Tag: Short Stories

“The Right Eye of the Commander” — Bret Harte

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“The Right Eye of the Commander” — Bret Harte

The year of grace 1797 passed away on the coast of California in a southwesterly gale. The little bay of San Carlos, albeit sheltered by the headlands of the blessed Trinity, was rough and turbulent; its foam clung quivering to the seaward wall of the Mission garden; the air was filled with flying sand and spume, and as the Senor Commandante, Hermenegildo Salvatierra, looked from the deep embrasured window of the Presidio guardroom, he felt the salt breath of the distant sea buffet a color into his smoke-dried cheeks.

The Commander, I have said, was gazing thoughtfully from the window of the guardroom. He may have been reviewing the events of the year now about to pass away. But, like the garrison at the Presidio, there was little to review; the year, like its predecessors, had been uneventful—the days had slipped by in a delicious monotony of simple duties, unbroken by incident or interruption. The regularly recurring feasts and saints’ days, the half-yearly courier from San Diego, the rare transport ship and rarer foreign vessel, were the mere details of his patriarchal life. If there was no achievement, there was certainly no failure. Abundant harvests and patient industry amply supplied the wants of Presidio and Mission. Isolated from the family of nations, the wars which shook the world concerned them not so much as the last earthquake; the struggle that emancipated their sister colonies on the other side of the continent to them had no suggestiveness. In short, it was that glorious Indian summer of California history around which so much poetical haze still lingers—that bland, indolent autumn of Spanish rule, so soon to be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican independence and the reviving spring of American conquest.

The Commander turned from the window and walked toward the fire that burned brightly on the deep ovenlike hearth. A pile of copybooks, the work of the Presidio school, lay on the table. As he turned over the leaves with a paternal interest, and surveyed the fair round Scripture text—the first pious pothooks of the pupils of San Carlos—an audible commentary fell from his lips: “‘Abimelech took her from Abraham’—ah, little one, excellent!—’Jacob sent to see his brother’—body of Christ! that upstroke of thine, Paquita, is marvelous; the Governor shall see it!” A film of honest pride dimmed the Commander’s left eye—the right, alas! twenty years before had been sealed by an Indian arrow. He rubbed it softly with the sleeve of his leather jacket, and continued: “‘The Ishmaelites having arrived—'”

He stopped, for there was a step in the courtyard, a foot upon the threshold, and a stranger entered. With the instinct of an old soldier, the Commander, after one glance at the intruder, turned quickly toward the wall, where his trusty Toledo hung, or should have been hanging. But it was not there, and as he recalled that the last time he had seen that weapon it was being ridden up and down the gallery by Pepito, the infant son of Bautista, the tortilla-maker, he blushed and then contented himself with frowning upon the intruder. Continue reading ““The Right Eye of the Commander” — Bret Harte” →

“The Whale Tooth” — Jack London

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“The Whale Tooth” by Jack London

It was in the early days in Fiji, when John Starhurst arose in the mission house at Rewa Village and announced his intention of carrying the gospel throughout all Viti Levu. Now Viti Levu means the “Great Land,” it being the largest island in a group composed of many large islands, to say nothing of hundreds of small ones. Here and there on the coasts, living by most precarious tenure, was a sprinkling of missionaries, traders, bêche-de-mer fishers, and whaleship deserters. The smoke of the hot ovens arose under their windows, and the bodies of the slain were dragged by their doors on the way to the feasting.

The Lotu, or the Worship, was progressing slowly, and, often, in crablike fashion. Chiefs, who announced themselves Christians and were welcomed into the body of the chapel, had a distressing habit of backsliding in order to partake of the flesh of some favorite enemy. Eat or be eaten had been the law of the land; and eat or be eaten promised to remain the law of the land for a long time to come. There were chiefs, such as Tanoa, Tuiveikoso, and Tuikilakila, who had literally eaten hundreds of their fellow men. But among these gluttons Ra Undreundre ranked highest. Ra Undreundre lived at Takiraki. He kept a register of his gustatory exploits. A row of stones outside his house marked the bodies he had eaten. This row was two hundred and thirty paces long, and the stones in it numbered eight hundred and seventy-two. Each stone represented a body. The row of stones might have been longer, had not Ra Undreundre unfortunately received a spear in the small of his back in a bush skirmish on Somo Somo and been served up on the table of Naungavuli, whose mediocre string of stones numbered only forty-eight.

The hard-worked, fever-stricken missionaries stuck doggedly to their task, at times despairing, and looking forward for some special manifestation, some outburst of Pentecostal fire that would bring a glorious harvest of souls. But cannibal Fiji had remained obdurate. The frizzle-headed man-eaters were loath to leave their fleshpots so long as the harvest of human carcases was plentiful. Sometimes, when the harvest was too plentiful, they imposed on the missionaries by letting the word slip out that on such a day there would be a killing and a barbecue. Promptly the missionaries would buy the lives of the victims with stick tobacco, fathoms of calico, and quarts of trade beads. Natheless the chiefs drove a handsome trade in thus disposing of their surplus live meat. Also, they could always go out and catch more. Continue reading ““The Whale Tooth” — Jack London” →

“Desiree’s Baby” — Kate Chopin

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“Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin

As the day was pleasant, Madame Valmonde drove over to L’Abri to see Desiree and the baby.

It made her laugh to think of Desiree with a baby. Why, it seemed but yesterday that Desiree was little more than a baby herself; when Monsieur in riding through the gateway of Valmonde had found her lying asleep in the shadow of the big stone pillar.

The little one awoke in his arms and began to cry for “Dada.” That was as much as she could do or say. Some people thought she might have strayed there of her own accord, for she was of the toddling age. The prevailing belief was that she had been purposely left by a party of Texans, whose canvas-covered wagon, late in the day, had crossed the ferry that Coton Mais kept, just below the plantation. In time Madame Valmonde abandoned every speculation but the one that Desiree had been sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she was without child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere – the idol of Valmonde.

It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone pillar in whose shadow she had lain asleep, eighteen years before, that Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing her there, had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot. The wonder was that he had not loved her before; for he had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles.

Monsieur Valmonde grew practical and wanted things well considered: that is, the girl’s obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He ordered the corbeille from Paris, and contained himself with what patience he could until it arrived; then they were married. Continue reading ““Desiree’s Baby” — Kate Chopin” →

“The Model Millionaire” — Oscar Wilde

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“The Model Millionaire” by Oscar Wilde

Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. These are the great truths of modern life which Hughie Erskine never realised. Poor Hughie! Intellectually, we must admit, he was not of much importance. He never said a brilliant or even an ill-natured thing in his life. But then he was wonderfully good-looking, with his crisp brown hair, his clear-cut profile, and his grey eyes. He was as popular with men as he was with women, and he had every accomplishment except that of making money. His father had bequeathed him his cavalry sword, and a History of the Peninsular War in fifteen volumes. Hughie hung the first over his looking-glass, put the second on a shelf between Ruff’s Guide and Bailey’sMagazine, and lived on two hundred a year that an old aunt allowed him. He had tried everything. He had gone on the Stock Exchange for six months; but what was a butterfly to do among bulls and bears? He had been a tea-merchant for a little longer, but had soon tired of pekoe and souchong. Then he had tried selling dry sherry. That did not answer; the sherry was a little too dry. Ultimately he became nothing, a delightful, ineffectual young man with a perfect profile and no profession. Continue reading ““The Model Millionaire” — Oscar Wilde” →

“The Mouse” — Saki

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“The Mouse” — Saki

Theodoric Voler had been brought up, from infancy to the confines of middle age, by a fond mother whose chief solicitude had been to keep him screened from what she called the coarser realities of life. When she died she left Theodoric alone in a world that was as real as ever, and a good deal coarser than he considered it had any need to be. To a man of his temperament and upbringing even a simple railway journey was crammed with petty annoyances and minor discords, and as he settled himself down in a second-class compartment one September morning he was conscious of ruffled feelings and general mental discomposure.

He had been staying at a country vicarage, the inmates of which had been certainly neither brutal nor bacchanalian, but their supervision of the domestic establishment had been of that lax order which invites disaster. The pony carriage that was to take him to the station had never been properly ordered, and when the moment for his departure drew near, the handyman who should have produced the required article was nowhere to be found. In this emergency Theodoric, to his mute but very intense disgust, found himself obliged to collaborate with the vicar’s daughter in the task of harnessing the pony, which necessitated groping about in an ill-lighted outbuilding called a stable, and smelling very like one – except in patches where it smelled of mice. Without being actually afraid of mice, Theodoric classed them among the coarser incidents of life, and considered that Providence, with a little exercise of moral courage, might long ago have recognised that they were not indispensable, and have withdrawn them from circulation.

As the train glided out of the station Theodoric’s nervous imagination accused himself of exhaling a weak odour of stable yard, and possibly of displaying a mouldy straw or two on his unusually well-brushed garments. Fortunately the only other occupation of the compartment, a lady of about the same age as himself, seemed inclined for slumber rather than scrutiny; the train was not due to stop till the terminus was reached, in about an hour’s time, and the carriage was of the old-fashioned sort that held no communication with a corridor, therefore no further travelling companions were likely to intrude on Theodoric’s semiprivacy. And yet the train had scarcely attained its normal speed before he became reluctantly but vividly aware that he was not alone with the slumbering lady; he was not even alone in his own clothes. Continue reading ““The Mouse” — Saki” →

Watering Heaven (Book Acquired, Some Time Back in October)

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20121217-104453.jpgThe stories Peter Tieryas Liu’s Watering Heaven move at a sharp clip, propelled by realistic dialogue set against a surreal backdrop. “Every time I have sex, I lay an egg,” one character tells another in the opening scene of “Chronology of an Egg.” The strange romance culminates in a fantastic punchline to this magical set-up. The protagonist of “The Wolf’s Choice,” facing an existential crisis, transforms his outward appearance by extensive plastic surgery. And in “Rodenticide”—well, let me just share a paragraph of Liu’s prose:

He dreamed of rats. One named Zhucheng lost her tail—a pink, gnarled tube with a texture like a gizzard. She was crying a shrill homily and there were flags with emblems of rat ears. He realized all rats were psychics with more understanding of humans than humans themselves—a homeopathic conglomeration of half-defunct diseases. Telepathy is my disease, Zhucheng screamed, I know you’re planning our mass extermination!

 “Rodenticide” is just one example of Liu’s strange mix of absurdity, realism, and magic. The stories of Watering Heaven suggest a world where comedy and romance might tip over dramatically into horror or despair at any moment. Good stuff.

“The Secretary” — Robert Walser

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“The Secretary” by Robert Walser

I had the audacity to write a book that caused quite a stir. As a consequence I was permitted to interact in a casual manner with people of substance. The doors of serious, elegant households were flung wide open to admit me, which was most certainly to my advantage. All I had to do was stroll right in and take care to behave in an agreeable manner as consistently as possible. Once I set foot in a gathering of at least forty full-blooded celebrities. Just imagine how glorious that was!

The commercial head of an association for practitioners of the fine arts one day invited me, after appropriate deliberation, to become his secretary. “I hope,” he said, “that you will prove just as capable of selling pictures as you are of publishing books!”  The offer was too kind to be dismissed out of hand. Accepting this proposal, I resolved that from this moment on I would consider myself fairly remarkable. I felt obliged to remind myself that a person who, upon receiving support, neither feels gratified nor shows his pleasure and gives voice to his satisfaction insults the world at large.

Its plain to see: a keen mind, superior intelligence, a high or the highest level of education and culture should, if this is somehow conceivable, be expected of all secretaries. Even their external appearance must, it goes without saying, be proper and distinguished. One assumes them to be pliant and at the same time clever, suave, gallant and at the same time in every way resolved to achieve commercial success. Elegant manners and glossy social savoir faire number decisively among their inborn qualities.

I don’t know whether I did in fact display all the above-mentioned traits, but I do know that half the city came traipsing through my office. Persons of all dispositions, of every rank and station came barging more or less vigorously into the ministry, I mean headquarters: the cream of society, elegant agents, poor journeymen, sly Gypsies, unruly poets, alarmingly refined ladies, dour princes, strikingly handsome young officers, authors, actresses, sculptors, diplomats, politicians, critics, journalists, theater directors, virtuosos, celebrated scholars, publishers, and wizards in the field of finance. In and out went some who had long since arrived at the top, some who were still groping about the bottom, and others hoping to ascend–both radiantly luminous and somber, gloomy individuals. As in an odd masquerade there entered: young and old, poor and wealthy, healthy and frail, lofty and lowly, merry and morose, happy and unhappy, saucy and shy, cheerful and sad, attractive and hideous, polite and impolite, glorious and shabby, respected and despondent, the proud and the imploring, the famous and the unknown, along with faces, gestures, and figures of all genres.

Art exhibitions are known to have as their goal the advantageous display of works of art and the attracting of buyers. The secretary plays the role of intermediary or go-between, facilitating communication between artists and their extensive, art-infatuated public. It is his task to ensure that a goodly number of bargains are definitively struck, that pictures are industriously sent out the door to buyers. Persons expressing interest in these works might appear on the scene only to swiftly vanish from sight again, unfortunately for good. The secretary must be attentive, as the most unimposing man can unexpectedly prove to be a connoisseur and buyer.

For a time I imagined myself to be exceedingly skillful at the art trade. Unquestionably I was splendidly suited to taking leisurely hackney-cab rides upon pleasantly lively, bright, glittering streets and to spending half and whole hours merrily chatting with jolly artists’ wives. Spirited evenings at the club regularly showed me in top form. I was a master at passing about platters heaped with delicacies, and was a frequent and enthusiastic visitor to and encourager of female painters. In such and similar respects, I acquitted myself gloriously. After the fact, however, I reached the conclusion that I cannot have been a particularly valuable, clever, prudent, and successful secretary for paintings. Specialists in the field were on several occasions seen to shrug their shoulders at the extent of my accomplishments. The head of the firm seemed to find it appealing to speak with his functionary above all on the subject of poetry and the like.

A stately successor soon reduced me to a predecessor and provided me with an occasion to lay down my post, resign my position, delicately make way, and charmingly busy myself elsewhere. Thinking poorly of me or feeling resentful because he had made so bold as to presume talents in me that I did not in fact possess was something that would never have occurred to my benefactor. To demonstrate that he was still of a mind to remain well-disposed toward me, he invited me, with a turn of phrase both courteous and jovial, to join him for supper.

Read “The Lady’s Maid,” a Short Story by Katherine Mansfield

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“The Lady’s Maid” by Katherine Mansfield

Eleven o’clock. A knock at the door … I hope I haven’t disturbed you, madam. You weren’t asleep – were you? But I’ve just given my lady her tea, and there was such a nice cup over, I thought, perhaps …

… Not at all, madam. I always make a cup of tea last thing. She drinks it in bed after her prayers to warm her up. I put the kettle on when she kneels down and I say to it, “Now you needn’t be in too much of a hurry to say your prayers.” But it’s always boiling before my lady is half through. You see, madam, we know such a lot of people, and they’ve all got to be prayed for – every one. My lady keeps a list of the names in a little red book. Oh dear! whenever some one new has been to see us and my lady says afterwards, “Ellen, give me my little red book,” I feel quite wild, I do. “There’s another,” I think, “keeping her out of her bed in all weathers.” And she won’t have a cushion, you know, madam; she kneels on the hard carpet. It fidgets me something dreadful to see her, knowing her as I do. I’ve tried to cheat her; I’ve spread out the eiderdown. But the first time I did it – oh, she gave me such a look – holy it was, madam. “Did our Lord have an eiderdown, Ellen?” she said. But – I was younger at the time – I felt inclined to say, “No, but our Lord wasn’t your age, and he didn’t know what it was to have your lumbago.” Wicked – wasn’t it? But she’s too good, you know, madam. When I tucked her up just now and seen – saw her lying back, her hands outside and her head on the pillow – so pretty – I couldn’t help thinking, “Now you look just like your dear mother when I laid her out!”

… Yes, madam, it was all left to me. Oh, she did look sweet. I did her hair, soft-like, round her forehead, all in dainty curls, and just to one side of her neck I put a bunch of most beautiful purple pansies. Those pansies made a picture of her, madam! I shall never forget them. I thought to-night, when I looked at my lady, “Now, if only the pansies was there no one could tell the difference.”

 … Only the last year, madam. Only after she’d got a little – well – feeble as you might say. Of course, she was never dangerous; she was the sweetest old lady. But how it took her was – she thought she’d lost something. She couldn’t keep still, she couldn’t settle. All day long she’d be up and down, up and down; you’d meet her everywhere, – on the stairs, in the porch, making for the kitchen. And she’d look up at you, and she’d say – just like a child, “I’ve lost it, I’ve lost it.” “Come along,” I’d say, “come along, and I’ll lay out your patience for you.” But she’d catch me by the hand – I was a favourite of hers – and whisper, “Find it for me, Ellen. Find it for me.” Sad, wasn’t it? Continue reading “Read “The Lady’s Maid,” a Short Story by Katherine Mansfield” →

The Problems of Bartleby

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What are the problems of Herman Melville’s story “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”?

This question seems like a bad starting place.

Let me share an anecdote instead.

—I was in the tenth grade the first time I read “Bartleby.”

At the time, I thought I was a teacher’s dream—a sharp reader, someone who loved English class, someone with opinions about the texts we read. Lots and lots of opinions. In retrospect, I realize that I was a nightmare for poor Ms. Hall, a wonderful teacher who I’m sure dreaded our meetings (there were like 15 guys in the class, all unruly).

Simply put, I didn’t want to do things her way.

So she gave me a copy of Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories and told me to read “Bartleby,” suggesting that there was something I might learn from it.

I don’t know if backfired is exactly the right term for the results of this experiment. I do know that “Bartleby” offered me a brilliant retort—a literary allusion!—to refuse any task I didn’t feel like undertaking in 10th grade English:

“I would prefer not to.”

—While we’re here—

“I would prefer not to”

So, this is clearly one of the problems of “Bartleby,” if not the core problem condensed into one utterance: Why would? Why the conditional?

Consider, vs. I prefer not to, a constative (or maybe even performative) utterance.

But Bartleby “would prefer not to.”

Contrast this with the imperative must that the narrator employs:

At the expiration of that period, I peeped behind the screen, and lo!
Bartleby was there.

I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself; advanced slowly towards him, touched his shoulder, and said, “The time has come; you must quit this place; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must go.”

“I would prefer not,” he replied, with his back still towards me.

“You must.”

He remained silent.

Now I had an unbounded confidence in this man’s common honesty. He had frequently restored to me sixpences and shillings carelessly dropped upon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button affairs. The proceeding then which followed will not be deemed extraordinary.

“Bartleby,” said I, “I owe you twelve dollars on account; here are thirty-two; the odd twenty are yours.—Will you take it?” and I handed the bills towards him.

These brief lines perhaps serve to summarize Melville’s tale.

We see here the basic plot—our titular scrivener will not leave the lawyer’s office after weeks of refusing (although refusing is not quite the right word) to work.

We also see here what I take to be the theme of “Bartleby,” the strange ethical position Bartleby’s (conditional) would prefer not to places the narrator’s (imperative) must set against the moral backdrop of do unto others: namely, an impossible ethical position for a Wall Street lawyer especially and most of us in general.

And “Bartleby,” as you’ll no doubt recall, is in some ways Melville trying to work out the problems of Matthew 25:35-39—

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

Perhaps our narrator tries to do these things—tries to feed and clothe and help this stranger Bartleby—but he can’t. Because Bartleby won’t give him an agency to relate to.

Because Bartleby’s utterance “I would prefer not to” denies the performative or constantive or declarative—indeed, it suspends or disrupts its own conditionality, the relation of the subject to its predicate verb.

Or consider one of Bartleby’s only other lines: “What is wanted?” His grammar again suspends agency, disrupts the notion of a stable I (let alone objective case me) that the narrator can interface with, dictate to, interrogate, see his own narcissistic reflection in).

—Hang on though, I was telling an anecdote. It was about the first time I read “Bartleby,” when I was fourteen or fifteen. This is the book:

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I stole it of course, or never returned it. Yes, that’s duct tape on its side. It is more or less falling apart. Here’s the back, barcode and all.

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Over the years, like many readers, I returned many times to “Bartleby,” reading it again in high school, then in college, then in grad school. I read it unassigned too, of course—when I read Kafka and it recalled itself to me, and when I read Moby-Dick for the first time. I read it when compelled. And then I read it with my own students. (I read most of the other stuff in the collection too, of course — Billy Budd and then later (why so much later?!) Benito Cereno).

I scrawled through so much of the book that my annotations are basically worthless, virtually everything underlined or circled:

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So we butt up against the problems of “Bartleby”—the problems of interpretation. How to figure an eponymous “hero” who is no more than a phantom, a trace, a lack? How to hash out a narrator who presents himself in relatively admirable terms and yet is so clearly an ethical failure? Why oh why would Bartleby prefer not to? Is the story a tragedy or a comedy? Does it present a world with rules, codes, ethics, or is all absurd here—nihilistic even? Is Bartleby a Christ figure? An ascetic monk? A ghost? Is the story just about Melville’s own anger over the poor reception of Pierre? How much of contemporary transcendentalist thought can we find in the story?

—Slight shift:

The kind people of Melville House were sporting enough to send a copy of “Bartleby” my way. The book is part of their HybridBooks project; these books offer “digital illuminations” along with traditional (uh, paper) books.

I’d requested a HybridBook—any one of them, really—because I now read about half the time on a Kindle Fire—so I was particularly interested in what a “hybrid” had to offer. What is the reading experience like?

First, the book itself is part of Melville House’s Art of the Novella series—beautiful, minimal design with French flaps. I read it on my porch the afternoon it arrived, enjoying its pristine, white, unmarked pages. Then, I checked out the “Digital Illuminations.”

The illuminations are available in several device-specific options, all easy to download with the QRC that comes with the book. I read most of the illuminations on my Kindle, but I also put them on my iPhone and my laptop. I had originally intended this post to be specifically about the digital illuminations, but hell, “Bartleby” is just too damn freighted a read for me at this point. Anyway, there’s a lot of good stuff in there, including “The Transcendentalist” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, selections from Jonathan Edwards and Joseph Priestly, Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” and several excerpts from Melville himself, including letters, other books, and reviews. What I found must, uh, illuminating was “Of Some of the Sources of Poetry Amongst Democratic Nations” from Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. There are also illustrations, including a map; there’s even a recipe for ginger nuts. I wish that MH had included a digital copy of the book though. From a practical, concrete standpoint, I found it easier to switch between the free public domain version of “Bartleby” on my Kindle and MH’s illuminations than it would have been to pick up the physical book.

Now, to shift back (perhaps):

Do the digital illuminations help to answer or solve or address some of the problems of “Bartleby,” some of the issues posed above?

Should they?

—I suppose the hedging answer is yes and no.

The additional material illuminates some of the philosophical, political, historical, and even personal context for “Bartleby.” The material is edited with minimal intrusion, but with enough explication to clearly connect the various selections to Melville’s story. If I’m reading with my teacher hat on (this is a metaphor; there is no literal hat), I’d say you probably couldn’t do better than what Melville House has put together here. The digital illuminations provide a strong foundation for an informed reading, a range of texts that speak (obliquely or otherwise) to “Bartleby.”

Does it all add up to a deeper or richer understanding of “Bartleby”?

Should it?

—Well. No. And then no.

I mean, would we want a series of essays that would provide the missing pieces that would allow us to puzzle out “Bartleby”? Could we even trust such pieces, let alone trust ourselves to trust such pieces? Isn’t this strange uncertainty why “Bartleby” endures—and endures apart from Moby-Dick or Billy Budd, strange texts themselves, but also not nearly as confounding?

“Bartleby” simultaneously wriggles and plays dead; it burns with apparent wit but then reminds us that we might not be in on the joke. It is Kafkaesque thirty years before Kafka was even born. It shakes off its allegorical idiom the minute we think we might limn its contours. It makes us read it again because we cannot pin it down.

—But maybe you want to pin it down, tickle it, torture it, make it solve its problems (or at least respond, damn it!).

And maybe I claimed that “Bartleby” was about something—that it was about ethical relations, about duty to one’s fellows—especially when a fellow isn’t a fellow but rather the trace of a fellow, the idea of a fellow, a ghost.

So, look, here’s a take on it:

The narrator—let’s call him Lawyer—Lawyer, see he’s a dick, in the parlance of our times. He’s a dick because he doesn’t know that he’s a dick, which is one of the constituting factors of the ontological state of being a dick. He also does not want to see himself as being a dick (this is another factor in the ontological state of being a dick). He wants to see himself as a good guy, this Wall Street dickhead, but Bartleby won’t let him do that. Bartleby won’t even let him see himself at all: Bartleby doesn’t reflect back. He prefers not to.

Our Lawyer, see, he’s all buttoned up, he’s snug (these are his words). He tells us upfront that he possesses “a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best”; he repeatedly points out the way that people are “useful” to him (or to others). He sees no possibility of an ethics outside of usefulness; on top of that, he cannot see that he cannot see any possibility of an ethics based on anything but “usefulness” (or the negative economy of obstruction figured in Bartleby).

And ah Bartleby, ah humanity: One time model employee, once apparently free from the eccentricities that plague the Lawyer’s other scriveners, Turkey and Nippers. Machinelike.

Bartleby mechanically completes large quantities of copies without comment or complaint.  But when asked to simply read in unison with Lawyer and his scriveners, Bartleby replies: “I would prefer not to.” Bartleby will not read with others—he is literally not on the same page as his colleagues.

Lawyer confronts Bartleby with his noncompliance; Bartleby repeats his mantra. Fuck mantra though because it’s not a mantra. It’s only repeated for Lawyer, to Lawyer, really, who can’t schematize/name/pin down Bartleby’s response. In fact, I would prefer not to so startles Lawyer that he says he’s  “unmanned” by the words. So he rationalizes Bartleby’s odd response, internalizes it, paraphrases it, if you like.

And then Bartleby ceases to even do his copying work. Oh the anarchy! But wait, there’s not even anarchy. There’s not even protest. There’s just big nothing. But not even big nothing—instead the smallest nothing (which proves that big nothing is possible).

So Lawyer attempts to “help” Bartleby. Lawyer believes doing so is his “Christian duty.” And to know that this duty has been met, Lawyer needs Bartleby to be his echo. But Bartleby’s I prefer not to denies this narcissistic exchange. He empties his I of ego (shades of Emerson’s Transparent Eyeball).

Confused, Lawyer tries to pay off Bartleby. When that doesn’t work, Lawyer actually packs up and moves to a new office. But even here he can’t cut off Bartleby. The office’s landlord comes to Lawyer to remove Bartleby.

And when Bartleby refuses to leave the office he is taken to “the Tombs”—prison.

Here, Lawyer tries to provide comfort for Bartleby (hearken ye back to Matthew 25:35-39). He arranges for Bartleby to receive good food in the prison. Bartleby prefers not to eat though, and dies curled up in the fetal position during a visit by Lawyer.

Lawyer is the first reader of Bartleby. But like many readers of “Bartleby,” he is confused.

Lawyer’s confusion results from his need for safety—for ease, for comfort, for a snug, buttoned-upness—and that safety is bought through an affirmation of first-person experience: namely, in the affirmation of the self in the other. That security is bought through assimilating another person’s first-person perspective. But Bartleby is empty of I, of self, of ego.

Bartleby would prefer not to: He will not be ventriloquized: He will not echo: He will not read from the same script: He will not be “of use,” as Lawyer puts it.

So Bartleby dissipates and dissolves: He goes down in the Tombs: a ghost, and impossibility, presence coupled with absence.

— And the epilogue:

We all recall the epilogue, yes?

Lawyer offers up “one little item of rumor,” a morsel, a “vague report . . . that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington.” The idea tears the narrator up inside: “Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men?”

For Lawyer, Bartleby is a dead letter, a failed letter.

Did Melville worry that “Bartleby” would be a failed letter? That it would not find an audience? That his work would not be delivered? If he did, it seems too then that Bartleby’s negations foreclose or reject this concern. Not sure of how to wrap up this riff, I’ll retreat to the safety of my title.

We find the final problems (in basic narrative chronology, that is) of “Bartleby” in its final line. Has Lawyer learned from his experience? Can he empathize, finally feel something for Bartleby beyond the confines of a perceived ethical duty? Is Bartleby a place holder for all humanity? Or is Bartleby in opposition to humanity? What does it mean—-

Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!

?

Read “A Baby Tramp,” A Short Story by Ambrose Bierce

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“A Baby Tramp” by Ambrose Bierce

If you had seen little Jo standing at the street corner in the rain, you would hardly have admired him. It was apparently an ordinary autumn rainstorm, but the water which fell upon Jo (who was hardly old enough to be either just or unjust, and so perhaps did not come under the law of impartial distribution) appeared to have some property peculiar to itself: one would have said it was dark and adhesive — sticky. But that could hardly be so, even in Blackburg, where things certainly did occur that were a good deal out of the common.

For example, ten or twelve years before, a shower of small frogs had fallen, as is credibly attested by a contemporaneous chronicle, the record concluding with a somewhat obscure statement to the effect that the chronicler considered it good growing-weather for Frenchmen.

Some years later Blackburg had a fall of crimson snow; it is cold in Blackburg when winter is on, and the snows are frequent and deep. There can be no doubt of it — the snow in this instance was of the colour of blood and melted into water of the same hue, if water it was, not blood. The phenomenon had attracted wide attention, and science had as many explanations as there were scientists who knew nothing about it. But the men of Blackburg — men who for many years had lived right there where the red snow fell, and might be supposed to know a good deal about the matter — shook their heads and said something would come of it.

And something did, for the next summer was made memorable by the prevalence of a mysterious disease — epidemic, endemic, or the Lord knows what, though the physicians didn’t — which carried away a full half of the population. Most of the other half carried themselves away and were slow to return, but finally came back, and were now increasing and multiplying as before, but Blackburg had not since been altogether the same.

Of quite another kind, though equally ‘out of the common,’ was the incident of Hetty Parlow’s ghost. Hetty Parlow’s maiden name had been Brownon, and in Blackburg that meant more than one would think.

Continue reading “Read “A Baby Tramp,” A Short Story by Ambrose Bierce” →

I Review Object Lessons, Where 20 Contemporary Authors Select and Introduce 20 Short Stories from The Paris Review

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Object Lessons anthologizes 20 stories published in the Paris Review over the past fifty years. “It is not a greatest hits anthology,” advises the brief editor’s note, “Instead, we asked twenty masters of the genre to choose a story from the Paris Review archives—a personal favorite—and to describe the key to its success as a work of fiction.” Hence, we get Ann Beattie introducing Craig Nova’s “Another Drunk Gambler,” Amy Hempel introducing Bernard Cooper’s “Old Birds,” and Sam Lipsyte introducing Mary Robinson’s “Likely Lake.”

Most of the introductions are short—most are fewer than three pages—and each author approaches his or her selection differently. Ben Marcus, prefacing “Several Garlic Tales,” tells us that, “Donald Barthelme was a magician of language, and it would be most respectful, perhaps even ethical, not to look too closely into the workings of his magic.” Marcus proposes a few approaches to find meaning in Barthelme’s surreal tale, but never over-explicates. In contrast, Lydia Davis’s surprisingly long intro to Jane Bowles’s “Emmy Moore’s Journal” is a sentence-to-paragraph close reading; Davis interrogates Bowles’s diction and syntax and concludes her little essay by situating Bowles’s (underappreciated) place in the canon. Davis’s insights are compelling, but one wonders if they wouldn’t be better appreciated after reading the story.

Davis also appears as author of one of the selected stories—Ali Smith picks Davis’s excellent number “Ten Stories from Flaubert.” Smith’s intro is wonderful, explaining the genesis of “Ten Stories,” which “came about when Davis (who is also a translator) was working on a a new translation of Madame Bovary and reading through Flaubert’s letters to his friend and lover Louise Colet.” I’m a huge fan of Lydia Davis, whose work defies easy definition. Smith wonders about her selection: “Are they translations? Are they by Flaubert? Are they by Davis?” The questions are better than answers.

Occasionally an author veers close to spoiling the story he introduces, as does Jeffrey Eugenides when he gracelessly steps all over Denis Johnson’s already-much-anthologized classic “Car Crash While Hitch Hiking.” Elsewhere, Jonathan Lethem mashes and minces misplaced metaphors in his confusing and forgettable introduction to Thomas Glynn’s story “Except for the Sickness I’m Quite Healthy Now. You Can Believe That.” Lethem’s sloppy, unrestrained attempt to dazzle is regrettable. He’s like the warm-up act that tries too hard to show up the headliner and winds up falling on his face.

For the most part though, the introductions simply allow readers new ways to see a story they’ve perhaps read before, as in Aleksandar Hemon’s preface to Jorge Luis Borges’s “Funes the Memorious” or David Means’s preface to Raymond Carver’s “Why Don’t You Dance.” Means suggests that “A great story is like an itch that has to be scratched eternally . . . We’re left with more questions than answers, and more answers than questions; therefore, the paradoxical quality of a good story is that it seems to give us everything we need and yet not quite enough to fulfill a sense of having been shown a full life.” Surprisingly good is Dave Eggers’s intro to James Salter’s “Bangkok,” which reads almost like a loose riff of notes that a harried but talented adjunct might bring to his Creative Writing 101 workshop. Eggers showcases keen intuition about Salter’s narrative coupled with an eagerness that makes one want to read the story.

And what about those stories? If I’ve focused more on the introductions than the stories themselves, it’s perhaps because I’ve taken for granted that the selections are solid for an anthology. Sure, any reader might have his or her gripes, but the range of talent here is undeniable, and the spectrum of stories is satisfying. Object Lessons would make a fine addition to the syllabus of any beginning writing course, and any young person interested in honing her craft could do worse than attending the examples collected here. To be clear, Object Lessons is in no way some master course in How to Write a Short Story, but it does provide the most valuable writer’s tool—good reading.

Read “Clara,” a Short Story by Roberto Bolaño

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“Clara,” a short story by Roberto Bolaño:

She had big breasts, slim legs, and blue eyes. That’s how I like to remember her. I don’t know why I fell madly in love with her, but I did, and at the start, I mean for the first days, the first hours, it all went fine; then Clara returned to the city where she lived, in the south of Spain (she’d been on vacation in Barcelona), and everything began to fall apart.

One night I dreamed of an angel: I walked into a huge, empty bar and saw him sitting in a corner with his elbows on the table and a cup of milky coffee in front of him. She’s the love of your life, he said, looking up at me, and the force of his gaze, the fire in his eyes, threw me right across the room. I started shouting, Waiter, waiter, then opened my eyes and escaped from that miserable dream. Other nights I didn’t dream of anyone, but I woke up in tears. Meanwhile, Clara and I were writing to each other. Her letters were brief. Hi, how are you, it’s raining, I love you, bye. At first, those letters scared me. It’s all over, I thought. Nevertheless, after inspecting them more carefully, I reached the conclusion that her epistolary concision was motivated by a desire to avoid grammatical errors. Clara was proud. She couldn’t write well, and she didn’t want to let it show, even if it meant hurting me by seeming cold.

(Read the rest at The New Yorker)

 

“In a House Besieged” — Lydia Davis

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In a house besieged lived a man and a woman. From where they cowered in the kitchen the man and woman heard small explosions. “The wind,” said the woman. “Hunters,” said the man. “The rain,” said the woman. “The army,” said the man. The woman wanted to go home, but she was already home, there in the middle of the country in a house besieged.

“In a House Besieged,” from Lydia Davis’s first collection Break It Down (1986); available in The Collected Stories.

Read “The Old Man at the Bridge,” A Short Story by Ernest Hemingway

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“The Old Man at the Bridge” by Ernest Hemingway:

An old man with steel rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes sat by the side of the road. There was a pontoon bridge across the river and carts, trucks, and men, women and children were crossing it. The mule-drawn carts staggered up the steep bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the spokes of the wheels. The trucks ground up and away heading out of it all and the peasants plodded along in the ankle deep dust. But the old man sat there without moving. He was too tired to go any farther.
It was my business to cross the bridge, explore the bridgehead beyond and find out to what point the enemy had advanced. I did this and returned over the bridge. There were not so many carts now and very few people on foot, but the old man was still there.
“Where do you come from?” I asked him.
“From San Carlos,” he said, and smiled.
That was his native town and so it gave him pleasure to mention it and he smiled.
“I was taking care of animals,” he explained. “Oh,” I said, not quite understanding.
“Yes,” he said, “I stayed, you see, taking care of animals. I was the last one to leave the town of San Carlos.”
He did not look like a shepherd nor a herdsman and I looked at his black dusty clothes and his gray dusty face and his steel rimmed spectacles and said, “What animals were they?”
“Various animals,” he said, and shook his head. “I had to leave them.”
I was watching the bridge and the African looking country of the Ebro Delta and wondering how long now it would be before we would see the enemy, and listening all the while for the first noises that would signal that ever mysterious event called contact, and the old man still sat there.
“What animals were they?” I asked.
“There were three animals altogether,” he explained. “There were two goats and a cat and then there were four pairs of pigeons.”
“And you had to leave them?” I asked.
“Yes. Because of the artillery. The captain told me to go because of the artillery.”
“And you have no family?” I asked, watching the far end of the bridge where a few last carts were hurrying down the slope of the bank.
“No,” he said, “only the animals I stated. The cat, of course, will be all right. A cat can look out for itself, but I cannot think what will become of the others.”
“What politics have you?” I asked.
“I am without politics,” he said. “I am seventy-six years old. I have come twelve kilometers now and I think now I can go no further.” “This is not a good place to stop,” I said. “If you can make it, there are trucks up the road where it forks for Tortosa.”
“I will wait a while,” he said, “and then I will go. Where do the trucks go?”
“Towards Barcelona,” I told him.
“I know no one in that direction,” he said, “but thank you very much. Thank you again very much.”
He looked at me very blankly and tiredly, then said, having to share his worry with some one, “The cat will be all right, I am sure. There is no need to be unquiet about the cat. But the others. Now what do you think about the others?”
“Why they’ll probably come through it all right.” “You think so?”
“Why not,” I said, watching the far bank where now there were no carts.
“But what will they do under the artillery when I was told to leave because of the artillery?”
“Did you leave the dove cage unlocked?” I asked. “Yes.”
“Then they’ll fly.”
“Yes, certainly they’ll fly. But the others. It’s better not to think about the others,” he said.
“If you are rested I would go,” I urged. “Get up and try to walk now.”
“Thank you,” he said and got to his feet, swayed from side to side and then sat down backwards in the dust.
“I was taking care of animals,” he said dully, but no longer to me. “I was only taking care of animals.”
There was nothing to do about him. It was Easter Sunday and the Fascists were advancing toward the Ebro. It was a gray overcast day with a low ceiling so their planes were not up. That and the fact that cats know how to look after themselves was all the good luck that old man would ever have.

Read “The School,” a short story by Donald Barthelme

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“The School” by

Donald Barthelme

Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that … that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems … and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.

It wouldn’t have been so bad except that just a couple of weeks before the thing with the trees, the snakes all died. But I think that the snakes – well, the reason that the snakes kicked off was that … you remember, the boiler was shut off for four days because of the strike, and that was explicable. It was something you could explain to the kids because of the strike. I mean, none of their parents would let them cross the picket line and they knew there was a strike going on and what it meant. So when things got started up again and we found the snakes they weren’t too disturbed.

With the herb gardens it was probably a case of overwatering, and at least now they know not to overwater. The children were very conscientious with the herb gardens and some of them probably … you know, slipped them a little extra water when we weren’t looking. Or maybe … well, I don’t like to think about sabotage, although it did occur to us. I mean, it was something that crossed our minds. We were thinking that way probably because before that the gerbils had died, and the white mice had died, and the salamander … well, now they know not to carry them around in plastic bags.

Of course we expected the tropical fish to die, that was no surprise. Those numbers, you look at them crooked and they’re belly-up on the surface. But the lesson plan called for a tropical fish input at that point, there was nothing we could do, it happens every year, you just have to hurry past it.

We weren’t even supposed to have a puppy. Continue reading “Read “The School,” a short story by Donald Barthelme” →

Matt Mullins Talks to Biblioklept About His New Collection, Three Ways of the Saw

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The twenty-five short (and short-short and micro) stories that comprise Matt Mullins’s Three Ways of the Saw bristle with gritty, buzzing energy—these are crack-shot tales, simultaneously precise and off-center. Mullins offers a world of stumbling rock bands and day-drinkers, sorry sons and ugly lovers, all fumbling for meaning against the world’s sharp edges. Organized into three novellas-(of sorts)-in-stories, Saw is spiky, stinging, but also deeply moving, probing some of the darker places we’ve all been (or might be headed to).

Matt was kind enough to talk to me about his work over a series of emails, even though I’m sure he was busy—he had just gotten back from this year’s Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Chicago where he helped promote Saw, which is fresh from Atticus Books. Matt teaches creative writing at Ball State University. In addition to his writing, he’s also a musician and filmmaker. Check out his blog.

Biblioklept: How was AWP?

Matt Mullins: I had an excellent time at AWP. Things had come full circle. Three years ago at AWP Chicago, I’d interviewed for the tenure-track job I now have teaching creative writing at Ball State University. Two years ago in Denver, I was part of the hiring committee that brought us our most recent fiction hire, Cathy Day. Last year in DC I found out Three Ways of the Saw had been accepted by Atticus Books. This year I was back in Chicago signing the book for people at the Atticus booth in the book fair, and hustling boxes of wooden matches with a picture of book cover on them. I believe AWP is in Boston next year  If I go, I’m planning on buying a lotto ticket and a twelve pack at the first party store I see inside the city limits.

Biblioklept: The twelve pack will come in use if your luck is bold or ill (but I hope your luck remains good).

MM: Truly, the beer shares its love with us whether we’re drowning sorrows or celebrating.

The writer, in repose, enjoys a libation and book

Bibliokept: Could you describe the vibe at AWP for those of us who’ve never been? How important is it for authors?

MM: The vibe at AWP, the book fair specifically, always reminds me that there is a hell of a lot of love for books out there, regardless of what the cyber-world might cause us  to think with the rise of e-readers and online literary magazines. Hundreds of tables filled with beautifully crafted books, some of them hand typeset, hand-stitched, custom illustrated, others slicker and more traditional, but all of them filled with an astonishing breadth of literature.  More great books than anyone could read in a lifetime.  There’s definitely that going on, a serious love for the book as an object.

Then there’s the conference.  8,000 writers descending upon a swanky hotel in City X (Austin, Chicago, New York, Vancouver, D.C., etc. It changes each year.) to attend panels on a wide variety of subjects of concern to writers who teach in university/college creative writing programs. Readings by notable authors in both the literary and indie publishing worlds.   Fancy receptions with open bars put on by various sponsors. Serious networking.

Then there’s all the crazy “off site” events. Parties put on by lit magazines and publishers. Readings in bars and clubs.  All the things you can imagine happening when you let thousands of writers and artistically inclined people loose on a city en masse for a long weekend. One of the interesting things I’ve noticed with AWP over the last few years is that there are now two strains that intermingle at will. There is what I would call the “indie-lit” community, the more recent community of people running small non-university affiliated presses and online literary magazines, and there is the longer standing community of university affiliated presses and creative writing programs. It’s been great to see how the coming together of these two communities (which have communities within and across their own larger communities) has energized the whole situation. It’s brought more people who love good writing together. This year the conference sold out for the first time in its forty-some year history.

In terms of its importance for authors: Many writers can take it or leave it. It’s a great place to meet editors of literary magazines and otherwise make connections with people who are potentially interested in reading your work. And personally, I’ve always enjoyed wandering through the book fair with a back pack and picking up submission guidelines at each journal’s table that I’ll sort through later as I get ready to send out a round of stories or poems. But it’s not a make or break situation for a writer by any means. I’m sure there are many writers out there to whom this conference would not appeal one bit.  More power to them.

Biblioklept: Well, it sounds like you’ve had a lot of success at AWP. I hope that Three Ways of the Saw picked up some traction there. It’s a cool book, somehow simultaneously raw and refined. There’s a gritty energy to your prose, but it’s also precise and even elegant in its economy. Some of my favorite pieces in the book, like “Steam” and “Accepting Inner Change at the Grocery Store,” are these succinct moments that somehow encode epiphanies that aren’t forced, that are, for lack of a better word, naturalistic (this is a long-winded way of me saying: I completely identify with the truth of these moments as a reader, as a human). I’m curious about how you draft and execute them.

MM: For me there’s a certain grace inhabiting those things living at the very edge of our understanding. When, for various reasons, they spill over into some kind of sense we can apprehend we get a feeling of momentary clarity that can resonate forward into a longer lasting epiphany that changes the way we see ourselves and the world. There are those things born of a raw truth that come to us like a slap in the face. And there are those things that slide over us with a gentle sadness or joy.  Whatever their type, they’re always there. They surround us. What brings them into focus is life context bumping up against individual consciousness.

When I’m trying to work that mechanism in a story, I don’t really know what that moment might be when I start out. Or if I do think I know what it is when I start out, it usually ends up being something else. What tends to happen, though, is that I end up writing my character into outer circumstances that allow a kind of collision, subtle or raw, with the character’s inner circumstances that result in this third element, this realization (or failed realization) of that new collided inner/outer state.

The language is the delivery mechanism for this idea, so it must be precise if the meaning is to come across. But language is sound and rhythm and even shape as well as meaning so all of those elements need to come together if this “third thing” as I’m calling it is to emerge fully. I think maybe it’s the attention to the language and the fact that these true moments don’t need to be conjured so much as revealed and caused to shine anew through the method of their delivery that makes their arrival feel natural rather than forced.  Saying something the reader already intuits to be true in an unexpected way makes the gut say yes even as it makes the head tease out the complexities of the idea.

Biblioklept: There’s a moment in the title story, “Three Ways of the Saw,” when the narrator connects the scientific fact that matter can never be created nor destroyed, only changed, to the philosophical implication that, “if this is true it means the whole universe already contains everything that ever was or will be” — and hence all people are intrinsically connected (the narrator goes on to link himself to Nixon and Hitler and Gandhi and Jesus and rubber bands). Your collection contains a strong, unifying tone, but you also get inside the heads of lots of different kinds of people. Where do your characters come from?

MM: My characters come from within and from without. By within I mean two things. First, every character, no matter where it comes from, has a little part of me in its chemistry, if only by virtue of the fact that it’s being filtered through my consciousness. Secondly, some characters are wholly products of my imagination. That is, they are born in my head and I evolve them from there.

By without, I mean some of my characters are based partly on my experience with others.  Some are inspired by people I know well.  Others come from people I’ve seen or encountered indirectly. But even these characters that come from without have to be filtered through me to end being in the story, so they invariably take on facets of my perception, intentional or not, which makes them that first type of character I mentioned that comes from within. So, to untangle that, I guess the answer is that all my characters come from within–eventually–regardless of if they were born in my head or were filtered through it.

But more than where they come from is what I want from them. I want them to be compelling, flawed, multi-faceted and someone a reader can attach themselves to, whether it’s by way of sympathy or interest in “what’s going to happen to this person next.”

You make a good point about the collection’s unifying tone across its variety of characters. I believe in the idea of universality through specifics. That is, the more specific you get with a character’s mind, world and situation, the more universal your story becomes. It appears antithetical at first glance and I’ve had many a student tell me they wrote something purposefully vague because they wanted everyone to “Get it.”  But what happens with vagueness is detachment and disinterest. So I always tell them to get that vaseline off the camera lens and start showing me the facets of the diamond.  Because this much I’ve learned: When things vividly emerge for the reader, they descend into the story and the resulting empathy/interest allows them to attach themselves to the character and their experience.  That’s why we could all relate to a well written story about astronauts that might say something universal about loss or isolation or perspective, or whatever, even though 99.99999% will never be in outer space.

Biblioklept: I teach basic college composition, not fiction writing, but I have a similar mantra: get to the abstract through what’s concrete. I’m curious about your teaching: Has it influenced how you write?

MM:  Teaching influences my writing in that it keeps the creative process, revision and the idea of reading good examples by writers I admire in the forefront of my mind.  Those are the general practices I try to pass along to my students.  I’ve been teaching a lot of screenwriting over the last few years, and this has given me certain ideas about plot and character arc and scene and dialogue that have influenced the shape of some things I write as well, the more narrative stories particularly.  I also have a clearer understanding of how to book end scenes I want to purposefully withhold so they emerge in the reader’s mind without literally appearing in the story.  But screenwriting also pushes me toward more non-narrative forms of storytelling, because sometimes I want to get away from that more traditionally narrative mode.  So this makes me more experimental in my approaches at times.  But In general, teaching influences my writing by keeping me engaged in the idea of craft, how to talk about it,  what I understand it to be.  It keeps my mind focused on the practical application of techniques, which is where the true guts of writing are, at least for me, whether it’s in a traditional narrative or experimental mode.

Biblioklept: One of the techniques you use in a few of the stories is second-person perspective.  What are the risks and payoffs in writing in this POV?

MM: Second person is much maligned, I think sometimes rightly so, for being presumptuous.  Forcing the reader into a story as the protagonist–it’s a leap some readers aren’t willing to make, especially if they can’t connect themselves to the characterization or the outer realities of the character.  2nd person requires that leap of faith on the reader’s part.  Especially when the reader gets drug through some shit and those “you’s” aren’t dwelling in very happy places.  So there’s a risk in alienating the reader due to the nature of the leap you’re asking of them.  Also, it’s a self-conscious device to create “intimacy” between the reader and the story, something that brings attention to what is usually a more subconscious relationship between reader/character that’s different from the objective subjectivity of the first person and the more distant narrative omniscience of 3rd; and that self-consciousness can put people off.  This is why I only use 2nd person sparingly, and when I do it’s for very specific reasons.  For me, unless 3rd person is essential to some aesthetic element of the story, I won’t use it.

For example, in “Getting Beaten” I’m using it to get the reader in close on a rather lost, though I hope sympathetic, character who undergoes a violent experience.  I wanted to put the reader as close to that experience and subsequent catharsis as possible.  2nd person seemed the best way to bring across that character’s inner turmoil while attaching the reader to the outer situation.  But that in itself wouldn’t justify its use for me.  That story can be told just as well in 1st or 3rd person.  2nd person became integral to that story when I realized its true ending, which involves the projection of a second “you” into the story that pulls up next to the “you” the reader has been associating with the entire time–this effect of one you watching the other you in the context of how the story makes the idea of those two presences interact with each other would be impossible to write in the 1st or 3rd person.

“Accepting Inner Change in the Grocery Story” is a kind of companion piece in that it’s assumed the “you” is the same character if you were to view him objectively.  With that story there’s also this idea of the doppelgänger, you confronting you, and this idea of a kind of psychic time travel.  Using 2nd person here allowed me to get a character to confront himself literally while also throwing the idea of the reader inside that same mirror while pulling them back and forth in time.

In “The Bachelor’s Last Will and Testament” I shift between the 2nd person and that 1st person legalese of the will.  So using 1st person for the beginning of the piece wasn’t working and 3rd felt too distant.

In “How to Time an Engine” I’m using it more in the poetic tradition of direct address, though I’ve angled the address to the character on the receiving end of my marveling over luck and timing versus karma, divine providence and fate and how maybe they’re all just different versions of the same thing.  Using second person in that piece allows me to turn the reader into the example itself (the you) as we (reader and narrator) consider the idea together.

So, for me, when I’m trying to bend the whole idea of what “person” means in fiction, I might employ 2nd person.  But, knowing its risks, I don’t make that choice too often.  I think if a writer takes that kind of considered approach to 2nd person they’ll probably reap the rewards rather than suffer the risks.

Biblioklept: I’m curious what you’re working on now—more short stories? Music? Film? Do you have plans for a novel? Another Mortal Kombat film? (Oh, wait, I think that’s a different Matt Mullins . . .)

MM:  Yeah, that other Matt Mullins.  He’s something else.  You’ve got to check him out on YouTube.  He does all that acrobatic flying through the air ass-kicking type stuff.  He also looks a little bit like I did when I was younger.  When I first stumbled upon him it was almost like seeing an alternate reality version of myself, as if after the last time I had my nose busted in a fist fight I said, “Forget this reading and writing bullshit,” and started studying the martial arts instead.  It makes me wonder how many Matt Mullins are out there and what they’re into.  Maybe one likes to write.  Maybe we can trade books one day or have a beer.

As for what I’m working on now: My interactive literary project in progress currently lives at lit-digital.com.  I’ve been working on some videopoems and short, experimental films when I have the time.  I have a manuscript of prose-poem type things called The Roaring Engine of Here that I want to finish up and start shopping around.  I have a couple feature-length screenplays roughed out that I need to finish, and I have an idea for a novel that blows up my time spent as copywriter in corporate America.  Basically, I just need to nail down what I want to focus on and get to it.

Biblioklept: Have you ever stolen a book?

MM: I went to an all-boys Catholic boarding school. We actually had to wear suit jackets with a crest on the breast pocket.  But it was not some quasi Ivy League prep school. It was like the knock off version of that–an ignorant, ugly, cruel, violent place, but it taught me something of life’s truths early. You were required to bring your Bible to theology class under threat of “detention” and/or “demerits.”  One day, I found I’d lost my Bible . . .

Book Acquired, 1.18.2011 (Matt Mullins/Chainsaw Short Fiction Edition)

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Matt Mullins’s Three Ways of the Saw (new in February from Atticus): Spent a few afternoons sifting through this volume, intrigued by its outstanding cover (I use the word “outstanding” literally; over a dozen titles came into Bblklpt Wrld Hdqrtrs this fine week). Mullins’s volume, stocked with short and short-short (and micro-) stories, bristles with boozy energy, grit, ugly druggy nervy episodes, shenanigans, dirty hi-jinks, breaking families, bad sons, bad people, broken people, desperate people . . . There’s a strong Bukoswkiish vibe to the business, with less ego, more concrete imagery, more Denis Johnson. I like this book.