just sit in a hot breeze under the sun. That's what he thinks he wants, but—a lot of modern fiction works with dramatic irony—we know more than the narrator does.
Then, we move to a woman he slept with last night, and what wonderful details he has of her: hair down to her ankles, shotgun in her bathtub, the mirrors in her room rattling when she laughs. "She was always good to me." What is it that makes the whole imperfect? Her child sleeping in the other room— which is what? Her past. The tension lies between here I am and the past is fucked , just like the water table that keeps rising in this town that has too much past.
What is his yearning? The dramatic irony here is that he seems to be yearning to disconnect from his failed past. But he's sobbing into his napkin; he slept with this woman just last night, and everything was fine except for this goddamned past. If he could just be in the present. In fact, he yearns to connect. The yearning for disconnection is really an emotional inverse; this is why he's chosen Brownsville, where it is always "noon." He's not so close to wanting oblivion as he would have himself believe.
Here's another opening passage, this one from "The Bog Man," a short story from Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood.
Julie broke up with Connor in the middle of a swamp.
Julie silently revises: not exactly in the middle, not knee-deep in rotting leaves and dubious brown water. More or less on the edge; sort of within striking distance. Well, in an inn, to be precise. Well, not even an inn. A room in a pub. What was available.
And not in a swamp anyway. In a bog. Swamp is when the water goes in one end and out the other, bog is when it goes in and stays in. How many times did Connor have to explain the difference? Quite a few. But Julie prefers the sound of the word swamp. It is mistier, more haunted. Bog is a slang word for toilet, and when you hear bog you know the toilet will be a battered and smelly one, and that there will be no toilet paper.
So Julie always says: I broke up with Connor in the middle of a swamp.
There are other things she revises as well. She revises Connor. She revises herself. Connor's wife stays approximately the same, but she was an invention of Julie's in the first place, since Julie never met her. Sometimes she used to wonder whether the wife really existed at all, or was just a fiction of Connor's, useful for keeping Julie at arm's length. But, no, the wife existed all right. She was solid, and she became more solid as time went on.
Connor mentioned the wife, and the three children, and the dog, fairly soon after he and Julie met. Well, not met. Slept together. It was almost the same thing.
Julie supposes, now, that he didn't want to scare her off by bringing up the subject too soon. She herself was only twenty, and too naive to even think of looking for clues, such as the white circle on the ring finger. By the time he did get round to making a sheepish avowal or confession, Julie was in no position to be scared off. She was already lying in a motel room, wound loosely in a sheet. She was too tired to be scared off and also too amazed, and also too grateful. Connor was not her first lover but he was her first grown-up one, he was the first who did not treat sex as some kind of panty raid. He took her body seriously, which impressed her to no end.
Understand that in everything I'm reading you, there's an organic coherence among the details, built around a character with a dynamic yearning. Julie's yearning begins to manifest itself how?—by revising everything. Everything is qualified. She makes a statement, revises it, backs out of it, deromanticizes it. But then returns to it. At once, we see this inner conflict going on. She wants to uplift, to rewrite romantically; then she wants to debunk, to go back and see things with brutal clarity. And this process keeps repeating. More or less. Sort of. To be precise.
Well, not even. What was available. Well, not met.
Then, we move to a woman he slept with last night, and what wonderful details he has of her: hair down to her ankles, shotgun in her bathtub, the mirrors in her room rattling when she laughs. "She was always good to me." What is it that makes the whole imperfect? Her child sleeping in the other room— which is what? Her past. The tension lies between here I am and the past is fucked , just like the water table that keeps rising in this town that has too much past.
What is his yearning? The dramatic irony here is that he seems to be yearning to disconnect from his failed past. But he's sobbing into his napkin; he slept with this woman just last night, and everything was fine except for this goddamned past. If he could just be in the present. In fact, he yearns to connect. The yearning for disconnection is really an emotional inverse; this is why he's chosen Brownsville, where it is always "noon." He's not so close to wanting oblivion as he would have himself believe.
Here's another opening passage, this one from "The Bog Man," a short story from Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood.
Julie broke up with Connor in the middle of a swamp.
Julie silently revises: not exactly in the middle, not knee-deep in rotting leaves and dubious brown water. More or less on the edge; sort of within striking distance. Well, in an inn, to be precise. Well, not even an inn. A room in a pub. What was available.
And not in a swamp anyway. In a bog. Swamp is when the water goes in one end and out the other, bog is when it goes in and stays in. How many times did Connor have to explain the difference? Quite a few. But Julie prefers the sound of the word swamp. It is mistier, more haunted. Bog is a slang word for toilet, and when you hear bog you know the toilet will be a battered and smelly one, and that there will be no toilet paper.
So Julie always says: I broke up with Connor in the middle of a swamp.
There are other things she revises as well. She revises Connor. She revises herself. Connor's wife stays approximately the same, but she was an invention of Julie's in the first place, since Julie never met her. Sometimes she used to wonder whether the wife really existed at all, or was just a fiction of Connor's, useful for keeping Julie at arm's length. But, no, the wife existed all right. She was solid, and she became more solid as time went on.
Connor mentioned the wife, and the three children, and the dog, fairly soon after he and Julie met. Well, not met. Slept together. It was almost the same thing.
Julie supposes, now, that he didn't want to scare her off by bringing up the subject too soon. She herself was only twenty, and too naive to even think of looking for clues, such as the white circle on the ring finger. By the time he did get round to making a sheepish avowal or confession, Julie was in no position to be scared off. She was already lying in a motel room, wound loosely in a sheet. She was too tired to be scared off and also too amazed, and also too grateful. Connor was not her first lover but he was her first grown-up one, he was the first who did not treat sex as some kind of panty raid. He took her body seriously, which impressed her to no end.
Understand that in everything I'm reading you, there's an organic coherence among the details, built around a character with a dynamic yearning. Julie's yearning begins to manifest itself how?—by revising everything. Everything is qualified. She makes a statement, revises it, backs out of it, deromanticizes it. But then returns to it. At once, we see this inner conflict going on. She wants to uplift, to rewrite romantically; then she wants to debunk, to go back and see things with brutal clarity. And this process keeps repeating. More or less. Sort of. To be precise.
Well, not even. What was available. Well, not met.
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