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.