Damn Repeat Button…

I am not usually one to point out flaws. I am not one of those people who demand their way is the best and anything different is inferior…but sadly I cannot Facebook “like” everything. Out of all the stories I read from BASS this semester, I have to say my least favorite was Otsuka’s Diem Perdidi. I found the writing style tedious and the repetition insistent to the point where it was distracting.

Although I didn’t enjoy this story, I will be the first to admit that this author has far more experience and skill than I have. This should be pretty obvious seeing as she made it into the 2012 BASS. I am not saying I could do better, just that I would have written it differently. Regardless, anyone who likes this short story should probably stop reading this. I get quite sarcastic and would hate to offend someone (caution: read at own risk).

Enough with the formalities. They are dull. So if you have not read Diem Perdidi, this particular work is about a woman who is growing old and suffering from memory loss. The woman’s daughter is also part of the story; she watches as her mother’s memories become fewer and fewer.  Simple setup, but that is not the conundrum.

Before I voice my issues with this work, I feel like I should point out that I did admire some qualities. One unique feature about this story is that it is told from a second person narrative. This I did, in fact, very much like about the work. I believe this choice of perspective was tremendously effective in highlighting the mood: helplessness. The reader is placed into the story and this atmosphere of discomfort.

There, I said something nice. Now I feel better about pointing out why this story was so brutal to endure.

I really only have one issue with this story: the way it is written. Unfortunately that encompasses the entire story…therefore I pretty much hated the ten minutes of my life that were spent reading this work.

So why don’t I like her style? For the same reason you don’t like when your neighbor’s car alarm goes off while you are trying to take a nap. For the same reason you don’t like when the kid sitting next to you in class won’t stop tapping their fingernails against their desk. For the same reason you don’t like when your child won’t stop screaming the whole way home. For the same reason you are tired of reading “for the same reason.”

Seriously it is just annoying as hell.

The whole story is informing us of what “she (the mother) remembers” and what “she doesn’t remember.” I would cite what page numbers those quotes are from but it is literally every single page. Why is that even somewhat necessary? I understand repetition being used as a literary technique, but there is a line. A really thick yellow one. And Otsuka crossed it… I was seriously in pain throughout most of the story.

So every sentence begins “she remembers” or “she doesn’t remember.”  The story is ten pages long. I don’t know about you, but after my teachers taught me about the power of repetition, they also mentioned the importance of sentence variety. Apparently Otsuka skipped class that day.

Honestly I was bored after the first paragraph…Which I have mentioned several times. Get the point? I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of repeating myself. Which leaves me to wonder how she could even stand to write this story.

Reading this story was like listening to a scratched CD skip, nails on a chalkboard, a dog barking incessantly. The repetition was overkill and ruined the whole point of the story for me.

I do admire Otsuka for her achievements. I’m sure she is an amazing writer. But her work is clearly not for me.

Anything Helps…but who will?

I can honestly say I love Jess Walter’s, Anything Helps. Walter not only tells a heart wrenching story about a man lost in a world he can’t fully understand, but also forces his reader to try to answer the one question everyone is so uncertain about: who am I?

For anyone who has somehow not had the time to read this 12 page story (but is now making the time to read this post), Anything Helps is about a homeless man named Bit. Bit is your average man living the American dream; his wife died of overdose, he rarely gets to see his son (who was taken away from him), and he was just thrown out of the homeless shelter ”Jesus beds.” Yeah. Let’s be serious.

Personally, I believe the main theme (or at least one of them) is that of identity. If I asked you to tell me who you are, more than likely I would start hearing a list including name, age, school, job, etc. ect. But that really doesn’t answer the question. See the conundrum? This is just a silly example of what I think Walter is saying: people become their decisions as well as whatever they are labeled as in society. (Please reread if you are still befuddled).

One reason people have such a tough time forming their identity is because we are all so flawed. Although Bit has a huge load of problems, Walter ties it together by introducing topics everyone can relate to (yes, even you). Bit is constantly making references to getting his “shit together” (298 and a bunch of other places). If you have your life 100% figured out, good for you; however, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say most people don’t. Furthermore, when someone says something “that makes Bit think,” he winds up in a bar drinking. Walter is able to take such a complex character and still apply common imperfections. No one really has it all straight; no one is perfect. No one really wants to face their issues. Anyone who disagrees might want to rethink their logic.

Let’s move on. While Bit is out on the street “going cardboard,” he encounters people who immediately judge him. They assume he is nothing but an unmotivated alcoholic who would rather mooch off others than get a real job and work for a living. This is not entirely untrue…but it is also not the point. For every person Bit meets, he is assigned a sort of label. The teens think he is a lazy dope. The rich guy thinks he is a “funny fucker.” Others simply give him their “good luck” wishes and a load of pity (295). After a while, Bit creates his reality around all these titles. Like everyone else, he has no idea who he is. Bit just accepts the judgments others have placed on him and make them his identity.

People don’t look at Bit and see a man. He is categorized by all the “stupid shit [he’s] done– because that’s all [he is] now…a twitching bunch of memories and mistakes (304). He has become a lesser being in the eyes of society. He is nothing but a wounded dog. He is either pitied and fed, or despised and cast away. And that is exactly where this theme of identity chimes in again. By the end of the story, the reader is almost forced to wonder what would I do? So honestly…what would you do?

Jess Walter is manipulative. He is both enticing and frustrating as he draws us in only to leave us with such a disturbing question to ponder. He won’t let us simply apply labels; he makes us decide who we really are.

“Navigators” He Could Have Tried Harder with the Name

“Navigators” by Mike Meginnis is a wonderful story that touches on the big issue of videogames or technology hurting relationships. It is a simple story of a father and son, Dustin and Joshua respectively. They share a love for video  games, and the story focuses on the game Legend of Silence.  Meginnis really says everything his story is about right in his title that connects to the video game in the story. However, for literature students, the name could have been a little less obvious.

            Do not fret; I’ll discuss what lies within the title, “Navigators.” For those who are willing to dig into his story, “Navigators” as the title is amazing. The game Dustin and Joshua are playing is the key thing holding their relationship together. They play together, helping each other when they play, but also playing on their own. It is part of Dustin’s “theory of The Navigator” (97). Dustin and Joshua are navigating through their life together, alone, living in an apartment with no mother.

            So, Dustin and Joshua are navigating through this less than perfect life they have, where they can barely pay the bills. “They shut off the gas” (99). The title Meginnis give us allows us to move right into the story without really having to worry about what the underlying meaning is. It’s a journey.

            Meginnis uses the paralleling of the video game to add the sense a video game has on a life. This is a much better presentation than a simple story of a father and son having trouble paying bills and never leaving home for no reason.  They do just that, but they never leave their home (except for when they move, but ignore that so my point makes sense). They sit at home and take this journey together through a video game. They work together as they would in a real journey.

            With this, Meginnis uses video games to show how bad they are, but also how good they are. We are living in a time when technology is consuming our lives. To end this on a higher note, let’s start with the bad aspect Meginnis portrays.

            As I already quoted above, Dustin’s obsession with the videogame more than Joshua causes them to lose the gas in their apartment. Dustin could care less about it. All he cares about is that “The electric bill was paid through Friday” (99), so he could keep playing the game. Without the game, he had nothing. Many people put their lives into video games and other technology, and it is even worse when it is someone older, as Dustin is. Nowhere in the story do you see Dustin and Joshua having any real intimate interactions. Every interaction is about the game.  It is not good for a healthy relationship when it is o nly Dustin and Joshua without a mother.

            It is Dustin’s obsession with the videogame that makes this such a bad thing. It is one thing to have children playing video games nonstop, but when adults are doing with their children, it is getting out of hand. And Meginnis really puts this into perspective. The controversy about video games is focused on children. Violent videogames vindicate violent behavior (feel free to replace with a v word to feel like V from V for Vendetta). But Meginnis focuses more so on the father, and how it affects his relationship with his son. This is the real issue. Children will be children when it comes to games. It’s the immature adults allowing a game to control their lives that is the problem, and Meginnis goes right into this.

            This is in many places in the story. Dustin does not know what to do. All he really does is make sure that they can play the game.

            However, “Navigators” does shine the light on a brighter side of video games. There is no way to stop the progress all these new games and technology is having on our culture. As kids begin to play more, the way they go through life is going to change. Dustin and Joshua clearly do not have a strong relationship, and I believe if you would have taken the game out in the beginning, there would be no relationship.

            The end of the story gives us a little hope. We have the game telling them to forget fear, love, and then they will win the game. Once they do this, they win the game. These two gamers are just that, gamers. Their lives are obsessed with beating this game. And once they do. Nothing. They don’t know what to do. But what it does do is bring them together. This game is real for them. It brought them together as their character became weaker and weaker.

            At this point, Dustin “squeezed him tight” (107). Where’d this come from? The game of course. Joshua’s flashback to him squeezing his father’s hand as a splinter is to be removed by his mother shows this. The game brings them back to a time when they were a family, and probably a happy family. Is this a happy ending? Not really. But it does tell us that though these video games can bad when it comes to addiction, they can still help people connect. Imagine if addiction is not in the picture, it can help many people connect with children who are obsessed with these games. Just make sure the adults aren’t sucked in too.

As this world changes, the people have to change with it. Children are playing more and more video games and just spending time with technology. Meginnis shows that if you use these video games with them, it can create that connection.

            These stories should make us want to look further into these issues. This is why it is literature, and not just fiction. Here is an article that will let you decide for yourself the whole video game controversy.

            Meginnis’s story focuses on the adult aspect of video game addiction, so you may wish to look at this article for more information, and maybe browse the main website for more information on videogame addiction in general.

Inside “The Other Place”

“The Other Place” by Mary Gaitskill presents insight into a world many people do not like to go, the serial killer. Of course, in Gaitskill’s story, it is a soon to be serial killer, rather than a current one. She touches on many of the key aspects of a psychotic wannabe killer.

            On the second page of her story as seen in BASS, the narrator, the wannabe serial killer, sees “the woman in the car” (62). Gaitskill gives us no foreshadowing of this, no flashback to whom this woman is, and why she is so important. This would be odd in any other story, but this man is not normal. He may be suppressing his true nature, but it is there and it shows up in the beginning of the story.

            This is exactly what I would expect from a psychotic killer from watching the TV show “Criminal Minds” so much. They live a normal life, and then boom. Something causes them to start reliving the past. Rather than having the breaking point where he begins to kill, Gaitskill shows us what happens in the mind of a serial killer, whether she originally intended to do so or not.

            As this type of person would, he thinks he had a normal childhood, and he outright says this. Unless I’m the only one who doesn’t, dreaming about killing women, and even implementing women you know into these dreams, is not normal. But, with this, Gaitskill brings us deep into his mind.

            When he first meets this real girl, she is exactly like his mother. He already has a tenuous relationship with his mother after she and his father divorced. She dates often, and they are terrible guys. He, the narrator, has a better relationship with his father, and, of course, his relationship with his mother is terrible.

            Many serial killers have this connection to their mother; often they lose their mother, and begin to kill, as they reach their mental breaking point. Rather than doing this, Gaitskill shows us what happens before that breaking point. Already having that weak relationship with his mother, he finds a girl similar to his mother, and kills her in his mind.

            This line really is the psychotic nature of him: “Soon enough I realized that the college campus was the wrong place to think about making it real” (69). This is because he can’t control the variables, and every serial killer wants to be able to control the setting so they can do it again. And Gaitskill emphasizes the importance of the break the character does not have.

            He is still in his imaginary world where he kills women, but nothing has pushed his dreams into the real world. Nothing tragic has happened, because the divorce of his parents didn’t do it, but laid the groundwork for it to happen. With no break, he is just a potential murderer. He tries to force himself to make it real without the psychotic break bringing his imaginary world to life.

            He goes hitchhiking, which is already how a real psychotic serial killer would not act during their first kill. Here Gaitskill probably unintentionally gives her readers the way out of a serial killer’s grasp, or really an absolute last resort. Stand up to them. The woman he takes a ride with and plans to kill, stops the car, and tells him to just shoot her. A seasoned serial killer would be able to feel a rush no matter how he kills, but someone who has just started, or hasn’t even started needs that rush. He wants the victim begging for their life, to feel like they are in control. This lady takes control. She wants him to kill her. It’s because she has faced death; she has cancer.

            He recognizes this and realizes there will be no rush from killing her. Do not take this as advice if you are ever confronted with a serial killer. Each one will differ, but the basic groundwork for their actions is shown right here. They want a rush. They want to be in control. Because he never has his mental breaking point, he forces his way into this situation, cannot control it, and does not kill the woman.

            After the narrator goes through all this flashback, I would be surprised if he reaches his breaking point again, because his “mother died of colon cancer just nine months ago” (74). Gaitskill almost seems to present the narrator’s son in the beginning of the story, in various other parts, and especially in the end. Throughout the story, the narrator has this attachment to his mother, which his seems to act as a replacement in the end of the story. The mother is the connection to the narrator’s “other place,” but his son actually can go into the “other place,” the narrator sees “Somewhere in him is the other place” (74). With both the mother and the son in the picture, Gaitskill has the reader wondering if the narrator will reach a psychotic breaking point.

            Will his son keep him from his psychotic breaking point, despite his mother dying, or will they become a father-son killing duo? I prefer the last option. But Gaitskill allows it to be completely up to the reader to how the ending will be, though one thing is certain: it will be the father and son together doing whatever they do.

            I doubt anyone would want to read about how a serial killer thinks, unless you are a writer. For those who are not dedicated writers, Gaitskill brings the reader into the mind of a serial killer excellently without boring academic aspects.

If you do want to read a bit more in a non-fiction approach about serial killers, you may want to try this.

By reading this, you can see how close the narrator probably was to a psychotic break, which would have made him a serial killer in action.

Flawlessly Imperfect

After reading Alice Munro’s Axis, only one word came to mind: remarkable. Munro has her own distinctive style, and is both profound and courageous in her writing. What I love most about this particular work is that Munro (in just a few pages) manages to tell the life of every human in contemporary America.

Before we get into a deep, philosophical discussion, let’s sum up the story. For anyone who has not read Axis, there are three main characters I want to focus on: Royce, Grace, and Avie. The story starts when they are all in college. Grace and Royce are somewhat happily dating, and Avie intends to marry her boyfriend Hugo. So throughout the story —blah blah blah— and by the end Avie and Grace have grown apart in passing years. Avie is widowed and rethinking her own happiness. Royce left Grace (humiliated) and devotes himself to his work. And poor Grace is betrayed and never really mentioned again.

If you are still confused, read the story. Seriously it is probably shorter than this post.

So let’s pick on the boys first. Royce is a cocky, indifferent individual who manages to live up to the standards (or lack thereof) of the typical “teen guy” we see today. As I mentioned, Royce is dating Grace; however, Royce is really only after one thing when it comes to this relationship, and it is the one thing Grace will not let him have. *If you don’t know what I mean by that, ask someone else. Royce plays his part, and almost even likes Grace, but ultimately he wants to fulfill that base need. After finally getting what he wants, Royce leaves; later on he has to stop and “wonder [before] remember[ing]” who she even was (132).

For anyone who feels offended after reading this…chill. There is more here than the simple “all guys are nothing but perverts.” Although that is sometimes true.

Royce knows he can’t have something, so naturally he wants it more. Then, once he has acquired what he has been after, he suddenly loses interest. Also, like all humans, he fears obligation; he worries he will make the wrong decision and end up trapped. He is a confused, lost little boy. He doesn’t know what he wants, but always wants what he can’t have; he’s so afraid to “make a commitment” (126). As hard as we try to make ourselves the best we can be…every person is like Royce to a certain extent. We are all human.

To be fair, we will mention the females as well. Personally I think the main issue concerning Avie and Grace is that they both are so determined to find a husband. True, Avie is more interested in fulfilling her social role than falling in love (unlike Grace), but still the need is there. Each girl hooks a boy the way they think is best; Avie believes “sleeping together” will keep Hugo around, and Grace thinks refusing to go to bed with Royce will “keep him interested” (124).

Both girls are in search of love and companionship; they crave a sense of security. However, as I mentioned, by the end of the story neither one is necessarily happy. So what is Munro getting at? Maybe she is saying happiness doesn’t exist. But I doubt it. Unlike most amazing writers this author is actually still alive, so you can always ask. But I think (as if you care) that Munro is highlighting that, at the core, we are all nothing but instincts. The girls want husbands and children because it is in their physiological nature to do so. They can’t help but be what they are: “women.”

I love this story because it tells the tale of humankind. We can all relate to one (if not all) of the characters. We all want happiness, security, and we all fear unknowns. Munro is not accusing society of being imperfect, she is stating a fact: we are all simply human.

Mmmmm, So This is Love?

I find it ironic how many people long for love but struggle to define it. What can I say about love, you ask? Well, I can say that I LOVED reading What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, written by Raymond Carver. The characters in the story were all a bit nuts and naive. Picture this…you and your friends sitting around a table, having “drinks”. You all get to talking about the subject of love. And, NONE of you can give a simple, straight forward answer. Weird, huh? I agree. And, that’s just what happened in this story.

I’ll start with Terri and Mel. A happily married couple that have both been in horrible relations prior to theirs. I can’t help but to say that Terri…by all means… was naive. Just foolish! She believed that her ex-boyfriend Ed, “loved her so much he tried to kill her” (170).  Ummm, say what??? What kind of love is that?? I could never be in a relationship with someone so mentally unstable as Ed. However, to Terri, that was Ed’s way of showing just how much he loved her. Now on the flip side, Mel thought Ed was a psychopath and indeed did NOT love Terri. Mel could not understand nor accept how harming someone showed love. I mean, does a murderer kill out of love? I’d have to agree with Mel on this one.

Mel thought love was a temporary feeling that could easily be replaced in the blink of an eye. The causes of replacement you ask: death, divorce, simply falling out of love. Then, boom, just like that…you fall in love with someone else. And, that viscous cycle starts all over again. Mel knows this from first hand experience. He hates his ex-wife. Somehow he trails off the subject of love and starts talking about this lady and how he would love it if she would die…a cold…painful….death. Talking about her makes him upset. But, that’s nothing a little alcohol can’t erase.

Also, at this table enjoying a glass of gin (and no juice) are Terri and Mel’s good friends Nick and Laura. Nick and Laura, freshly married, but not new to the marriage thing, decide not to give too much verbal input on the subject. They were still in the “honeymoon” stage of their relationship. Everything was beautiful and life couldn’t be better for them. They were unable to relate to Mel and Terri’s depressing debate about what love is (or is not) because they were too busy groping each other, in love of course. Don’t you remember the beginning of one of your relationships? You could barely keep your hands of your partner! It happens to the best of us. Unfortunately, all that hand holding, love gazing, hand to thigh commotion was not enough to protect Nick and Laura from the lowering of their spirits that was caused from the gloomy topic of love.

Although I found this story depressing, I still thought it was interesting to read. The characters were realistic and the plot was surprising. I totally give this one five stars!

-Marisa P.

Reflections in Steven Millhauser’s “Miracle Polish” from The New Yorker

So often when we read stories, we project our personal self into the mix. Being an optimist, I took a positive slant on the revelation that the man (unnamed in the story, so I call him “Bill”) chooses to love Monica, his long-term girlfriend. He and Monica share his views on “never having false hopes, on never permitting [himself] to imagine that things were better than they were…” (111). And, then, a friend of mine shared his views on this story. I was blown away.

Could my interpretation of this man who smashes (literally) mirrors that reflect a brighter perspective of himself, truly be mad? Is optimism just a mirror?

Clearly, Bill has landed in a sad place in his life. Millhauser portrays in Bill the effects of carrying the heavy burden life can bear. His girlfriend Monica lives her life in a similar fashion. Neither of them expects much. They don’t even pursue future plans. They simple exist, plodding through each day. They are boring.

Bill comes to see himself and Monica in a different way. The reflection of a polished mirror shines a different point of view. Millhouse gives Bill the eyes to see optimism, hope, and possibilities. Likewise, Monica sees herself differently in the mirror, but she does not embrace the lady looking back at her. She is content with herself as she is at that moment.

Although Monica wants to treat a “polished” mirror as just a mirror, Bill feels what he sees in the mirror; Bill sees more; Bill is more! First one mirror, then another, then another, then an insatiable appetite for more and more mirrors. Bill may as well be on drugs! Monica sees how Bill is out of control. These reflections consume him.

In a moment away from the mirrors spending time at the park, Monica sees an opportunity for a future between them. For Bill too, there is a glimpse, a glimpse back to reality—to the happiness he could have with Monica–without the mirrors.

Bill valiantly decides to give up his beloved mirrors for a life with Monica. He chooses, or he thinks he has chosen, to live in his real world. He smashes all of the mirrors! He chooses reality! Or does he?

Is Bill all pomp and circumstance? Is Bill like an alcoholic smashing bottles of booze? Is Bill full of valor, honor, and pride? Has he made a pact enforceable only if he wins the hand of Monica? Or is he simply a man hoping to survive?

I was quite settled in my opinion when I first read “Miracle Polish.” The plot seemed straight-forward, but the ending of the story was a bit unsettling. My reaction was to assume it was Monica’s point of view that needed changing. Now, I’m not so sure. Upon reflection with my friend, I see that madness and love can’t live together, and that would make Bill less than the hero following true love.

I won’t spoil the story by sharing all the details, but I will tell you this: Millhauser has given us a story that we will see differently in the span of time, in the span of our emotions, and in the span of our company.

Millhauser has given us mirrors. Life needs mirrors. We all need to reflect. Perhaps we are all a little mad, just as Bill may be. But that’s okay. A little denial makes the world a prettier place. We can learn things from crazy people.

Alice Munro: Nobel Prize Winner for Annoying her Readers

“Axis” by Alice Munro has given us a remarkable piece that I am sure will be used to define our age in future literature classes. Her story challenges readers to pay attention to the story and not just read it for fun. I cannot wait to search social media sites and look for the complaining students when reading this story in their classes. It challenges the traditional short story format, and that is what makes it one of my favorite stories from the Best American Short Stories, or as I will abbreviate it, BASS, in my posts.

You have to read it several times to fully understand the story, but once you do, you can truly start to unravel the juicy details of it. Munro gives you the depth of a novel in just a short amount of 16 pages. She takes you into the mind of a girl, though is not heavily looked at, and gives you more insight into her than the male character a majority of the story is focused on. She provides an excellent story for literature students to try to unravel in which so much is said in so little space.

The character, Avie, is focused on in the beginning and the end of the story. Avie wants to have the expected family life her society wants her to have. Munro tells us that she accomplishes this at the end of the story. By avoiding the boring middle part of her life, Munro brings us closer to her. The beginning shows what Avie wants in life, and then Munro does not bore us with the middle of how she lives, but skips right to the end of how it all came together.

Munro moves through an entire life of Avie by just using the beginning of her life, when she is truly finding herself and the end of her life. Where she is also finding herself. By doing this, Munro now allows the rest of her story to move into the life of her male character, Royce, whose major events happen while Avie is having a typical life. They are only connected by Grace, despite having no physical connection, but it allows for a smooth movement from character to character.

This is part of the experimental aspect in the story that might make those fond of the traditional short story cringe.

Munro defines what experimental fiction can be, and how good it can be. Like in a novel, she focuses on multiple characters. After being completely focused on Avie and Grace, she puts a small white space before moving right into Royce. “In the early summer, Royce got on a bus and went to visit Grace on her parents’ farm” (124). Munro does what almost seems like a heinous crime in writing and leaves the reader hanging on a character in the middle of the story. It is not like it is a minor character that is put into the middle of the story, Avie is a character she starts the story with. In the very first line, “Fifty years ago, Grace and Avie” (122). Avie is right there. The reader expects these characters to be a focal point.

But Munro connects it all so well with her timeline to keep the angry crowds from the literature community, or angry literature students, from knocking down her door. If they’re willing to go into Canada in the first place.

She shifts her timeline, by starting 50 years in the past, moving slightly forward, moving forward again, then moving back when reaching Avie again, and then jumping all the way to the present time in present tense! If this is not enough to cause a reader to cringe, she changes to present tense after being in past tense. Multiple characters, multiple tenses. How in the world did she publish this?

For any other author, all of this would be terrible for their writing career and would probably be sitting on their couch unpublished. But this is no ordinary author, this is Alice Munro. Master of the short story as she has recently been called. There are annoying stories to read in the past such as Chaucer, who by the way, I wish would write in English. But every literature class needs a confusing story like this to keep the students honest. These stories that seem confusing at first give off so much insight into the world it is placed. Munro has given us just that.

Though her story confused me at first, this story appeals to me because it can be analyzed so deeply. “Axis” is not a story to pick up once and read, unless you are that type of student reading it in a class and you want to get it out of the way.

If you really want to take in what Munro has to offer, you will pick it up once, twice, thrice, and so on. Highlighting and marking up the pages trying to understand it. That’s what I did. And I’m sure I could pick it back up for the sixth time, maybe more depending on how you define “picking it up.” I could pick it up again and probably find something else in it I missed.

I see this as no simple piece of fiction. This is actual literature. The literature that will be used in a hundred, two hundred years to analyze our culture and what was being addressed through the literature. It will be added into anthologies as part of Munro’s great pieces. Maybe this one will not be added, maybe another one of her masterpieces will be, but this one find its mark in BASS for future ages to read.

As the years go by, this story will only gain more and more insight from those who read it. They will compare it to the time they live in. They will find new things that we cannot see in our culture right now. I believe Munro has given us literature for the ages. Dealing with a girl’s need to make everyone happy around her, whether Avie and wanting the expected family life, or Grace and just making her family happy to be accepted, will always be applicable. Munro gives it great insight in such a short story, is that a pun?

I can almost say for certain that this will be one of those stories that will make future literature students complain behind their teacher’s back when having to read it. Not because it is a bad story, but because it is that good. Some students cringe when having to read Shakespeare, and well he is not that bad. And we are still getting things from his works, despite the students who hate reading his plays.

If you could not already tell, I am a fan of Munro and her experimental aspects in her story. I absolutely love her story, and look forward to reading more of past works.

Munro is a fantastic writer, so check out this article that mentions her only briefly, but is completely applicable to her type of stories, including “Axis.”

Literature is a great importance to education, and here is another article that you may find interesting with the new Common Core being implemented. It clears up recent controversy that fiction reading was going to be cut down.

While we are talking about Munro, check out her latest accomplishment here. I think it confirms her greatness in her writing, for now, and in the future.

Monsters: Humans

Beautiful Monsters is without a doubt one of my favorite stories in BASS so far. In just a few short pages, Puchner is able to demonstrate nearly every human emotion. Puchner not only validates rules of society, but also defines what makes all of us monsters: human nature.

Let’s be logical and start where the story does. The first characters to be introduced are 2 so called Perennials (children scientifically altered to never age). These kids live in a perfect world; they never get older, they are born “encoded with all the knowledge they’ll ever need” (201), and they have no adults around to set forth rules.

Sounds pretty darn sweet to me.

Now that the foundation is set, let’s get back to the characters themselves. Throughout the story, the children are affectionately referred to as “the boy” and “the girl.” Just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? But Puchner doesn’t stop there. Not only are the kids separated by their titles, but through their roles in society. The boy builds stuff. The girl works at a baby lab. Sounding familiar yet? If not, it should at least sound sexist as hell. However, I love that Puchner is not afraid to send the boy to work and keeps the woman in the kitchen. As horrible as it sounds, it’s not entirely untrue. Both the boy and the girl have their part, and they play it very well. Looking at it that way, our worlds are not so different.

Early in the story, the kids discover a grown man. In their world, grownups are frightening, horrid creatures. But rather than turn the man into the police, the boy takes pity and decides to hide him. This is where the story really kicks in. At first, the boy and girl are “appalled” by the imperfect adult with “hair growing out of his face” (198-9). The man is big and “ugly,” nothing like the “handsome father” the girl had always imagined (197). This, I’m sure, is something all of us can relate to on some level.Furthermore, it is fascinating to see it from a child’s perspective. Even with all their smarts, the children still prove to be naïve.

With the man there, the boy and girl begin to actually act their age (well, at least their physical age).  The children have a not so successful puppet show, ride around on the man’s back while he “whinn[ies] like a horse,” and they “giggle in a way [they have] never giggled before” (202). At this point, it’s almost like the kids are somewhat normal…which ironically makes them weird in their world.

So the kids now have a father figure. Their new man/parent will “sometimes yell at them,” makes them eat things he’s cooked even if they don’t like it, and threatens to send them to bed for misbehaving. The boy and girl are not accustomed to such rules and regulations. With their new parent disrupting their formerly perfect lives, the children think about what any normal child would. They consider simply killing him. The way Puchner utilizes this to flip the story is both frightening and intriguing.

When the man gets sick from a wound, the children realize what a “burden” he really is for them. Without him their lives could go back to the way they were; even with the man gone, the boy and girl will “be together forever.” Although the kids were excited upon discovering the man, they soon realize how “relieved” they will be once he is gone (209). If given the option, who doesn’t want to pick the easy way out? Yet another horrifyingly accurate accusation.

What I like best about Beautiful Monsters is it emphasizes that humans are exactly what the title suggests. We are all simple stereotypical creatures; selfish, self-preserving humans. Monsters.

~Theresa Tiller

For all you visual learners who need a good laugh. And anyone else who wants to learn more.