Subject: Stories that end with broken Glass (was: Four Stories)
From: Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 05 2000 - 11:54:49 EST
Will-
I typically take the "surprise ending," the "story within a story that the
protagonist uses both to navigate his own emotions and to entertain a
child" idea, the "outcast who finds his peers in children," the
"emotionally unthinkable but absolutely, invitingly plausible and totally
sexualized reading," and the "good guy gets the bullet" threads in
"Bfish" and "Laughing Man" and base the unit on them. They work well with
"Esme," which also offers the compare-and-contrast-Sybil-and-Esme angle.
Maybe I'm just tired of seeing uninterested faces when we go to discuss my
erstwhile favorite of the _Nine_. As you and others surely know, it's no
fun to make your best pitch for your champion piece and the fail utterly
to get it elected. I don't think most students are interested in the
"connecting," and without that, it's not too remarkable a
story. Anti-war, sure, but what does "Esme" say that _Full Metal Jacket_
and _Thin Red Line_ and all those other movies they've seen don't say? I
think they're too far from the experience of war (even further than
me) for the anti-war narrative to mean much.
Finally, I can explain Rilke pretty well for "Bfish," but I'd have to
bring in a guest speaker for Goebbels. And really, just about any of the
_Nine_ will yield up a dazzling pedagogy, if you squeeze it a little.
"Esme" is a kind of _Catcher_ in a war setting, replete with Phoebe,
Stradlater and Holden. The Salinger fans will read it anyway.
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Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu
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