This is story is an odd duck. I say that because the only word that comes to my mind after reading it is ‘odd.’ My verdict on the story is still out. Hopefully, by the end of typing this review I will have come to some conclusion about it.I think that my mind is stuck on the point of view. The story begins with a first person point of view making a pronouncement that “It’s always been this way; it’s always going to be like this. I know it, and there’s no changing it.” This is great opening line that sets a somber and emotional tone that is sure to have the reader in muddy tears by the end.
Then a few pages later, there is time warp into the future present: “This goes on for years.” This time warp really pulled the rug out from under me. I mean, I’m smart enough to have known that the first person narrator is telling this story from a future place, a place of self-reflection and knowledge, but shoot the narration forward and catch up to that place of knowledge felt like the curveball I couldn’t hit in little league.
Then the pitches, the curve balls keep coming and I must say I sitting in the dugout waiting for another chance to bat. In very next paragraph, after the fast forward catch up, the story and the narration is tosses into the realm of high metaphor with, “Near the end of this fable…” The end of the story references God and I’m not sure what really went down.
Okay, okay, I really did like the story. It might seem that I didn’t, but I like to think and puzzle stories out. The point of view and the time use might have left me in the dugout, but the action of the story was very interesting.
To give away the ending, because I had to work this story backwards, finds the narrator in a dumpster. The narrator can feel it being picked up and taken to the compactor. He can hear the creaking and grinding of gears that will bring the compactor’s heavy plates down on him. He is dead, which makes sense of the reset of story.
In my mind, the story is the flash of life that one remembers just before the light goes out forever.
Well done! I’m now looking forward to reading more of these crazy stories.
Freese, Mathias B. “I’ll Make it, I Ihink.” Down to a Sunless Sea. Tucson, Arizona: Wheatmark, 2007.
Sidenote: this is my 301st post! - Wow!
2 comments:
Dear Aaron:
I see the struggle. I am struggling to get a comment across to you on this site. So I am trying again. However, pointof view is a bitch, isn't it? Go with the flow,
Kind regards,
Matt
Dear Aaron: It works. I am getting through. I've heard everything as a shrink so "crazy" I view as a compliment, or at least I hope so. You are one of a very few reviewers who has taken the time to reread a story that may need rereading. I wrote them to last -- only took thirty years.
"The Chatham Bear" is next and is linear with some built in wry and satirical comments about the species; perhaps I will live long enough for its extinction. Cockroaches don't wage war.
On that withering note, until i read your site again -- real soon.
Regards,
Matt
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