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.