Does Anyone care about Fiction?

I have been wondering for a while what to do with this blog.

I started writing on here in college. I wanted an outlet to write about all the amazing stories I read in class. It seemed there was a new incredible story every week and I had to share the experience. I also entertained the notion of becoming a fiction writer and blogging about short stories was one way to improve my skill. I wanted to learn from the best.

My favorite writers at the time were George Saunders, Raymond Carver and Anthony Doerr. I consumed every word written by these writers to gain their powers and I wrote summaries and commentaries on their works. I had no idea there would be an audience for my writings. At this time of writing, my post on George Saunders' story Puppy has 21,000 views over three years. This averages out to almost 20 views per day.


Lately I have been posting more on this blog, but I am struggling with thoughts of doubt. Reading works of fiction is hard enough without having to summarize them. Short story blogs are not cash cows. If I wanted to make money, I would blog about technology or dieting.

I would not be who I am today without short stories. This may sound corny but short stories have taught me things that I otherwise would not have learned. From Saunders I learned about the double-edged sword of judgement. From Carver I learned about the importance of honest communication. I hope that I can overcome my own weaknesses and continue reading short stories and learning from them. Truthfully this is one of my favorite things.

To anyone who reads this, what were you searching for and did you find it? How can I improve my writing?

Lydia Davis - "Five Signs of Disturbance"

"Five Signs of Disturbance is the final "story" in Davis's collection "Break it Down". Similar to other stories in the collection, there is an unnamed narrator and the only character is a "she". Here the "she" is another eccentric type who is easily entranced by inanimate objects. The following is my commentary on Davis's "Five Signs of Disturbance".

I have come to understand that Davis's stories rarely possess a plot. The focus, more often than not, is on character psychology. The narrator usually has unfettered access to characters' minds and uses this power without limit. Language is another central concern of Davis. She likes experimenting with language, testing the meanings of words and creating humorous moments. While I believe it is still somewhat valuable, focusing on narrative in Davis's works misses the point that Davis is more concerned with other things.

In "Five Signs of Disturbance", the main character "she" is sensitive and analytical. Because she is isolated, every little stimuli has a disproportionate effect on her. For example ads involving old people or children tend to make her cry. She is unable to compartmentalize. However I am going to assume that "she" is a very intelligent person or at least very self-aware. At one point the narrator even says that her smartness has counted less and less over the years. This thought belongs to the character and is presented as an objective thought.

There are images in the story alternating with the internal and external descriptions of the character. These images are sometimes separate from the character's experience and sometimes they are part of it. The title of the story refers to five specific stimuli that "she" identifies as particularly disturbing. This speaks to the character's analytical personality. With all the sources of meaning in her life, she still feels compelled to mark some as uniquely disturbing. Perhaps this character was an accountant or a lawyer in a previous life.

If I were to associate this story with one specific idea, I would choose the human tendency to create meaning everywhere. It's human nature to attach meaning to objects based on all sorts of criteria. Often this behavior is more problematic than useful. The characters in Davis's stories can attest to this. The more I read Davis, the more I think of her as a philosopher parading as a fiction writer.

Check out my other posts on the stories "Therapy" and "Break it Down". I am too far down the Lydia Davis rabbit hole to spot now so expect posts on her later works in the future. 

"Nirvana" by Adam Johnson

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.

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"Therapy" by Lydia Davis

A first person narrator states that she moves to the city just before Christmas. The narrator shares that she has a husband who does not live with her. The narrator has no friends. Her days are spent drinking coffee, smoking and occasionally reading. In the middle of summer, the narrator decides to see a doctor. There are several reasons why the narrator does not like her doctor but she continues seeing him once per week. Over time the narrator develops an affinity for her doctor. The narrator feels a constant wall between her and other people but this wall does not exist between her and the doctor.

Late in the fall, the narrator experiences a "slowing down". The narrator's perspective on life is dark and she loses her ability to love. As a result of therapy, some of the narrator's problems go away. The narrator now laughs, reads and talks to people on the street. Although many of her problems persist, the narrator wants to end her therapy. Unfortunately the narrator can not bring herself to end the therapy, therefore therapy does not end. 

Davis's "therapy" presents many questions and few answers. Attempting to analyze this story would be difficult. My favorite thing about "therapy" is the narrator's tone. I would describe it as "matter of fact". But how trustworthy is the narrator? If I met this person on the street, then I would not take them seriously. Plot matters very little in "Therapy". I hope that the more of Davis's fiction I read, the better I will be able to understand her peculiar style.

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"Break it Down" by Lydia Davis

The following is my summary and analysis of Lydia Davis's short story "Break it Down". The story is one of the more memorable pieces in Davis's oeuvre. It is so important that Davis used "Break it Down" as the title for her collection originally published in 1986.

A third person narrator describes a man sitting at a desk trying to break it down. The narration shifts to the first-person voice of the man himself assigning a dollar amount to a love affair. The man concludes that each hour of sex costs him 33 to 50 dollars an hour.

But that barely even begins to cover it all because the man and his lover spent entire days together and every small interaction between them is worth something to the man. It is absurd to think that the man's money should only be allocated to the sex because the sex is influenced by so many other things. It's more than just sex too. It's a complex human relationship.

The man worries that he will forget the moments of his relationship. He thinks back to several meaningful scenes. In one moment he admits that without his lover he would be unable to continue living. In a nutshell, the man is obsessed with the past relationship because it gave him something that he never had before.

At this point the obsessive nature of the man's thoughts seem unhealthy. If there is an overarching idea here, then it is the destructive power of love. Perhaps that is where his urge to assign dollar values to his experiences comes from. A dollar value is as concrete and easily understandable as it gets, whereas whatever is going on his head is tough to quantify. The man also remembers many bad experiences with his lover but these moments are few and far between.

The man accepts that pain is a necessary part of the equation. Pain and pleasure are not distinct from each other. The hard part is that the pain lasts much longer than the pleasure. The man understands all of this but he admits that he would still do the same thing over again knowing how bad the pain is. At the end of the day, the only tangible effect of the relationship is an estimated loss of $1,000 and nothing to show for it. Ain't love grand.

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The Hunter Gracchus

Kafka begins "The Hunter Gracchus" with a pedestrian description of different villagers in their daily routines. Two men carrying the dead Hunter Gracchus enter a house where they meet a man in a top hat. This man isolates himself in a room with the dead hunter who suddenly wakes up and begins a conversation with the man who is revealed to be the Burgomaster of Riva.

The Huntsman reveals that he died several years ago falling from a cliff in the Black Forest but he claims that "my Death Ship lost its way". So the Huntsman now remains on Earth, always in motion, unable to find his destination. The Huntsman claims that his situation is unique and unmanageable. No matter where he goes, no one wants to help him because no one knows where to find him, thus the Huntsman travels the Earth aimlessly

The Huntsman Gracchus is a mysterious character. There is very little to guide the reader in how to interpret the Huntsman's bizarre situation. Kafka simply presents us with the facts and leaves us to draw our own tenuous conclusions. It seems that the Huntsman's situation is an anomaly, yet his situation is similar to the village people at the beginning of the story.

No one really has any idea what happens in the afterlife. Gracchus's story serves to remind people of just how little they truly know. While religion can provide an illusion of knowledge, it cannot even begin to grasp the true nature of death. Not even Gracchus nor his boat captain have any clue as to what sort of forces are at play. In any case, "The Huntsman Gracchus" is a story that presents more questions than answers. Gracchus's fate bears no connection to how he lived his life, so what determines what eventually happens to humans after they die?

I don't know and neither does Kafka. The point seems to be whatever happens afterlife is unknowable so it is foolish to pretend otherwise. If you have any stories that you would like me to read and write about, just let me know in a comment.

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A Hunger Artist

Kafka's "A Hunger Artist" is about a performer who fasts before an audience. This performer is incredibly committed to his art, but he is surrounded by people that do not understand it. The artist lives in a small cage with only a clock and a signpost showing how many days he has been fasting. In the beginning of the story, the hunger artist is a popular attraction in his local community. People are impressed and mystified by the hunger artist's capacity to perform a seemingly impossible task, yet the hunger artist feels that his task is quite easy. He laments the 40-day limit imposed on his fast by his impresario and also the ceremony after he completes his 40 days. The hunger artist feels that this 40 day limit essentially cheats him out of his own fame.

At the very beginning of "A Hunger Artist", Kafka tells us "During these last decades, the interest in professional fasting has markedly diminished." From this we can infer that "professional fasting" is a dying profession. Yet the hunger artist is truly connected with his profession. He has reached a stage of being totally consumed by his art. In fact, the hunger artist considers fasting to be the primary element of his identity. Fasting is everything for the hunger artist, like writing was to Kafka. Once Kafka realized that writing was his sole purpose for living, he completely abandoned the rest of his usual activities. According to Kafka's diaries, this was necessary because what little energy he could spend needed to be spent on writing.

The later pages of "A hunger Artist" depict the performer moving to a crowded circus environment. The hunger artist's enclosure is placed close to the main tent where the most exciting circus spectacles take place. This is both a blessing and a curse for the hunger artist. A lot of people pass by his tent but barely any of them are interested in his performance. Whatever spectacles await inside the main tent are much more appealing to the circus patrons. While he may be able to fast without a time limit, his talents are wasted because no one is interested in him anymore.

Eventually the hunger artist is replaced by a young panther. It's incredible how quickly the panther consumes the space of the hunger artist and begins garnering attention. Kafka's depiction of the panther is a stark contrast to the hunger artist: "the joy of life streamed with such ardent passion from his throat that for the onlookers it was not easy to stand the shock of it. But they braced themselves, crowded round the cage, and did not want to ever move away." The panther represents a 360 degree turnaround from the hunger artist. The panther needs no explanation to be entertaining. It's a freaking panther for god's sake. Yet the panther is lauded for its ability to draw a crowd, something the hunger artist failed to accomplish in his later years. One could also argue that the hunger artist and the panther are more similar than you might think, since both creatures performances obscure a more complex reality.

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