings about granny. 


I feel like the beginning really started off slow. I was getting annoyed with the personalities of the children and the lack of personality from the mother. I think this was deliberate. Flannery definitely built upon the story little by little. I didn't see the meaning of the event between grandma and Red. However it gives reference to the title being that a good man is hard to find. I think this is applicable to not only men but women in general. Upon her attempt to avoid death, she brings Jesus into the picture but she is phony, not a "real" Christian. One of the last statements Misfit says is SO powerful where he means that if Granny had lived her life like she had a guy pointed to her face she would've been a better person. It really makes you think about your life. 

Response to "A Good Man is Hard to Find" & "The Story"

Flannery O'Connor is one of my favorite writers. I had read this more than once, but every time I do it never seems to lose its magic. The themes in the story are most definitely gothic, but they kind of creep up on you; we don't realize what this poor family is in for until after the accident because we only get the warnings of the convict from the grandmother, who isn't taken seriously by anyone.
The way O'Connor describes the way the family, still in a state of shock from the crash, notices the car in the distance above them slowly creeping up to the scene is one of my favorite parts because as a reader, you go from relief that the family is okay, to being just as curious as they are as to who is inside this car, and if they're going to help them or hurt them.
The family has no way out, and we as readers are at the mercy of the convicts just as they are. By the end, the family is dead and The Misfit gets to impart his bitter view of life to us. It's amazing how so much can be said in so few words.

Amy Blooms story was different; it really confused me and I was wondering what she was trying to do. The narrator was unreliable and I felt like she was tring to confuse me to make a point I didn't want to know (or a joke I didn't get). In the margins I wrote out "is this a joke?" as well as things like: "What is going on? I don't like it," "confusing," and "is this an example of a bad story? I hate it." So clearly I was missing something crucial to appreciating this one. Any ideas?

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Upcoming Readings! For your 3-2-1 responses

There are some upcoming, on-campus readings that would apply to your 3-2-1 responses. Remember, you must write FOUR 3-2-1 responses, and two of them must be about readings you've attended. You should have covered one reading with the Fall for the Book reading. 



Suzanne Berne, nonfiction writer and novelist
THIS THURSDAY, Oct. 27

Research Hall, Room 163
7:00pm reading



Matthea Harvey, poet
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Research Hall, Room 163
7:00pm reading



Carolyn Parkhurst, fiction writer
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Research Hall, Room 163
7:00pm reading

Reading for Friday, 10/28

Just one this week, in addition to the Burroway in the book.

Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Reading Response on Text and Subtext

I found Burroway’s section on choosing where to begin the story thought provoking. I think that I am guilty of always wanting to start at the beginning. Maybe I was trained to do so with all the fairy tales I read as a child which always started with “Once upon a time.” I also appreciated Burroway’s section on text and subtext. I think that I am guilty of being too literal, and this inhibits my writing. When I look at what I have written in the past, I realize that by concentrating on the surface of things, I missed opportunities to add depth to my writing. And maybe this is why I was surprised to find that I actually enjoyed the Hemingway excerpt. I think that in the past, I would have read the story for the text and missed the subtleties beneath the exchange between the girl and the man. For example, when the man tells Jig that the operation is a simple thing, her lack of a response reveals just as much as her words. On the surface it seems to be a simple conversation about some operation that the man is trying to persuade the girl to have. But, the subtext underneath the conversation (the unseen part of the iceberg) implies much more. Something has changed between the two and a simple operation won’t make things go back to the way things were. The girl smiles a lot in the story, but there is something wrong with her. There is also a loss of freedom of sorts that is alluded to in their conversation. This is a new dimension for me, that of the subtext and a little discomforting, because nothing is certain or empirical in this dimension. It is like interpreting dreams. They are never what they seem.

Week 8 Reading Response

As usual, I found Burroway's technical review of writing, in this case fiction, an excellent read. English teachers in primary and secondary education rarely do more than teach how to write essays, so the idea that a story and a plot are two separate concepts was foreign to me. I found a number of other little insights within the chapter useful. The first would be the idea of where to start the story; as a dedicated employer of [i]in medias res[/i], I've utilized backstory and flashbacks a number of times. However, I've never considered that the story may need to be located at another point in time if the action is occurring elsewhere. This also really brought the distinction between summary and scene to bear, as I've sometimes found my writing to ramble as I attempt to force my story into a scene, when that portion would likely do better in a summary.

As for the stories, I still find Hemingway to be a dull and unrewarding read, and Beattie's "Coping Stones" was disturbing, to say the least. I was much more taken by Hempel's "San Francisco", which managed in two pages to not only convey the death of her mother, but also the alienation and maladjustment of her older sister. It wasn't particularly subtle, but at the same time the speaker allows the scenes speak to the truth of his or her family, rather than explain the complexities and loss that they feel.

Reading Response: Hemingway

When I read Hills like White Elephants for the first time I was very confused. It remained difficult even as I reread. The first paragraph set up the scene very well. I had a clear picture in my head of the bar on the sunny hillside next to the tracks. However, there was very little detail about the American man and the girl even though their conversation dominated the story. It seemed like a lot of the story was meant to be inferred because their dialogue was incredibly vague and repetitive. What I was able to infer is that they were in a relationship, but they communicated poorly. Perhaps it was a new relationship or an adulterous one. At first, because she was described as a girl, I though it might've been a father and daughter. Based on both of their tones, though, and the worrisome operation being discussed, my opinion changed. Hemingway did mention that the man was acting strangely because he was worried. Maybe prior to this day they got along well and didn't argue or put each other down so much. I don't think I 'll ever find out based solely on the story though. I felt like I was dropped into the middle of a book and had no sense of plot. The best thing about the story was that even though it was odd it remained intriguing throughout. I read all the way to the end without stopping once. I wanted to find out where the plot was going. I wanted all to revealed at the end. That didn't happen, though. It was very anticlimactic. I guess Hemingway's intention was to make the reader think and analyze.

Reading Response 8: "Hills Like White Elephants"

In the short story “Hills like White Elephants” I found it to be a very challenging reading. When I read it the first time, I was completely lost. As I started reading it the second time it began to get clearer and clearer to me. It started off giving some background information on the scene in the first paragraph, and then went into the dialogue between the American man and his woman. They seem to have a lot of conflict stimulated between them because in the first couple of lines, they had already gotten into an argument over a comment she made about hills looking like white elephants. She explained to him how she was trying to amuse herself, but he had to get smart with her. His attitude and wanting to be right about everything seemed to be taking a toll on their relationship. He constantly asked her the same things over and over again which was very annoying to her as you could tell by her responses to him. She seemed to be dependent on him for things though especially when they were in the bar ordering drinks. He spoke the language and controlled what she had to drink when he ordered in Spanish. We really didn’t find out much about the woman because it was just said that she accompanied him on their travels. We don’t know her race, or where she’s from. All we know is that she’s a woman. That’s where the mystery is stimulated from. We don’t know much about her except that she’s with him. I liked the story I just wish there was more details about her, because she’s left as a mystery.

Reading Response - A Very Short Story

At first glance, the author discards most unnecessary summary and relies predominantly on scene to tell his story. He glues the scenes together successively, taking little slices of life over a number of years, to tell the tale of love, loss, and growing apart. The story seems to move quickly through the past (time in the hospital and introduction) through a present (the front - when He went off to fight the war) and the future (when he caught gonnorrhea in the loop department store. The way that the author arranged the pieces, they move like the bottom end of a pendulum through the expanse of the birth and death of a relationship.

The author seems to use a lot of subtext (as almost the entire story is an understatement). Never does either character say anything, so subtext is a necessary piece of the plot, without which, the story couldn't really successfully be told, I think. We get some insight into Her through the letters she sends, and one or two short phrases ("He felt sick about saying goodbye like that"), but not much else. We have to infer from the fact that he subsequently has sex in the back of a car with a salesgirl, how devastated he is at the loss of his love, and that he probably thought it was the love of a lifetime.

Reading Response 8: Burroway and Hemingway

     The difference between story and plot was nil to me prior to this reading, so I'm glad that I did. Coincidentally, this whole subject of Story writing neatly ties in with my Philosophy and Literature class, as we're currently reading Poetics along with Oedipus Rex and Antigone. The difference between story and plot is as such: story indicates the sequence of events that occur whereas plot explains the impact of the events along with the events themselves. For example, Arta went to the store and dropped a carton of swiss cheese on his pinky toe would be the story, whereas Arta went to the store because he was hungry and dropped a carton of swiss cheese on his pinky toe out of exhaustion would be a plot. A really delicious plot.

     Anyway, truth be told, that's all I managed to remember from Burroway, because I don't have the book with me right now. I read Hills Like White Elephants and I came to appreciate the subtlety of the piece. It was vague, but much of the dialogue was implicit, almost to the point where it resembled prose poetry. The whole thing was dialogue driven and lacking action, so it wasn't the most riveting read, but it was interesting nevertheless.

Errol Flynn is a better writer than Hemmingway: an old opinion revisited

Many years ago I tried to make it through some Hemmingway (the bullfighting one and the Spanish civil war one) and gave up. "Everyone thinks that this guy is some great writer," I said, "but I know better. It's so sparse that there's nothing there." Shortly after putting down Hemmingway's spanish civil war book I picked up something called "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" by golden age film star Errol Flynn and was blown away. This nonfiction piece was everything that I had wanted Hemmingway to be; it was engaging, funny, and unapologetically masculine. The contrast between the two books was particularly easy to make as Flynn had also fought in the Spanish civil war on the opposite side as Hemmingway. Where Hemmingway's prose was sparse and driven by dialogue Flynn's was lush and driven by action. I was convinced that I had discovered a forgotten literary masterpiece and still hold this book in very high regard.

So is Flynn really a better writer than Hemmingway? Well, Flynn is certainly underappreciated but Hemmingway is as beloved as he is for a reason. His use of dialogue is great if not masterful and his sparse writing acts as a sort of resonating chamber for what he does not express directly. The long strings of dialogue in "Hills Like White Elephants" are pregnant with what the characters are not saying to each other. Hemmingway communicates a lot without much happening, Errol Flynn has to have lots of stuff happen to tell his story. I would rather spend a weekend in 1930 hanging out with Flynn than with Hemmingway, but this does not speak to their respective styles. Through the development of his unique, economical writing style Hemmingway's work may be more rewarding and less accesible than Flynn and other writers whose styles are less distinctive.

Reading Response 8: Hemingway

At first, I wasn't able to discern the true meaning of the text and didn't really understand the use of "white elephants" throughout the story. All I gathered was that this was a story about an American man and his girlfriend perhaps vacationing in Spain, who were engaging in some sort of heated argument. To me, it appeared as though the man was very adamant and stern while the girl was far less persuasive. At first she says that the hills look like white elephants but later she changes her mind and says that maybe they don't really look like white elephants after all. She seems confused and uncertain, whereas the man is portrayed as assertive; he speaks Spanish and the girl relies on him for drinks. Having read Hemingway before, the whole alcohol theme didn't strike me as odd; many of Hemingway's stories include characters who spend a good portion of their lives drinking. Furthermore, the setting was also appropriate given Hemingway's fascination with the Spanish culture as seen in the Sun Also Rises.
The fact that nearly the entire story was composed of dialogue made it even harder to comprehend. Consequently, I had to refer to an outside source to grasp the story's underlying message. Abortion turned out to be the matter being discussed by the man and his girlfriend and this revelation shed some light on the various symbols employed. I deciphered the white elephant to be a symbol for something that doesn't belong or something that is out of place. When the girl initially says that the hills look like white elephants, she's expressing doubt and uncertainty about the possibility of becoming a mother. The man tries to reinforce this feeling in her by convincing her that "[he's] known many people that have done it", referring to abortion, and that "[they] will be happy afterwards." He also goes on to tell her that he doesn't want to force her to do anything she's uncomfortable with and that it's not a big deal. Moreover, they engage in an exchange in which the man says things like "we can have everything" and "We can go anywhere". Unconvinced that their relationship will stay the same after the operation, the girl says "Once they take it away, you never get it back." I interpreted this to refer to the aborted fetus on a literal level, and their love on a symbolic level.
Ultimately, what I find brilliant about this short story is the fact that Hemingway says so much without actually saying much. He uses mainly vague dialogue to project the gravity of a topic like abortion; he uses setting and the theme of alcohol to parallel the emotional turmoil experienced by the couple.

Short Stories-Reading Response

All of the three short stories had something different to offer when it came to the elements of story, plot, and dialogue. I am not sure if there is a right or wrong way of writing a short story, but personally, I found that "Coping Stones" was the most successful in comprehending what was actually going on. The other two short stories were unique but at some point in both stories I felt lost. In "Hills Like White Elephants, I found that there was too much dialogue and not enough story. I am not sure if the story was meant have a mysterious demeanor or if the only way I could understand was "reading between the lines" but I thought I wanted to know more about the characters. Hemingway did an excellent job with describing the scene which is always important but getting thrown in the middle of everything without a hint as to what the plot is can be confusing. This also happens in "San Francisco". I am placed in the middle of this story with the character talking about tremors and a watch and I am wanting more of a plot or more of a description the setting. I am someone who loves dialogue in writing, but I also like to have a feel for the characters and what is going on as well.

Response to This Week's Short Stories

Okay, so after reading the stories for this week i noticed a few things. Hemingway is great at giving a lot with very, very little. I didn't catch on to what the disagreement was about until I googled an analysis of the story, and then I appreciated it a lot more. I always enjoy the way Hemingway is able to capture setting and the subtext became a lot clearer after I recognized what the real disagreement is about. The thing I like most about reading Hemingway though, besides the dialogue that makes you want to know more, is the way he captures the essence of his settings with so precisely, with so few words.

I liked the story in the New Yorker the best though, because it really drew me in with all of the well flowing flashbacks and realizations. I like that the reader comes to the realizations and discoveries at the same time the main character does. At certain points though, I wanted more about the pedophile and the weird girl that invited herself in, and I'd have liked to understand the significance of the rocks, the graveyard, and the dog, because I know I'm missing a good chunk of the meaning behind those.

Lastly, I want to state that I absolutely hated "San Francisco." I usually try to give the author the benefit of the doubt but this story was just yucky. I get that she was trying to say something about time, and death and whatnot with the watch as some sort of metaphorical symbol, but I didn't enjoy the story enough to bother trying to figure it out. For me, I feel that this story doesn't take its readers into consideration enough; or maybe she is catering to a more high-brow audience. Whatever the case, it was not enjoyable to read, and it wasn't intriguing enough for me to put any real effort into extracting any kind of useful meaning out of it. I tried to find articles about this one on google, and there was a Chicago Tribune google blurb that mentioned something about how great it was, but when I clicked on the page i couldn't locate the article. I guess what I'm saying is, I don't appreciate this story and the way it made me feel while reading it provided me with an important reminder: write for the reader! (Sorry Amy Hempel.)

Oh, and I like the connection between long shots in film and backstory in fiction that Burroway mentions; that was insightful.

Reading Response 8: Story vs. Plot

According to Burroway, there is a difference between story and plot, in spite of how often they are confused or used interchangeably. From what I gathered, a story is the chronological catalog of events which occur to characters in the novel/play/short story/etc. Plot, on the other hand, is the way in which the narrative unfolds, with flashbacks, dreams, digressions and emotions. Looking at this week's readings through the lens of plot vs. story, I thought that "San Francisco" by Hempel really illustrated the difference between the two. For instance, the story behind "San Francisco" seems to flow as follows: there is an earthquake, during which the narrator discovers her mother is dead. Meanwhile the narrator's sister is at her therapist. When she comes home, she immediately starts asking the narrator for their dead mother's watch. The narrator does not know where the watch is, though her sister does not believe her, and continues badgering her for it. A simple story, one might say, with death causing emotional distress. But if one looks at the plot of the piece, the emotional valence of the words work to make it much more powerful reading. For one, the narrator continues to speak as if she is talking to her mother, whom readers later learn is dead. So we get a sense that the narrator is in mourning, missing her mother and trying to hold on to her memory by acting as if she is still there. Similarly, the action unfolds in both the past and present, as the narrator reminisces to her mother about how easy it was/is to trick her older sister. Even the missing watch is taken out of chronological order, with the narrator speculating where it went even before the reader realizes who wants it so badly. All of these qualities allow the piece to unfold rather like a mystery, drawing the reader in. We want to know why the narrator thinks "it was the tremors" --what tremors, what did they do?-- we want to know who she is talking to, and whether or not she actually knows where the watch is. Plot, then, is the reason we want to read, while the story simply catalogs what we just read.

Hemingway reading response week 8

Though I like poetry, I have to say I’m pretty thoroughly a short story fan, so this week’s readings were really interesting and very enjoyable to me. I especially liked the Hemingway one, “Hills Like White Elephants.” I’ve read this story before, but rereading it after the Burroway reading gave me a new perspective on it, and this time through I really appreciated the way that he created so much out of so little. By this, I mean he used almost entirely dialogue- and vague dialogue at that- and yet still produced an enthralling, meaningful, and well-flowing story. I also liked that the topic of the story, the woman being pregnant and the man urging for surgery to ‘fix’ it, was given so subtly; it is never once directly stated, the reader has to interpret it and pull it out from the text. This is very hard to do successfully, and I think I might attempt it in this week’s writing assignment, if for no other reason than to get an appreciation of just how hard it is. He provided ample character description, great imagery, and complex drama all through simple lines of dialogue and a few lines of description, and that really inspired me to challenge myself in my own writing.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Week 8: Reading Response

I absolutely love short stories. When you’re limited on time and you don’t have weeks or months to devote to a book, short stories become a very viable option. I can’t think of many short stories that I’ve read so this week’s assigned readings were a refresher. When you have a short story, there’s got to be a story but I guess it’s condensed. In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” it appears to be more of a scene rather than a story. As the reader, I didn’t know who the girl was or why she was drinking alcohol with an older man. Could this man be her lover? It was strange and the story didn’t give any information. I could tell there was a greater meaning to the story but I was unable to figure it out. “San Francisco” was by far the most confusing out of the three short stories. In fact “San Francisco” was the shortest. It contained mostly dialogue but again I couldn’t decipher what the meaning was. It jumped around where I didn’t know if it was the same scene or a different one. My favorite story was “Coping Stones.” There were moments I was laughing out loud in tears. There’s this girl that comes to the doctor’s door and basically asks him to help her out with her relationship with Matt, the doctor’s tenant. His bluntness is overwhelmingly funny as he tries to get her out of his house so he can eat his dinner. There were many slow points throughout the story where I’m just like “hurry up and get to the point” but it was still pretty funny. In this story, I saw flashback mechanics which were integrated seamlessly as well as good summary and plot points.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Readings for Friday, Oct. 31

Here are the short stories (fiction) for next Friday:

Ernest Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants"

Ann Beattie, "Coping Stones"

Amy Hempel, "San Francisco"

Update | Workshop policies

All, please consider this an update to the workshop policies outlined on the syllabus:

1) If you miss a week in which your classmates are distributing their materials for workshop, you are responsible for getting those materials from them. Because you must turn in your end comments to me, workshopping your peers' pieces is optional only if you do not wish to receive a grade. You have all the email addresses of your classmates.

2) If you are to distribute, and you miss class, you must provide me with your workshop pieces to distribute ahead of time. You can do that by putting the pieces (enough copies for everyone) in my mailbox in the English Department. Emailing it to me is not sufficient.

3) If you are distributing, you must make enough copies for the entire class (18, including yourself).

4) Per the syllabus and going forward, if you are late with your workshop piece, you will not receive credit for it. Other assignments are also not accepted late. Please email me or come see me in office hours if you need assistance with this information.

Workshop groups

Group 1:
Ruby
Maxine
Julia
Jorden
Shanel
Abby
Reemi
Alex

Group 2:
Sean
Nia
Arta
Julie
Marcus
Nora
Amber
Chuck

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Week 7 Response: The Frog Prince

The poem I've chosen may seem like a very unlikely choice. It is actually a song but what are songs but a poem with added music? When I first thought of the assignment this poem was the first thing that came to mind. The lyrics mean so much and can applicable in a lot situations. The poem is performed/written by Keane, an English alternative rock group. I like this poem because of the lyrics. The lyrics is also what makes it a good poem. There is so much imagery and a clear message (I like poems where I can get over 55% of what the poet is trying to convey). When you hear frog prince, what do you think of? A fairytale. However the message has a twist because this once great soon destroys himself by being conceited. I cannot say that is the exact interpretation but I know from doing research the poem was written by the group in response to a band member who very talented but bad mouthed others.

 Keane - The Frog Prince (lyrics) - YouTube (listen to it hear)

Frog Prince by Keane

An old fairytale told me
The simple heart will be prized again
A toad will be our king
And ugly ogres are heroes

Then you'll shake
Your fist at the sky
"Oh why did I rely
On fashions and small fry?"

All promises broken
Feed your people or lose your throne
And forfeit your whole kingdom
I'd sooner lose it than still live in it alone

You were our golden child
But the gentle and the mild
Inherit the earth, while

Your prince's crown
Cracks and falls down
Your castle hollow and cold
You've wandered so far
From the person you are
Let go brother, let go
Cos now we all know

Soon, someone will put a spell on you
Perfume, treasure, sorcery, every trick they know
You will lie in a deep sleep
That's when

Your prince's crown
Cracks and falls down
Your castle hollow and cold
You've wandered so far
From the person you are
Let go brother, let go
Cos now we all know