#299 The November Story- Rebecca Makkai

#299 The November Story- Rebecca Makkai

Christine is a producer of a reality TV show. Her job is to interview the contestants, get them to say interesting things, create arc and character for the show. She often has to prompt the interviewee, make them feel: “…compelled to say more and more interesting things—more outrageous, more emotional. More likely to make their relatives to change their names and move to Arizona.”

Reality TV has become such a part of our culture, that is acceptable to cast the lowest common denominator, they look for crazy over depth:

“The casting directors are great at spotting borderline narcissistic personality disorder, the kind that makes you just crazy enough for great TV but not crazy enough to destroy a camera with a baseball bat.”

As her own life starts to feel like a produced TV show, she begins to hate her job, but she also resents her girlfriend for being unlike some of the characters on the show: “The camera doesn’t have patience for someone who feels iffy, weighs the options, equivocates.”

I’m sure this story has been written before, the meta-look into a meta-art form. However, Makkai adds some layering here that makes it more human and less pure satire.

Notable Passage: “The loneliest thing in the world is lying awake beside someone asleep.”

Rating: 9-7-9-8 Total= 33

http://366shortstories.blogspot.com/2015/04/grading-each-story.html

#266 The Migratory Patters of Dancers- Katherine Sparrow

#266 The Migratory Patters of Dancers- Katherine Sparrow

Five men are about to embark on an adventure, a cross country migration. Like birds, the season calls to them: “When the change comes there’s nothing for it but to start moving. That’s what birds always did, and with how they modified us, we’re no different.”

They have been genetically modified into bird-like creatures and along their migration perform dances of extinct species like sandhill crains, tundra swans, American kestrals, black terns, and California condors. “They’ve genemodded us into gods.”  

This is a crazy view into a world that has destroyed it’s wildlife gleefully and now celebrates a fake look at that wildlife, hero-worshiping falseness.  It’s also a story about being true to yourself, no matter what that self is; that no matter how much of yourself is owned or controlled by something else, you are still an individual controlling your own fate.

To a lesser degree and maybe one I’m making up, this looks like a satire on modern athletics, performance enhancing elements, sponsorships, and integrity. The migration they go on is by bicycle and, similar to the Tour De France, is 2,000 miles long and 22 stages. The dances are like the post-stage press conferences, with the winners dancing and pretending to be an extinct species…a clean, honest, athlete.

“No matter how slick our bikes are, when it comes down to it they are still one-hundred percent powered by our legs and nothing else. So we’ll do anything we can to make it easier. We’re lazy like that.”

Notable Passage: “It’s a big sky in Montana, everyone knows that, but the way it makes me feel lonely is all my own.”

Rating: 8-9-9-8 Total= 34

#96 A Lecture Tour- Knut Hamsun

#96 A Lecture Tour- Knut Hamsun

A professor in of Literature, in need of money, visits nearby Dram, meaning to give a lecture. He has not announced the lecture, planned the lecture, advertised the lecture, or even rented a hall until he arrives.

As we follow the running of his internal thoughts, we see that the man has a deluded sense of his own grandness and no handle on reality. He is constantly worried about the money he is spending but balancing it out with the impression he is making on the people around him. He wishes to look as important as he thinks he is.

Unfortunately for him, this is not the sort of town that draws big crowds for lectures, as he is told several times:

“We had a Swedish student come last year with a talk about everlasting peace. He lost money on it.”

And even worse luck, there is a big event happening while he is there that will certainly attract a crowd.

“Anti-spiritualist is doing a show at the Workers’ Hall. He has apes and wild beasts with him.”

As expected, he draws nearly no crowd and is generously offered a role in the anti-spiritualist show for the next evening. He is offended:

“Never would I be a party to such vulgarity! A Man has his honor to consider.”

However, need outweighs pride and he, in some convoluted rationality, convinces himself to join the show.

Rating: 8-7-7-7 Total= 29