Nirvana by Adam Johnson exemplifies why Johnson won the 2013 Pulitzer prize for fiction. The following is my summary and analysis of the opening story of Johnson's collection Fortune smiles.
An unnamed male computer programmer lives with his wife Charlotte who is temporarily paralyzed from the shoulders down. Both the husband and wife are feeling bad and each copes with their feelings in a unique way. While the wife listens to the band Nirvana when she sleeps, the husband talks to a hologram of a recently assassinated president. Speaking with the president helps the husband to keep his morale high. Creating the hologram was possible for the husband because he works at a company called Reputation Curator that threatens people to retract their negative comments about businesses on the internet.
Charlotte wants to have a baby to give her life purpose. The husband and Charlotte have sex but the husband stops because he sees Charlotte crying. Charlotte tells her husband to put her headphones on to listen to Nirvana. This inspires the husband to create a hologram of Kurt Cobain for his wife. Charlotte is awestruck at seeing this and she asks Kurt Cobain not to kill himself. Charlotte's fascination with Cobain has something to do with the mystery surrounding his death. The story ends on this positive note allowing the reader to glimpse Charlotte feeling briefly happy.
"Nirvana" succeeds at being both deep and funny. The interactions between the husband and the president are my favorite moments. The husband's emotional desperation contrasts with the president's robotic political rhetoric. The story exists in a future that seems strange but nothing is overly fantastic. The brilliance of the story is that it uses science-fiction elements that are not too far off from the technology of today. I never felt like the technology was gimmicky. It was instead very carefully used to create humor and explore the characters' emotions. I am curious to know how much time Johnson spent developing this story because it feels like it would be difficult to pull off.
It's rare that a story works as well as "Nirvana" does. Everything is so well executed. I look forward to reading the rest of Johnson's stories in Fortune Smiles.
Buy Fortune Smiles here:
https://amzn.to/2P6F9Kg
An unnamed male computer programmer lives with his wife Charlotte who is temporarily paralyzed from the shoulders down. Both the husband and wife are feeling bad and each copes with their feelings in a unique way. While the wife listens to the band Nirvana when she sleeps, the husband talks to a hologram of a recently assassinated president. Speaking with the president helps the husband to keep his morale high. Creating the hologram was possible for the husband because he works at a company called Reputation Curator that threatens people to retract their negative comments about businesses on the internet.
Charlotte wants to have a baby to give her life purpose. The husband and Charlotte have sex but the husband stops because he sees Charlotte crying. Charlotte tells her husband to put her headphones on to listen to Nirvana. This inspires the husband to create a hologram of Kurt Cobain for his wife. Charlotte is awestruck at seeing this and she asks Kurt Cobain not to kill himself. Charlotte's fascination with Cobain has something to do with the mystery surrounding his death. The story ends on this positive note allowing the reader to glimpse Charlotte feeling briefly happy.
"Nirvana" succeeds at being both deep and funny. The interactions between the husband and the president are my favorite moments. The husband's emotional desperation contrasts with the president's robotic political rhetoric. The story exists in a future that seems strange but nothing is overly fantastic. The brilliance of the story is that it uses science-fiction elements that are not too far off from the technology of today. I never felt like the technology was gimmicky. It was instead very carefully used to create humor and explore the characters' emotions. I am curious to know how much time Johnson spent developing this story because it feels like it would be difficult to pull off.
It's rare that a story works as well as "Nirvana" does. Everything is so well executed. I look forward to reading the rest of Johnson's stories in Fortune Smiles.
Buy Fortune Smiles here:
https://amzn.to/2P6F9Kg
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