Fiction Post: Juice

When I first picked up this book I was actually excited to start reading it. I have enjoyed most the fiction stories as is in this class. I thought I'd finally be able to comprehend a story instead of feeling like the words were just going in one ear and out the other. Well, I clearly was mistaken about that. This book confuses me like no other.

For instance, all throughout this book it talks about a crisis or whatever that happened so now there is no one left in the city. What exactly is this crisis? I'm almost done with the book, maybe have like 5 or 6 pages left, and I still have no idea what this crisis is. The person in the book, I'm unsure whether it's a boy or girl, talks about (on pg 13) about how when they eat they hope that the towns people will return. They don't care if they return and are happy or angry because they just want the townspeople back. But what does it matter if you eat the food that's there? The townspeople are gone so they clearly aren't going to be eating it.

Overall the book does display a theme of loneliness. This person in the book left the town they grew up in, for whatever reason I'm still unsure of, and ended up coming back to find that there is no one in that town anymore. The thing I really don't understand is the importance of the signs that are being talked about. It's obvious that this person isn't to their hometown yet because there are people are that they can talk to and look at the signs with, but I don't understand why the signs are so important. On pg 39, it talks about how "the feelings that anchored me the other day to the sign, Slow to Bridge, were not feelings as much as they were remembrances." Are the signs just a way for this person to connect with their sister that makes the signs? Like a way to remember her? I honestly have no clue.

Well, I'm pretty confused on this book overall. Almost as confused as I was all throughout the time that we were learning about poetry and reading it. I miss the days where books seemed to make sense to me....short stories too. Oh well.

Microficiton

So far I like fiction writing soooooo much more than poetry. My favorite story so far has to be Internal. I like how when you read it there are two different possibilities that run through your mind. The first one is that there is only one intern and they are sent on 2 different assignments. But then when you really look into the details you can see that there are 2 interns. I like that it makes you have to think about the reading but at the same time the concept isn't too far fetched to where you can't understand it. I can understand this so much easier than poetry, even though I still do struggle with fiction sometimes.

I like that on pg 68-69 of the reading the second intern thinks about the possibility that Kagen's brother could possibly be writing about him. I think that in this short story this was the first time that the intern really does think about the possibility that he is being watched too. On pg 69 I also found it interesting that he copied a page of notes onto a sheet of paper and gave it to Kagen's brother. I still don't really get why he'd do that since I thought that the intent was to not let the brother know that he is being watched. That seems like a pretty hard thing to do though considering there are holes in the wall that are pretty clear from both sides so each person knows they are being watched.

We had discussed this in class on Thursday but I still find this one part really interesting. On pg 70 it says "There, through the pen's casing: eight last dim drops of ink. Soon I will only have blank pages as well." When we talked about it we had discussed how it represents his sanity. So when the intern runs out of "ink" really he will have lost his sanity. I think that it's really interesting to represent your sanity by the amount of ink you have left. When you read it you don't necessarily think about it meaning someone is going to lose their sanity but when you really think about it and what it means you end up figuring out that that's what it represents. I thought it was a really good way of using description and it represented the use of microfiction.

Fiction Packet #2: Internal

One of the stories in the fiction packet that really caught my attention was the first story called Internal. This was by Brian Evensan fro Contagion. I thought it was interesting to read for a couple reasons.
First off, it was a story about a guy who was given the job to pretty much spy on one of the doctor's brothers. It was interesting to me because he didn't know much about this doctor as is and then he was given the task to spy on a the guy's brother whom he didn't know much about either. It was strange that when the guy went to go spy on the brother, he wasn't given much instruction. He had no idea which apartment out of the two the brother lived in or what he looked at. He went into this not knowing much. If it was me, I don't think I'd be very comfortable with that. The fact that all the apartments had pretty much nothing in it was interesting to me too,
The second reason this story interested me was because of how the guy who was doing the spying seemed to have gone crazy while he was on his assignment. When he finally did find the brother to spy on, the brother almost seemed to be observing the original observer. With how the guy reacts, it seems as though he is going crazy. Especially with how he sees an eye in one of the holes in the wall and now he wants to make sure that he isn't able to be observed. He sleeps next to the holes and even thinks of a way to make sure that the brother isn't able to observe him; such as poking his eye with a pen (but the brother might do the same thing back to him so he decides not to).
Overall this story sort of humored me. I thought it was interesting how this guy seemed to lose his sense of self and start to become crazy and paranoid during his observation. I do wonder, though, if the brother was really sent there to observe the guy who thought he was sent there to observe the brother. Confusing, I know. But it makes me wonder what the true intent was for this whole observation process.

Fiction...Much better than Poetry

First off let me start by saying that reading fiction is much much better than reading poetry. I can actually understand what's being said, well for the most part. I'm still a very logical thinker so it makes it harder for me to think of what the author is trying to say if they don't actually come out and say it.

I found these short stories to be interesting though. The short story Survivors caught my interest because the writing seemed to be raw; like the author didn't feel the need to censor their thought. I liked that it talked about same sex relationships which seems to be a very controversial topic. Whether you agree with it or not, it allowed you to see that even the family of those who are in the relationship don't always agree with it. You were able to see that with how the first partner wanted to die first that way they didn't have to deal with the rude remarks of the other partner's family, or deal with their disapproval of the place the two of them shared.

Another short story that really interest me was Walking the Baby to the Liquor Store. I found it interesting just by the title. My first thought was who in the world would walk their baby to the liquor store? I thought that maybe going into it there would be some twist to the story to where the baby really wasn't a baby. But no, the father really did walk the baby to the liquor store. Although I find that really strange, I find it interesting that in the same story the father talked about how he'd put off work because he wanted to spend time with his child. He mentioned how there is no novel more interesting then the 4 words the baby knows; mommy, daddy, banana, and doggy. I found all it to be interesting because everything he did, even walking the baby to the liquor store, was to make the baby happy.

Overall I find fiction to actually be interesting. Much MUCH better than reading poetry. I like all the details that get put into such a short story. And I like being able to understand the story.