The School by Donald Barthelme was my favorite reading this week because I liked how he wrote about death in a comedic way. It was so strange to talk about death in a school setting with small children because you never associate such a depressing concept to an elementary school.
I really loved the piece “Fables” — it was easily my favorite of the week. I loved the metafiction aspect of it as we talked about in class, how the story was about the story as much as it was its own story. The fact that the reader could tell whether or not we were experiencing him telling his story or whether we were in the room with him at his therapy session was impressive to me, writing-wise, it seems like it would be very difficult to keep track of that sort of thing while writing. I also liked the way he described the characters in real life and in his story, all of the metaphors and symbolism tracked into real life as we learned about his wife and son.
Fable, by Charles Yu, was my favorite piece this week. It started out a bit slow, and at first I didn’t want to finish; it quickly became enthralling. I found the internal dialogue and the interactions between the narrator and the therapist to add an air of comedy the piece needed. The topic was incredibly heavy, and each new iteration of the “fable” the narrator told added layers of context to the narrator’s life, how he views himself, his wife, son, societal pressures, work, and therapy itself. It was moving; I felt pity, apathy, sadness, and ultimately sympathy by the end of the piece. I admire the author’s ability to combine elements of story and a unique voice. After I got in the groove of reading, I was tearing through the piece and couldn’t stop.
I was intrigued by “Fables” and how fiction was incorporated to tell the story of a man who was at a therapy session. The piece retold his story, each time becoming less fiction as the man realized his actual situation. It’s a form of coming to a closure— admitting what is happening and what he actually wants. I thought it was a fun way to incorporate fantasy into realistic scenarios to emphasize forms of understanding oneself.
The School by Donald Barthelme was my favorite reading this week because I liked how he wrote about death in a comedic way. It was so strange to talk about death in a school setting with small children because you never associate such a depressing concept to an elementary school.
I really loved the piece “Fables” — it was easily my favorite of the week. I loved the metafiction aspect of it as we talked about in class, how the story was about the story as much as it was its own story. The fact that the reader could tell whether or not we were experiencing him telling his story or whether we were in the room with him at his therapy session was impressive to me, writing-wise, it seems like it would be very difficult to keep track of that sort of thing while writing. I also liked the way he described the characters in real life and in his story, all of the metaphors and symbolism tracked into real life as we learned about his wife and son.
Fable, by Charles Yu, was my favorite piece this week. It started out a bit slow, and at first I didn’t want to finish; it quickly became enthralling. I found the internal dialogue and the interactions between the narrator and the therapist to add an air of comedy the piece needed. The topic was incredibly heavy, and each new iteration of the “fable” the narrator told added layers of context to the narrator’s life, how he views himself, his wife, son, societal pressures, work, and therapy itself. It was moving; I felt pity, apathy, sadness, and ultimately sympathy by the end of the piece. I admire the author’s ability to combine elements of story and a unique voice. After I got in the groove of reading, I was tearing through the piece and couldn’t stop.
I was intrigued by “Fables” and how fiction was incorporated to tell the story of a man who was at a therapy session. The piece retold his story, each time becoming less fiction as the man realized his actual situation. It’s a form of coming to a closure— admitting what is happening and what he actually wants. I thought it was a fun way to incorporate fantasy into realistic scenarios to emphasize forms of understanding oneself.