Tag: Existentialism

  • Short Story Review: “Safety” by Joan Silber

    (The short story “Safety” by Joan Silber appeared in the December 8th, 2025 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Chris W. Kim

    You know, every “time” is a “historic time” but some are more historic than others. I will agree that we are in the middle of one of those historic times, and if I am lucky enough to have grandkids, then I imagine they will ask me “WTF was everyone thinking, grandpa?” The good news is that over the past three or four months, I have started to see works of art in different media start to tackle the events of deportation, disappearing, and what effect these policies will have on America. I am going to throw Joan Silber’s “Safety” in with all of these works, though uneven, I applaud what this story attempted.

    Overly Simplified Synopsis: Two girls become friends growing up in New York, one Muslim the other Jewish, and both decedents of people who immigrated to the US to escape dictators. They go their separate ways in life and reconnect in New York, where the Muslim friend now has a child and a partner who is a comedian. When the comedian is on his way home from a gig, he is disappeared by the Administration.

    There is an ease to this story, and a simple directness to the writing. What it does well is create a picture of the modern melting pot that America is – people of different backgrounds are still coming here, and their children are still connecting with people that are different from them, and finding a commonality in our shared humanity. Silber does well in creating a context for the Muslim family regarding escaping the Nazis, being forced to migrate by Stalin to Uzbekistan, and the trauma of family separation.

    Yet, through it all, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this story was pulling its punches. There is a huge amount of drama here that is being sieved through a philosophical existential filter, but it never seems to amount to an emotional climax. For example, think of how these families lives’ have been influenced by authoritarians – from being pushed out of home nations, to being pushed together in America – and how these families have made new lives for themselves. And when a new Authoritarian pressure is applied, the characters seem more resigned, as if ordained to this fate, rather than free to exist.

    Ultimately, I appreciated this story, and Silber, for taking a swing at an issue that needs to be swung at. “Safety” uncomfortably reminds us that history does repeat itself. That immigration, deportation, and citizenship (both in its legal and the social definition) needs to be discussed and debated again, so we can finally find a way to break this awful cycle.

  • Short Story Review: “Something Has Come to Light” by Miriam Toews

    (The short story “Something Has Come to Light” by Miriam Toews appeared in the August 25th, 2025 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Marcus Schaefer for The New Yorker

    I had a humanities teacher in high school who explained existentialism to my class this way; “We are all free to make choices in our life. Nothing is determined. You can choose to be whoever you want. Being able to choose doesn’t always mean you will be happier.” At least that’s the notes I took in my first journal way back in 1995. I went back to this journal after I finished reading Miriam Toews’ story “Something Has Come to Light,” because not only did the story make me think about choices I’ve made, but also about living with those choices.

    To sum this story up, perhaps a bit too simply: A grandmother has written a note/story for her grandchildren about a moment in her life where she should have said yes, but said no to the neighbor boy, Roland. Some years later the boy moves away, but dies, and his parents bury an urn that contain his ashes on their property. Sometime even later, after the parents on the neighboring property pass away and their land is to be sold, the grandmother sneaks onto the property at night, digs up the urn, and reburies it on her property. Every day, the grandmother has passed by the buried urn, and tells Roland she should have said yes. The letter/story ends with the grandmother asking the grandchild to dig up the urn and return it to Roland’s surviving sister, or if that’s too much to ask, leave him, and continue to tell him that grandma made a mistake and should have said yes.

    I loved this story. And I loved how this story snuck up on me, how it placed itself in my head, and kept poking at me, telling me to enjoy it more. The language here is simple and to the point, which is what you would expect from a woman that has lived a simple but contented life. The way it was written reminded me of how the Midwestern women in my family spoke – there was a plainness to it, but that didn’t mean that the words didn’t have nuance and revelatory meaning to them. The grandmother is a woman who doesn’t complain, but also is tough and doesn’t put up with much either, yet will never be rude about it.

    The story really is about Roland, and the affect he had on her life. Though the two of them weren’t close, according to the grandmother, you can tell that she had a deep appreciation for him. Roland was different from the other people in town. His great sin appears to be that he sat on the front row at concerts, had a gift for the piano as demonstrated with a concert he put on in town and which the grandmother saved a poster from. Then one day Roland rode up to the grandmother and asked if she wanted a ride, which she answered no. A decision she would regret as Roland moved away to England. The town never forgave him for leaving, and I sense that the grandmother never spoke up or out in Roland’s defense, but she lived with that regret. A regret that would possess her to the point that not only did she need to apologize to Roland for the rest of her life, but also to possess Roland for the remainder of her life.

    What I find captivating about this story is that it isn’t necessarily a romantic bond between the grandmother and Roland. Though I think there is a tinge about, like a frosting, but it’s not the driving motivation. What I believe the story is telling me is that the grandmother is mourning the exact moment where her life could have gone in a different direction. That she could have been, or done, something different. But, and this is most important, she does not regret her life. I say this because the start of the story, the grandmother explains that she keeps all the pictures of her grandchildren in a photo album next to her bed; how she looks at them, most nights. This is the act of a woman appreciating the life she lived, and what her and her husband created in this world.

    What I find Miriam Toews is asking me with “Something Has Come to Light” is can it be possible to love the life you led, but also mourn the moment when it could have gone in a different direction? Can you love a person who could have been your agent of change, while also not wanting to change? Can a paradox like this exist in a contented person?

    Perhaps. Perhaps the grandmother never wanted to let go of that chance encounter, to say she was sorry to the one person who wasn’t like anyone else she ever knew. Ultimately, the grandmother made her choice, and she learned to live with it, and with regret at the same time.

  • Short Story Review: “The Boy Upstairs” by Joshua Ferris

    (The short story “The Boy Upstairs” by Joshua Ferris appeared in the June 6th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Just a slight hint of SPOILERS this time around.)

    I think it was Robert Altman who said that all stories have a philosophical viewpoint, which can be as simple as supporting or challenging the status quo. I was almost a philosophy major, I read the important books by important thinkers, and would say that I was more in the classical mode of thinking, and not so much with the Modern thought. I was always saddened when people viewed philosophy as a waste of time, something that had no relevance in the world. So, anytime I come across a writer who infuses a philosophical question into the plot of a story, it makes me excited that there are people still asking those questions.

    Joshua Ferris did that with the short story “The Boy Upstairs.” It’s a little philosophy and a little Book of Job all rolled into one. The protagonist is only referred to as “she” and what we learn about she is that she is an adjunct philosophy professor who is married but has no children. It is hinted that she is a person who is not all good. A friend, who is researching in Antarctica, first texts her that they need to speak. Her first thought is that her secrets are about to be revealed. When her friend does call, it is to tell her that he thinks their mutual friend’s son has committed suicide at twelve years old. Her first reaction is relief that the call was not about her secrets, but then she begins to feel guilty for feeling that way. Then she has a thought that she would be willing to be humiliated if that meant her friend could have her son back. Thus, starts a chain of events that leads to a climax that consists of a question.

    As stated before, I’m a sucker for any story that touches on a question that is even slightly in the realm of philosophy, and I would chalk this story up to that. A question is asked, events happen, and then ending is left for the reader to interpret based on how they answered the first question and viewed the events. I find this stuff fun, and I do like the way Ferris structured the story. Yet, I still couldn’t shake this feeling of being dissatisfied. I have been thinking about it for two days, and I’m still not sure what it is that is causing this feeling in me. I guess I could say the structure of the story was a bit academic and predictable, but at the same time, to ask these questions, the story gets locked into this structure. I could also say it’s the open-ended climax, but as I stated earlier, I feel the ending needed to allow each reader to bring their perspective to the story. Or, it could be that the story was written to ask a question that was to leave me feeling dissatisfied no matter what answer I came up with. All of that can be true and wrong at the same time.

    See, I’m a sucker for philosophy.  

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)