In “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta,” Braverman creates this sense of dread, confusion, and powerlessness. As readers, we easily are put off by Lenny. We recognize him as creepy, a stalker, and a bad influence. But the main character seems to fall under his trap slowly and we can do nothing but watch. It’s interesting the frustration that accompanies a narrator making choices that we, as readers separated from the reality of the story, would never make. It’s uncomfortable, but you can’t look away — afraid you’ll miss something while also hoping that nothing bad happens. You feel inserted into the story like a guardian angel trying to warn the woman to run away. Seen as a metaphor for addiction, his story forces you to confront a painful and likely unfamiliar reality. She knows that Lenny is bad but keeps coming back to him. She’s afraid of him and what he’s done but the feeling she gets sometimes from being with him (the fancy clothes and jewelry, the motorcycle) and the promise of that feeling again sometimes cloud her common sense. This story truly forces you to think about the uncomfortable truth that not everyone thinks the same as you, has the same experiences or would make the same decisions.
Morrison’s Recitatif is one of my favorite short stories. I read it a few years back in a high school English class, and it left me thinking for so long. Morrison infects the reader into the story— they have no choice; their personal prejudices about race will take the story in different readings, and everyone is forced to engage with the material. Morrison writes about such small details, yet maintains a mystery on the races of the characters. I’m inspired by Morrison’s use of mystery, and how leaving out a major detail and leaving it up to the reader’s interpretation shifts the narrative of the story. I can see everything in this story— the girls’ shelter and “the kitchen women with legs like parentheses”, the busy diner and a cold shoulder, the grocery store and reconnecting, and so on. Morrison utilizes strong characterization of each girl, as well as their mothers, using such specific details about each, that readers can make assumptions of further traits of the characters, based on their associations. But Morrison makes the point that you don’t know what girl is which race, and fixating on that takes away from other observations in the story, such as the girl’s cruelty towards Maggie. I found the debate over Maggie’s race a particularly interesting detail, as both girls have different definitions for what makes race. The racial tensions aren’t the only driving tension in the story, but there is a lot on class and upbringing, which the reader is explicitly told about. What amount of detail is the right amount for enough information, and what amount of mystery may remain that leaves the reader thinking? How do you craft a story that leaves the reader with questions to reflect and discuss? I will be thinking about questions like these when crafting my fiction.
I found recitatif really interesting. So much of the story centered around racial conflict without knowing the races of the characters. As the characters grow up these conflicts affect them differently at different ages. As children they are aware of the divisions between themselves but don’t see them as an issue. As teenagers there is an anymosity between them. As adults they attempt to recconect, but are pulled further apart by the issue of integrated schools. That part was especially interesting because you couldn’t tell which of them was arguing for or against the issue. The parts that stood out most to me was when they remembered the girls home. When it was written from twylas perspective in the girls home it was a pretty good place, with enough food, and candy, and paper baskets. As the story goes on though, you learn that both girls are unreliable narrators about that time in their lives. One has blocked out the worst parts of the path, and one has lied about it to ease her own guilt. Both the past and the remembering of the past are also full of racial conflicts, with the race of Meggie and the girls treatment of her being remembered differently.
I read Recitatif in high school and it was interesting to read it four years later. The wording of the writing intentionally leaves the race of the girls ambiguous. It is not just the wording but also the interactions between the two girls and other characters, like their mothers that add to this ambiguity. The only mention of the girl’s skin color is when the narrator says “So for the moment it didn’t matter that we looked like salt and pepper standing there and that’s what the other kids called us sometimes” (Morrison, 1). But this doesn’t imply the race of either girl, just that they were different.
I enjoyed the dialogue-driven story of “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” The way that all the characters are unique and their personalities develop over the story is effective and creates interesting interactions. These characters feel like real people who have had experiences that have shaped them into the people they are in this story. I love the meditation on love and the main character’s musings about his wife next to the relationship of his friends or the story Mel is telling. I love dialogue and want to learn how to make it feel natural and effective so this was a great piece to learn from.
The piece that stood out to me was Squandering the Blue. When I first started reading I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to continue because it made me so uncomfortable. But I still wanted to know what was going to happen. I thought it was really interesting how emotions were not really described. It was very factual and abrupt as to how the author described things. It made me think about how sometimes when people are experiencing trauma they focus on specific details in the moment to distract themselves and kind of dissociate, and the attention to these kinds of details like the colors of things and what the day was like made me think of this. This piece was kind of confusing and frustrating because when Lenny is first being described there are so many red flags, and this makes you expect that something bad is going to happen. He is violent, has stalked her, and is obsessive, surely this isn’t going to end well, and it doesn’t really, but none of the terrible things that I was anticipating happened. And I think the frustration of wondering why she was engaging with him was something that kept me engaged. The dialogue from Lenny was also so effective in relaying his character and what his diction would be like and also that obsessive quality that he had. The way his statements were short and demanding.
I was fascinated by the themes of “good” in this story. When we are first introduced to our characters, we see Hulga as “good but immature,” her mother as “ignorant but well-meaning” and Mrs. Freeman as a sort of middle ground between the two. We sympathize with each of them, to a degree, and want to find out more about them and what they will do in the story. Personally, I wanted to see more so I could know who to root for. It was unclear at first if there would be any reconciliation between any of the characters, or who the story was making out to be an obstacle. That unclarity was immediately squashed upon learning Manley’s true nature. While we don’t care much for either of the older women since they don’t know what has happened, all we want to do at the end of the story is give Hulga a hug and give Manley a kick in the nuts.
“Mrs. Freeman always managed to arrive at some point during the meal and to watch them finish it. She would stand in the doorway if it were summer but in the winter she would stand with one elbow on top of the refrigerator and look down at them, or she would stand by the gas heater, lifting the back of her skirt slightly. Occasionally she would stand against the wall and roll her head from side to side. At no time was she in any hurry to leave” (O’Connor, 3).
I love the way O’Connor describes Mrs. Freeman in this passage. Not only does it make Mrs. Freeman seem odd and a bit creepy, but it also reveals things about the power dynamic between her and Mrs. Hopewell. Mrs. Hopewell technically has more power than Mrs. Freeman because she is her employer. However, Mrs. Freeman is in some ways the dominant one in the relationship. That is demonstrated here, as Mrs. Hopewell doesn’t like that Mrs. Freeman stands and watches her and her daughter eat, but doesn’t ask her to leave. Supposedly this is because of her “great patience”, but I think it is also because Mrs. Freeman is a somewhat intimidating character. On another note, the image of the worker standing over their boss, looking down at them while they eat is quite powerful.
In “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” Raymond Carver explores the complexities and ambiguities of what we call love. Carver successfully does this through the dialogue among four characters and he dives deeper into various dimensions of love. All of these topics range from the dark and twisted manifestations of affection to the idealized notion of love.
This story begins with Mel McGinnis, a cardiologist expressing how he believes in spiritual love, but this was shaped by his personal experiences in a seminary. As he is having this discussion, each of the 4 characters reveal their own personal experiences in love, each one having a different perspective. For instance, Terri recounts her past abusive relationship and brings up how this challenges the conventional notions of love, leading to a debate between the characters about what constitutes genuine affection.
However the narrative takes a dark turn as Mel recalls the tragic tale of an older couple involved in a nasty car accident. By pointing this out, Carver highlights the fragility and unpredictability of life as well as showing how even the deepest bonds in love can be shattered by random and unforeseen circumstances.
Ultimately in Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” the readers are invited to investigate the natures of love and its diversity of manifestations. Carver prompts us to explore the complexities of human connections as well as question our own preconceptions of love.
9 responses to “Week 7 Reading Response (Tues)”
In “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta,” Braverman creates this sense of dread, confusion, and powerlessness. As readers, we easily are put off by Lenny. We recognize him as creepy, a stalker, and a bad influence. But the main character seems to fall under his trap slowly and we can do nothing but watch. It’s interesting the frustration that accompanies a narrator making choices that we, as readers separated from the reality of the story, would never make. It’s uncomfortable, but you can’t look away — afraid you’ll miss something while also hoping that nothing bad happens. You feel inserted into the story like a guardian angel trying to warn the woman to run away. Seen as a metaphor for addiction, his story forces you to confront a painful and likely unfamiliar reality. She knows that Lenny is bad but keeps coming back to him. She’s afraid of him and what he’s done but the feeling she gets sometimes from being with him (the fancy clothes and jewelry, the motorcycle) and the promise of that feeling again sometimes cloud her common sense. This story truly forces you to think about the uncomfortable truth that not everyone thinks the same as you, has the same experiences or would make the same decisions.
Morrison’s Recitatif is one of my favorite short stories. I read it a few years back in a high school English class, and it left me thinking for so long. Morrison infects the reader into the story— they have no choice; their personal prejudices about race will take the story in different readings, and everyone is forced to engage with the material. Morrison writes about such small details, yet maintains a mystery on the races of the characters. I’m inspired by Morrison’s use of mystery, and how leaving out a major detail and leaving it up to the reader’s interpretation shifts the narrative of the story. I can see everything in this story— the girls’ shelter and “the kitchen women with legs like parentheses”, the busy diner and a cold shoulder, the grocery store and reconnecting, and so on. Morrison utilizes strong characterization of each girl, as well as their mothers, using such specific details about each, that readers can make assumptions of further traits of the characters, based on their associations. But Morrison makes the point that you don’t know what girl is which race, and fixating on that takes away from other observations in the story, such as the girl’s cruelty towards Maggie. I found the debate over Maggie’s race a particularly interesting detail, as both girls have different definitions for what makes race. The racial tensions aren’t the only driving tension in the story, but there is a lot on class and upbringing, which the reader is explicitly told about. What amount of detail is the right amount for enough information, and what amount of mystery may remain that leaves the reader thinking? How do you craft a story that leaves the reader with questions to reflect and discuss? I will be thinking about questions like these when crafting my fiction.
I found recitatif really interesting. So much of the story centered around racial conflict without knowing the races of the characters. As the characters grow up these conflicts affect them differently at different ages. As children they are aware of the divisions between themselves but don’t see them as an issue. As teenagers there is an anymosity between them. As adults they attempt to recconect, but are pulled further apart by the issue of integrated schools. That part was especially interesting because you couldn’t tell which of them was arguing for or against the issue. The parts that stood out most to me was when they remembered the girls home. When it was written from twylas perspective in the girls home it was a pretty good place, with enough food, and candy, and paper baskets. As the story goes on though, you learn that both girls are unreliable narrators about that time in their lives. One has blocked out the worst parts of the path, and one has lied about it to ease her own guilt. Both the past and the remembering of the past are also full of racial conflicts, with the race of Meggie and the girls treatment of her being remembered differently.
I read Recitatif in high school and it was interesting to read it four years later. The wording of the writing intentionally leaves the race of the girls ambiguous. It is not just the wording but also the interactions between the two girls and other characters, like their mothers that add to this ambiguity. The only mention of the girl’s skin color is when the narrator says “So for the moment it didn’t matter that we looked like salt and pepper standing there and that’s what the other kids called us sometimes” (Morrison, 1). But this doesn’t imply the race of either girl, just that they were different.
I enjoyed the dialogue-driven story of “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” The way that all the characters are unique and their personalities develop over the story is effective and creates interesting interactions. These characters feel like real people who have had experiences that have shaped them into the people they are in this story. I love the meditation on love and the main character’s musings about his wife next to the relationship of his friends or the story Mel is telling. I love dialogue and want to learn how to make it feel natural and effective so this was a great piece to learn from.
The piece that stood out to me was Squandering the Blue. When I first started reading I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to continue because it made me so uncomfortable. But I still wanted to know what was going to happen. I thought it was really interesting how emotions were not really described. It was very factual and abrupt as to how the author described things. It made me think about how sometimes when people are experiencing trauma they focus on specific details in the moment to distract themselves and kind of dissociate, and the attention to these kinds of details like the colors of things and what the day was like made me think of this. This piece was kind of confusing and frustrating because when Lenny is first being described there are so many red flags, and this makes you expect that something bad is going to happen. He is violent, has stalked her, and is obsessive, surely this isn’t going to end well, and it doesn’t really, but none of the terrible things that I was anticipating happened. And I think the frustration of wondering why she was engaging with him was something that kept me engaged. The dialogue from Lenny was also so effective in relaying his character and what his diction would be like and also that obsessive quality that he had. The way his statements were short and demanding.
I was fascinated by the themes of “good” in this story. When we are first introduced to our characters, we see Hulga as “good but immature,” her mother as “ignorant but well-meaning” and Mrs. Freeman as a sort of middle ground between the two. We sympathize with each of them, to a degree, and want to find out more about them and what they will do in the story. Personally, I wanted to see more so I could know who to root for. It was unclear at first if there would be any reconciliation between any of the characters, or who the story was making out to be an obstacle. That unclarity was immediately squashed upon learning Manley’s true nature. While we don’t care much for either of the older women since they don’t know what has happened, all we want to do at the end of the story is give Hulga a hug and give Manley a kick in the nuts.
“Mrs. Freeman always managed to arrive at some point during the meal and to watch them finish it. She would stand in the doorway if it were summer but in the winter she would stand with one elbow on top of the refrigerator and look down at them, or she would stand by the gas heater, lifting the back of her skirt slightly. Occasionally she would stand against the wall and roll her head from side to side. At no time was she in any hurry to leave” (O’Connor, 3).
I love the way O’Connor describes Mrs. Freeman in this passage. Not only does it make Mrs. Freeman seem odd and a bit creepy, but it also reveals things about the power dynamic between her and Mrs. Hopewell. Mrs. Hopewell technically has more power than Mrs. Freeman because she is her employer. However, Mrs. Freeman is in some ways the dominant one in the relationship. That is demonstrated here, as Mrs. Hopewell doesn’t like that Mrs. Freeman stands and watches her and her daughter eat, but doesn’t ask her to leave. Supposedly this is because of her “great patience”, but I think it is also because Mrs. Freeman is a somewhat intimidating character. On another note, the image of the worker standing over their boss, looking down at them while they eat is quite powerful.
In “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” Raymond Carver explores the complexities and ambiguities of what we call love. Carver successfully does this through the dialogue among four characters and he dives deeper into various dimensions of love. All of these topics range from the dark and twisted manifestations of affection to the idealized notion of love.
This story begins with Mel McGinnis, a cardiologist expressing how he believes in spiritual love, but this was shaped by his personal experiences in a seminary. As he is having this discussion, each of the 4 characters reveal their own personal experiences in love, each one having a different perspective. For instance, Terri recounts her past abusive relationship and brings up how this challenges the conventional notions of love, leading to a debate between the characters about what constitutes genuine affection.
However the narrative takes a dark turn as Mel recalls the tragic tale of an older couple involved in a nasty car accident. By pointing this out, Carver highlights the fragility and unpredictability of life as well as showing how even the deepest bonds in love can be shattered by random and unforeseen circumstances.
Ultimately in Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” the readers are invited to investigate the natures of love and its diversity of manifestations. Carver prompts us to explore the complexities of human connections as well as question our own preconceptions of love.