. Spinning .

There is one story in this issue, Losing the Dog’s Paddle by Miah Arnold, that deserves some thought on style.  It is a nine and a half-page sentence.  The story is told in 2nd person pov, but of course, because of the nature of the tale, comes off more like first person.  Meaning, it is a soliloquy of a rambling stream of dialogue that I don’t feel is stream of consciousness as much as likening it to a person who just must tell you what’s happened to them and no amount of polite nods or gestures will get them to shut up.  The start-up:

At twenty-three years old, the way things turned out, you had to buy a Greyhound ticket to make the cross-country trip from New York City to Roosevelt, Utah, where you hoped to arrive in time to say your final good-byes to your maternal grandfather, seventy-six years old, who raised you with more gentleness and wisdom than he did his own kids, who always called you "the smartest cookie on the family shrub," who never doubted you would become a world-famous artist, or business woman…(p. 177)

And so it continues, non-stop, through the trip where "you" smoke some dope, think you’ve been fucked on the bus-ride by a young man, get off at the next stop and flag down a trucker who seems like a nice, older man and buys you a meal, warns you and leaves you fifty bucks. 

But the style; it’s not how someone would think, but rather how someone would give you a hyped-up version of their adventure.  The problem here, for me, was that I felt like my readerly rights were being abused.  There was no reason other than this presentation of a breathless retelling to leave out the periods and paragraphs.  While it obviously serves this purpose, I did what I would do if this person were telling me all this face to face–nine pages’ worth; I tuned out. 

In reading, while the format tells us when a breath or a break is to be taken (God bless the comma!) there is still the reader’s own option given as to when a glance away, a phone can be answered, or the book closed and dinner eaten in between.  This story was difficult to continue reading, even with the adventure, because for one thing, the third person is a tough story to foist on a reader; he must accept it even more so than first person, even though either can be taken as self or listener.  (I always choose "listener" stance.)

The story was different, it was a bold effort in format, but for me, it didn’t come off.

This particular issue is blessed with twenty stories, and a few are really worth remarking:

On Impulse by Bill Lamp is third person pov but is so deep into the character’s head that a day or two after reading it I went back to it and was surprised to find it wasn’t first person.  This is the story of a rock climber who goes through his emotional and egotistical feelings towards the other members of the group during a few climbs, and is highly insightful into human nature.  The conflicts are obviously triggered by the danger, but also by the competitiveness of thte sport.  Even more, the natural desire to be thought well of and liked by your peers.  Very nice.

The Melted Buddha by Vincent G. Barnes takes a simple event and makes it stressful and imaginative reading.  The protagonist (third person pov) notices that a statue of Buddha on his TV shelf has melted.  He received it from a couple who he met on a trip to Bangkok, and the couple is coming to visit within a few days.  He makes every effort to replace it before they come, and comes to a reasonable facsimile of it by remolding it and sticking it in the freezer.  But it keeps melting back down–and here’s the fine point in the story:  is it affected by how he lives his life, what he watches on TV?  Is he offending Buddha?  The ending of the story is just as magical–according to the reader’s imagination.

Sitcom Mom by Chris Haven is wonderfully well-written in the third person pov of a young girl’s fantasies.  As we follow her through her worlds, she exists equally in both, intertwining reality with fiction so that we accept it as readily as does she.  As a student who isn’t especially well-liked by the others, we easily follow her as child movie star through hallways that may lead to her dressing room or classroom, depending on her mind.  We can relate to this child-world of imagination; we’ve all done it without taking it this far.  Lovely story, nice resolution. 

This issue is actually Spring/Summer 2004, but I was too embarrassed to put that fact in the post title.  I know that I’d started this way back then–there are a couple of bookmarking slips of paper within the pages, which always gets my hopes up that I only have half left to go.  But I started from the beginning on this, and none of the stories sounded familiary–except for the story itself.  Just about halfway through now, this issue having an extraordinary number of stories, nineteen in fact.

I’m surprised by the number of relationship stories, several already being about the guy who’s just been dumped or can’t commit to a woman.  A rather odd one about leprosy, and a few goodies in the group so far, but overall, they have me rethinking short story fiction.  Several of them have some serious tell instead of show issues, basically of the "where the relationship went wrong" type.  A majority of them are "feeling" stories; reflections on self and others.  One is a first person pov from a rather egotistical rock-climber, and is particularly well written because it is such a great case from the unreliable narrator that I would use it as an obvious example if teaching fiction writing.  Very well done.  But a few of the stories are high-school boy-girl type subject matter, despite good writing, and it makes me wonder how they were selected for this rather elite magazine.

Because of the age of this issue, I won’t be going into detailed reviews on the stories unless there’s something really new or different to report.

And by the way, this article on a man reading 30 books currently makes me feel a whole lot better about the six or so books and projects I have going on, and had been feeling so guilty about not getting through them quickly enough.  Guess it doesn’t matter after all.  Thanks to Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading for the link.