Flannery O'Connor - The Turkey

Flannery O'conner's story "The Turkey" focuses on an eleven-year-old boy named Ruller who chases down a wounded turkey. O'connor provides glimpses into Ruller's imagination throughout the story and this is what makes the story interesting. Ruller is an unusual boy who spends a lot of time by himself. I can relate to Ruller's tendency to imagine as a way to make life more compelling. While Ruller's father thinks that playing alone is unusual behavior for a young boy, one can argue that this is perfectly normal for a child with an overactive imagination.
The story also focuses on Ruller's concept of God. Ruller attributes the cause of events in his life to decisions that God makes. Ruller believes that God gives him the turkey so he can bring it home and impress his family. Language regarding God's influence on Ruller's life is a big part of the story's humor. O'connor seems to be commenting on the tendency of humans to believe that God personally controls the outcomes of everyday life.
Ruller's main shortcoming is his belief that God is responsible for how his life works. This allows Ruller to avoid responsibility for his own actions. Ruller has bizarre sense of right and wrong. After he captures the turkey and wins the admiration of people in his town, he feels a need to give money to a beggar. Giving money to the poor is Ruller's way of thanking God for the turkey. Unfortunately, in the same way that Ruller tracks down the turkey, a gang of boys trakc down Ruller and steal his turkey. After this happens, it's natural to assume how Ruller feels about this. It's a tragic end for Ruller that points out the flaw in believing that God is personally invested in trivial human events. The story is an interesting exploration of childhood imagination and a brilliant snapshot of a single meaningful event in the life of a young boy.

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George Saunders - The Wavemaker Falters

The narrator of Saunders' "The Wavemaker Falters" works at an amusement park where he operates the wavemaker, a machine titled for its function. It's a strange setting to say the least and the narrator's description of his surroundings makes this clear: "The Night crew's hard at work applying a range of commercial chemicals and cleaning hair balls from the filter. Some exiting guests are brawling in the traffic jam on the access road. Through a federal program we offer discount coupons to the needy, so sometimes our clientele is borderline." Saunders' unique voice is present throughout the story. He has a way of describing things that feels playful but also quite discerning. The narrator sees a great deal in a relatively short period of time, and most of what he sees is generally unpleasant. What kind of place has chemicals, hairballs, and people fighting in the same location? It's hard not to laugh at Saunders' humorously depressing descriptions of setting.
The defining moment of the narrator's life is when a young boy dies in the wavemaker while the narrator stares at members of an all-girl's glee club; a traumatic moment that causes much guilt for the narrator. Guilt is definitely a key word in the story. Much of the narrator's frustration derives from the inadequacy he feels compared to his boss Leon who might be even stranger than the narrator: "On the wall of his office he's got a picture of himself Jell-O-wrestling a traveling celebrity Jell-O-wrestler. That's pure Leon." This about sums up the eccentricity of the story. Our first glimpse into Leon's character is through the image of him Jello-O-wrestling (whatever that looks like). The narrator feels that this picture represents Leon perfectly, but how can this sort of image convey Leon's personality? Is he an the ostentatious type who enjoys showing off his crazy adventures? I choose to believe that the narrator is strange for thinking he understands Leon because of this picture.

A typical Jell-O mold.

Because of his guilt, the narrator visits a therapist who makes him repeat the phrase: "A boy is dead because of me" got half an hour for fifty dollars. The narrator needs to quantify this experience, showing possible resentment for his therapist's motivations. The narrator is visited most nights by the ghost of the boy he killed who brings interesting conversation topics with him: "One night he showed up swearing in Latin. Another time with a wild story about an ancient African culture that used radio waves to relay tribal myths." How about that? The complete ridiculousness of the situation is made even more bizarre by Saunders inclusion of these details. Saunders heaps weirdness onto more weirdness, creating a stew of bizarre scenarios. Thankfully these scenes combine to form a coherent narrative.

At the core the story is quite tragic as the narrator's life seems be spiraling downward.  Towards the end the narrator discovers his wife's affair with Leon and can't muster up the courage to confront them in the act. When he brings up the topic with his wife at home, she doesn't even deny the fact. She tells the narrator bluntly that the affair is going to continue. The narrator hits rock bottom when the father of the child he killed calls to say that he's going to kill him: "I don't hate you, he says, But I can't have you living on the earth while my son isn't." Curiously, at the exact moment of his impending death, the child's father disappears out the front door. The narrator leaves his house and wanders to a graveyard where he reflects on past events. Fully aware that his life is going nowhere, the narrator says, "this is as low as I go." A somewhat hopeful ending for a story dominated by hilariously tragic circumstances. Frankly, I can't imagine how this narrator will discover any satisfaction in his life, yet this abrupt shift in tone leaves a sense that things can only get better.

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Chekhov - Gooseberries

Chekhov as a young man.

Anton Chekhov’s stories are rich, compelling, and highly detailed. Chekhov is an early practitioner of minimalist writing. Instead of telling the reader how to feel and where to find meaning, Chekhov lets his work suggest a number of different readings depending on the reader. He accomplishes this through a measured use of language that captures immense detail in few words. Re-reading Chekhov is important because it allows one to find those details that stick out and assign meaning to them.

            “Gooseberries” raises several questions about how to achieve satisfaction and happiness in life. The story opens with two men, Ivan Ivanych and Burkin, walking on a seemingly endless plain. Without any context for this situation, the reader must conjure up their own reasons as to why the two men are together. While the sky is overcast and both men are tired, they are “filled with love” for nature and its beauty. The connection between man and nature is a theme that appears multiple times in “Gooseberries”. The men grow increasingly dirty and wet until they seek shelter at their friend Alyohin’s farm. Alyohin seems excited to greet his friends and offers them fresh clothes and a place to stay the night.

            After taking a pleasant dip in the river, Ivan Ivanych tells a story about his younger brother Nikolay, who dreams of having his own land in the country. Nikolay works a government job for years until he saves enough money to buy a three-hundred acre plot in the countryside. Rural living is a fantasy for Nikolay that results from his childhood spent in a idyllic peasant family. Ivan Ivanych says bluntly that his brother was unhappy working in the city for years. Nikolay’s farm fantasy fuels his motivation to keep working because eventually he can retire to the peaceful countryside. When this finally happens, Nikolay is still unsatisfied in life. He’s offended when the local villagers don’t refer to him as “your honor” and his ego and body inflate immensely. Despite having reached his goal, Nikolay can not escape the dissatisfied feeling that accompanied him in the city. The formerly soft-spoken Nikolay now has grandiose opinions about societal issues and carries himself in a boisterous manner.

            The unhappiness of Nikolay contrasts with the chill vibe of his brother Ivan Ivanych, who finds pleasure wherever he can get it. Nothing suggests Ivan is a bad person. His concept of happiness involves the truth and accepting the things he can’t control. Yet Ivan also laments his current predicament: “I can only grieve inwardly, get irritated, worked up, and at night my head is ablaze with the rush of ideas and I cannot sleep. Oh, if I were young!”. Even Ivan Ivanych has his moments of despair.

            Chekhov’s “Gooseberries” is an interesting portrait of a particular moment in the lives of three ultra-realistic men. I hope to return to this story in the future so I can hopefully find more ambiguities in this rich story.

Junot Diaz and "Aurora"

Junot Diaz is an incredible author. I recently read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for the second time and was absolutely floored by its narrative complexity and emotional resonance. The story focuses primarily on Oscar Wao, an overweight ghetto nerd living in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar is obsessed with Science Fiction, fantasy, and anything that provides an escape from the depressingly awful circumstances of his life. The novel deals with a number of themes, ranging from the construction of gender to how Diaspora can change someone’s life. I can’t recommend the novel enough. Anyone interested in sci-fi, adulthood, Latin-american literature, or book in general will greatly enjoy this book. It’s hard to imagine Diaz topping this novel anytime soon. It’s an incredible achievement that I hope will stand the test of time.

While I could talk for hours about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, this post will focus on Diaz’s short story “Aurora” in the collection Drown. Since I originally created this blog to review short fiction, I hope to continue this for as long as possible. After finishing the first four stories in Drown, I can safely say that the literary quality of Diaz’s short fiction is on par with TBWLOW. His stories exhibit the same kind of voice and style present in his longer work. The same narrator is present in both Drown and TBWLOW, making the two works feel like companions to each other. Most authors I’m familiar with switch narrators frequently, while Diaz is content to keep the same narrator. As a part-time writer of fiction, this makes sense to me as it maintains a common thread throughout multiple books. When you can keep something the same in multiple stories, this lessens the amount of work for the writer. The narrator’s name is Yunior and for lack of a better term, he’s a douche. He spends the majority of his time womanizing to build up his fragile ego. In his defense, Yunior does seem to mature later, but his early life is rife with abuse perpetrated by and against him. It’s critical to discuss Yunior because he is always present in both Drown and TBWLOW. With Yunior, Diaz has created a character who may not be likeable, but has arguably redeemed himself by telling us the stories in the first place.

“Aurora” comes at a point when Yunior seems to be in high-school or possibly older. Along with his friend/co-worker named Cut, Yunior has made a steady living dealing drugs in New Jersey. It’s an interesting point in Yunior’s life because he’s making bad decisions all over the place. There’s a tension between what Yunior is doing and how he knows it’s bad. Yunior can’t seem to stop himself from indulging in activities that are dangerous and rewarding in the short-term future. The reader is presented several times with Yunior’s thoughts upon waking in which he laments his choices the prior night. One consistent form of danger comes in the form of Aurora, the title character of the story who is difficult to fully understand as a person. Aurora appears to Yunior sporadically, always ready to do drugs and have sex in exchange for something. It’s easy to dismiss Aurora as a drug-addicted burnout, yet she’s a surprisingly complex character. She’s appealing enough that Yunior describes his relationship with her as love, despite how it sometimes looks like abuse. To me, the story presented a commentary on love as something hard to define. Is Yunior really in love with Aurora, or is he addicted to what she provides for him physically? Yunior seems convinced that it’s love but I find myself unwilling to accept Yunior as a credible source.

The story ends in a hardly surprising difficult place. Aurora has been released from Juvenile Hall and met up with Yunior in an abandoned apartment. It’s a fleeting moment of happiness for both characters and Yunior admits that everything seems fine. It’s tragic because any semblance of normalcy in this moment will disappear because for these characters because love is intertwined with hate and normal equates with danger.

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