Month: January 2023

  • Short Story Review: “Wednesday’s Child” by Yiyun Li

    (The short story “Wednesday’s Child” by Yiyun Li appeared in the January 23rd, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (I will SPOIL this story.)

    Illustration by Camille Deschiens

    I sometimes need to be reminded that grief is an individual experience. Not only does each person grieve differently, but the grief one feels is also specific to the person who is lost. This is what I think was the point to “Wednesday’s Child” by Yiyun Li, and I have to stress the word think as this story, though it pings some fine authentic truths, ultimately is an uneven exercise.

    This story is about Rosalie, a middle-aged woman who is traveling by train from Amsterdam to Brussels. The train is delayed due to a person having walked onto the tracks, and it so happens that Rosalie’s fifteen-year daughter had committed suicide by laying down on a set of train tracks years earlier. We also learn that Rosalie’s unloving and harsh mother has recently passed away, and this trip to Europe is an act of dealing with Rosalie’s grief. As Rosalie contemplates the life she had with her daughter, a pregnant woman on the train goes into labor, which Rosalie goes to help before the train stops and EMT’s arrive.

    I’m a sucker for a slow, contemplative piece that examines the nature of grief and what we choose to remember and obsess over, as if we could make changes to past events. This is what Rosalie does in the story, and that is when I found the writing to be the most honest. Yet, I had a few issues which stuck up, and caused me to be pulled out of this reality. First was the climax of the piece, which was the pregnant woman going into labor. And of course the woman was going to go into labor because the second the woman walks in the train, you knew she was going to go into labor. The use of this cliché is completely jarring to the quiet, introspective nature of the story. It feels more like a climax was forced in, rather than being organic with the piece. Second was the flatness of Rosalie’s mother, who just plays a single note of awfulness. There is no dimension to this character who, like the climax, seems to exist only to say awful things to thus move Rosalie’s character development forward. Rosalie wrestles with why her daughter killed herself, which is a question that can never fully be answered and is wrapped up fully in her grief. But Rosalie never questions or wonders why her mother was such an awful person to her. I found that difficult to accept as Rosalie’s character questions everything else that happens.

    It’s too bad, because there are some finely written parts of this story that work very well. Grief and loss are never easy to deal with, let alone define and explain to another person. “Wednesday’s Child” gets very close to hitting the mark, but unfortunately, stumbles and falls a little short.

  • Short Story Review: “Matthew Danger” by Dylan Smith

    (The short story “Matthew Danger” by Dylan Smith appeared in Rejection Letters on January 16th, 2023.)

    (There is a chance of Spoilers.)

    I’m a little apprehensive when I start reading a story about a character drinking too much over the course of an evening. Usually that author has a deep reverence for Bukowski of Kerouac, and the drunken work the author creates is just a watered-down version of the aforementioned writers. Yet, I was taken in with “Matthew Danger” by Dylan Smith. Maybe it is just a story about a drunken night in, what I assume is, New York, but the structure Smith uses, the form of the prose, and the format that his theme is in, creates a story that is fresh and interesting.

    Here’s an overly simplified summary: The narrator has it pointed out to him, by his new manager at the restaurant that he works out, that his eyes are “All blurry and always so bloodshot.” An observation that the narrator doesn’t agree with, but as it is the narrator’s birthday, he has the evening off which he goes out into the City. First stopping at a museum to view paintings by Cezanne, then drinking many beers. The narrator encounters his friend Danger, who is a musician, and then later, another friend, Matthew. Other things happen, and I don’t want to ruin all of it, so you should read it.

    What I enjoyed most was Smith’s selective use of short sentences and paragraphs, almost like creating a staccato sound/feeling with the flow of the piece. It made the story feel disjointed, and off ever so slightly – that the world of the narrator doesn’t fit cleanly into the larger universe. Also, the use of recurring lines, about his eyes and his night off for his birthday, created the feeling of being inside the mind of someone who is drunk, with their fixation on an idea that they can’t seem to shake. Especially with the birthday line, as baptism and rebirth work their way into the theme of this story, as does the idea of death, which a nearly empty bar is used to exemplify that part of the theme. I was left with one question, which could be me reading too much into this piece; The title of the story is “Matthew Danger” and the narrator meets up with his friends Matthew and Danger, though Matthew is briefly in the piece and Danger is there pretty much the whole time, but I had this sneaking feeling that these two characters are just a manifestation of the narrator’s id, and don’t actually exist. I have nothing to back that up with, just a feeling I had when I read it.

    This story could have gone off the rails in several places and landed in cliché or caricature, but Smith crafted something that captured the mood and feeling of his narrator that was clear and understandable by an excellent use of form and structure. Well done.

  • The Cardiologist

    When it comes to my overall health, like how healthy am I, I would say I’m okay. I’ve made no excuses for having not taken my health seriously for the past couple of years. Covid didn’t help, but I have put on twenty pounds over the past four years. The weight isn’t really the issue, it’s the fact that I stopped making my health a priority. Since last year, I have been making a more concerted effort. Though I mess up often, I still try to improve things, and I’m at it again.

    Part of my motivation to get back in a healthy place is my daughter, and wife. Not only do I want to be alive with them as along as possible, but I also want to set a healthy example for the kid. The other part is that when my older brother was my age, he had a stint put in after he noticed some pain in his jaw while working out. He immediately saw his doctor, and ended up getting that stint as he had a serious blockage in an artery. Then a few months later, the same thing happened to my father; working out, then jaw pain, but he ended up having a bypass. All of this was almost ten years ago, but I learned the lesson- pay attention to the warning signs.

    You see where I’m going here – I got jaw pain. This was about two weeks ago, and I was sitting on the couch, so my thought wasn’t heart attack, but that I needed to see the dentist. Then it went away, and would come back, and go away again. But the pain never showed up when I would work out. I again chalked it up to a dental problem.

    Then this weekend, we were taking our Christmas decoration boxes to storage, which meant I was running up and down the stairs in our walk up building, and I just couldn’t catch my breath. I knew I had let myself go a little, so being out of breath was expected, but I felt that I could catch up. And then I got a little jaw pain.

    It did pass, but I’m not stupid. I told my wife what was happening and made an appointment to see the cardiologist. I would see him Monday afternoon.

    And that started the long wait until I saw the doctor. I’m a high functioning neurotic person, so that was like one of the worse things that could happen to me. Luckily, the kid was off of school for MLK Day, so she distracted me. But in the back of my head, that thought of being told that I was moments from death, that I needed surgery NOW! was clearly fighting to get in the driver’s seat of my conciseness. It wasn’t that I thought I was going to die, but more like something would be found that would change everything.

    But I went, nervous as I was. I have a feeling that the cardiologist’s office sees a great number of middle aged men that are too nervous at being there. I kept trying to remind myself that everything that would happen, would all be things that would help me start to feel better. I said that to myself as I lay on the table, staring up at the ceiling as the technician ran a cardiogram on me. I was listening to hear if the technician made any sound that would signify that they saw something negative and detrimental from the results. I bet they all take a class about how not to have a tell in front of patients, because the tech gave nothing away.

    When the doctor came in, he asked me for my story. I tried to keep it to the point, just facts no flourishes; jaw pain a few weeks ago and thought it was a tooth ache, did a physical task of running up and down stairs which caused jaw pain and shortness of breath, brother and father had jaw pain which lead to the discovery of their heart issues, out of an abundance of caution and the family history I am here to make sure there are no issues with me. He asked me follow up questions, but I got a feeling that he didn’t believe that I had a heart issue. Now, he did tell me I did the right thing to come in and check it out, and he wanted me to get an echocardiogram, which he would send that technician in to do next.

    And I waited. I did bring a book, so I didn’t waste the time, but still, I waited for awhile. Then a new technician came in to tell me that they were still waiting for approval from my insurance to get the echocardiogram. I didn’t ask this, but my first thought was what if the insurance company says no to the test? It made me rather annoyed, as why does the insurance company get to decide what I need rather than me or my doctor, but that’s an angry blog for another day. When the tech returned, she had said excitedly, “You’re Approved!” which was nice to hear, but still left me feeling like I was at the mercy of a corporation.

    When the test was being run, and the wand was placed on my heart, I again tried to gage off the technician if she was seeing something awful. Just like the last technician, they had a good poker face. Then the doctor popped in. He leaned over the tech’s shoulder looking at the screen and said, “Everything looks okay. We’ll schedule you for a stress test, and I’ll talk to you then.” and he was gone. The echocardiogram went on for like another fifteen minutes, but in essence I was done.

    That was it. “Everything looks okay.” I took to mean that I wasn’t dying, and that there didn’t look like anything was killing me. My health was okay.

    Right? That was the correct way to interpret that. Because if something looked bad in my results, they would have said something. I’m not crazy for thinking that, right?

    So, I went home. Had a glass of wine with the wife, ordered noodles, ate with the family, and watched the Cowboys defeat the Bucs while texting with friends. Just going back to living my life like normal. I’ll go to the gym, like normal. Shop for groceries, like normal. Just live normal. I need to go see the dentist, right?

    I guess I’m okay, and this is what being in your forties is like. Something hurts, I think it’s life threatening, I see a doctor, and I go back to normal.

    Huh…

  • A Quick Tottenham Blog

    Well, I don’t like telling myself that I told you so, but I did tell myself that I told you so. Yup. Spurs gave up an early goal to Arsenal, then another goal, and they were never able to recover. If Tottenham plays a not so good team, they can dig themselves out of a hole, but not when they are playing a high caliber team. Arsenal made them look bad. Spurs looked like they were out there fighting for it, while Arsenal was playing and having fun. The confidence coming off of Arsenal was deafening. I mean, just the ease and relaxed play that Saka had when he scored that first goal just shook Tottenham to the core. Lloris looked like he had been bonked on his head and didn’t know where he was when that goal was scored.

    Something has got to change on the defensive end of Tottenham if they have any hopes of staying in the top four of the Premier League, and, I hate to say this, but as of now, I don’t see them advancing in the Champions League. That backline needs to be strengthened, and they have to start winning in the middle of the field.

    My fear now is that Conte, Lloris and Kane will all be gone by the end of this season if they don’t finish in the top four. The owners have proven in the past that they have no issue with sacking managers, no matter if the team is building and moving in the right direction. As for Lloris, he’s still a top tier keeper but he is now moving towards the end of his career. What that means is that he cannot BE Tottenham’s defense; he needs a solid supporting cast, and it’s got to be more than Dier back there. Which leaves Kane. He’s a superstar, and he is not going to settle for a career without any major trophies. He was talking about this exact thing two years ago when he flirted with going to Man City. If moves aren’t made soon, Kane is off to one of the other big clubs.

    The ship needs to be righted, and time’s running out.

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  • ODDS and ENDS: China Visitors, North London Derby, and Fantasy Football

    (Crystal Pepsi wasn’t that bad…)

    I am very thankful and grateful for the people who look at this blog; There are my friends from high school, college, and my life in New York.; And there are the other writers and bloggers on this platform. I appreciate the time you spend on the posts, and the likes you give. Then I started to notice about a month ago, I was getting a shit ton of visitors from China, who are looking mainly at two posts; Short Story Review: “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid, and especially Short Story Review: “My Wonderful Description of Flowers” by Danielle Dutton. No one is leaving any comments or likes, so I am beginning to questions if this isn’t just a bunch of bots pinging these posts. Has anyone else encountered a situation like this? If this does happen to be real people looking at the post, then I guess I’m a little like the band Citizen Dick, cuz they were really huge in Belgium.

    The North London Derby is on Sunday! And Spurs gotta win it. Yeah, Tottenham needs to stop going into a hole in the first half, as Arsenal will not let up on them if they get a lead. This just means that my Sunday will be rather stressful. I want to be confidant about this team, but I still don’t feel that the defense has gelled together, and the Kane/Son combo has been nowhere to be seen this season. Ung… They are making me feel like I’m watching the Cubs again.

    Speaking of sports; I won my fantasy football league. I accomplished this feat with no skill, and all dumb luck. See, I let the computer draft my team, and all I did was adjust the lineup, which guaranteed me a losing season. But, there are so few people playing in my league, everyone got a spot in the playoffs. And that’s when my menagerie of players decided that they should start showing up. Hence, my amazing string of victories that lead to a Championship. My second, I would like to add. No one cares about this success, except me. And now you. You’re welcome.