Wow. After T.C. Boyle's introduction, I was going into the Richter reading expecting to find something like Danielle Evans. He said that what he admires most is "her effortless blend of the comedic and the poignant"- something I loved about Evans's stories.
But boy were those expectations wrong. Richter could only be like Danielle Evans if we threw her in a bag with Poe, Gaitskill, and and a rusty chainsaw blade. I guess we could say she's funny, but the humor is so dark and perverse that it makes Evans's jokes seem like unicorns and glitter finger-paintings. She says things like "On occasion he'd be struck by the nothing that the Bitch was the Bride of Pure Evil and one day he stuck a fork in her thigh. In return, she bit him, then took off her shirt and showed him her tits...after that, if he was slipping, shed wear a nursing bra...so she could flash him when he got out of line." I mean, it's funny-- it's real funny-- but in a sick, twisted way that I feel dirty laughing at. She has the kind of humor that makes me want to look around the room and make sure I'm alone before I laugh at it.
I guess there is a little bit of Evans in other aspects, though. The main character of "The Beauty Treatment" reminds me in some ways of Crystal from "Robert E. Lee is Dead." She's got that academic-high-achiever-meets-morally-and-emotionally-compromised personality that contradicts itself so well. Also, for a lot of the story, I pictured her as a young black girl, which probably says more about my failures as a reader than the character herself, but, that's what I was picturing.
And I can't end this blog without talking about the ending of "The Beauty Treatment." Richter writes that "in fact, I had a certain glow about me...From the right side, I actually was pretty." Essays could be written on these two lines alone. She only "glows" when she's in the dark, staring at the mirror; she's only beautiful when her face is totally hidden.
That last line, too, is so frustratingly ambiguous. If she's only pretty "from the right side," that means that if we're looking at her head-on, it's OUR right that is the pretty side. In the beginning, the narrator says that the cut was "a red gash [that] parted my cheek from me left temple to the corner of my lip." This implies that it's HER left side, or, from the perspective of someone looking at her head-on, the right side. So, at the end of the story, she's saying she's only pretty when the part of her face that's scarred is showing. She isn't pretty without the scar. She uses the attack and the scar as a mask--any redeemable qualities she has, any confidence, pride, and worthiness she has is due to the scar. Without the scar, she's nothing.
So I really enjoyed Stacey Richter. I'm not going to say she's so different from everyone else so far because everyone has been different, but I will say that she is different alright. The whole piece was pretty humorous and I can't say I stopped at all. I was just drawn in by this dark humor. I love dark humor and I love that not only she has dark humor, but even her main character does! "My father did it on accident, whilst beating me zealously" (566)—yes! I love it. And yet for a pretty humorous story, I could tell there was substance to it. I see her communicating the thoughts of a spoiled girl and somehow making her relatable to me. Somehow I felt sorry for them both when why should I really? As a lower middle class male, what the shit business do I have reading such a story and empathizing? And that is what I like about Richter most and what I want to do in my own writing. I like to play with class and the idea of class. I like to have my characters be obviously of a certain class, but I want them to be somehow accessible. I think I'm still working out the kinks, but reading this was a great help.
I agree with Alex in saying that Richter is a odd combination between Poe, Gaitskill and a rusty chainsaw. I actually don't think there would be a better way for me to say that. I thought that Richter was a nice change from everything else we've read and I actually thought that she was one of the author's that I could identify with more than the others. The Beauty Treatment was probably one of the only stories we've read this semester that stuck with me emotionally and not just because I felt bad for the narrator, who pops in and out of what feels like consciousness throughout the piece, and I even felt bad for the Bitch. I realized that she couldn't be so bad, and that the only thing we hear from her is her saying "Oh God," "Fuck," and "Im really sorry" I realize that maybe she's just a product of something, that maybe their friendship got distorted and she had nowhere else to go. Maybe it was a cry for help gone wrong? Why I had these thoughts was a mystery to me, but I felt like this was one of the only stories that I have read for this class that was at all emotionally charged. What I think I can take from this is the way she makes us feel something for the character we're supposed to hate, and the way that she allows the narrator to seemingly slip in and out of the story so that she's talking about herself and seeing the scene from above, all the while having enough grip on reality to have an attitude. I also thought that there was a unique darkness to this story that made it really different for me, and I liked that. I liked that it was dark, and I felt like there was another layer of darkness beyond what we can see on the surface. All in all, I think that this is one story and one author that might actually make it onto my family tree.
Stacey Richter I think was the most intriguing authors we have read this year. In The Beauty Treatment I almost automatically hated the main character for all of the things that she had. It made me a little angry that this cut was going to ruin her life. I thought about feeling bad for her once when she was going to have to work to be a lawyer, then she would have two cars and one would be a jaguar, just for pleasure driving. I wasn't drawn in by this story nearly as much as The Cavemen in the Hedges. This was definitely the strangest story I have read this year. I paid attention to the P.O.V. one I was reading the first paragraph, she doesn't state who is talking until the second sentence. In the first sentence she has already gotten to the title, which usually takes authors 10 or so pages to accomplish. She also by the second sentence has conveyed to us that the cavemen are out of place, all of this in two short sentences, well done Stacey Richter. What I think I enjoyed most about this story was that you already get a sense of what was going to happen after the second time that Kim goes down to the basement. I also felt like Richter had a great deal of fun writing this story which I appreciated because so many other pieces feel like the author tortured themselves to get the correct words down.
On my literary family tree Stacey Richter is the older sister that I look up to because she is the kind of writer I would like to become. Her use of voice and characterization was so amazing and out of all of the authors so far, she was the one that I enjoyed the most. Richter uses so many techniques in these pieces such as voice, characterization, and ability to add humor in serious situations that I would love to use them all in my own writing because it could enrich my stories so much more. When I read “The Beauty Treatment” I felt like I was sitting next to the main character listening to her speak. I didn’t really hate initially because I could see what she was coming from even though she was a spoiled brat. I loved how Katie was only called the Bitch as if that is what she only is to her. Richter used a lot of little phrases that you don’t find much in writing such as “I mean, so what”, “I swear to God” and “and another thing”. I guess it isn’t in much of today’s stories because the characters get very personal and intimate with the reader, which could put off some many people. Also it can be very hard to accomplish and could make the story very unsuccessful if the reader doesn’t understand what she is trying to do. “The Cavemen in the Hedges” also kept me glued to the page because I wanted to see why there were cavemen in the present day and if Kim and the narrator got together. At first when I read it, I thought that Kim was pregnant which might explain why she is so happy. But it makes a lot more sense that Richter made Kim fall in love with a caveman because it forces the narrator to change and realize what he had was truly wonderful. The whole cavemen thing was extremely humorous especially by how the narrator described some of their behavior such as chasing after Barbie dolls and getting gum stuck to their butt. I think Richter included cavemen was to contrast with the serious subject of a couple who were experiencing tough times. Unlike “The Beauty Treatment” where the narrator is on good terms with The Bitch at the end, the narrator of “The Cavemen in the Hedges” loses his love and tries to remain hopeful that she would return. After reading these two stories I would love to read more of her work because I find her writing so interesting and instructional.
One of my favorite things to see in writing is dark humor. So, naturally it made me pretty happy to see it being used so much in Stacy Richter's stories. Dark humor is somethin that, although I like, I don't really use that much anymore. I used to like putting dark humor into my writing a lot, but I haven't done so in a while. After reading Richter, I have decited that I will do it again for at least one of the writing exercises just to make sure I can still do it. Richter made me remember how much I enjoyed it. I did enjoy reading Richter. She definately earned a spot on my family tree. Perhaps a step mom. I see myself close enough to her to call her a mother figure, but I'm not close enough to her to call her my real mother. But I am glad she is in my literary life.
I need to put in my initial reaction after finishing 'The Beauty Treatment:' holy crap this is amazing. I love what Richter was able to do with her humor and wordplay, especially the wordplay though. The ending was so ambiguous. It reflects back to earlier in the text, where she says something similar but this time she is looking in a mirror. To me, this could be her embracing the scar on her face. It could also be her still being ashamed of the scar and having not really changed by the end of the story. It all depends on how the reader decides to interpret it. After reading that impacting statement and then going into a story called 'The Cavemen in the Hedges,' I got slightly confused as to Richter's style. However, I very much enjoyed it. I liked the magical realism of the story along side the relationship between Kim and the narrator. I think I will be able to find Richter somewhere on my literary family tree.
Stacey Richter proves herself to be a very versatile and very imaginative author with these two pieces. The stories are very different in both form and plotline, but at the same time they are connected by some very basic ideas. Both "The Beauty Treatment" and "The Cavemen in the Hedges" involve two people who change and are changed by a startling and rather unbelievable event. They are also similar in that they are narrated by a very close first-person speaker, providing a beautiful attention to detail in terms of not only the speaker's psyche, but also the "second" character's mindset as well.
I am in complete agreement with several of the above comments, in that Ms. Richter will most definitely be on my family tree--if not for her form, then certainly because she shows how various tools, especially humor, can be used to turn strange ideas in the surface plot toward purposes that are not as obvious as the plot twist might suggest, but that are much more fulfilling.
"The Cavemen in the Hedges" is one of my favorite stories that we've read so far. Just the idea behind it, putting cavemen into our present day society, and how Kim, who absolutely hated those cavemen, in the end turned into one because that's where she found her true happiness. Both of her stories are based on relationships that we see only through the main character's eyes, but even though it's told in first person I really feel like I have a sense of what the other person in the relationship is feeling. I think this is more apparent in "The Cavemen..." because of the little details that the narrator gives us, about how they've been together for ten years, that they're 33 years old, and he still won't get married to Kim, even though she obviously wants to. The way that we view Kim through the narrator's eyes really gives us a clear view of who she is, without ever having known any of her feelings or thoughts. I also thought that "The Beauty Treatment" was one of the most well-written stories that we've read. I went from really disliking "The Bitch" to placing that dislike toward the main character. As the story goes on, we learn just how spoiled the narrator is, and how maladjusted The Bitch is. By the end, even though she cut the narrator with a razor on her cheek and apparently ruined the narrator's face and life, I feel more sympathy for The Bitch. Stacey Richter will be on my family tree. I didn't really talk about this but she does use humor really well in her piece, as other people have talked about, and I really appreciate that. Also, just how she was able to manipulate my feelings about the characters, and how in each story I didn't really like the narrator of the story by the end of it, even though they both were apparently the one's who were worse off than the other person in the relationship.
Okay, so my classmates appear to be garnering Stacey Richter with great comedic adoration—but Richter’s humor is not without equal parts tragedy and cynicism. Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate intelligent dark comedy, but my point is that Richter’s work should not be the token comedy in a collection of fiction. According to Boyle’s supposed “deeper insights” that are offered as a preface to Richter’s works in Doubletakes, “People often distinguish between the comic and the serious in literature, but the best comedy is very serious indeed.” Very serious indeed? I’m glad that Boyle takes it upon himself to debase an entire genre of writing by using Stacey Richter’s writing to exemplify an unsubstantiated and pretentious opinion about comedy.
Why do stuffy white dudes think that they’re instant comedy experts and why do they hold tragedies and dramas with higher esteem than comedic works? Too often, academics present comedy as a lesser art—no true comedy has won an Academy Award for Best Picture since Annie Hall in 1977. (In 1998, Shakespeare in Love won—a comedy about Shakespeare? Tell me that this isn’t a flick with serious snob appeal.) If I could critique one aspect of Susquehanna University’s Creative Writing program, it would be that, despite valuing creativity, no emphasis is placed on humor and people who attempt to write humorously often receive little instruction related to comedy. I believe that, until a writer can hone their comedic craft, their writing will be obnoxiously depressing—very serious indeed.
Wow. After T.C. Boyle's introduction, I was going into the Richter reading expecting to find something like Danielle Evans. He said that what he admires most is "her effortless blend of the comedic and the poignant"- something I loved about Evans's stories.
ReplyDeleteBut boy were those expectations wrong. Richter could only be like Danielle Evans if we threw her in a bag with Poe, Gaitskill, and and a rusty chainsaw blade. I guess we could say she's funny, but the humor is so dark and perverse that it makes Evans's jokes seem like unicorns and glitter finger-paintings. She says things like "On occasion he'd be struck by the nothing that the Bitch was the Bride of Pure Evil and one day he stuck a fork in her thigh. In return, she bit him, then took off her shirt and showed him her tits...after that, if he was slipping, shed wear a nursing bra...so she could flash him when he got out of line." I mean, it's funny-- it's real funny-- but in a sick, twisted way that I feel dirty laughing at. She has the kind of humor that makes me want to look around the room and make sure I'm alone before I laugh at it.
I guess there is a little bit of Evans in other aspects, though. The main character of "The Beauty Treatment" reminds me in some ways of Crystal from "Robert E. Lee is Dead." She's got that academic-high-achiever-meets-morally-and-emotionally-compromised personality that contradicts itself so well. Also, for a lot of the story, I pictured her as a young black girl, which probably says more about my failures as a reader than the character herself, but, that's what I was picturing.
And I can't end this blog without talking about the ending of "The Beauty Treatment." Richter writes that "in fact, I had a certain glow about me...From the right side, I actually was pretty." Essays could be written on these two lines alone. She only "glows" when she's in the dark, staring at the mirror; she's only beautiful when her face is totally hidden.
That last line, too, is so frustratingly ambiguous. If she's only pretty "from the right side," that means that if we're looking at her head-on, it's OUR right that is the pretty side. In the beginning, the narrator says that the cut was "a red gash [that] parted my cheek from me left temple to the corner of my lip." This implies that it's HER left side, or, from the perspective of someone looking at her head-on, the right side. So, at the end of the story, she's saying she's only pretty when the part of her face that's scarred is showing. She isn't pretty without the scar. She uses the attack and the scar as a mask--any redeemable qualities she has, any confidence, pride, and worthiness she has is due to the scar. Without the scar, she's nothing.
So I really enjoyed Stacey Richter. I'm not going to say she's so different from everyone else so far because everyone has been different, but I will say that she is different alright. The whole piece was pretty humorous and I can't say I stopped at all. I was just drawn in by this dark humor. I love dark humor and I love that not only she has dark humor, but even her main character does! "My father did it on accident, whilst beating me zealously" (566)—yes! I love it. And yet for a pretty humorous story, I could tell there was substance to it. I see her communicating the thoughts of a spoiled girl and somehow making her relatable to me. Somehow I felt sorry for them both when why should I really? As a lower middle class male, what the shit business do I have reading such a story and empathizing?
ReplyDeleteAnd that is what I like about Richter most and what I want to do in my own writing. I like to play with class and the idea of class. I like to have my characters be obviously of a certain class, but I want them to be somehow accessible. I think I'm still working out the kinks, but reading this was a great help.
I agree with Alex in saying that Richter is a odd combination between Poe, Gaitskill and a rusty chainsaw. I actually don't think there would be a better way for me to say that. I thought that Richter was a nice change from everything else we've read and I actually thought that she was one of the author's that I could identify with more than the others. The Beauty Treatment was probably one of the only stories we've read this semester that stuck with me emotionally and not just because I felt bad for the narrator, who pops in and out of what feels like consciousness throughout the piece, and I even felt bad for the Bitch. I realized that she couldn't be so bad, and that the only thing we hear from her is her saying "Oh God," "Fuck," and "Im really sorry" I realize that maybe she's just a product of something, that maybe their friendship got distorted and she had nowhere else to go. Maybe it was a cry for help gone wrong? Why I had these thoughts was a mystery to me, but I felt like this was one of the only stories that I have read for this class that was at all emotionally charged.
ReplyDeleteWhat I think I can take from this is the way she makes us feel something for the character we're supposed to hate, and the way that she allows the narrator to seemingly slip in and out of the story so that she's talking about herself and seeing the scene from above, all the while having enough grip on reality to have an attitude. I also thought that there was a unique darkness to this story that made it really different for me, and I liked that. I liked that it was dark, and I felt like there was another layer of darkness beyond what we can see on the surface. All in all, I think that this is one story and one author that might actually make it onto my family tree.
Stacey Richter I think was the most intriguing authors we have read this year. In The Beauty Treatment I almost automatically hated the main character for all of the things that she had. It made me a little angry that this cut was going to ruin her life. I thought about feeling bad for her once when she was going to have to work to be a lawyer, then she would have two cars and one would be a jaguar, just for pleasure driving. I wasn't drawn in by this story nearly as much as The Cavemen in the Hedges.
ReplyDeleteThis was definitely the strangest story I have read this year. I paid attention to the P.O.V. one I was reading the first paragraph, she doesn't state who is talking until the second sentence. In the first sentence she has already gotten to the title, which usually takes authors 10 or so pages to accomplish. She also by the second sentence has conveyed to us that the cavemen are out of place, all of this in two short sentences, well done Stacey Richter.
What I think I enjoyed most about this story was that you already get a sense of what was going to happen after the second time that Kim goes down to the basement. I also felt like Richter had a great deal of fun writing this story which I appreciated because so many other pieces feel like the author tortured themselves to get the correct words down.
On my literary family tree Stacey Richter is the older sister that I look up to because she is the kind of writer I would like to become. Her use of voice and characterization was so amazing and out of all of the authors so far, she was the one that I enjoyed the most. Richter uses so many techniques in these pieces such as voice, characterization, and ability to add humor in serious situations that I would love to use them all in my own writing because it could enrich my stories so much more. When I read “The Beauty Treatment” I felt like I was sitting next to the main character listening to her speak. I didn’t really hate initially because I could see what she was coming from even though she was a spoiled brat. I loved how Katie was only called the Bitch as if that is what she only is to her. Richter used a lot of little phrases that you don’t find much in writing such as “I mean, so what”, “I swear to God” and “and another thing”. I guess it isn’t in much of today’s stories because the characters get very personal and intimate with the reader, which could put off some many people. Also it can be very hard to accomplish and could make the story very unsuccessful if the reader doesn’t understand what she is trying to do.
ReplyDelete“The Cavemen in the Hedges” also kept me glued to the page because I wanted to see why there were cavemen in the present day and if Kim and the narrator got together. At first when I read it, I thought that Kim was pregnant which might explain why she is so happy. But it makes a lot more sense that Richter made Kim fall in love with a caveman because it forces the narrator to change and realize what he had was truly wonderful. The whole cavemen thing was extremely humorous especially by how the narrator described some of their behavior such as chasing after Barbie dolls and getting gum stuck to their butt. I think Richter included cavemen was to contrast with the serious subject of a couple who were experiencing tough times. Unlike “The Beauty Treatment” where the narrator is on good terms with The Bitch at the end, the narrator of “The Cavemen in the Hedges” loses his love and tries to remain hopeful that she would return. After reading these two stories I would love to read more of her work because I find her writing so interesting and instructional.
One of my favorite things to see in writing is dark humor. So, naturally it made me pretty happy to see it being used so much in Stacy Richter's stories. Dark humor is somethin that, although I like, I don't really use that much anymore. I used to like putting dark humor into my writing a lot, but I haven't done so in a while. After reading Richter, I have decited that I will do it again for at least one of the writing exercises just to make sure I can still do it. Richter made me remember how much I enjoyed it. I did enjoy reading Richter. She definately earned a spot on my family tree. Perhaps a step mom. I see myself close enough to her to call her a mother figure, but I'm not close enough to her to call her my real mother. But I am glad she is in my literary life.
ReplyDeleteI need to put in my initial reaction after finishing 'The Beauty Treatment:' holy crap this is amazing. I love what Richter was able to do with her humor and wordplay, especially the wordplay though. The ending was so ambiguous. It reflects back to earlier in the text, where she says something similar but this time she is looking in a mirror. To me, this could be her embracing the scar on her face. It could also be her still being ashamed of the scar and having not really changed by the end of the story. It all depends on how the reader decides to interpret it.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading that impacting statement and then going into a story called 'The Cavemen in the Hedges,' I got slightly confused as to Richter's style. However, I very much enjoyed it. I liked the magical realism of the story along side the relationship between Kim and the narrator. I think I will be able to find Richter somewhere on my literary family tree.
Stacey Richter proves herself to be a very versatile and very imaginative author with these two pieces. The stories are very different in both form and plotline, but at the same time they are connected by some very basic ideas. Both "The Beauty Treatment" and "The Cavemen in the Hedges" involve two people who change and are changed by a startling and rather unbelievable event. They are also similar in that they are narrated by a very close first-person speaker, providing a beautiful attention to detail in terms of not only the speaker's psyche, but also the "second" character's mindset as well.
ReplyDeleteI am in complete agreement with several of the above comments, in that Ms. Richter will most definitely be on my family tree--if not for her form, then certainly because she shows how various tools, especially humor, can be used to turn strange ideas in the surface plot toward purposes that are not as obvious as the plot twist might suggest, but that are much more fulfilling.
"The Cavemen in the Hedges" is one of my favorite stories that we've read so far. Just the idea behind it, putting cavemen into our present day society, and how Kim, who absolutely hated those cavemen, in the end turned into one because that's where she found her true happiness. Both of her stories are based on relationships that we see only through the main character's eyes, but even though it's told in first person I really feel like I have a sense of what the other person in the relationship is feeling. I think this is more apparent in "The Cavemen..." because of the little details that the narrator gives us, about how they've been together for ten years, that they're 33 years old, and he still won't get married to Kim, even though she obviously wants to. The way that we view Kim through the narrator's eyes really gives us a clear view of who she is, without ever having known any of her feelings or thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI also thought that "The Beauty Treatment" was one of the most well-written stories that we've read. I went from really disliking "The Bitch" to placing that dislike toward the main character. As the story goes on, we learn just how spoiled the narrator is, and how maladjusted The Bitch is. By the end, even though she cut the narrator with a razor on her cheek and apparently ruined the narrator's face and life, I feel more sympathy for The Bitch.
Stacey Richter will be on my family tree. I didn't really talk about this but she does use humor really well in her piece, as other people have talked about, and I really appreciate that. Also, just how she was able to manipulate my feelings about the characters, and how in each story I didn't really like the narrator of the story by the end of it, even though they both were apparently the one's who were worse off than the other person in the relationship.
Okay, so my classmates appear to be garnering Stacey Richter with great comedic adoration—but Richter’s humor is not without equal parts tragedy and cynicism. Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate intelligent dark comedy, but my point is that Richter’s work should not be the token comedy in a collection of fiction. According to Boyle’s supposed “deeper insights” that are offered as a preface to Richter’s works in Doubletakes, “People often distinguish between the comic and the serious in literature, but the best comedy is very serious indeed.” Very serious indeed? I’m glad that Boyle takes it upon himself to debase an entire genre of writing by using Stacey Richter’s writing to exemplify an unsubstantiated and pretentious opinion about comedy.
ReplyDeleteWhy do stuffy white dudes think that they’re instant comedy experts and why do they hold tragedies and dramas with higher esteem than comedic works? Too often, academics present comedy as a lesser art—no true comedy has won an Academy Award for Best Picture since Annie Hall in 1977. (In 1998, Shakespeare in Love won—a comedy about Shakespeare? Tell me that this isn’t a flick with serious snob appeal.) If I could critique one aspect of Susquehanna University’s Creative Writing program, it would be that, despite valuing creativity, no emphasis is placed on humor and people who attempt to write humorously often receive little instruction related to comedy. I believe that, until a writer can hone their comedic craft, their writing will be obnoxiously depressing—very serious indeed.
-Dave