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| Donald Barthelme |
1. Some (if not all) stories should unsettle readers.
2. There is meaning in absurdity.
3. It is necessary at every moment of our lives, or as often as we can bear it, to consider form.
Here are a few socio-historical musings to help you contextualize the work of this important writer.
Donald Barthelme, who was drafted into the Army to serve in Korea in 1953, became director of the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston in 1961. He published his first short story that same year. He was thirty years old.
Only three years later, he published his first story collection, Welcome Back, Dr. Caligari (Little, Brown, 1964). It included many stories published in The New Yorker, including "Me and Miss Mandible." Barthelme went on to publish over one hundred stories and four novels before he died at the age of forty-nine. If alive today, he'd be eighty-two, the same age as Michail Gorbachev, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Dan Rather, and William Shatner.
On to the stories anthologized in 3x33.
"Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning" appeared in print in 1968 in Barthelme's second collection, Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts (New York: FSG), just two months before RFK's assassination. RFK, the younger brother of JFK, was a Democratic senator, a civil rights activist, a candidate for President of the U.S., and forty-three years old when he died. Could you imagine yourself writing such a piece about a young, contemporary politician? Can you find yourself in a famous person? Can you save a famous person, or yourself?
"A City of Churches" appeared first in The New Yorker in 1972 and then in the collection Sadness (New York: FSG, 1972). Barthelme's family was devoutly Roman Catholic. Go read about Saint Cecilia, as well as the origin/meaning of the name Cecelia. When this story came out, I was one month old, born into a real estate agent's world of "Be nice" and "There is nothing you can do," and Cecelia's thrilling response, "Wait and see." It gives one a new way to imagine oneself, willing dreams in a town where no one will rent any cars.
"The School" was first published in Amateurs in 1976 (New York: FSG). Barthelme's father was a professor of architecture at the University of Houston. Although Barthelme studied journalism and philosophy at the University of Houston, he never earned a degree. Over his life, he would teach for brief periods at Boston University, SUNY-Buffalo, and City College of New York, and he helped found the prestigious writing program at the University of Houston. I like to think about who learns what in school, or in "The School."
Oh I'm first? Goodie!
ReplyDeleteDonald Barthelme takes us to a place none of the authors before have taken us before: to the weird and surreal. This surrealism is not the same as the magical realism seen in Bernard Malamud’s stories. There are no talking birds or disappearing men, just a world that seems somewhat…off. Then again, is that not the way the real world is too? “A City of Churches” portrays a literal city of churches. Everything is a church. Everything. Living spaces are churches, clinics are churches, stores are churches. All of the people in the town are dedicated to the churches, and find nothing peculiar, except for the visitor looking for a place to live. Despite her dreaming “things [they] won’t like,” they want this visitor to live in their city to make it a perfect town. The attitude of the real estate agent towards her remarks are inconsistent: disdainful, yet eager to bring her into the fold. This whole situation is bizarre, but in a way, not that different from the world we know. Barthelme satires the overwhelming presence of religion in a “secular” society which not everyone might want to be a part of, despite the constant insistence of others. “The School” also takes us into odd territory with a school that seems cursed with the presence of death, extending to pets, parents, and the students themselves. To counter all of this misery, the students ask their teacher to make love to the teaching assistant in front of them because they “know he likes her” and want to see it “demonstrated.” I am not entirely sure what this is a satire of, but it might be something to do with the fact that schoolchildren aren’t as innocent and untouchable as people would like to think, already fully aware of things like death and sex at such a young age.
Barthelme doesn’t take his time with these stories: in two or three pages, we’re already at the end. Perhaps this may be that he is poking fun through his writing, and doesn’t feel the need to expand these stories for further character or idea development because that isn’t the point of the story. The only exception to these ideas was “Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning,” which used a different sectional form, but did not seem odd or satirical. I wasn’t quite sure what to take from this story, especially after having been exposed to the style of the other two, but I’m sure Barthelme was after something there, and a commentary on being famous just might be it.
¬ After reading these three stories, I feel like Donald Barthelme has called me to do some decoding. In “A City of Churches,” we have Cecelia, the car-rental businesswoman who has landed in a city filled with churches. She seems skeptical of this town, and in this way is different from Saint Cecelia, the patron saint of music. When Mr. Phillips says that he wouldn’t rent the belfry apartments to new townspeople, Cecelia replies, “This town is a little creepy, you know that?” (182). And then later, “What denomination are you?” Mr. Phillips asks. “Cecelia was silent. The truth was, she wasn’t anything” (182). I think Barthelme is playing with the conventions of Roman Catholicism here. He wants us to realize the irony that this woman threatens Mr. Phillips with her dreams and tells him to “Wait and see” (183) when her own name signifies the blind.
ReplyDeleteThe puzzling, or moreso the “absurd” part about “The School” is the way in which we’re completely exposed to an attack on convention. The students are referred to as “children,” but they say things like, “isn’t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of—” (185). Then, as the teacher and Helen are kissing (this situation has its own absurdity), a gerbil walks into the classroom (185). It’s hard to figure out exactly what Barthelme is trying to get at by writing a strange story like this. Though I think it is just that—he wants us to question what we take to be “normal,” compare it to what we understand to be absurd, and in so doing, we are breaking out of the traditional mold of storytelling.
“Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning” reminds me of Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings.” It is another break from form, a chance for us to scratch under the surface of what makes a story a story and read each section as if it is a separate work. I could imagine myself in a contemporary politician, painting the secret life of someone like Barthelme does with Kennedy: walking through the streets of “Unknown Towns” (which I originally thought said “Unknown Tombs,” and was picturing him sleeping on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or something..). I also love how once again, he is challenging conventions by envisioning himself saving Kennedy in the water, “the rope wound round [his] waist, braced against a rock” (192). I think in all three of these stories, Barthelme is asking us to take what we know—the history of Cecelia, classroom norms, the life of Robert Kennedy—and flip it upside down. What is left is the story we never thought of, and a wave of “new” fiction.
While reading all three of theses stories I could tell that Barthelme not only wanted to play with form in his stories, but also with meaning. I think he sat down with the intentions of making his readers feel, and learn, even if they weren't to understand as clearly as he did on the clear meaning of his stories. After reading the blog post and hearing more about Barthelme's life, I've realized he has put himself into the text. The idea that he is writing about subjects like, idols, religion, and lifestyles or the familiar (teaching), makes me feel connected to him as the author. My favorite story out of these three was "Robert kennedy Saved from Drowning", which comes as know surprise to me because I myself am attracted to stories written with this form. What made me so immersed in this text was the idea that we were seeing Robert Kennedy, we were meeting him, hearing him, finding out what he felt, what he ate, how he dressed. Having different perspectives of people in different situations, made me feel so close to him. I think the idea of taking a role model or someone of statues in society and trying to break them down through a fictional story is a creative idea, that is if it works, and of course Barthelme nails it. The changing of perspectives in this story was strong and clever, we were given a little more information each time.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading "A City Of Churches", I found myself picturing this town with cathedrals and crosses littering the streets. As much as this story was depicting this image of religion, I viewed it as making fun of it in a way. Mr. Phillips is taken aback when Cecilia explains that she mostly dreams of sexual things, though she has the power to dream anything. His reaction of "Prester is not that kind of a town"(183), made me laugh. I found this town uptight and fake. Mr. Phillips also becomes caught of guard with the idea that Cecilia does not have a religious background or denomination to her name. Yet Cecilia is living, and enjoying life, she doesn't feel the need to believe in this "bigger power". I think Barthelme was trying to say that one doesn't have to show off their religious knowledge or even beliefs to have power, or even happiness in the world.
I found "The School", to be an easy read, I could have honestly read far more with this narration. I think the biggest concept that I walked away with after reading this story was the idea that in teaching, the teacher and the children are both learning from one another. Although the story is being told by the narration of what we are believed to think is this educated and mature Edgar, his voice, and way of speaking is far more that of a child. The students, though they are asking about situation they have never witnessed such as sex, are given far higher vocabulary. It seems that Barthelme has done some role reversal here. I liked it, but at the same time I may not be sure what he is trying to explain. "I said, yes, maybe." They said it's a bloody shame!"(185) This dialogue was so entertaining, I couldn't help but think that every word was meaningful to capture this message about children and adults, teachers and students. This whole concept was very entertaining.
Donald Barthelme has left me feeling as though I am not looking at a part of the world that I am used to. I feel as though he has taken the reader out of their comfort zone and has put them into another place that doesn’t feel as real or has left us confused of dazed. I feel as though some of his stories leave us uncomfortable and that’s what he is aiming for.
ReplyDelete“A City of Churches” was a short-short that felt as though is ended way too quickly. We learned a little about Cecelia who is looking for a place to live in this ‘city of churches’ but is not too thrilled with all of her options when it comes to “apartments” and other living arrangements. Her guide around the city is Mr. Phillips, who is some way acts like the “god”-like figure as at the end of this story he tells her she has no choice but to stay in this town. I found this story the easiest to read, however, we are left without a real ending that is solid to us, and we don’t know what is to happen to Cecelia who does not believe in any sort of higher power.
“The School” is an even shorter short that is just as off-putting as the previous story, if not more so. I don’t find myself wondering about the ending, but I find myself wondering about these children who have apparently grown up too quickly, as things and people continually die on them. Somehow, these experiences have made them even smarter, but at the same time, these children are seriously creepy. I have no other way to describe them, as they beg their teacher to make love with Helen, the teaching assistant, so they can see how it is done. What the hell?
Finally, we have “Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning”. What an interesting take on a politician. I liked how this story was structured, it was all in little pieces and that made sense to me, the rest of the story however, kept me wondering where exactly I was to go from section to section. By the end, I was left thinking the same thing… Where do I go from here? I enjoyed how some of these sections were chunks of quotes. All in all, I have to say that I enjoyed these stories more than the other ones that were read for short story.
These stories were definitely…wacky as the introduction said. Unlike the magical realism of past stories, these stories are just odd in the sense that it’s a realistic setting, but there’s something a bit off-kilter and unsettling about it. “City of Churches” created a real sense of isolation for me when I was reading it. This town seems so focused around itself with not a lot of outside influence. Cecelia, of course, is isolated, as she is new to the area. But she also doesn’t fit in from the get-go. She doesn’t want to live in any of the churches, and she isn’t quite willing to fit the image of the town. Obviously, with all the churches, the story is centered on religion. But there isn’t really any mention of faith in the story. There are so many different churches and so many different denominations represented in the area, and the idea that everyone lives in the churches developed a creepy tone for the story, as well as the end when they don’t want Cecilia to leave.
ReplyDelete“The School” was also a really weird story. Weird, but good. It’s only two pages, but Barthelme manages to accomplish a lot in those two pages. It started out fairly normal, but quickly progressed into weird territory, with the unusually high number of deaths. I got the impression the students in the story were fairly young, and indeed they are referred to as children, but when I got to the end, they didn’t act like children. “Then they said, but isn’t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of—“ Not exactly what I would imagine when I think of what children sound like. I have to agree with Pat that this is probably commenting on the supposed naïveté of children and how they’re not really as innocent as we may like to think.
“Robert Kennedy Saved From Drowning” didn’t have the same weird feeling as the first two stories. Like Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings”, it’s an experiment with form, broken up into specific sections. There isn’t really an overall plot to the story, instead the reader is presented with very short vignettes from different points of view. After reading the other two and going into this one prepared to feel similar, I’m not quite sure what to make of Barthelme’s point behind this story.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Bartheleme’s writing is his ability to convey so much in such a short space of time. Of the three stories we read, the longest (“Robert Kennedy Saved From Drowning”) is only six pages long. In other words, Bartheleme’s short stories are indeed quite short. There’s no beating around the bush here; the writing is concise, yet professional, yet absurdist. This particular form of absurdism is different from other pieces we’ve read. Rather than focusing on the magically absurd, Batheleme focuses on using realistic ideas to create the absurd. In “A City of Churches,” he uses churches, themselves. Certainly, the situation may not seem all that absurd (a woman trying to start a used car business is looking for an apartment in a religious town), but the surroundings are what make the piece absurd. Literally everything in this town is a church. However, more so than just that, the religion, itself, doesn’t seem to matter all that matter. No one seems to care what you worship, just as long as you worship something. I find this especially strange, because it could never happen. It is almost, strangely, an idealistic society focusing on religion, though Bartheleme is mocking such a thought at the same time.
ReplyDelete“The School” is absurdist in its natural disturbing nature. I could be wrong, but I believe it’s about a man in love with a woman. That is all that I’m actually sure of here. But, it is beyond bizarre, because it almost feels like the narrator is a child, himself. However, I don’t think this is the case, since he refers to the other children as “these children.” Of course, this further confuses me. I am unsure what exactly this character’s role in the classroom. Maybe I should just accept that this is no ordinary classroom. Maybe it’s another world that I am unfamiliar with. I hope so, yet, at the same time, I hope not.
Although “Robert Kennedy Saved From Drowning” is the most unique in terms of format, it may actually be the least absurdist piece of these three. It is, simply enough, a (fictional) focus on Robert Kennedy’s day to day life. It seems like it is written in the form of a diary written by an objective observer. It is fascinating, though it has no fictional flow, so to speak. Granted, this sort of piece doesn’t necessarily need any sort of flow to be successful. It is not a traditional short story, so why should it be constricted to traditional rules?
Barthelme’s stories are weird, and by weird I mean really weird. Each has its own unreal aspect to it, either in setting, tone, or the events that occur. And yet, they were so out of the ordinary that I was really drawn to them, or at least the idea of them. The stories themselves may not have been my favorite, but I could really appreciate this experimental style that Barthelme was crafting.
ReplyDeleteIn “City of Churches” we are given a strange setting. The town is filled with churches. Every building is a church, and thus we can assume everyone in town is affiliated with some religious denomination. Isn’t it strange then that they want this outsider that the town doesn’t even need? Cecilia doesn’t belong to any religion and no one in town would have the need to rent a car. Strangely though, Mr. Philips begs her to stay because the town needs her for some reason or another. I can only think of the concept of utopias and how they need a dystopia to exist. They needed Cecilia to be the strange one, the dystopia, to make this church filled utopia complete.
Then we come to “The School” and are presented with a bunch of creepy children and scenarios in which multitudes of plants, animals, and even people have died. Then the children, who are becoming frightened by it all, want their teacher to sleep with the assistant teacher, and they want to watch. Not only that, but they speak in a way I would never expect children to speak. “Isn’t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of-” Yeah, what child speaks like that? If they had class pets I assume they were middle school at the oldest. It was really freaky. I’m still not sure what to make of this story though.
And finally “Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning” sets us up with a strange tone rather than a strange setting. Every clip of K’s life felt very dreamlike to me, or even descriptions of photographs that someone found in a scrapbook, or something similar. It was a really interesting piece, detailing incidents here and there about the character K. Each said something about the character in its own way. Sometimes his character seems contradictory, like how either he is forgetful or remembers even the small details. Other times we see the deep sadness the character faces, through the scene about the tragic stories, or the radio. And then we see silly scenes, where it is described how often he changes shirts. The piece is filled with a variety of moments to turn K into a very well rounded character.
I did a tad bit of research on Donald Barthelme in-between these stories, and I found a list of writers who influenced him; I was not surprised in the least to find Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and Gabriel García Márquez on the list (although I was disappointed to find that Tom Stoppard was not among them). If these are the Three Kings of the Absurd (Stoppard perhaps being the Royal Jester), then Barthelme makes a fine Fourth.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that is strikingly similar about these three pieces, the thing that they all have in common, is that I have no idea how to handle them. I am used to considering that every detail is intended and has a point. This is a very difficult thing to do when analyzing an absurdist piece of writing. So I shall do my best.
“A City of Churches” is very interesting. It appears to be commenting on the expectation of belonging somewhere. We are often asked the question What are you? in terms of our stances—religiously, politically, socially, et cetera. But Cecelia (the Blind Dreamer), when confronted by Mr. Phillips, is resilient. She is nothing. She will not conform in the way that the citizens of the City of Churches have conformed to what Mr. Phillips calls “the usual pattern” (on a side note, the name “Phillip” means “friend of horses”, which is quite funny paired with the idea of a rental car, being neither a horse nor a friend (as it is a rental, rather than what my father would endearingly call “an old beater”)).
“The School” is also a very interesting piece. This story seems to be commenting—at least, to me—on the ineffectiveness of education in our society, that it only works if it yields… I don’t know… life? In this story everyone is either dying or disappointed. And it ends with a conversation between the teacher and his students that is very unsettling, albeit at the same time hilarious. Huh. And oddly meaningful. The children have a higher level of intelligence in their questions to the teacher than the teacher himself. Perhaps this is a comment on children bearing true unclouded intelligence?
It took me some time to realize what Barthelme was doing in “Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning”. It wasn’t until “K. on His Own Role” when I realized that Barthelme was painting the picture of a character who was depressed by his responsibilities, and seen (perhaps as in “Matters (from an Administrative Assistant)”) as someone who indeed is a great leader and thus has many responsibilities; almost as a sort of Servant-God, someone who is revered yet expected to do all the work for no other reason other than the fact that he is the only one who possibly can. I became very interested in the section “He Discusses the French Writer, Poulet” where the idea of the Marivaudian being is introduced. “The Marivaudian being is… a pastless, futureless man, born anew at every instant.” There’s something about that sentence that struck me rather emotionally, and I’m not sure I can describe it all that well. Perhaps I’ll sleep on it.
Donald Barthelme was very strange to read, for lack of words. I liked the conciseness of the pieces in how they used such minimal space to make me think so much. Each story stayed with me for days later as I ponder the meaning of the stories. The first two, “A City of Churches” and “The School” connected a bit more for me. I understood what was going on in both stories more. They were also closer to what we usually consider to be the form of short stories. But even they were experimental with their length and lack of great character detail. In every story I began to see the character, but I only saw them in the present moment. I didn’t wonder about who they were in the past and what they would do after I finished the last sentence. They solely existed in the present moment. I agreed with Jonathan Lethem when he said that Barthelme stories felt more like parables or fables. Each story had a moral tucked in. It hid under the surface of the piece and never blatantly came out. Like in “A City of Churches” the aspect of the closeness of people to religion is mulled over. In the end, the story doesn’t quite give a strong moral, but leaves you feeling like you should have learned something. “The School” does the same thing as the presence of death and life looms over the story. Even the children ask, “Is death that which gives meaning to life… isn’t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended” (185). A moral is very much hidden, and I can only grasp at the straws Barthelme has given me. “Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning” has the same kind of unsettling ending. I feel as if the story is trying to send me a deep moral as the narrator rescues K from the water. Keeping in mind that we are never told exactly what kind of water this form takes whether it is a beach, lake, or ocean. I really enjoyed these stories especially “A City of Churches” and “The School.” They are all so different than anything else I’ve read. Each story made me see how important it is to have character driven stories. In such short stories, every detail, character, and word matters.
ReplyDeleteDonald Barthelme’s stories are definitely unlike anything I’ve seen before, and it’s a comforting surprise to read something that is so different from everything else we’ve studied yet still resonates with us. While his stories are the shortest we have come across so far, there is enough feeling in the form and plot situation that give us something else to pay attention to. Also, his use of absurdism and surrealism is some of the best I’ve ever read, simply because I barely feel the need to question it at all. I’m drawn into it to a point where reality becomes a nuisance.
ReplyDelete“City of Churches” begins as an absurdist piece, with Mr. Phillips and the townsfolk being perfectly content with their literal city of churches. Cecelia has not yet been taken out of reality as she is only a visitor, much like us into this story, but she considers becoming a citizen enough that she begins to ask more and more questions to better figure it out. Mr. Phillip and the other citizens disapprove of this; they don’t want her to try and understand, they only want her to conform and be taken over by the mentality that she should be a part of this apparent “utopia”. The only way she can really defend herself is to become even more absurd than them, thus sparking the surrealist turn in the story. “‘I can will my dreams,’ Cecelia said. ‘I can dream whatever I want.’” She goes off on this stand of independence defined by her dreams. I believe by doing this she is showing that the citizens of this town do not dream, therefor have no calling. They are stuck, while she still needs a place where people rent cars.
The voice of the “The School” combined with the dark nature that encompasses it is what makes it stand out. How the narrator describes the actions of plot is where the surrealism lies. He sounds to be telling this story to us directly, but in a trance of some sort. He is in a “funk” that he cannot pinpoint as to why he is there, but everything just seems off to him and he still goes along with it. Like the children telling him to make love with the assistant; he knows it is extremely rude to do such a thing in front of children, yet he goes along with it anyway.
While “Robert Kennedy Saved From Drowning” has many “Happy Endings”-like qualities, I feel it reaches farther than that. They are not possible plots of the same story, or restarts. They are snapshots, directly and indirectly, of Robert Kennedy’s life. Sometimes they are exterior descriptions; sometimes they are only made of speech. There is no transition between any of these that we have to create our own to stay within the story.
Donald Barthelme is certainly interesting. Even though “interesting” has some odd conations attached to it, it is the only word that I think can describe him. His writings are odd and surreal and we just roll with it. Take for example “The School” and the string of deaths. I started not trusting the school when snakes died, only the second death. But Edgar the human still kinda dismisses what’s going on. He suspects that Edgar the puppy will die but he still seems to just brush the death off. This is most prevalent on 185 when Edgar says “I forgot to mention Billy Brandet’s father, who was knifed fatally when he grappled with a masked intruder in his home.” I’d consider that death more unforgettable than the two heart attacks but that death is the one he paid the most attention to. But somehow it makes sense in some way. The whole absurdity of the school makes sense in some way in his world.
ReplyDeleteThe absurdity of the churches in “City of Churches” are somewhat accepted in a way. Cecelia is a bit confused about the whole city, but she does seem more concerned with the people in the town and Mr. Phillips’ selling technique then the fact that you can go in for a sermon and leave with a haircut in these churches. Cecelia herself seems to dabble in weirdness, telling him that she can will her dreams. At the end, she almost threatens him with her dreams and I was half expecting an anime-esque battle to break out right there with Cecelia willing her dreams. It’s an extremely silly thought, but the whole story had this sort of weirdness that I was ready to accept.
“Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning” isn’t quite as odd as the previous two stories. The story itself is rather grounded in reality, but it’s the format that’s odd. It’s snapshots of Robert Kennedy’s life, pieced together like someone found a collection of random photographs and a few interviews and tried to apply background to it. It’s an interesting format, one that reveals a surprising amount of detail in such a short space of time.
I think I could talk about "The School" for hours, if I could find someone else who wanted to engage in that conversation. I'm interested to hear what everyone made of it, other than the unanimous: Man that was weird! This story, more than any other, opened up to me the idea of possibility in story - although there is an interesting debate to be had here as to whether or not "The School" is even rightly classified as a story, but that's sort of to the point, isn't it? This story demonstrates the ways in which the maxims we toss around don't really hold up, and that's the best news! Show, don't tell? This story
ReplyDeleteis all tell, up till we get to the present moment of the story, when we get to break another rule. It's so freeing to see the way in which a story can work in the expository mode, that scene is not the essential building block of fiction. Verisimilitude in writing is a virtue? Sure, it can be, but so can a total departure from the logical, plausible world we inhabit, provided it's done with purpose. We often feel compelled in fiction to make our subjects a sort of subtext, or what is sometimes called the "second subject". But man, Barthelme isn't bothered by this at all. He puts it all on the surface. "And they said, is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life." This conversation, the directness of, "we require an assertion of value, we are frightened," Barthelme dispenses with the notion that we ought not to deal our second subject directly. And all this is only addressing the form of the story, leaving aside the wonderful humor in the piece, the searing skepticism towards fiction, the serious contemplation of life, death, and value, and the compression with which all of this is achieved.
Something that I noted when reading these three stories of Donald Barthelme, were that they all seemed almost abstract. They all had a very interesting way of approaching the topic that was at hand. from the "City of Churches," to "The School" and yes "Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning” as well. All had very odd ways of looking at things and had different styles of writing that when along with them as well. I haven't had enough time to decide if I personally enjoyed all of the stories, but I will say that I thought all of them were well written and held my interest.
ReplyDeleteThe first story was "City of Churches," which was probably my least favorite of the three. I liked how the main women was distant from the culture of the town and felt the pressures of the town to conform as well as the guide who tried to force her to stay. I thought it was rather interesting that it ended up the way that it did, however I'm not sure if I enjoyed the ending I thought it was a little too foreseeable.
"The School" which I had to already read in Short-stories was probably my favorite of the the three simple because of the bizarre state of mind that the piece has. I loved how the children begin to ask really grown up questions and the adults kind of lose control of there scenes. I thought that the fact that every thing that came into the school died was a great part of the story. Really engaging and a little more then a little confusing.
"Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning,” I only enjoyed this story because of the different style of the narration. Otherwise I found it a little boring. I though that the character known as K was the most interesting part of the story, but nothing seemed to happen.