I focused on the Reading the Paper piece by Ron Carlson. It started off strong right out the gate with: “All I want to do is read the paper, but I’ve got to do the wash first.” I really liked the hectic tone of this piece. It reminded me of my own thoughts as someone with ADHD. I thought that maybe to someone who doesn’t have ADHD or racing thoughts, it might be too hectic or not make a lot of sense, but I appreciated the absurdity of it all. It’s always that once I want to do something and finally sit down to do it, there’s another distraction that comes up and gets in the way, which makes it impossible to do anything. I also wasn’t too sure if the car accident story was true but I did really like this because it added to the suspense. Next, the narrator wants to pour a new cup of cold coffee (which happens way too often because you get so busy with other things you don’t get the time you need to drink your coffee so it gets cold and then you pour another cup because you think you’ll have the time this time but then the same thing happens) and then he sees his brother. This piece honestly felt very relatable and made me feel seen.
“Any Minute Mom Should Come Blasting Through the Door”
By David Ordan, Taken from Sudden Fiction
When I first began to read this piece I forgot it was fiction to be completely honest. I think that speaks to the unpredictability of the occurrence of someone dying while making someone a sandwich. I don’t put anything past people these days, but I read and was shocked and wanted to learn more details. I think this piece speaks to a larger topic of remembrance and how as humans we are unknowing of timelines. It is just that in this case this idea is told through a story that feels outrageous.
I am interested in looking at Crossing as a fiction piece, considering it’s more essay-like format. I have always enjoyed fiction that weaves in and out of the non fiction and the fiction, creating an interesting picture that is not just one singular life (one novel I love that does this is Abeng by Michelle Cliff). I am wondering how this cross of genre is something we can discuss more in class.
I enjoyed the ‘Dog Days’ piece so greatly enjoyable. It was a very good introduction to how to write fiction and I liked that it had only one fantastical element so everything about it felt so incredibly real, to the point where I wanted to believe it. I also appreciated this in a sense because the only way I was able to accept the dog dying was by thinking and believing it was a human, this makes me sound terrible but I just can’t deal with pets dying. I also loved the details and how heavily you could hear the author’s voice. The format of the story goes month by month after breaking it up from a moment in the future to all the moments leading up to the event and then the after. This story just had such a good flow that I enjoyed reading it.
I really enjoyed “Falling Girl.” I liked the way in which the story structure was open and time in the story was non-linear. I also like the way in which this story that is very clearly fiction has elements of non-fiction, for instance the underlying messages about the suicides of girls, commentary on the upper class, etc. I found it really interesting how while this girl is falling off the building, presumably plummeting to her death, she was also still thinking about things like wanting to get to the party on time and comparing herself to the other girls falling off the building, almost turning it into a competition to who will reach the ground first. It’s a striking contrast from the emotions you would expect to see of someone who is falling to their death, and I think it makes the story more powerful. Additionally, I think the overlapping of fiction and nonfiction, similar to that seen in “Mary When You Follow Her,” in this piece is a really interesting concept that I will be excited to explore more about during the fiction unit.
Jumping from nonfiction into extremely abstract fiction really just emphasized for me that there is no one way to tell a story. That it is the choice of the author wether the structure and language has to be completely grounded in reality or absolutely nonsensical. But I think what’s really powerful is the broad space between those two points, and how fiction writers let the nonsensical penetrate the deeply real. “Mary When You Follow Her” is a wonderful example of when structure is a choice, as the sentence long piece feels stretched and breathless while taking up as much space as it needs to. “Bread” was very realistic, I would say, but stayed in no one location and let the reader marinate in all the sensations and events being brought up and then forgotten in an instant. Maybe forgotten is the wrong word, since the point, at least for me, is that is how life is, being lost in memory at some moments, and being completely present in others. My favorite was “Falling Girl” for its interpretive stream of story telling, that ends with just as many questions as it starts with. The most important element is that each of these pieces captures how life feels without explaining specific events, and even remaining mysterious in many aspects, as that is also a relevant feeling.
“Marta felt her heart tightening. Alas, she wouldn’t reach the ball in time. Glancing upwards she saw the pinnacle of the skyscraper in all its cruel power. It was almost completely dark. On the top floors a few windows here and there were still lit. And above the top the first glimmer of dawn was spreading.”
“The Falling Girl” was an extremely engaging read for me from start to finish. The way Buzzati employed fiction to create an exaggerated, almost comical at times, version of reality in order to comment on issues within our reality struck me throughout my entire time reading it. In particular, the lines I have quoted above stand out to me and inspire me the most. These lines end Marta’s story from her POV, providing reader’s the moment in which she sees the reality in her bizarre situation, a reality which serves to tell us, as readers, a message about our reality. Only upon realizing that “she wouldn’t reach the ball in time” when she is close to crashing into the ground does Marta see “the skyscraper in all its cruel power”, that is to say, she only witnessed the fault in the system and the folly of her superficial dreams after she had already taken a life changing action, serving as a warning to readers of this unfortunately common experience that is many people’s fantastical realities. Another thing I find captivating about these lines is how they create a setup for the final part of the story that is vague enough to lend itself to multiple, vastly different, interpretations. The “first glimmer of dawn” that Martha sees can perhaps be interpreted as a hope for a better future, for salvation, she has gained upon realizing she had been wasting her life in a fruitless system that worked against her, suggesting that no thud of her hitting the ground was heard because she salvaged her own life by gaining hope. On the other hand, the lines can lead to a more dismal interpretation in which upon realizing the folly of her goals Marta felt she went to fast and wasted her life, realizing only light and hope is only available for those at the top of the skyscraper, and so, her life ends prematurely, having given into despair, before she can even reach the ground.
“Any Minute Mom Should Come Blasting Through the Door”
This reading was really interesting in the way in which it addressed everyday phrases such as “Is it really going to kill you to ___” or “What would you do without me” and made them quite literal. However, it took a really interesting fictional spin on these phrases, winding them together into a fascinatingly cohesive story. Overall, I found this piece really intriguing because I didn’t know what direction it would take. The first sentence definitely pulled me in, yet there was never a resolution to the questions that the introduction proposed. While the reader learns that the mother dies, they are left to wonder what happened while the other characters move on with their lives. While there is some sense of loss and grief in the story, it almost fades into the background. With the use of these phrases and other casual language, the story seems to take on a nonchalant tone, which I found strange given its subject matter.
The aspect of “Mary When You Follow Her” that stood out to me the most as I read it was the form. The story is told in one long sentence, broken with commas and em-dashes and parentheticals, but without a period or even a semi-colon until the very end. When I read the piece, I found that this run-on, stream-of-consciousness form really enhanced the overwhelming emotions and events of the narrative. So much happens in one autumn, both inside and outside of Maria’s mind, that leads her to run away. Tonally, the words of the story are matter-of-fact and efficient, moving from event to event with a sense of urgency. It is the lack of sentence breaks that allows the reader to see into Maria’s mind, the chaos and devastation and anxiety that combine these events into an impetus for running away. The single sentence also keeps all of the discussed events more connected than they might feel otherwise, associating them all via syntax. The ending phrases that describe Maria’s imagined life for the murdered girls, linked so directly to the traumatic events of the autumn, become all the more jarring.
Mary When You Follow Her By Carmen Maria Machado
This piece surprised me because only when I was about a third of the way through did I realize no periods were being used. The sentence just went on and on, allowing the author to carry on with a train of thought and giving the reader no breaks. I appreciated this device because, in the context of this story, I believe it offers a sense of urgency to the characters, particularly Maria as she makes plans to flee to Chicago. I also enjoyed the use of parathesis in this piece as a way to provide additional insight into the characters’ personalities.
Out of this week’s readings, “The Rememberer” really stood out to me. While “Mary When You Follow Her,” “Bread,” and “Billy’s Girl” could be perceived as realistic fiction, “The Rememberer” is unmistakably fictional by nature. This premise of the speaker’s boyfriend regressing into simpler and simpler animals as the story progresses is so out of the ordinary and inspired. I often struggle to write anything that I haven’t witnessed or experienced in real life, or (blatant) metaphors derived from real life, and I admire how difficult it is to interpret this story in a nonfictional way. It stands as a strong fiction piece!
I found all of these fiction pieces to be extremely compelling. They had a different tone than the non-fiction pieces, and they were more abstract. Particularly the Wolves piece, it was hard to tell exactly what was happening in the story, but it left me with a very specific unsettling feeling. I found the piece by David Ordan to be beautiful and heartbreaking. It was interesting reading it knowing that it was fiction because it reads like a nonfiction piece. I enjoyed reading it through the lens of a writer and wondering what compels someone to write a piece as specific and vulnerable as that.
I focused on the Reading the Paper piece by Ron Carlson. It started off strong right out the gate with: “All I want to do is read the paper, but I’ve got to do the wash first.” I really liked the hectic tone of this piece. It reminded me of my own thoughts as someone with ADHD. I thought that maybe to someone who doesn’t have ADHD or racing thoughts, it might be too hectic or not make a lot of sense, but I appreciated the absurdity of it all. It’s always that once I want to do something and finally sit down to do it, there’s another distraction that comes up and gets in the way, which makes it impossible to do anything. I also wasn’t too sure if the car accident story was true but I did really like this because it added to the suspense. Next, the narrator wants to pour a new cup of cold coffee (which happens way too often because you get so busy with other things you don’t get the time you need to drink your coffee so it gets cold and then you pour another cup because you think you’ll have the time this time but then the same thing happens) and then he sees his brother. This piece honestly felt very relatable and made me feel seen.
“Any Minute Mom Should Come Blasting Through the Door”
By David Ordan, Taken from Sudden Fiction
When I first began to read this piece I forgot it was fiction to be completely honest. I think that speaks to the unpredictability of the occurrence of someone dying while making someone a sandwich. I don’t put anything past people these days, but I read and was shocked and wanted to learn more details. I think this piece speaks to a larger topic of remembrance and how as humans we are unknowing of timelines. It is just that in this case this idea is told through a story that feels outrageous.
I am interested in looking at Crossing as a fiction piece, considering it’s more essay-like format. I have always enjoyed fiction that weaves in and out of the non fiction and the fiction, creating an interesting picture that is not just one singular life (one novel I love that does this is Abeng by Michelle Cliff). I am wondering how this cross of genre is something we can discuss more in class.
I enjoyed the ‘Dog Days’ piece so greatly enjoyable. It was a very good introduction to how to write fiction and I liked that it had only one fantastical element so everything about it felt so incredibly real, to the point where I wanted to believe it. I also appreciated this in a sense because the only way I was able to accept the dog dying was by thinking and believing it was a human, this makes me sound terrible but I just can’t deal with pets dying. I also loved the details and how heavily you could hear the author’s voice. The format of the story goes month by month after breaking it up from a moment in the future to all the moments leading up to the event and then the after. This story just had such a good flow that I enjoyed reading it.
I really enjoyed “Falling Girl.” I liked the way in which the story structure was open and time in the story was non-linear. I also like the way in which this story that is very clearly fiction has elements of non-fiction, for instance the underlying messages about the suicides of girls, commentary on the upper class, etc. I found it really interesting how while this girl is falling off the building, presumably plummeting to her death, she was also still thinking about things like wanting to get to the party on time and comparing herself to the other girls falling off the building, almost turning it into a competition to who will reach the ground first. It’s a striking contrast from the emotions you would expect to see of someone who is falling to their death, and I think it makes the story more powerful. Additionally, I think the overlapping of fiction and nonfiction, similar to that seen in “Mary When You Follow Her,” in this piece is a really interesting concept that I will be excited to explore more about during the fiction unit.
Jumping from nonfiction into extremely abstract fiction really just emphasized for me that there is no one way to tell a story. That it is the choice of the author wether the structure and language has to be completely grounded in reality or absolutely nonsensical. But I think what’s really powerful is the broad space between those two points, and how fiction writers let the nonsensical penetrate the deeply real. “Mary When You Follow Her” is a wonderful example of when structure is a choice, as the sentence long piece feels stretched and breathless while taking up as much space as it needs to. “Bread” was very realistic, I would say, but stayed in no one location and let the reader marinate in all the sensations and events being brought up and then forgotten in an instant. Maybe forgotten is the wrong word, since the point, at least for me, is that is how life is, being lost in memory at some moments, and being completely present in others. My favorite was “Falling Girl” for its interpretive stream of story telling, that ends with just as many questions as it starts with. The most important element is that each of these pieces captures how life feels without explaining specific events, and even remaining mysterious in many aspects, as that is also a relevant feeling.
“Marta felt her heart tightening. Alas, she wouldn’t reach the ball in time. Glancing upwards she saw the pinnacle of the skyscraper in all its cruel power. It was almost completely dark. On the top floors a few windows here and there were still lit. And above the top the first glimmer of dawn was spreading.”
“The Falling Girl” was an extremely engaging read for me from start to finish. The way Buzzati employed fiction to create an exaggerated, almost comical at times, version of reality in order to comment on issues within our reality struck me throughout my entire time reading it. In particular, the lines I have quoted above stand out to me and inspire me the most. These lines end Marta’s story from her POV, providing reader’s the moment in which she sees the reality in her bizarre situation, a reality which serves to tell us, as readers, a message about our reality. Only upon realizing that “she wouldn’t reach the ball in time” when she is close to crashing into the ground does Marta see “the skyscraper in all its cruel power”, that is to say, she only witnessed the fault in the system and the folly of her superficial dreams after she had already taken a life changing action, serving as a warning to readers of this unfortunately common experience that is many people’s fantastical realities. Another thing I find captivating about these lines is how they create a setup for the final part of the story that is vague enough to lend itself to multiple, vastly different, interpretations. The “first glimmer of dawn” that Martha sees can perhaps be interpreted as a hope for a better future, for salvation, she has gained upon realizing she had been wasting her life in a fruitless system that worked against her, suggesting that no thud of her hitting the ground was heard because she salvaged her own life by gaining hope. On the other hand, the lines can lead to a more dismal interpretation in which upon realizing the folly of her goals Marta felt she went to fast and wasted her life, realizing only light and hope is only available for those at the top of the skyscraper, and so, her life ends prematurely, having given into despair, before she can even reach the ground.
“Any Minute Mom Should Come Blasting Through the Door”
This reading was really interesting in the way in which it addressed everyday phrases such as “Is it really going to kill you to ___” or “What would you do without me” and made them quite literal. However, it took a really interesting fictional spin on these phrases, winding them together into a fascinatingly cohesive story. Overall, I found this piece really intriguing because I didn’t know what direction it would take. The first sentence definitely pulled me in, yet there was never a resolution to the questions that the introduction proposed. While the reader learns that the mother dies, they are left to wonder what happened while the other characters move on with their lives. While there is some sense of loss and grief in the story, it almost fades into the background. With the use of these phrases and other casual language, the story seems to take on a nonchalant tone, which I found strange given its subject matter.
The aspect of “Mary When You Follow Her” that stood out to me the most as I read it was the form. The story is told in one long sentence, broken with commas and em-dashes and parentheticals, but without a period or even a semi-colon until the very end. When I read the piece, I found that this run-on, stream-of-consciousness form really enhanced the overwhelming emotions and events of the narrative. So much happens in one autumn, both inside and outside of Maria’s mind, that leads her to run away. Tonally, the words of the story are matter-of-fact and efficient, moving from event to event with a sense of urgency. It is the lack of sentence breaks that allows the reader to see into Maria’s mind, the chaos and devastation and anxiety that combine these events into an impetus for running away. The single sentence also keeps all of the discussed events more connected than they might feel otherwise, associating them all via syntax. The ending phrases that describe Maria’s imagined life for the murdered girls, linked so directly to the traumatic events of the autumn, become all the more jarring.
Mary When You Follow Her By Carmen Maria Machado
This piece surprised me because only when I was about a third of the way through did I realize no periods were being used. The sentence just went on and on, allowing the author to carry on with a train of thought and giving the reader no breaks. I appreciated this device because, in the context of this story, I believe it offers a sense of urgency to the characters, particularly Maria as she makes plans to flee to Chicago. I also enjoyed the use of parathesis in this piece as a way to provide additional insight into the characters’ personalities.
Out of this week’s readings, “The Rememberer” really stood out to me. While “Mary When You Follow Her,” “Bread,” and “Billy’s Girl” could be perceived as realistic fiction, “The Rememberer” is unmistakably fictional by nature. This premise of the speaker’s boyfriend regressing into simpler and simpler animals as the story progresses is so out of the ordinary and inspired. I often struggle to write anything that I haven’t witnessed or experienced in real life, or (blatant) metaphors derived from real life, and I admire how difficult it is to interpret this story in a nonfictional way. It stands as a strong fiction piece!
I found all of these fiction pieces to be extremely compelling. They had a different tone than the non-fiction pieces, and they were more abstract. Particularly the Wolves piece, it was hard to tell exactly what was happening in the story, but it left me with a very specific unsettling feeling. I found the piece by David Ordan to be beautiful and heartbreaking. It was interesting reading it knowing that it was fiction because it reads like a nonfiction piece. I enjoyed reading it through the lens of a writer and wondering what compels someone to write a piece as specific and vulnerable as that.