NO STRINGS

Appel's "Strings" is one of the better written stories in this Beach House collection. Just look at how succinctly he sets the stage in the first sentence:

"RABBI CYNTHIA FELDER WAS NEWLY MARRIED, and in her pulpit only six months, when a former lover asked to borrow the sanctuary." 

Note the use of caps in the opening phrase, like a headline, screaming "emancipated woman here" and a rip in the conventional fabric of society. All at once we have Gays, Lesbians, and Koreans gathering in her tabnernacle, but the thought of 400 musicians (cellists!) invading her sanctuary seemed the height of effrontery. At the pinnacle of this impudence was the fact that a female was the ultimate arbiter of the use of God's space.

The description of the new music concert led by ex-lover Jacques Krentz was so accurate that Appel surely must have seen such a spectacle. I've seen many such concerts of new music where the conceptual framework challenges musical convention leaving the audience stunned, and rendering the musicians somewhat incoherent.

"No Strings" was the name of a musical by Richard Rodgers, and while the title suggested a romantic relationship with no obligations, it also described an orchestra for the musical that had no string instruments in the ensemble. For some reason, this story title reminded me of that musical, and there is a tone in Appel's writing that "Strings" seems to resonate metaphorically for Jacques remaining attached to Cynthia, the newly married rabbi. But instead of NO Strings, it is actually ALL STRINGS, 400 Cellists!

This story emerges as a comedy and a statement of a world fluctuating in artistic and social change, Appel leaves us smiling, perhaps thinking the world isn't so bad after all. It's a tight, well-knit narrative, attempting to celebrate the grandiose, and recognizing that bigger is not necessarily better.

WILL TRY ONE MORE TIME

Will try one more time to make this blog work. Will read strings tonight and write blogpost tomorrow

WHY---INDEED, WHY?

 "WHY? "is a good question to ask yourself. 

I believe you are mistaken that the story "resonated' with me. I wanted to explore it to see why, in my estimation, it was flawed. This is a story in which Appel is showing off how bright and intelligent he is. I find the dialogue and story line somewhat tedious. I was a bit annoyed that he was using the battle between the couple to take us to no resolution. 

As for the sections, it seems obvious from his cinematic ending that they are the equivalent of "scenes" in a film. This is not a practice exclusive to Appel. Different authors use similar devices to denote either the passage of time or the ending of one scene and the beginning of another.

Even so, I can't concoct a better ending than the one Appel offers, even though it leaves me a little bit angry that I bothered to finish reading this affair of the tragic sadness of hedghogs...indeed, Josh and Adeline are just a couple of hedgehogs marinating in the tears of their own sad lives.

LAST QUESTION

Why did Appel leave the ending of La Tristesse Des Herrisons on a cliffhanger? At the end of the story, he leaves us, as you say, in a "polaroid moment." This is quite an unusual, though not uncommon, way of ending a story. Why did Appel end the story in this manner?

I'd also like to ask why Appel used sections in the story. The divisions convey a sense of progression around Josh's relationship with Adeline, but it didn't resonate with me the same way it resonated and interested you.

FARE THEE WELL...

Sorry that EINSTEIN'S WRITERS DEN didn't turn out to be your cup of tea.

I thought you were doing well, and that you made some very fine observations and comments. I just couldn't understand why you wouldn't carry on a conversation.

I won't kill this Blog. It can hang for a while. 

I'll check it from time to time to see if you post anything. 

I think there was a lot you could learn from Appel, as he has good points and serious deficits. We learn can from his mistakes as well as his fine points.

Even though you stop contributing to this Blog, I may continue my reading of Appel. It has been a good source for a number of writing techniques and devices, including determining differences between narratives and plots. 

Some of Appel's technique is naked and brutal---signs of his conflict between emotion and intellect. I'm sorry we didn't get to "Limerence," as that story defines a psychological condition that wasn't officially recognized until recently by the Psychiatric Association. It was my affliction all through elementary, middle school and high school, but I thought it was just life.

Please keep writing. You do have something to say. Maybe someday you will discover what it is. 

Yes. Even now.

Keep writing, and it will come through.

DENOUMENT

I'm not providing the dialogue you desire. May we please pause this project? 

FEEDING BACK

 You wrote:

"I need to do this correctly. I'm writing a list of feedback I'm supposed to give back, but knowing what feedback I owe you have been difficult to discern from your posts."

This is a subtle feature of your personal and scholarly stance. It is very formal, and seems to clutter your thinking and your reading, with a somewhat stultified outlook, as though if you outline it, you might understand it.

Right now I am responding to you. 

You don't owe me anything specific except an intelligent reading and reflection upon what you've read.

Your source of reading is twofold: Appel's Einstein stories, and my entries to our Blog.

Since you began to Blog, each of my entries acknowledges and comments on what you blogged about.

Your entries basically focus only on Appel and there is no give and take with my observations of Appel or my responses to your writing.

I'm trying to have a dialogue. You seem to prefer monologue.

YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS...

What do you mean "write it out again"?

Each of our entries are there as a permanent entry. That was the point of using this format. 

You can revisit (and reread) any entry. 

You can write a response to my first entry, or any other entry. That is why we have a dated index of our entries on the right side of the Blog.

If this is too much for you, I am truly surprised, but stranger things have happened in my life. 

Have you read "Strings?'

Do you want to continue, or does it seem pointless to you?

It's not too late to do DROP/ADD and find something that is more meaningful for you. I was hoping we would establish a line of communication with this Blog.  

I wish you had read and comprehended my first entries for this Blog. It was an informal drafting of a plan for us both to learn something about the craft of writing and about ourselves.

I had high hopes as the old Frank Sinatra song used to say:

Next time you're found, with your chin on the ground
There a lot to be learned, so look around

Just what makes that little old ant
Think he'll move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant, can't
Move a rubber tree plant

But he's got high hopes, he's got high hopes
He's got high apple pie, in the sky hopes

So any time you're gettin' low
'stead of lettin' go
Just remember that ant
Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant!  

I know you may not know who Frank Sinatra was, and that's okay. You know many things that I don't know...that's why conversations such as this Blog can be meaningful and productive... or they can just die.

Up to you.

DIALOGUE

I need to do this correctly. I'm writing a list of feedback I'm supposed to give back, but knowing what feedback I owe you have been difficult to discern from your posts.  Given that this is not a class, it would be unfair for you to write it out again, even though that would help me tremendously. I feel guilty that this experiment is not turning out as you imagine. Do you mind restating the feedback and specific things you'd like me to discuss?

 

"LA TRISTESSE DES HÉRISSONS"

Sometimes just the act of reading teaches us about ourselves as well as absorbing, concomitantly, awareness of technique and skills. Our reading informs and transforms us. Your response to Appel's homage to sadness is well done, concise, and illuminating. It suggests to me that you have learned a great deal from the technique of the story without articulating this acquisition specifically. You might find it useful to try to elicit from yourself how Appel's craft could be informing your own technique.

I have always thought of this story as an "Ode to Sadness." I always assumed "La Tristesse des Hérrisons" was an old French saying, but so far I haven't been able to verify this. Using this as a title tends to lift the story into an abstraction. Appel's use of dialogue to advance the plot and develop character is really outstanding.

On the other side of sadness is anger. So it seems inevitable the pent-up tolerance of unreasonable demands would erupt in a violent act of seizing the hedgehog with malicious intent. To end the narrative with Adeline, Josh, and the hedgehog, whose razor sharp quills have sliced Josh's left hand to shreds, standing together on the ledge outside their apartment window, about to plunge to the street---with the hedgehog leading the way, slipping from Josh's bloody grip, followed by Josh and then Adelaide---but we can only assume, because Appel has left them framed as if in a Polaroid moment, for the reader to determine what happens next.

This story also uses sections as part of the structure. The first story also employed the same device. I asked you then, and I ask you now, how you think using sections advances or affects the narrative?

Let me conclude that I really take issue with you not engaging my comments, especially when I have asked for your response to specific points and issues.

Go back and reread my entries and give me some requested feedback. Otherwise, we don't have a dialogue, just inconsequential speeches that fail to achieve an exchange of ideas.

It's time to move on to "Strings." See you in cyberspace.

 

DISBELIEF

The second Story of Einstein's Beach House is set in Manhattan. The protagonist, Josh, is a former lawyer who owns and operates a relatively successful restaurant. He is in a failing relationship with a neurotic woman suffering from more than a few traumatic events. The protagonist, while not wealthy, is successful enough to afford his pet's healthcare needs, including buying medication and expensive lights for his hedgehog. 

To enjoy the story, a reader must suspend his disbelief multiple times. Adeline is clearly going through serious issues and does not seem to receive any necessary treatment for her sadness or more profound dissatisfaction. Nobody, even her boyfriend, encourages (much fewer asks) her to sort out her issues. Taking care of the hedgehog grows to become the only outlet for her frustration. Despite knowing it only drives them apart, Josh keeps indulging her obsession with Orion. Josh not only buys medicine without insurance but also spends his time and treasure soundproofing and darkening the house. He only snaps when Adeline accuses him of purposefully damaging Orion with the refrigerator light. The ending is foreshadowed several times but is still unbelievable. The sight of Josh having squeezed the hedgehog to death, with him and his girlfriend on a ledge together, is harrowing. Is this a metaphor for death or the struggle of rebirth? 

Appel crafts excellent sentences. Some of my favorites included his description of Adeline's mother. The dialogue between Josh and Adeline is similarly robust and cutting. Some illustrations, including Josh's lament of firing the pretty waitress after being seen sharing some calamari with her, are excellently written. I'm deeply envious of Appel's ability to create evocative images.

 

ABSENT WITHIN

We each dwell within an absence of being that can be terrifying. Being present within our awareness is the journey each takes in discovery of ourselves. This is the theme of The Odyssey, and we seem to always be at the center of our quest. Your absence is not from this Blog, but is centered within your being, and it will manifest itself in many ways, but at some point you pause... and suddenly remember "I am Here."

FORGIVE ME

 Forgive me for my absence.

For some strange reason, my sister-in-law decided to spend her boys' precious vacation time touring colleges in the United States. They crashed at my home for a day and a half, making it hard to read anything or reply to your last statement. I was going to ask a few questions about Walt Whitman and New York City. 

I'll read the following story and write a post on it.

NOT A ONCE-IN-A-WHILE PLACE

 It's been a while since your last entry. Since that time I responded to you with a number of questions and observations that invited your attention. 

I know you're busy. So am I. 

I never felt this was to be a long-term project. Choosing a modest book of eight stories put a finite frame on this exchange. If we spent a week on each story, we would be done at the end of 8-10 weeks, and maybe we both might have learned something worthwhile. 

Maybe you're writing your response even now, but it occurred to me that I should clarify what I was hoping might emerge from our dialogue in this space.

If you can add to Einstein's Beach House commentaries, do so quickly, because there's a critter waiting up the path that has a bizarre tale in "La Tristesse Des Hérissons." My first reading was one of disbelief. I'm still not sure what I think of this tale about "The Sadness of Hedgehogs."

Read the story, and in the meantime, I will give it another reading. I notice it is also divided into sections as was the first story. You never commented on how you thought sections function in structuring a narrative.

STYLE AND NARRATIVE

You make cogent observations about Appel's style. Your entry is right on target in what I was hoping to get from you, even though I was left wanting much more of your observations about his narrative technique. I appreciate your noticing Appel's similarities with Hemingway and Salter. It might be more convincing if you had offered some examples. I believe that critics have observed that Hemingway tried to be careful and sparse in the use of adjectives.

If you are writing continuously, it's hard to stay the same. Maybe style evolves as you develop more command over narrative. 

Narrative is about "what happens"...and Hemingway moves slowly and deeply in allowing each of his narratives to find its own voice. If you've read The Old Man and The Sea, you encountered a deep narrative style that focused on minute tribulations of action unfolding, whether it be the sea, the old man's thoughts, his struggles with the elements, his boat, the giant marlin lashed to the side of his boat.

The Old Man and the Sea is his ninth novel. His first novel was The Sun Also Rises in 1926, ten years before I was born. The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952, when I was a sophomore in high school. I include my chronology to note that Hemingway served as a teacher for me in the way that I appropriated his work to understand my own writing process. 

Some observe that Hemingway prefers verbs over adjectives, but that may be an oversimplification.

I really appreciate how much you have improved your writing with regard to this Blog. But I have asked that you acknowledge the content I wrote specifically for you because it frames a foundation for some ground rules for our mutual inquiry. None of your entries acknowledge anything I've written and addressed specifically to you. All of my entries in this Blog are addressed specifically to you. And when you have submitted your writing, I have referred to the content of your entry.

A dialogue begins when you respond to someone who presents an idea or asks a question.

Please write a more or less diligent entry in response to the several points raised for you by me in the initial entry of this Blog.

Thanks for using a title, and I'm glad you used caps so our Blog starts to take on a certain consistency in style. 

Using Verdana set as a medium-sized font also provides a standard for style.

Currently I am engaged with Walt Whitman and following him on his journey walking the streets of lower Manhattan as he did every day, writing and publishing newspapers and journals and gradually establishing a new literary style. Those days were stormy days in the history of the republic, and Whitman, I think, was the Hemingway of his day because of his prolific prose and poetry was shaping a new style for a new world.

APPEL'S STYLE

 Some Similarities

I'm starting to make my way through Jacob Appel's writing. In addition to publishing tons of books, he also writes a column for a unique medicine website, MegPage. Appel's sentences are filled with adjectives, which helps him tell stories in a specific and personal manner. In "Hue and Cry," he describes the two 13-year-old girls and other characters through enough backstory "I've taught you too much grammar" and physical traits, "Legs deep in the grass." Appel has a particular talent for distilling whole pages of adjectives into beautiful, sparse sentences. In this respect, he's similar to Hemingway and James Salter. Both writers wrote beautiful sentences that encapsulate an entire world of adjectives into simple phrases. 

When I started writing, my prose tended to use a litany of 10-dollar words that were both unnecessary and condescending. After five or so years of experimentation, my writing style became leaner and sparser. However, that did not mitigate any longstanding weaknesses. Reading Einstein's Beach House reminded me of my writing coach's most important lesson, settling on your most robust and authentic voice. For me, that meant writing essays that were personal and specific. Unfortunately, that also meant experimenting with artistic license. You once said that accuracy was essential to me. That may be true, but you can't stay the same forever in writing. You're only as good as your last sentence. 

AT LAST...

GODOT or least some version of that elusive figure did arrive. At long last, let the dialogue begin. Please drop the "Dear Wyzard" salutation. We are not writing letters.

Just begin your conversation. I'm still waiting for your acknowledging any of the content that was written entirely for your benefit and no one else. All of that commentary was intended to launch several conversations, but alas, we are still bogged down in HUE AND CRY--- Oh, the wonder of it all!

Hue has a double meaning as it can refer to color, or it can refer to the quality of one's values. Cry might be someone shouting, or it might be someone weeping. This hadn't occurred to me until now, although I've read this story before, and now I can see that Appel's ambiguity is deliberate.

PLEASE: TITLES IN CAPS! Let's have a sense of style.

Godot did arrive

 Dear Wyzard,

Forgive me for my absence, I’ve been struggling with time consuming tasks. Reading, for some reason, is quite a laborious task. I’ve yet to master the art of speed reading, much less reading carefully.

In my opinion, Godot did arrive. The two men, Vladimir and Estragon made him (whoever Godot is) into someone we desire to meet. In that sense, Godot (who may not have existed) become a person 

WAITING FOR GODOT?

I've come to this space twice since our email exchanges. I find no response to my entries. 

Maybe you should schedule some of your Messaging and FaceBook time to a regular interaction with me on this Blog. An attractive feature of a Blog format is that it allows an asynchronous conversation between or among participants.

So I am waiting. I hope it is not for Godot. I don't think he ever arrived.

HUE AND CRY

 

I can't read HUE AND CRY for you. It is written in intelligible English. The gist is about a community's reaction and a particular family's reaction to the public notice that a convicted Sexual Predator has moved into the community. It happens that this person has moved back home with his mother who is ill. The girls decide to break into the home and see what they can find out about this "predator." You may recall that the father invited the sex offender to dinner. This act prompted the "Hue and Cry" of the community as residents direct protests at the family for treating the offender with respect.

Maybe you need to read it a couple of times. I can't see that there is anything in the prose that is incomprehensible. I don't think there is anything beyond your intelligence.

 

Some things worth noticing: How does Appel use dialogue in this story? Why do you think he wrote this story? Do you think he believes the community might be the offender? 

 

You probably noticed that Appel divides the story into six sections. How does that organize the narrative? Who are the characters in the story? How do the characters relate to each other, and what is the significance of the father?

What is the ratio of dialogue to narrative? What devices are used to identify who is speaking? Conversation in stories is often an issue. One of the best writers in handling dialogue is Hemingway. How many stories have you read of Hemingway?

After reading the introductory material in our Blog, how do others make distinctions between essays and short stories?

One of the things that impressed me the most when I first met you was that you were informed through extensive reading. It appeared that the bulk of your reading was not fiction.

 

 

IDEAS GOOD & BAD & MOVING ON

I would not characterize my entries as "annoyed." Rather, I was disappointed, because I think you are smart, and quite capable of original ideas, as well as grasping the ideas of content that you read. So far, I see no evidence of that in your entries, no acknowledgment of a discussion written and shaped entirely for your benefit.

The question now, is whether you have read "CRY AND HUE" and are there things you think are effective in the narrative? How does Appel approach plot? Is this simply a narrative, or is the author trying to make a point? I will hold back my specific thoughts on the merits and features of this story until you read and post about it.

I hope you bothered to go the link provided for examining the issue of the difference between stories and essays, to read that article.

By the way, if you wish to focus on essays, then that's fine. But try to read some really excellent essays. Anything by David Foster Wallace is exemplary and fun to read. His collection of essays Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a masterpiece of narrative essays teeming with literary devices and tricks. 

I would also suggest that another feature of Wallace's work is satire. Satire can transform our perspective of reality and dig deep beneath the surface. I find Wallace's literary skill astonishing. He should be better known, more widely read.

From what I have observed in our various exchanges is that you might have a gift for satire.

By the way, an annoying shortcoming of this Blogging App is that you must select your Font style and Font Size each time. I have been setting the Font as Verdana and the font size is Medium. There should be a way to make that part of the Blog's default, but for now, try using those settings.

Please give titles to your entries that characterize the content of your entries. It's good practice.

 

Reply

 Hello,

I'm sorry for not understanding the purpose of this blog.

I understand that you are annoyed.

Why don't we discuss the book's first story, Hue And Cry?

If not, why don't we chalk this up as a bad idea?

Fire Man

START YOUR OWN BLOG

Your take on NYC in decline is well-noted. 

I had a similar conclusion when while sitting outside at a restaurant on LaGuardia Street, a car came down the street with someone inside firing a gun randomly at the sidewalk... or was it when I was coming out of Chow House on Bleecker, the street was crowded with homeless young men, and when I had a conversation with one near the entrance, I could see he in his eyes he was not where he wanted to be. 

But I have to say that I am disappointed you ignored my question and everything I had understood might be a mutual quest, and a dialogue about writing. You apparently care nothing about discussing Appel and seeing what we might discover about writing as we measure his successes and mistakes. 

I did address our exchange about what constitutes an essay and a short story. Apparently that is not worthy material for your comment, although it was an attempt to contextualize our past brief exchange of messages.

So your goal of a paragraph a day or whatever is laudatory, but if you are refusing a dialogue and taking into account all of the prose we are generating, then my advice to you is to start your own Blog and send me the link, and I'll try to visit once in a while.

Otherwise, let's end this conversation, because so far you have not related to one thing that I've written.

New York Cleanliness disaster.

 Dear Wyzard,

My aim is to write a short paragraph every day on this blog.

Here is today's paragraph.

2 days ago, I went out for a nice meal at an Australian Cafe with a new friend. I was thirty minutes late, but he didn't seem to mind. My new friend, Nick, is an entrepreneur and podcaster in Berlin. He spends most of his year traveling around economic centers raising money for his new venture capital fund, and preaching the gospel of progress and productivity. However, despite his deep affection for our fine city, he was taken aback by its recent troubles. "New York has declined, but it is unlike San Francisco." We started walking down the street after we finished our french fries. After three or four blocks, he realized he was walking the wrong way. After we went our separate ways, I began walking down towards a lovely pre-war building and ended up in Gramercy. Unlike the nearby neighborhoods, the streets were spotless, and the buildings looked fresher and better maintained. New York City has always been divided along economic and ethnic lines, but it never felt this stark and blatant. The city has long stopped cleaning everyone's roads and keeping every neighborhood safe. 

The Fire Man

 

GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU, FIRE MAN

In writing an introduction to provide a setting for our conversations, I thought you might have some response. I deliberately tried to set it up to provide a context for a dialogue.
I suppose "waking up" is a good start, especially if we take it metaphorically.

But when you make an entry, PUBLISH IT. By clicking on Publish at the right. When you publish, I will respond. You can edit anything you publish. Have you Blogged before? 

Give a Title to your entry. That way, the Blog will log our conversations in a way that they will be easy to find..

My first question for you is which story in Einstein's Beach House would you like to discuss first? 

My second question is: Did you read what I wrote to initiate this project? Is this something you take seriously? If not, let's be done with it as of now, and we will chalk it up to a bad idea.

 

2/9/2023

 LG: Dear Prof Gilbert,

Today, I woke up ...

...FIRE MAN

 

EINSTEIN'S WRITERS DEN

This Writer's Den is inspired by EINSTEIN'S BEACH HOUSE, a book of stories by Jacob M. Appel. It is a place for discussion about the craft of these stories. Two aspiring writers are using this space as a workspace. All of the stories were published earlier in Reviews or Journals, so they were refereed to a certain extent. They were collected in this volume and published in 2014.

Allison Lynn, author of The Exiles and Now You See It, comments in the frontispiece: "Impossibly keen... a collection that takes a sharp look at the moments when we, whether child or adult, see who we truly are, and the inevitability of who we will become. Appel's achy, skewed, sometimes heartbreaky world is dense with truth and humor---the stuff of great literature."

High praise, indeed. My own experience in reading the book was one of amazement at the originality of the style of the stories, but distinctly feeling they were not all equally well-written. I detected flaws (of course from my particular perception), and I felt I was learning from the flaws as well as the excellence of his story telling. I was especially impressed with the range of subject matter. Appel is clearly an intelligent observer. Regardless of the verdict of excellence or not, I think observing the craft of his stories might help my friend and me as we pursue writing projects on our own.

So when a young friend of mine indicated an interest in becoming a writer, I was intrigued by his wide-rage of interests and that he impressed me as an intelligent observer. At the this point in his young career, he writes what he describes as essays. For me, an essay suggests a work of non-fiction. At one point essays were topical such as Yoshida Kenko's ESSAYS IN IDLENESS (1332), Ralph Waldo's SELF-RELIANCE (1841), William Hazlitt's ON THE PLEASURE OF HATING (1823) Joan Didion's ON KEEPING A NOTEBOOK (1968) or David Foster Wallace's CONSIDER THE LOBSTER (2005). Not too long ago, in noting how definitions sometimes change over time, I came upon Ashley Shannon's THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SHORT STORY AND A PERSONAL ESSAY, which in itself is an essay published on the Internet.

I suggested we might mutually explore the craft of writing by focusing on Appel's book of short stories. Jacob M. Appel is a very interesting author who wears many hats and pursues diverse careers, possessing medical, attorney-at-law, scientific research degrees and more, at the doctoral level. Wikipedia describes him: "Jacob M. Appel (born February 21, 1973) is an American author, poet, bioethicist, physician, lawyer, and social critic... he is best known for his stories..."

 

I have a background as a composer, poet, professor, administrator, blogger, researcher and writer---many different hats because I am enjoying a long life. 

 

This Blog is intended as a private conversation, a dialogue, maybe even dialogical inquiry. I'm interested to see where this experiment takes us.