Civilwarland by George Saunders is a collection of short stories set in a future world where the United States has fallen into anarchy but some people have managed to escape reality by living a life inside an amusement park dedicated to Civil War reenactments to some degree. The premise is rather funny since the Civil War battles took place all across the Southeastern portion of the United States and many of the current National Parks hold battle reenactments. It’s funny not because war is a comedy but because he has exaggerated activity in this area beyond the norm into the land of absurd.

In Civilwarland in Bad Decline, the details says that history has been forgotten, that there is anarchy present in everyday life, that they are on a tight budget and make do –these lead to the final decline of the facility and the character getting what he fears.

In Smorgasbord, the details are of college and being hungry and not having enough money so much so that even a hot girl can’t compete with food, and that pretty much sets up the guys going along and feeling immature about their wants and needs and getting bought and wanting to buy.

Narrator Tone Helps Identify the Point in Time, Now and past

In Civilwarland in Bad Decline, the narrator talks in the immediate time, in a rush of everyday duties,  but it’s clear it’s in a future where they’ve forgotten who built the Erie Canal and assume it was Chinese coolies rather than the Irish.

In Smorgasbord, the tone is immediate too, but it has a feeling of longing in the background of things remembered and appreciated.

How Does the Narrative Voice in Civilwarland in Bad Decline handle the strange time, place and culture?

The narrative voice is one of irreverence that seems to fit the “what the f^^% can I do” mood of a fall into anarchy. It also has some strains of wistfulness, like the ghosts which are discussed as if they were more human than him. He is accepting of all he sees and does, because he’s a smarmy salesman that has to keep his family so the reader doesn’t really mind that he doesn’t make it which is the point that he’s trying to paint, i.e. that nobody cares.

About Technology Support for Credibility

While narrative voice and tone aid credibility of the tale, the use of technology in some places hurts credibility.

The unexpected hits at the start of the story The Unexpected Offloading of Mrs.  Schwartz. Where the narrator talks to a Guilt service, assuming he’ll get relief, which is expected by all, and then is not actually relieved. It provides a sense of humor in contrast with tragedy.

More of the same comes and goes, the narrator cares about people, offers them freebies at his own loss. Everything he does is an exaggeration of guilt looking for relief and the day to day details help to settle the reader into believing.

This is the story that seemed most nearly science fiction, but the unexpected arrives again less positively in the moment where the main character can accidently “offload” memory from an individual, causing the memories to disappear. Product manufacturers would never allow it due to law suits; although it is immediately shown to maybe have benefits.

But, this was the point where I get thrown out of the story because in technology and in biology, memory is very hard to wipe. Erase routines exist that make many passes over hardware to make the data stored go away. When hardware fails, the memory contents are often retained. Most mistakes destroy the copy, not the original. In human brains usually after a stroke, the cells have to die in order for the memories to disappear, and even then, the brain works to reroute the data and restore it. Other causes can be traumatic head injury. Furthermore, if so many brain cells die, how does the person keep living?

So I start wondering how everything works. The equipment is described as a module – which typically refers to a software routine, is showcased like a virtual reality machine attached to a treadmill, and no explanation of how the owner is seeing what the customer is seeing at the same time or why someone would expose themselves knowing he could see or even why pads are attached to the customer. Then the owner hand carries some of it (undefined) to the side of Mrs. Schwartz). Other pieces and parts expected to make it work, never exist.

One of the roles of science fiction and Utopias is to question where science is going. Definitely, if we attach electronic parts to our brain, there is a chance that we can cause damage as well as provide relief. All of the questioning part of Civilwarland in Bad Decline occurs in the white space which is also part of voice and depends a great deal on the knowledge level of the reader. Most of it disappears but some questions linger on, like how do you endlessly supply food in an amusement park where society has failed?

No matter, most readers will find this collection food for the brain, humor, with some unusual characters that make us look closely at who our society is.

I read all three short stories in “Lips Touch Three Times” and enjoyed them. Goblin Fruit is fun because it’s so inviting but also repulsive. I think her voice acts both as warning, but also as invitation. The tone is one that could easily be the grandmother’s, the goblin’s and Kizzy’s at the end of the tale because it has bits of humor that say maybe the warnings are always in vain because animals act in the way that their nature makes them act.

The words selected highlight the different stages that Kizzy is passing through. It makes a statement about every woman because the cycles are all cycles of life, including:

Coming into womanhood: here many of the words and metaphors deal with blood. Sharks on a soft bloom of blood[p.13], bloody popcorn[p.18], cats lap blood[p.43], drum of hot blood[p.54]. Offset against this is Kizzy’s perception of herself: hated her ankles, hated her hair, hated mirrors [p.14], choked on smoke[p.17], no boy would see her[p.26].

Seduction or not: The comparison between those that do and do not get seduced start with the Principal St. Pock Mark with his body full of parasites and bodily mildew [p.16], who runs the School for Cannibals [p.27], almost implying that everyone is a cannibal of goblin fruit. Her girlfriends who are fat and sarcastic[p.16] follow. Then there is the grandmother with her mother of pearl knife[p.42], except one would think that she did respond to seduction at least once.

The language about sex leading to unwanted results is quite pervasive and repulsive: here the words are mostly placed in terms of biological examples: Peacock screamed rape[], tick-ridden(blood suckers) billy goat[p.14],  frogs carrying their eggs in their cheeks[p.31], butterfly rape[p.33,34], spores that turn caterpillars to vegetables then used for tattoo[p.34], cats kill for fun[p.34]. Also the goblins have repulsive qualities like lips that smack and gluck [p.20]. She uses these tales along with her grandmother’s warnings and death and the repulsiveness of age, wrinkly and dry with a gross phlegmy cough[p.28], to imply that if you fail to live in your cycle you die too early, with words like the swan’s wing[p.17] which is both angelic but repulsive, her lips bruised by rejected goblin fruit[p.19]. But these get softer and die away before the goblin.

Once you see into Kizzy’s state of mind, what she’s noticing, what others are noticing about her, the tone gets less jarring, softer, focused on a specific sight or sense, and timid because of Kizzy’s age. It sounds nice enough to make the other warnings just warnings. Words about Kizzy: hungry eyes[p.13] and potential to purr throaty love songs[p.24], coy curl of lips[p.40] and the change from jeans into the emerald kimono[p.40]. Words about the rescued great-aunt: eye’s that sparkle with secrets[p.24]. With the wanted Mick Crispain she is noticing what seduction involves: slow dance[p.20], knuckles under breasts[p.21], soft doves cooing [p.21]. And with Mr. Husk she’s noticing what she wants: lips red as angels, lips soft and full as angels[p.25], lips by proxy [p.29], his bruises of sleeplessness below eyes[26], taste of licorice[p.30], and boy spice—butter without sugar[48]. Here the language is less jarring, softer, focused on a specific sight or sense, and timid because of Kizzy’s age. It sounds nice enough to make the other warnings too easily ignored. Especially fed on chocolates, rare cheese and wine during a daring breakfast picnic from an easily accessible young man.

Because the language is so sensory and full of comparisons and contrasts, the reader is set to follow into the tale and buy into everything that happens.

Grace Paley’s collection of short stories titled The Little Disturbances of Man bears the subtitle Stories of Women andMen at Love. Love is one of the most complicated relationships people encounter during their lives. A relationship that works well isn’t always guaranteed as some of these stories illustrate. At the time these stories were written, divorce made one unacceptable in society to a greater extent than today. Other stories are equally challenging in portraying unusual relationships i.e. the mistress, the young girl infatuated, the divorcees, a young girl whose voice is too loud, the man duped, the woman dumped, the man forced into marriage to avoid statuatory rape charges, etc. The stories were of modern American life when television shows were offering up the perfect marriage so these must have appeared startling. The also contain references to class, religion, culture that tends to complicate relationships.

In “Goodbye and Goodluck”, Grace Paley discusses a young girl who is so awestruck by the theatre, she takes a first job there and falls for a famous actor who is already married. Her long term relationship with him leads her into a lifestyle that is nontraditional. What’s fun about this story is how clearly the character states her contentment and enjoyment of a life which others find scandalous; the character Rose doesn’t cave to societal expectations.

Like several other stories, the character Rose betrays a determination to get what she wants that transcends societal norms, class, and religion. A second character in this collection, Virginia, also has a primarily sexual relationship with the hero of the story, “The Contest”. For her, the deciding factor in whether they continue to live together occurs when the narrator, Fred, avoids taking a job. They remain friends, especially since Virginia wants to win a prize and she has connections, Fred’s writing ability, her mother’s language skills and she steadfastly goes forward, while Fred ponders the meaning of her appearance in his life.

Grace Paley’s sense of humor comes out in these stories in a subtle fashion. Hidden behind the story of “The Contest” is the question, did this woman make a fool out of me? In “An Interest in Life”, the tables are turned. The story starts out with the penultimate insults of married life, the personal gift of an item that is impersonal and probably a statement of how the husband views the wife he is about to desert, a broom.

One of her best stories for capturing an oddball character is “Floating Truth”. The narrator is a young woman looking for her first job when her only skills are typing. To get a job, she meets up with a man living in his car that she hires to write her resume. The opening lines, “Where are you Lionel? In the do-funny?” establishes a street tone to the story.  Some of the funny lines in the story come about as a result of the job search like, “I didn’t know I was paying him by the hour.” The resume Eddie provides is a hoot, and provides a great contrast to the story title provided by Eddie when he tells her truth floats at the right level.

One of the heart warming and heart tearing moments in the collection come in the story “A Subject of Childhood” when a confrontation occurs between a single mother and her boyfriend over the behavior of her two children. “No doubt about it, Faith, you’ve done a rotten job,” says he. She repeats his insult several time as if astounded and each time, he reiterates his claim. Her response is not spoken, “For I have raised these kids, one hand typing behind my back to earn a living. I have raised them alone without a father…” The end result is almost expected because Grace Paley then turns the story on its head by making it a statement about what love really is.

Some of the techniques she uses in writing that provide humor as well as short-hand insight include:

• Exaggeration in a character’s thoughts i.e. “The list when complete could have brought tears to the eye of God if He had a minute.
• Details of an incident that renders it specific, unique, even if emotionally charged i.e. “I bought real butter for the holiday and its rancid, I cried into the secretary’s half-hearted ear.”
• Odd juxtaposition i.e. “Under the narrow sky of God’s great wisdom, she wore a strawberry-blond wig
• Fun use of naming i.e. “You certainly observed her, said Pallid. I have a functioning retina, said Livid.”

Her portrayal of children is also good, offering concrete ways children behave that provides a connection in reader’s experience.

Flash fiction has been a chore for me to learn. One of the reason to try shorter and shorter forms of fiction is to learn to:

• write clearer
• cut extra words
• focus clearly on the conflict of a situation
• focus on sharp details for characterization.

I studied Flash Fiction in Pam Castro's class--its a worthwhile class and I learned much about the market. She used Sudden Fiction published by W. W. Norton Company as the text book and it has many helpful  examples of what can be done with flash fiction. My favorite flash fiction book I've read is Briefs by John Edgar Wideman.

I started work on a new short story in my Young Adult Fiction Class at Oxford Online when given a prompt to write about dinosaurs. I'm working on dinosaur stories for various age groups.

Many times people get frustrated with me because it takes so long for me to write a short story. My current short story has been written in pieces in the class:
a) a hook for the beginning that established my main character
b) the arrival of the villain of the story
c) a chance meeting with the love interest
d) contact with my dinosaur bone

I wanted to write about a student who was being encouraged to go into the Armed Forces. I have a historical view from movies and novels and from my relatives about what the US Army was like. I wanted to get a more modern view of actual practices. Youtube is really good for finding movies of Armed Forces marching, training exercises, airplanes in flight and the like, that I have also watched. 

Once I get through my research materials, I often get cool ideas about how to bring the protagonist into conflict in unusual ways (i.e. the average person on the street would not have run into the situation). It also provides me with a technical terms and knowledge that are applicable in the situation.

Each situation is often written as a stand alone piece where I set up the mood, the situation arises, and the protagonist now has new knowledge and feelings.

This story will be new for me because I'll be working in two heads and doing more narration then normal for my writing.

I just finished two different short story collections, Imaginings by Dean Warren and Recapture by Erica Olsen. Some of the differences between the two collections include :

One of the ways I volunteer is by being a judge for contests. I have been one for many years. I also critique stories at Critters.org.

Some of the things that I find with stories:

Stories that have a good deal of narrative and thoughts from the protagonist often are so much in the character's head that they forget about the body and surrounding setting. I am a total minimalist about setting, but houses have doors, people sit in chairs, they eat with help from objects. People move. If there are many people, are they all sitting on top of the protagonist's head?

In my Young Adult Fiction Class at Oxford Online, I learned about Young Adult Voice the most. We went through the entire cycle of developing a character, setting up a plot and writing scene pieces in a series of exercises. The output for the class for me was an 850 word opening to a short story. Today I wrote about 1500 more words on it. I'm almost to the life changing point of the story, I expect it will run close to 5000 words total.