Response to Steven Church's Essay

In his essay, I’m Just Getting to the Disturbing Part, Steven Church does a masterful job of relaying a profound, and yes disturbing, event through mental spirals.  He starts with what Janet Burroway calls a “close up” and describes the oppressive heat which triggers the trip to Horsetooth Reservoir.  Then, we get a long shot that is temporal in nature when he describes the move to his apartment to the sweltering Front Range of Colorado.  And, the way that he describes how hot it was in the new place is amazing with visceral descriptions such as “heat that burns when you inhale,” and “heat that makes you see things funny—watery mirages…”  Then, Church zooms back to the eventful day when he and his friends decide to go to the reservoir.  But, before progressing to the next sequential event, Church flashes to the future in which he has a three year old son and a profound fear of water.  Through this sort of temporal travel, we peel back the layers of what happened that eventful day and the significance of those events.  The manner in which Church unveils the story is mysterious, suspenseful and mesmerizing.  We get bits and pieces from the past, present and future that are revealed artfully and in a sequence that allows us to understand the shocking truth of what happened in a very dramatic fashion.

Response to "I'm Just Getting to the Disturbing Part"

Steven Church's "I'm Just Getting to the Disturbing Part," ties together the drowning he once witnessed with the death of his brother and ponders the impact the incident might have on his own child. Tying all of this together the author gets informs us of what these tragedies mean to him on a larger scale. When he includes the little inserts like "Let me tell you what I don't know..." and "Here is what I haven't told you..." I think a few things are accomplished. He makes the essay more personal by speaking to the reader directly. He also plays with the chronology of the story and doing so makes the story richer and more dynamic. Jumping around in time also shows us that he is reflecting and wants us to do the same, so that we know that we are supposed to be taking what he is telling us in and processing it with a bigger picture in mind. In terms of that bigger picture, I feel like he is describing the way a past experience will have unknown effects on the future and also that because he is aware of this, he wants to ensure that his own child will not be affected by what torments his own psyche. The message I found in the story is related to the fine line between life and death and the conflict the author is dealing with in trying to reconcile his feelings about it so that he can infuse his son with a healthy excitement for life.

RR: I'm just getting to the disturbing part

If I were to tack on a label to this nonfiction essay, I would call it cerebral. Entirely dealing with death and fear of death, the author recounts an instance where he and his friends attempted to save a drowning person's life, and managed to connect this with the past (the passing of the author's brother) and the future (the author's paternal wariness of water, especially when it comes to his son).
     I really enjoyed this essay. One thing I've personally noticed about nonfiction creative essays is that once I start reading one, it's hard for me to stop. Such is not the case with fiction, or other types of creative writing. In fact, I almost never find it difficult to stick through a creative nonfiction essay. But it wasn't the fact that it was a nonfiction essay that made this piece so good.
     This essay was incredibly revealing on a personal level. What started out as a story about a hot summer day ended as remembrance to the author's late brother, with a traumatic, neurosis-inducing incident in between. The author masterfully weaved through layers of introspection and scene, allowing the reader to observe the effects of what happened on the author's psyche.

Reading response, The Pleasure of Letting Go

I really liked this essay. One because it was written very well, and two because I’m a fan of just about anything that involves animals. I admire that the writer managed to write about something that would expectedly be unexciting and make it interesting and informative as well. While reading this piece I really felt the connection and fascination he had with the birds, and I think that was part of the reason it worked well.

I couldn’t help but think that this might be about more than just birds. I have a tendency to overanalyze so this may be off base, but while reading I took some of the descriptions of bird as a sort of metaphor/ commentary on different types of peoples, and different societies on a broader level. I wonder if this was his intention, or if it was another meaning or entirely, or was this really just written to document the author’s experience with birds? If so, what was the purpose? Was it a self-reflective piece, or an article for a journal?

Regardless, it was still very enjoyable. I think that something like this would be easy to do from a writer’s perspective, because when you are passionate about something you generally have a lot to say.

Readings for Friday, 12/2

Steven Church, "I'm Just Getting to the Disturbing Part"

Kyoko Mori, "The Pleasure of Letting Go"

Reading Response - Once More To The Lake

Throughout the first paragraph, he paints the past with broad strokes, and sets a scene in 1904 and putting forward a picture which we can use to reference back and share in his nostalgic moments. He then stretches out the timescale a little more in the next paragraph, discernible by the time he takes to relay other bits of information, filling out the summary a little more with the smell of lumber and emphasizing the serenity of the place with a reference to the nearby cathedral. From there, he wades heavily through scene after scene, and uses summary more sparingly for general observations about American life.

E.B.White weaves his observations throughout his narrative in such a manner that sometimes it's difficult to distinguish between the nostalgia he feels for his own experience and the nostalgia that he feels for American life altogether. He's very frank about tying these two things together. In fact, he spends an entire paragraph just on the American life celebration ("summertime, oh summertime..."). For my own taste, it was a little too prominent, but he does ease the reader into and out of the exuberance of the passage (in fact, the paragraph was about halfway through the piece).

Reading Response- "Once More to the Lake"

E.B. White’s essay “Once More to the Lake” is an excellent
example of creative non-fiction. Mr.
White captures the essence of his trip, but does so using strong diction,
connotation, and symbolism to not only give a depth of sensation about his
trip, but also a deeper meaning than a mere vacation. Instead, it is a perfect foiling of his own
trip as a boy to the lake, where he can connect to the role of the youngster
and the elder guardian, mimicking his father’s own behaviors during his trip
with his son. That being said, he also
touches upon the passage of time, as he often remarks about the changing
landscape. In doing so, Mr. White uses
excellent imagery and summary to capture the importance those memories had for
him and why the disappearance of a trail option matters, as opposed to saying, “There
used to be a horse trail here, but it’s no longer present”. By tying in past and present relationships into
his vacation location, Mr. White is able to create a connection between facts
and his emotions. Creating that
emotional connection is important to further draw the reader in, and make him
or her care about the story. I find
myself wanting to visit the lake now that I’ve read this story.