Discussion - Week One - Impossible Object - Story One thru Four, page 7 - 107

[Jim]

This discussion covers Story One thru Four, page 7 – 107



You know how love flourishes in time of war, women standing on station platforms and waiting for the lines of faces to pull out, men’s heads three deep in the carriage windows and arms raised like the front legs of horses on the Parthenon. The men do not want to go to war; they look forward to travel and the warmth of soldiers. the women have handkerchiefs around theirs heads and are tired at so much weeping; they will run to the arms of American airmen and war profiteers, will be carried to armament factories and farms for the breeding of white feathers. The men will sing sad songs round firelight; move across plains in heavy armour jerking and screaming like crusaders.

[Voorneveld]

This is a book I put aside on two earlier occasions and already after the first four pages (the fragment in italics). I didn't understand much of it. But now I gave it another chance. It is still tough going, but I start enjoying picking up the small repetitions -- there are many things in the quote Jim gave above that appear over and over again -- and trying to figure out the relations between the persons from whose point of view we hear the eight stories.

[Jim]

Voorneveld wrote: "This is a book I put aside on two earlier occasions and already after the first four pages (the fragment in italics). I didn't understand much of it. But now I gave it another chance. It is still t..."

In the first story, Family Game, the narrator/father states on page 16:

In my room upstairs I sat in front of my typewriter and the keys were like men waiting to be sent out over no-man's-land. I was writing a story at the time about how love only flourishes in time of war; how God has to pack up our suitcases and send us off like a nanny. I thought - I will turn it into a story of a father with children.

You could use this passage as a frame of reference for thinking about the book. The italics sections are written in a more imaginary/poetic/fictive style, as compared to the main stories which are more of a standard prose fiction. Sometime these italicized interstitial passages are directly related to the stories and sometimes the relationships are more oblique.

Another point to consider is that Mosley served in the military in WW2 and fought in Italy. Apparently, his war experiences affected him deeply, as he mentions in some of the other stories.

[Amy (Other Amy)]

Much thanks for the point about the framing, Jim. My interlibrary loan finally came in for this and that opening sort of threw me. (I loved Mrs. Dalloway so I'm not sure why it threw me; maybe my brain wasn't in gear right at that moment.) Going to try to tackle this this weekend.

[Jim]

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Much thanks for the point about the framing, Jim. My interlibrary loan finally came in for this and that opening sort of threw me. (I loved Mrs. Dalloway so I'm not sure why it threw ..."

This is my second read for Impossible Object, and the connections were easier to see the second time through. There's a lot to appreciate in this book about family, love, and of course, what is and isn't possible. Enjoy!