The New Yorker: "Los Gigantes" by T. Coraghessan Boyle

February 6, 2012: “Los Gigantes” by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Q&A with T.C. Boyle (As of 9:20 pm on 1/30, the Q&A isn't available, so if it says anything useful about the story, I don't know what it is. I'll check back and edit this post if necessary.)

Allegory? Here’s the story: In some unnamed Latin American country, at some point in time (the President’s limo is a Duesenberg, the police van is a Black Mariah, there are radios and electric fans, but no TV and no Airconditioning), the President’s people have rounded up a lot of very large men (the narrator is a giant—nearly 7 ft. tall, weighs 420 pounds) to breed them with very large women, hoping to develop a race of giants for the military. (The narrator is told they’re also breeding little people) But despite the fine food he receives from his keepers, the narrator rebels, making two half-hearted escape attempts before finally, tumultuously freeing himself from the chains that hold him.

The only way this story does anything for me is if I give it a political spin. The narrator and his fellow breeders represent the enslaved lower class in America, and the President’s men stand for the ruling corporate class who need them to breed and obey in order to sustain those in power. But our narrator rebels, and his ambition is simply to love his small wife and to have normal-sized children—the middle class that doesn’t do the powerful any good.

Okay, that’s a stretch, I realize. But if not that, what’s the point of this odd story?

The New Yorker: "Someone" by Alice McDermott

January 30, 2012: “Someone” by Alice McDermott

In the Q&A with Alice McDermott, we learn that this “story” is taken from her novel in progress, which, presumably, is the one the contributor notes tell us is coming out later this year.  Even so, it seems to work very well as a standalone story. It centers on Marie, a young woman in Brooklyn in the 1930s, who begins dating Walter, a man who walks with a limp. They begin to date—Marie’s clueless and Walter imposes himself on her—but things don’t work out.

Early in the story we know Marie doesn’t end up with Walter because she jumps ahead to the point in time where she tells her daughters stories about Walter, to the point that they’re sick of hearing about him. Presumably, in the novel, that’s an important element. In this excerpt we also see Marie’s older brother who has recently resigned the priesthood and moved home. He tries to comfort her after Walter breaks up with her, but he doesn’t do a very good job of it.

The writing is beautiful, as we might expect from McDermott. And for a “short story,” there’s enough plot. I sure hope more is going to happen in the novel, though, because feels like it might be a bit slow. Even McDermott, in the interview, worries about it being a “novel about an unremarkable woman,” and I think she’s right to worry. But she’s been there before and won the National Book Award, so maybe we’re both wrong.

The New Yorker: "Labyrinth" by Roberto Bolaño

January 23, 2012: “Labyrinth” by Roberto Bolaño

The Q&A with Barbara Eppler, Bolaño’s first American Publisher, is interesting, but of no help with this story, which I think I love. I say I think I love it because I don’t know that I have the energy to unpack it to see what’s there. If there’s nothing underneath the dazzling language and the manipulation of time, then I might like it less.

The story is based on a picture, and that picture appears to be the one in the magazine illustrating the story—take a look at it as you read the description of the people he names. I’ve reproduced it here, although when I read the story on my Kindle I hadn’t yet seen it. He’s describing this table and these people in great detail, whose actual names he uses, and then, I suppose—although I have no way of knowing—he is fabricating the rest: what they do with each other outside of the picture, what is happening beyond the picture’s frame, etc.

What appeals to me here isn’t so much what happens, but the intersection of the real and the imagined, which includes a person who isn’t in the picture at all, and also the way in which the characters, as time passes, have lives outside of the picture but are also always frozen in the photograph.

After the detailed description of the people in the photograph, about a third of the way into the story the author begins to imagine: “Let’s imagine J.-J. Goux, for example . . .” He has Goux leave the picture and walk down the street. Then he imagines that some of the people are looking at someone out of the frame, and imagines this might be “a young journalist from South America, no, from Central America.” He goes on to suggest that there may be something sinister about this journalist, that he’s bitter and will do some harm. It’s wonderfully imaginative, even if in the end it doesn’t produce any real action.

What do other people think? Or do you know something about the people the author has named here?

The New Yorker: "A Brief Encounter with the Enemy" by Said Sayrafiezadeh

January 16, 2012: “A Brief Encounter with the Enemy” by Said Sayrafiezadeh

I found this story depressing as hell. It is apparently part of a collection coming out this year from this author, and I’ll guess that the last couple of stories he’s had in the New Yorker will be in the book. Note particularly the story “Paranoia” which ran last year and also mentions this distant war on the peninsula against an unnamed enemy.

In this story, Luke, who is apparently in a National Guard unit, is called up to serve in this war. It’s supposed to be over soon, except that it isn’t. Luke, 27, with an Associate’s Degree, doesn’t mind leaving his meaningless job for this adventure, which is how he and the girl he thinks he’s interested in, Becky, view it. But his role in the war is also boring. He’s building a bridge to nowhere, or maybe it’s to a spot where there are said to be 880 of the enemy. In any case, he spends his time watching movies, eating, and it’s not very stressful except for the sergeant who occasionally gives them grief. Until, one day just before their year is up and they are about to go home, Luke encounters the enemy.

And that’s all I’m going to say, as the encounter is the story, and makes the story, for me.

I read the piece as an indictment of war. A very effective indictment, it seems to me.

[Edited to add: After I posted the above, The New Yorker posted a Q&A with Sayrafiezadeh, which is worth reading. Note, also that some of the comments below may contain spoilers.]

The New Yorker: "Expectations" by John Lanchester

January 9, 2012: “Expectations” by John Lanchester

This appears to be an excerpt from Lanchester’s forthcoming novel called Capital, which the excerpt is all about. It’s an amusing read because the main characters are comically obnoxious, but that’s about all it has going for it. 

Roger is an investment banker in London, and he’s anticipating a year-end bonus of a million pounds. Maybe more! After all, the department he manages, foreign exchange, made a bundle for the bank during the year. And although other parts of the bank didn’t do so well, Roger has earned his bonus! And he needs that bonus, too, because he and his wife are a bit over extended on the posh house that they did an extensive remodel on and the country place (and the cars and servants, etc., etc.). And then there’s the wife, who, despite the cars and the servants, thinks Roger doesn’t understand how hard she works to raise their boys (there are nannies), and so she plots to send him a very strong message.

John is surprised by his bonus, but not terribly surprised by the message his wife sends . . .

It’s pretty hard to care about these people in the context of this excerpt, but maybe they’d be more likeable in the novel.


[Edited to add: When I wrote the above, the Q&A with John Lanchester had not yet appeared on the magazine's website. Among other things, the author confirms that the "story" is excerpted from the forthcoming novel.]

The New Yorker: "Creative Writing" by Etgar Keret

January 2, 2012: “Creative Writing” by Etgar Keret

This is a very short little story that writers, especially, will appreciate. It’s about Maya and Aviad, a couple coping with Maya’s miscarriage. Maya takes a creative writing class to give her something to do, and her work is well received by her instructor. She writes three stories, each of which is possibly a commentary on her own life and relationship with her husband. Aviad seems to be somewhat jealous of Maya’s success with her stories, so he secretly signs up for a beginning course (taught by someone else). In his first class, in a free-writing exercise, he writes a story about a fish. And this story also seems to reveal something about Aviad.

Based on the Q&A with Etgar Keret, we suppose that the stories mostly reveal that both Maya and Aviad are exploring their feelings toward one another in these stories, but don’t know exactly how they feel. It does seem that Aviad is more certain than Maya, but then he’s only written one story so far.

Is that what we do as writers? Explore our own feelings through our characters? Keret says he is all of the characters:

When I write a story, I am all the characters in it. I can’t write a character I don’t feel some emotional identification with, even if it is the hired killer who murders the protagonist’s pregnant wife. Since all those characters exist in my head, they have to be me, in some sense, to have a “real” body in the story world. 

I don’t think that’s true for me. Some of my characters certainly must be the “other” even if I do try to imagine how they would feel and to empathize with them.

What about you?