. Spinning .

Two good ‘uns; expecially Level by Keith Scribner which has much to teach about metaphor:

The Cats in the Prison Recreation Hall/Lydia Davis: Presents the major conflict in the opening line: "the problem was the cats…" to focus the reader then on the situation or event rather than bringing him in via setup of character or environment.  Action includes side complications (skin conditions) and the resolution of the warden shooting the cats.  End is a bit fuzzy and makes me believe that the whole story is a metaphor.

Level/Keith Scribner: This story is precisely metaphorical in its obvious use of the physical level against the relationship and balance of control (complete with conflict–buying things) within it.  Excellently done. Even the ending balances the green bubble between the two (green-symbolic of money).

How to Set a House on Fire/Stace Budzko: Not a riveting story, more like a weblog post geared towards the sarcastic attempt to be clever

Currents/Hannah Bottomy: In a series of "before that(s)" the story works backwords through a disturbing series of events that touches poignantly on the drowning death of a small boy to finish with a powerful statement of the beginning: "Before that, it was a simple summer day."  Nice.

1951/Richard Bausch: Telling the story of a young girl’s realization of the power she holds over her father in his choice of female companion, and feeling responsible for the death in childbirth of her mother, the suicide of the housekeeper, and reveling in her supposed strength.

Bullet/Kim Church: Best line: "Here’s what I learned from marriage: I am not brave. I never will be. But I am patient, and I can outlast anyone." The story rides on this theme as the woman patiently deals with conflicts that come her way, looking forward perhaps to the day when her husband ends up facing something and doesn’t come out ahead.

Consuming the View/Luigi Malerba: Sort of fairytale-like in its simple premise of a town believing that a view is being destroyed by too many foreign tourists taking it in.  A number of political maneuvers to dissuade tourism fails, and the solution of eliminating the view via planting a line of trees is a lesson in itself.  Neat story.

The Great Open Mouth Anti-Sadness/Ron Carlson: Beneath the rambling tone of the story that mimics the narrator’s drunken state, there is a nice statement perhaps on a father’s sadness at losing his daughter to marriage.

Things You Should Know/A. M. Homes:  Sort of clever variation on the idea of what’s life all about? but it seems to fall a bit short in its zoom through the narrator’s life to end in a confrontation with someone who proves he knows by providing diagrams and backup while the narrator, unsure throughout life, finally feels the confidence to realize that life experience has provided the list of things one should know.  I think.

Rose/Biguenet:  Rather nicely done, a story of the loss of a child and years later, the loss of his wife and a man realizes how his wife had secretly coped with their son’s life, and he recalls the very night the boy was killed and the image of red roses as he hurried to the scene of his son’s death.

Tiffany/Stacey Richter: Who the hell knows.  I don’t have time for this one.

The Fallguy’s Faith/Robert Coover: Another idea overwritten and overdone to death. Some of these flashes of fiction could honestly have even been shorter.

By John A. McCaffrey, third person pov, linear narrative with flashbacks recalled by the theme of words.  Opening with a description by a man of his girlfriend’s apartment while she is away picking up a pizza, we realize he is forming an opinion of her by her surroundings and finds himself comfortable in the space.  McCaffrey then introduces conflict via a notebook in which she apparently has been learning English words by writing down the definitions of something he has said to her.

McCaffrey gives us the detail of emotion without the character being present (se: How do I say it without saying it?).  Following a description of her dainty and precise script, he comes to the word "possessive" and explains it thusly: "It is almost scratched into the paper.  There is no curl at the end of the "e." The definition for "resolve" is written in all caps. Here lies the tension between the couple, that the man is just realizing now.

This particular story emphasizes the  element of character change brought about by facing conflict.  It is ironic that even as he learns about her  from her things rather than their  communication, he is facing himself and acknowledging that changes might be necessary.  McCaffrey closes in on this particular character, his particular relationship even as he provides a background of people in other apartments all around him going through their own routines.  He does resolve to change: he searches for the special word he knows and wants her to write down.  He’s such a sweetie.

So there is some satisfaction given the reader in this story, something fragile seen in relationships and yet we are cheered by his awareness and attitude.  That is, if this is more than a momentary guilt.

By Leonardo Alishan.  First Person POV, psychological realism or stream of consciousness, absolutely soaking wet with symbolism. 

It starts off immediately with changing place and space in the first sixteen words:  "I cut my lower lip shaving and I was by the gates of the Black City…"

We are then led by the narrator into a dreamlike world in which he comes face to face with his relatives, his wife, and eventually himself at different stages of his life, but all coming from a city that he calls by turn strange and "mine so intimately" that we are tipped off to follow details closely, that each statement made is likely meaningful and vital to the understanding of this tale.

While I do not immediately have an opinion on the symbols themselves, they are fairly obvious in their presence: a mosque opposite a cathedral on each end of the street, and in this statement: "if I was alive; and I was alive though still connected with an umbilical cord to the wet womb of a dead god."

Aside from the religious questioning, there is the subject of happiness, childhood innocence and mature understanding of life.  One this is clear, he’s been a prick to his wife: "every day that she spends with you is spent in sorrow for the day and in despair for tomorrow; thus, I, her yesterday, grow happier and more radiant in her memory."  This leads to one of the great statements made: "How wrong you are, on the other side, to think the past cannot be changed."  The past, only available in memory, indeed changes with influence and perception.

Didn’t quite get the meaning behind the grandmother being queen of the city after the narrator was so sure he had built every part of it and was therefore its King, although the sacrificing of her on a regular basis may reveal a gender based hierarchy that would provide insight into the relationship between him and his wife.  From an innocent and happy little boy (likely spoiled) to the overbearing ways of men of his culture perhaps is seen in the final scene of this daydream.  We are then returned to the man cutting his chin with the razor as he shaves.  And of course, wonder if he’s found some meaning in the dream that may better his life even at this late stage.

Nicely done, a story with a moral of sorts, though even as the gates of his past slam shut behind him, it seems in conflict with the importance of memory changing the past.

By Barbara Jacksha, written first person pov, hits the ground running with the immediate situation, filling in a few details as the story moves along in linear timeline.

Jacksha gives us the perfect triangle of conflict, a man, his wife, and his father-in-law forming a physical triangle in the cutting and taking down of a large tree.  Excellent concept here; the image emphasizing the underlying theme.

She also starts the narrative at a precipitous point: "Moments before the dead oak fell, we formed an equilateral triangle."  There’s the promise of action in that opening line.  The next few sentences introduce the characters, the narrator’s new wife, Sherri and her father Buck, both of whom are obviously comfortable in this setting as opposed to the ‘city boy’ narrator. He, however, is aware of the geometry and the planned fall of the tree.  Complications arise with the indication that the ice on the lake, on which he and Buck are standing, and in which direction the tree is proposed to fall, is not completely rock solid in the late spring weather.

In the ensuing action of the tree falling, there is a curious detail: Buck loses his grip on the rope–this, though the rope shouldn’t be tightening but rather needing drawing-in, as the tree falls.  Whether this is a plan on Buck’s part, or Sherri’s in how she made the cut with her chainsaw, is a question.  Then again, it could be accidental.

The narrator feels the balance has shifted as well:  "Then I realized that the equilateral image was gone: the triangle we now formed was undeniably acute."  His wife first runs to check on her father and when assured that he is all right, only then looks up toward her husband. He cannot quite read her expression, but he sees enough to convince him of where he stands within this group of three. 

Very nicely done.  Geometry metaphorically given strength in image, though it was not left up to the reader to discover for himself, and this might have been a more perfect and polished presentation of the concept.

Third person pov, linear structure, starts right off into the action with Moody on a train noticing a young woman and in his immediate desire for her and empathy for what he guesses is a sadness within her, he hypnotizes her and they go off to live happily ever after.

The author, Michael Knight, gives us a setting, a situation, and a follow-through within the first three paragraphs.  He also offers a conclusion–had no conflict arisen to move the story out further.  A "stranger" enters the picture to threaten the happiness of the couple.  What Moody has noted is a natural talent of Penelope–her piano playing–turns out to be of prize-winning value as the stranger has been after Penelope to award her this prize.  The solution of course–and we can only be happy that Moody has caught the man in time–is to hypnotize him and send him on his way, no one the wiser.

Here is the ultimate protagonist wanting something and when conflict arises, finding out just how far he’ll go to achieve and hold onto the object of his desire. It need be noted that even while it appeared that Moody wanted to make Penelope happy, having sensed her sadness (which truly was not established by her confirmation), he understood because he had felt that sadness, that loneliness.  Therefore, he in fact was really only seeking to better his own situation, compounding it by taking her former life away from her.

There’s some nice language use: "He bent and picked up the picture, stood looking at it until Penelope’s music came back to him, a melancholy sound on the fragile air."  But then, what exactly is "fragile air"?

The ending is a bit diverted into a rollout of the future, bright and happy as he sees it, as long as he maintains control over her past.  The last line, "Moody wondered if their footprints would be covered by morning" indicates to me that there will always be the threat of Penelope finding out the truth, and like the snow, he must cover their tracks.