Shel’s Comments (group member since Mar 05, 2009)

Shel’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

(That said, Margaret, if you think the first story is a story we should read instead I'm happy to reconsider.)

Yeah, but it's not just that kids are not allowed to engage in activities parents perceive as dangerous, though. That's symptomatic and symbolic of some other insecurity/fear I can't really put my finger on... mostly because the levels of the behavior as exhibited by parents vary widely, and most parents kinda know when they're acting a little crazy and try to hide it. Others are just unrepentently nuts. I've noticed that parents of babies and toddlers seem to be the worst in this area. Not enough visits to the ER with broken bones or needing stitches, I think. We all fear our children being in pain (one 7 day stay in the hospital with my 2 year old daughter having backed up IVs was enough for me), but the physical stuff is so temporary and inevitable I don't understand the paranoia.

Dr. Drew wrote a new book (and granted, he is trying to become the next Dr. Phil) called The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism Is Seducing America. I saw him being interviewed about it the other day, and one of the things he points out as a current cultural issue is narcissistic parenting (not just gobbling up the celebrity temper tantrum, or the head shaving, which we could all rant about).

The idea is that everything a kid goes through is really about the parent, not the kid as a developing individual. This obviously does not help a kid gain the confidence only hard-won through making and learning from their own fuck-ups.

So the parents who won't let their kids get dirty believe that dirty children are a poor reflection on them. The kid who needs extra reading help or tutoring - their lack of understanding is a reflection on the parents. Kid tried drugs? That's about you, mom. Kid gets beat up at school? It's all about you, dad. And my personal favorite? The kid with problems that go unacknowledged so the parent doesn't have to to face their "failures." So the kid ends up being robbed, in a way, of their own life experiences.

I'm not entirely certain this is a real phenomenon but it's such a convenient, fun and conversation-jolting label I think I'll be using it at the next school get-together. It will be one for the ride home, for a select few moms I always love to prod (I know, I know. I'm horrible.):

"Did you hear what that woman, oh what's her name, Camille's mom, was saying? I mean she practically accused me of being a narcissist!"

"Yes, dear."

The first one appeared to me to be something of an intro to the characters, and too short to be a "real" story. So yes, the second one. If you want to read that first one go right ahead.

Really, it's a collection of short stories that build on each other. That's why I picked #2, to not load anyone up...

I can't help it. I have to post it. I can't... stop... myself!

Oread
Whirl up, sea—
Whirl your pointed pines,
Splash your great pines
On our rocks,
Hurl your green over us—
Cover us with your pools of fir.

That one is by H.D.

Jeez. That's like looking at an O'Keefe painting and saying, "What pretty flowers." Or Mapplethorpe photographs and saying the same thing.

Opinion... he loves the intrigue and newness. I think that eventually the secrecy actually does get to him. Or maybe not that. He doesn't seem to have a lot of guilt over previous affairs.

Maybe it's the quandary of how to make this new love of his life open and real. In which case one has to wonder - once the love is fulfilled, does it die? Does Anna age as quickly as his wife did?

I really want to know if you all think he changes or not. Does he go from the bourgeois gentilhomme with his bourgeois problems to a man who really is in love?

I think he really believes he loves her. I'm just not sure he knows what that is or means.

Matt wrote: "Imagine what kind of grief you'd get for kicking them out of the house and telling them to go out and play not to come back until dark - that's the way I was raised (after the chores and homework w..."

Sigh. Me too. Me too.

I don't understand the fear. Well, I do, but I think those parents need to stop watching 48 Hours. A huge majority of Amber Alerts are family members taking children.

Unfortunately I'm the only parent in the neighborhood who lets her kids out unleashed, or uncellphoned, or unaccompanied. So they end up bored after 30 minutes riding around in circles (get this: parents want me to *call ahead*... no more impromptu asking if Johnny can play), or I end up with 10 kids at my house.

Kids have that whole universe unto themselves. They have to learn to interact with their peers without direction from adults. And yes, they have to do the dangerous & dastardly shit, too. I did plenty of that. I'm sad for the loss, and I think our kids pay the price in independence and confidence.

Esther wrote: "I have to say...it's awfully nice to have kids w...I get to ask for help instead of asking if I can help. "

Hell, I don't even ask. Why should I? I'm the boss, and they live under my roof. I say: "Get up here and do this." If my kids try to give me lip I just say, "Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to have your friend over today?" or "You know, in the time you're taking to argue with me about something you know I'm going to make you do, you could have it done by now."

Then I take them out back and make them cut their own switches. ;)

My parents flat out told me that they had me to change channels on the tv and they had my brother so that he could mow the lawn.

I was a writing tutor in college. One of the first things we learned in the class I had to take to become a tutor was this: Most people have significant personal attachment to their writing, and the tutoring session is a delicate balance between what you say and how you say it. People are delicate, no matter how confident they seem. You have to be able to read that, work with or around it, and *then* say something like "your conclusion isn't really saying what it needs to say."

I used to say I wasn't a writing tutor, I was a writing therapist. It sounds like an odd thing to say, but sit down with enough people for an hour - people whose papers appear to have been bled on by professors, people who come in angry or practically in tears over a paper on Shakespeare, and that doesn't even touch the creative writing students.

Those people (I was one of them, all 4 years) are really touchy. I think it's because when you're younger a lot of what you're writing about comes from personal experience. It's true to you, but when it comes time to put it on paper - does it ring true or is it a good story for others - that's the big question. Some writers never really emerge from that personal crucible thing. I don't know what that guy was writing about, but storming out of a workshop is a pretty dramatic, emotional response.

Personally, since I started writing again I've been able to distance myself enough to have trusted readers give me honest, direct critiques and I always take the feedback as someone honestly telling me what works and what doesn't. As long as I can get that amount of distance, then the critiques I do get really work well for me. It's probably because I see it more as a profession and I've been hardened over the years by criticism in other areas of my life. Also, I don't write about my parents any more. Done, done and done.

Now, editors, etc. and the whole publishing industry, I don't know shit about, other than having worked inside it. Others here know way more.

I went through a phase of not respecting those older than me but got over it pretty quickly by being put in my place in college, and rightly so. I was too big for my own britches. Now I find myself wanting to pat 20-year-olds on the head.

What is it Mark Twain said? Ah, thank you thinkexist.com...

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he'd learned in seven years."

Yeah, isn't that like .16? Not even a whole star? Or a half star?

OK, I love Joyce. When I read Ulysses I cried, too. Several times, in fact.

I read it in my last year of college with the the help of a fantastic professor. I felt like I got so much more out of the book with that level of guidance. I mean, just a good map of Joyce's Dublin alone, and the idiomatic expressions - and "how" to read it. I read a lot of it out loud.

Every year on Bloomsday in DC they have a reading of the book at an Irish pub that starts at the same time the book did and runs until 2 am or so. I used to go to it every year. Mileage varied, in terms of the readers.

I also stopped writing after I read it. It took a while for me to stop completely, but in the face of such overwhelming beauty and perfection the words I came up with and strung together on my own just seemed so... pathetic.

I have not picked up Finnegan's Wake. It sits, first chapter read, on my bookshelf as it has for the last ... 15 years.

For those of you who have read it, how did you do it? I understand it is his most difficult work. I felt like I needed the help I got with Ulysses. How should I approach it if I work up the nerve to read it (and hope it doesn't make me stop writing again, because that would be a problem).

Yeah, there's the overprotective of children part (which seems to me to more resemble narcissism and I could go on about it and the pernicious effects *all* day) but there's also a pervasive lack of respect for anything old, at least in this country. Perhaps it's our young age as a nation, perhaps it's our need instant gratification. We live in a disposable society.

My mother likes to say that we even throw away people when they get too old, which is why she's thinking about moving to another country for later retirement.

I giggled. I guffawed. Then I rolled my eyes.

Oh, and the other thing I want to know is - what happened to the dog?

Or, maybe a more relevant thing to say. The title of the story is interesting in relation to the story that's told, isn't it?

At first she's just some lady with a little dog. By the end she is the love of his life. I wonder what the thoughts behind that title were...

Ah, now this is gettin' interesting. Characteristics of short stories... or their evolution... because really, when Chekhov is writing, it's the beginning of a more "serious" use of the form.

In Wikipedia (more eloquent than anything I could scratch out) it talks about the beginnings of the short story being in journals and magazines in the early 19th century, and how the "best" ones led to popular novels of the time. Which in itself is kind of an interesting commentary on how long it takes a new genre to mature to the point where masters work with it, because it's not until late 19th century that we start to see "real" master works in the form, like Poe, Chekhov, Hawthorne, Gogol, Maupassant. Also, the page notes that ancient oral traditions and fables count among the short story's predecessors, as well as The Canterbury Tales and The Decameron. (I guess I'm ok with that. I'm not sure I totally agree.)

You can check out the page for yourself, and I'm sure there are more insightful sources, but the characteristics area says:
Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually a short story focuses on only one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a small number of characters, and covers a short period of time.

--snip--

Because of their length, short stories may or may not follow this pattern [of a typical novel:]. Some do not follow patterns at all. For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition. More typical, though, is an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the action (in medias res). As with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning point. However, the endings of many short stories are abrupt and open and may or may not have a moral or practical lesson. As with any art form, the exact characteristics of a short story will vary by author.

When short stories intend to convey a specific ethical or moral perspective, they fall into a more specific sub-category called Parables (or Fables). This specific kind of short story has been used by spiritual and religious leaders worldwide to inspire, enlighten, entertain, and educate their followers.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story

Jennifer wrote: "this will result in the loss of many out of print classics, rare books, and first editions. books i grew up with and read and re-read and loved. the bulk of the books i seek at the used book stores..."

I have a few books that were reading primers of my grandmother's. And a bunch of old books that I try to restore, including a complete collection of Oscar Wilde's work that I bought at an antique store for, like $30. They weren't first editions, but they are old.

I also have books that were mine when I was a kid that I share with my kids. It is my version of a tradition... sharing something I loved so much, seeing my children's small hands turn the pages just as I did, and I tell them about how much I loved that book.

(And in my parental hubris I would be remiss to not say I was told by my son's teacher the other day that his critical thinking ability as it relates to books he reads is years past his age.)

I think there will always be lovers of the older versions, and they will be the ones who keep and maintain them.

Jcamilo wrote: "Chekhov aesthetics dealt a lot with ending and beginings. He didn't even believed that an end or begining was really necessary, sometimes cutting them after a story was done. Joycean? Kafkanian?
..."

What he says in his letters is distinctly Joycian to me, and almost like Eliot in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent, which if memory serves was the seminal critical essay that set forth the tenets of modernism. It talked about the role of the artist in society - the idea that the artist is like a flint, or an empty vessel... that takes in all around him and interprets it for others, but not necessarily in this grandiose socio-political way.

I also return to this idea of him as an impressionist. Even if the artists themselves denied a political enterprise in painting peasants or women at washtubs, in a way, the very lifting of that veil is a political act and the very desire to depict life "as it really is" can be viewed that way as well. A subversive political act, but one nonetheless. Chekhov's willingness to venture outside the conventions of his time is not explicitly political, but in painting pictures no one else was painting, he is showing life as it truly is.

The intro says that this focus on life as it truly is - one of his holiest of holies - is what gives him immediacy even today.

I thought that his focus on characters, their inner lives... the minutiae that make up a life, the play with perspective, and the way we make decisions... very Joycian.

It might be more accurate to say that Joyce was Chekhovian, though.

I haven't read a ton of Kafka, but for me he had this way of making everything tinged with fear and horror. I know that there are times he exalts the human spirit and all that good stuff but not like Joyce.

Pish-posh, Margaret. See you at O. Henry.

I was just trying to bump my thread.

Oh, look. I did it again. ;P

I'm telling you, Fever. With new lyrics.