Writing From The Body

In thinking about the craft of a short story collection I am drawn to the ways in which every short story in the collection is strung together by a certain theme. Just from reading two out of the nine short stories in this collection, I am not sure if I can fairly state what that connecting theme is but this is what I have seen. Both stories seem to be told from the perspective of an experience of growing up in a “traditional” south Asian home. We can tell this via the context clues given to us about the characters like what their names are and even giving us more with certain ethnic particularities that are significant in South Asian homes. I can see that this collection seems to be, if nothing else, a successful attempt at expanding the cannon of South Asian literature, written by those who were born there. I think that this work then, invaluable for two reasons, one because a lot of literature and short story collections don’t focus on South Asian culture and its nuances in America...

By Lila Kalick Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the things we owe one another, in relationship, in friendship, with strangers we see on the street or ones that exist abstractly in notions of community and global wellbeing. The commitments we keep with each other and with humanity always seem to be shifting. In a world of push-of-a-button convenience that provides quick replacements for everything from fluorescent eco-friendly lightbulbs to bedfellows, what are the rules for leaving things behind? The two stories we read this week in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, "A Real Durwan" and "The Blessed House," hint at this question from different angles. "A Real Durwan" chronicles the tale of an impoverished woman that is kicked out of her community. The story ends with her walking away dishonored and alone. This story considers ideas of displacement and who the people who are leave behind in our society really are. It chronicles how o...

This story definitely hit a bit too close to home. I was homeless for a year when I was 20 and I had to rely on friends and sometimes strangers to provide me with a place to sleep, when I wasn't sleeping in the UCSC forest. That feeling of helplessness and of being totally without orientation in a world gone mad was evoked for me by this short story. The things that keep us tied to our stories and to our version of reality are so frail. The ties that keep us connected with the world around us are even more fragile. I think it is much easier than most people realize to slip away and become if not insane, then so out of touch with the world that it makes no sense to you and you make no sense to it. There are many elements that go into that situation, as there are many layers to this story. Sexism is obviously a part, as any older woman is likely to be severely disrespected within a society with even moderate echoes of patriarchy. That this woman was not "a real durwan" se...

 Miguel Cervantes 10/25/17              Reading through Monstress , I’m tempted to envision the following scenario:   Marjorie Liu is working on the antagonists of Monstress , looking at the bad guys and girls of the epic realm she is creating, honing their temperaments, their lusts, their failings and those redeeming qualities too, all in the name of populating Maiki Halfwolf’s sweeping journey with tests and obstacles that will cause us to gasp and swoon as we turn every page.   She is quite successful in this endeavor – it’s hard for us to pick a side (humans or arcanics) with a clean conscience.   Both factions of this world have committed horrible acts against the other, usually in the name of self-preservation, but we are taken aback nonetheless.   There are no entirely clean hands in this world, and Marjorie is really satisfied with the panoply of villains, half-villains ...

Monstress             Before I started reading Monstress , I realized that I would need to expand my analytical vocabulary a bit in order to best appreciate the graphic novel form.   “The Five Choices of Comics Theory and What It Has to Do with You” was helpful in providing several basic concepts that are specific to graphic novels – choice of moment, frame, image, word, and flow.   Throughout my undergraduate years, I wrote a bale of papers analyzing how an idea or aesthetic expressed in the written word can be translated into a visual art form, such as book illustration, narrative painting, or film.   Then – * boink! * - I had a lightbulb moment when I realized that graphic novels bear a lot of similarities to cinema, particularly in terms of format and structure.       And so, a little embarrassed that it took me a while to realize what should have been obvious, I was able to read and “see” the...

Bringin to the Focus Multiple Inspirations When there are more than one inspirations and sources which an author would like to incorporate into the fabric of their story, a sense of focus is key. Edwidge Danticat crafts the story of Giselle Sandrine Boyer in Untwine A Novel  with focus on multiple inspirations, yet the narrative--with it's many facets--flows with great clarity. The reading is not cumbersome and the story of Giselle remains ever present, despite the flashbacks and movement from time and space, outside bodily sensations, inner thoughts and emotions. Edwidge incorporates inspiration from fairy tales, folklore, family, the grasp of the hands, memories, faith and religion, feelings in the body, the climatic crash, the operating room, water, the abyss, the "under," and light and darkness. All of these motifs are worked seamlessly and interchangeably within each scene. It is hard to pinpoint just where one symbol stops and another begins, for Edwidge inclu...

Courtney A. Cannon Creation of Tone and Feel in a World through  precise imagery and sparingly chosen words. Marjoire Liu and Santa Takeda successfully create a rich and textured world that is complete, and wholly believable with far less than any cinematographer or novelist. They show how less can truly be more, when creating an entire world in frames. Liu and Takeda showcase the principles of media-res with the opening two slides, and maintain believability of the character's connection to this world through brief context giving flashbacks. There is not need to illustrate previous chapters of backstory and to include text for clarity because the character is situated completely within an entire world or intensity. A world with it's own complex history and unique characters. All of this rich texture--the solemn setting, yet vibrant and violent undertones, and the feel of uncertainty and darkness-- is developed through precise imagery and specific word choice and placement....