Reading HIROSHIMA this month. Wow.

Opening discussion: “Childcare”

Well, I was the one who chose this story, but it’s been kind of a tough one for me to unpack. It may be because as the mother of two young children, my life IS childcare, so it’s very hard for me to distance myself from it enough to analyze it, even from a literary perspective.  One of the things that is daunting about the concept of childcare is that it is so contradictory:  it can be simutaneously minute and all-encompassing, prosaic and awe-inspiring.  Since I became a mother, every activity I’ve embarked on  – down to showering — has had to involve some degree of childcare, either by myself or rarely, by others.  I mean, I’m only able to write this post because I have said help!  But as this is a literary club and not a support group, I’ll try to leave my personal baggage behind and focus on the story.

What do you think about Lorrie Moore?  I think she’s a little overrated.  Let me clarify:  I think when she’s good, she’s brilliant (“Birds in America”), and when she’s bad, she’s irritating.  She’s a little too pun-heavy for my taste, for one thing.  Fortunately, there’s not much of that going on here.  Keep in mind that “Childcare” is actually the first chapter in her new novel, “A Gate at the Stairs,” so we can’t really judge it as we would a short story.  It’s not a stand-alone piece.

Moore gets a lot of credit for touching on human truths, but I don’t think people talk as much about the sheer beauty of her writing.  I mean, read the first line of this piece a few times (“The cold came late that fall and the songbirds were caught off guard …”)  So lyrical.  Later, when Tassie and Sarah meet, Tassie marvels at the way Sarah studies her face: “I had always felt as hidden as the hull in a berry, as secret and fetal as the curled fortune in a cookie, and such hiddenness was not without its advantages, its egotisms, its grief-fed grandiosities.”  Damn.  Read that one a few times in order to fully appreciate it.

Well, I went on earlier about how this story affected me as a mother, but I definitely don’t think you have to be a mother to appreciate it.  A big question the story seems to ask is, why does Sarah want to be a mother in the first place?  Why do any of us?  It’s clear she has a full life, married with an interesting and time-consuming career.  When can she possibly squeeze in childcare?  She clearly hasn’t thought it through.  In a moment of hit-you-over-the-head symbolism, Tassie notices dead plants and unopened phone books on her front porch when she first visits her.  The obvious message is:  this is a woman who can’t nurture a plant and hasn’t the time to take a telephone book inside.  Why the hell would she make a good mother? Of course, it’s easy to place all the blame on the mothers when, as Tassie notes during her interviews, the fathers are conspicuously absent. Their qualifications as parents aren’t held under the same type of microscope. Do you feel that Moore’s depictions of gender dynamics here is fair?

I heard Moore being interviewed on NPR about “A Gate at the Stairs,” and she said a major theme of the book is how people deal with their own limitatations.  Sarah, especially, seems to have more than her share.  Her mothering abilities are especially called into question during her interaction with Amber.  As a former high school teacher, I cringed when she scolded this girl she had just met.  Not only does that kind of talk not fly with teenagers, it reveals what I think is a misconception all would-be parents have:  that you are going to be a successful parent because you have so much wisdom to impart.  Then you have a child and realize, to put it bluntly, that you don’t know shit.  And that kids can teach you a lot more than you can teach them.

On the flip side, Sarah handles Amber’s smart-ass “gift” at the restaurant exactly right, so maybe I’m being too hard on her.  She is such a multi-faceted character and seems to operate on a very instictual level.  It’s not clear why she jumps to hire Tassie, with her less-than-stellar resume and awkward interviewing skills. Does she sense a deep connection with Tassie or has she simply not taken the time to interview many candidates?  She certainly doesn’t have much time on her hands, as Amber points out.

Sometimes Moore hits on truths with such precision, I can only stand back and marvel at her work rather than dissect it.  I’m thinking of Tassie’s descriptions of going from the farm to college, her heartbreaking observations of the pregnant women who interview her, and her wonderful ambivalence about childcare itself:  ”I was not especially skilled at minding children for long spells; I grew bored, perhaps like my own mother. After I’d spent too much time playing their games, my mind grew peckish and longed to lose itself in some book I had in my backpack. I was ever hopeful of early bedtimes and long naps.”

I’ll leave the rest up to you.  I hope you all enjoyed this story as much as I did.

Hello, strangers! After a ridiculous hiatus, we are back at it on Fit Lit with a new story shared by Sarah. Sarah has selected “Childcare,” a short story by Lorrie Moore and recently published in her latest book, A GATE TO THE STAIRS. Moore is a brilliant author—someone I’ve admired forever; she has an incredible gift for revealing the everday as something extraordinary and new. In this story, Moore writes about a college student looking for work as a babysitter. I’ve read it already and count it as a recent fav—can’t wait to hear what y’all think, too.

You can find the story for free on the New Yorker website at http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/07/06/090706fi_fiction_moore

Please read this story in the next couple weeks and get ready to share your thoughts starting Sunday, November 15.

Jill McCorkle’s “Going Away Shoes”

Sorry I didn’t get to jump in the past few months. I read Updike’s story and the last one which I loved for its language and imagery. Thank you for introducing me to such an amazing writer and story.
I picked this story because I was browsing the Blackbird site looking for names I recongized. I came across Jill McCorkle whom I’ve always loved (Her story “Intevention” which is in 2004′s Best American Short Stories is one of my all-time favorites) and decided to give this one a try.

I always enjoy reading McCorkle’s stories because of her sharp wit and insight into people particularly family and how characters relate to each other. I always enjoy reading stories about family dynamics probably because I enjoy writing them as well. I don’t know who are the writers (besides Nina and myself) on the board but I wouldn’t mind discussing craft as well as what we thought about the story and its characters.

When Nina emailed me to nudge me to start blogging about this story she asked if I thought Debby was bitter. I think that question brings us to a good starting point for our discussion. My immediate response was that she wasn’t bitter but when I look back at the description of the sisters and mother, I do wonder if McCorckle’s intention was to show Debra’s bitterness by her description and portrayal of the sisters. We can’t hear what Debby is thinking because the story is not in her voice. We learn about Debby’s thoughts and feeling s though the narrator who describes the sisters in such a bitter, negative way. If the story was in first person we might have been turned off by Debby, labeling her a Bitter Betty. In limited third person we may laugh at the sisters and yet sympathize with Debby while rooting for her escape. 

Back to the question: is Debby bitter? I don’t think so. If anything she is grateful not be like them. “God don’t let me turn into them[her family], she prayed in that moment…” during her graduation ceremony. The story is she against them which makes me wonder if she is a little bit righteous.

Why does McCorkle use such sarcastic humor in the descriptions of the sisters? They are almost caricatures and don’t seem real. Yes, it’s humor for the purpose of being funny but what else (if any) is the purpose of portraying them this way? I’ll let you answer this one.

Hello, August! Joanna selected a story for us this month and I’m just lending a hand by posting it here for her. The story is called “Going Away Shoes” by Jill McCorkle and it’s available online at Blackbird at: http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v6n2/fiction/mccorkle_j/going_shoes.htm. I’ve never read McCorkle and look forward to checking out her work. Please read and get ready to share your thoughts after August 15. Enjoy!

Turns out Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was also on the latest cover of Poets & Writers. I haven’t read it yet but now I can’t wait! http://www.pw.org/content/slender_hope_profile_chimamanda_ngozi_adichie

Thanks for the awesome pick, Andrea.

I’m sure there’s a lot to uncover in terms of identity and imagination, but what struck me most about Adichie’s story were the details. It’s been a long time since something moved me so powerfully–lifting me from my safe suburban world and dropping me hard right there into life with the Igbo, the narrator, Obi, the other characters, in the middle of the massacres and the war between Nigeria and Biafra. It happened slowly, but I could feel myself being slowly pulled into this place and the devastation all-around. At times, it took my breath away (heartbreaking but of course I loved it—anyone who knows me knows I LOVE a good tragedy).

Interesting because the story felt so remote and out of reach at first, but then came the immaculate details, the matter-of-factness and humor despite the suffering, the profound insights and poignant dialogue, and every glimpse that felt like real life. So many brilliant lines and details stacked one on one upon each other, adding up to some real emotions that took me by surprise. I couldn’t help but to share them again here for our discussion…

“I cheered loudly, although the coffin reminded me of Aunty Ifeka, Mama’s half-sister, the woman whose breast I sucked because Mama’s dried up after I was born. Aunty Ifeka was killed during the massacres in the north. So was Arize, her pregnant daughter. They must have cut open Arize’s stomach and beheaded the baby first—it was what they did to the pregnant women.”

“As I left the hostel, I saw a girl’s stylish sandal left lying on the stairs.”

“Mama invited Nnamdi over and made him a mango pie. “Your uniform is so debonair, darling,” she said, and hung around him as if he were her son…”

“Afterward, Mama and I walked home (we didn’t drive, to save petrol) and when Papa came home in the evenings, during those slow months, we would sit on the veranda and eat fresh anara with groundnut paste and listen to Radio Biafra, the kerosene lamp casting amber shadows all around.”

“I hoarded that memory, and every other memory of Nnamdi, used each sparingly. I used them most during the air raids, when the screeching ka-ka-ka of the antiaircraft guns disrupted a hot afternoon and everybody in the yard dashed to the bunker—the room-size hole in the ground covered with logs—and slid into the moist earth underneath. Exhilarating, Obi called it, even though he got scratches and cuts. I would smell the organic walls and floor, like a freshly tilled farm, and watch the children crawl around looking for crickets and earthworms, until the bombing stopped. I would rub the soil between my fingers and savor thoughts of Nnamdi’s teeth, tongue, voice.”

“Sometimes even I forgot how young he was. “Do you remember when I used to half-chew your beef and then put it in your mouth so it would be easier for you to chew?” I teased. And Obi made a face and said he did not remember.”

“The soldiers looked inside the latrine, asked Mama if she was sure she was not hiding anybody, because that would make her a saboteur and saboteurs were worse than Nigerians. Mama smiled at them, then used her old voice, the voice of when she hosted three-course dinners for Papa’s friends, and offered them some water before they left. Afterward, Obi said he would enlist when he felt better. He owed it to Biafra and besides, fifteen-year-olds had fought in the Persian war. Before Mama left the room, she walked up to Obi and slapped his face so hard I saw the immediate slender welts on his cheek.”

“There was salt in Nigeria; salt was the reason our people were crossing the border to the other side, salt was the reason a woman down the road was said to have run out of her kitchen and torn her clothes off and rolled in the dirt, wailing. I sat on the kitchen floor and listened to the chatter and tried to remember what salt tasted like. It seemed surreal now, that we had a crystal saltshaker back home. That I had even wasted salt, rinsing away the clumpy bottom before refilling the shaker. Fresh salt. I interspersed thoughts of Nnamdi with thoughts of salty food.”

Did anyone else have a similar experience? Or even the opposite (did the story remain foreign from start to finish)?

Side note: Thanks to my pal Amy Oberhelman (also a FitLitter), I’ve also read “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda”—an amazing non-fiction book by Philip Gourevitch about the genocide of Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. This book was painful because the tragedy was so outrageous and unbelievable—it was hard to swallow the fact that something like it could happened in my lifetime. I felt some of that same emotion coming up in this story.

Hi Fitlitters! I know its hot and summer is high gear AND I chose a story that doesnt cool us off. But I look forward to chatting. I really enjoy the way that Adichie weaves and contrasts her personal emotional journey with the emotional journey of her people, including the inclusion of Igbo sayings to share the overarching philosophy that her experience is banked in, that lingers in the air. She describes the push and pull of identity struggle as a woman coming of age in Africa amidst turmoil to which so few in our country can relate. But her struggle to become a woman with her eyes and heart wide open is comforting and familiar and underscores intrinsic human interdependence for me. She is very efficient in sharing her profound experience but her efficiency doesn’t sacrifice significant nuances. The “dueling sun and rain” and the desire for the “sun to win” captures a tug of war that made me painfully and joyfully recall so much of my own inner dialogue from my childhood and adolescence and much of the one that continues into my adulthood. The South brought immense pain as my awareness expanded. The effects of “civil” war on the collective identity and individual experience soaks into the land and permeates so many generations. But of course it also brings its antithesis. The art of living and healing that I was exposed to is also deep in the soil. I would love to initiate more dialogue about identity and ritual….about the push and pull between collective identity and individual identity….about the language we use and don’t use in times of transition (imposed or chosen) in our inner world, our families, our communities, our institutions.

I am also always curious about the role of our imagination (especially in traumatic situations). I loved Adichie’s awareness of the difference in the way that she and her brother, Obi, taught. She notices that the children respond to him differently and speculates that “perhaps it was because he mixed learning and playing.” I enjoy thinking about her observation in reference to the art of living and the ways in which we learn from or are inspired by others and the impact that has in times of transition or grief/loss.

Wesley, I really liked this story. I’ve been out of town most of the month and am sorry I haven’t had a chance to reply. I read it a while ago too, so my thoughts are not very fresh.

I felt like this story was obviously a journey from innocence to experience for the narrator, as she realizes that there are two sides in life: the winners and losers (hence the name of her nemesis, “Mrs. Winner”). Here she has been, studiously trying to align herself with the winners’ side, when she realizes that all along she’s been on the side of the losers. How does she correct this at the end? She screws over poor dumb cousin Ernie, the most innocent one in the story and the epitome of a rule-follower, a hard-working rube, and thus, someone firmly in the “loser” category. She does this partly to separate herself from her rural, working-class upbringing, but mostly because she realizes that the only way to fully succeed in life is by discovering your own wickedness, by going from the victim to the victimizer. Is that a fair way to view success? To what extent must we all victimize others in order to meet society’s definition of success?

The ending was so classic Munro! So deliciously cruel. She always manages to kick you in the ass with her endings.

Hello Fit-litters! It is sad to say that last month was so hectic that I didn’t have a chance to log in and enjoy Munro with you. None-the-less its fun being in-the-know. I have contemplated this month’s selection several times, rolled the dice and I have landed on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She is a young wise Nigerian born writer. The New Yorker has several pieces of hers to enjoy. But for discussion lets read Half of a Yellow Sun located in Zoetrope’s site: http://www.all-story.com/issues.cgi?action=show_story&story_id=191 Its an excerpt from her novel of the same name.

I also wanted to open the discussion this month to some “VISUAL DIALOGUE”. I was playing with a collage or light drawing to go with this reading…and then trying to scan it in to post here. So….I wanted to open that up to everyone to play! We’ll see how that goes. Happy Firecracka Day!

“We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie knows what is at stake, and what to do about it. She is fearless, or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria’s civil war. Adichie came almost fully made.”— Chinua Achebe

BTW, great story to talk about, Wes. There’s so much to explore…

Sorry to miss out on last month’s reading (I blame my hectic travel schedule last month, no offense to Mr. Updike) but I was really looking forward to reading Munro and wasn’t familiar with this particular story.

What is intriguing to me about Munro’s writing is, as Wesley points out, her pacing. Building slowly, not being able to see where it’s going, and then bam! – people are getting naked in strange houses. I truly didn’t see that coming. Maybe one reason that Munro is compared with Chekhov is because her characters come from small town beginnings. The narrator calls herself a country girl. There’s also no real hero in the story. The narrator thinks she is better than the others (she turns her nose down on Ernie, Beth, the roommates) but in the end realizes her moral compass is questionable, and maybe they’re the smart ones (she’s been fooled this whole time). The poet, Housman, was also concerned with pastoral youth and the decay of the past. And in the end, as Nina says “what do you want to talk about the past for?” The narrator realizes that everything she’s studied and believed in until now isn’t really that meaningful. And her realization happens in a “modern” house (of Mr. Purvis – Mr. Pervert?!).

In terms of the portrayal of women, we see Beth, Nina who’s the Jr. Miss with a checkered past (& favorite kimono – I found the clothing references throughout the story interesting to note), the roommates who were basically in school to get their MRS degrees, and then did anyone else feel the central men in the story to be quite female? There was Ernie with his “plump hips” and clean fingernails. Mr. Purvis with his ascot and Cornish hens who even though he’s a total perv just kind of comes across as asexual. Miss Winner dares the narrator to take her clothes off (I’d love to hear more thoughts on Miss Winner…creepsters!). I felt the narrator was surrounded by different incarnations of “woman.” Tricked (or revealed?) by her own kind, and ultimately by herself. She realizes that what she should do isn’t what she wants to do in this place. Even though Mr. Purvis is authoritarian – you don’t feel you can call him by his first name, he changes Nina’s name from June to Nina, and he tells the narrator not to cross her legs – he’s not portrayed as forceful. And whereas in the beginning the characters seem to be opposites with clearly defined roles, in the end things are more gray. Plato’s allegory of the cave comes to mind – reality is indeed shadowy. It’s a little dark. As Mr. Purvis says, “the cave is beautiful isn’t it.”

But as Wesley points out – what are her options? In the end, she goes back to her studies, Beth is still doing laundry, and Nina’s gone off with Mr. Purvis. But I can’t help but hope that the narrator doesn’t take herself so seriously anymore….

Opening Volley: Alice Munro’s “Wenlock Edge”

Alright friends. I’d intended to re-read the story another time before posting this, so I could give you something witty and thoroughly digested. But instead I had one of those evenings where I got supper on the table after 9pm, and tried to pretend it was because I’d always admired late night Spanish dinner customs. (Are you buying it? I’m not either.)  And the evening pretty much devolved from there.

So – tonight – you’ll be getting my compromised intelligence.   Heck, these day is there any other kind, lol?

Anyhow. The story! And Alice Munro!

My thought, when picking Munro, was that it’d be interesting to juxtapose a mid-century female voice to Updike’s.  Plus – Munro is also just great to read.  She’s been called the Canadian Chekov so often – that I’m curious – do you all think she deserves the reputation?   Personally, I can never quite figure out WHY I like her writing so much.  Updike is full of pyrotechnics – brilliant turns of phrase, and imagery that leaps off the page.  Munro is more subtle, somehow.  I can never point to what makes her writing work.   I suspect it has something to do with pacing – but her magic happens just outside the frame of my sight.  Can any of you identify what it is?   If you even think she’s good at all?

As for the story…  I’d originally wanted to find a story about a woman in her middle years.  But there was something about this one that grabbed me, even though it concerns an adolescent.   I think because it dwells so heavily on the compromised landscape that a college girl (in the 40s? the 50s?) might have found herself navigating, and we talked a lot about compromise last month.  For the narrator, freedom seems so close…and yet…what are her real options?  She surveys the landscape ahead of her, and the possibilites (as represented by the other women in the story) are grim.

What still resonates for me, from Wenlock Edge, are Munro’s multiple depictions of women. There’s Nina-the-minx, full of deceit – but street smart, and a survivor.  There’s the smug, martyred mother, Beth, the narrator’s landlord who can proudly endure more laundry and infants than the others. Then Kay and Beverly, the narrator’s older housemates – who are a “disappointment” to her, because though they are hard-working Modern Languages majors – they’ve given up their dreams of glamorous careers as interpretters at the UN, to pursue a more pedestrian future: marriage and teaching high school ( presumably this is a future that’s not unlike Beth’s).   And of course there’s the horrible icy-blonde “Mrs. Winner”, who’s sneering “bookworm” dig pushes the narrator to violate all her own boundaries just to prove that she’s….what?

Different from the others?  Not bound by all the same constraints? What does the narrator seek to prove by agreeing to strip naked?

I can’t put my finger on it… but it’s so uncannily familiar.  There is something there that was so emotionally true for me too — how those small (and large) self- betrayals that we commit in adolescence seem at first, like taking a dare. And we only find out later that by accepting the dare, we automatically lose…what’s at work there?

There’s also something worth exploring here about Mrs. Winner being the final person to push the narrator into betraying herself.  It wasn’t a man, it was another woman. I found myself wondering what the female characters in the story say about Munro’s perception of female relationships — more dangerous than male relationships, it’d seem.  Almost as though women were busier keeping each other in line than the men were.  What do you all think?

One other major theme that struck me…

At the outset of the story, the narrator considers herself smart & sophisticated – superior to her cousin Ernie, superior to Nina, and presumably superior to the “girls who worked in banks and offices.”    And by the end of the story, through a combination of Nina’s manipulations, Mr. Purvis’s perversions, and Mrs. Winner’s insults — she’s completely changed her mind about herself. Her confidence is gone, and she’s sure that she’s been wrong from the start:

“What I was doing here [schoolwork, writing essays] did not really matter. Somehow I had not known that. Nina knew it now and probably she had always known it. Ernie, too, though he had thought it his duty to pretend otherwise. Mr. Purvis and Mrs. Winner. Even Beth and Kay and Beverly knew that you had to get a footing somewhere else. This was only a game.    And I had thought it was the other way round.”

So in the end… the narrator is revealed to herself as the biggest fool of all.  (Being a book-smart and street-stupid adolescent myself…that grabbed me. I remember the pain of that realization so well.)

Grim and unrelenting… the whole thing!  Were the options really so awful and limited for women at that time?  And even if they were then, they aren’t now, are they?  (Are they?)  I found myself wondering… could it really be so bad?

Also – I’m curious what you all make of the ending.  When the narrator is mailing the address to Mr. Purvis, and notices the other passing college students, she notes “Most of them on a course, as I was, of getting to know the ways of their own wickedness.”

Maybe it’s simply the pain of disillusionment, losing the lofty idea that you might someday “transcend all this.”

Can’t wait to hear y’alls thoughts!

Great sources

Hey pals! Just wanted to start a side convo here to encourage you to share any neat and free pubs or sites where you’ve found great fiction, poetry, and prose. The New Yorker is of course a great resource and I see us using it a lot, but here’s a few lesser-knowns I also like quite a bit: Granta, Narrative Magazine, and Poetry Daily.

What other free sources do you know and love?

I love Alice Munro! I don’t think I”ve read this one, but “Powers” kept me up all night stewing over it. She’s so good.