the vane sisters

The Vane Sisters is a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov. I am no stranger to a Vladimir Nabokov story so i expected a very unique story and of course that is exactly what i got. I found different aspects of this story confusing and alarming. For example, i found it very bizarre that the narrator became frantic and had trouble sleeping AFTER he learned that Cynthia had died but he had none of these issues before he knew this. This leads me to believe that these issues are all in his head. He previously thought that all those ideas that Cynthia had about the dead controlling the universe were impossible and down right silly but now he is catching himself subconsciously feeding into all the ideas about the dead she once expressed. It makes me think that maybe he would not have these issues if D. had never told him about Cynthia’s passing. In typical Nabokov fashion, there was a huge twist. This twist, i have learned through research, has puzzled many scholars, and i am no exception to this confusion. It occurs in the last paragraph where the beginning of each word spells something out. You would only know to do this if you allude back to the middle of the story where Cynthia says that some contemporary author had once done this. Overall this story was too confusing to understand like many of Nabokov’s stories are.

Sonny’s Blues

Sonny’s Blues was a really interesting story from a structure standpoint. I really liked how James Baldwin tried something different by starting the story off in the present tense, then to the past tense, and then back to the present tense. It was something different that I had not seen this year so i think i just liked it because it was “different”. As far as clarity, I think that Baldwin was way off. His idea was so unique but i thought it was actually very poorly executed. I found myself pausing multiple times while i was reading to ask myself “wait, is this happening right now or is this the past?” It was very confusing. I thought to myself that a second read through was necessary but the same thing happened the second time and again the third time. At that point, i had proven to myself that it was not a defect in my reading or analysis, it was just that i did not agree with the way that Baldwin chose to structure this story. I was confused when the narrator was discussing his return from the war for his mother’s funeral. It was discussed as if it was happening in the present but based on context clues i knew that it happened in the past. The fact that i had to go back and forth on that issue and many issues after that lead me to dislike the story.

1 and 2 week 9

To be honest I did not get this story at all. This is he first short story where I had no idea what was going on. I could tell that the narrator was talking about the meaning of life at one point. I could follow the way beginning enough to know that the narrator was on a journey and the setting was in a mountainous area. After that it went blank. I was like random sentences on a paper that didn’t make sense. I think the deeper meaning of this is the narrator is going deep into his mind to find the meaning of life but he has to have something wrong with him. Nobody thinks that random in the 20th century. It was almost as If the narrator’s mind was deteriorating through out the story because he made less and less sense as the story went on.

1 and 2

These stories were very confusing to me and I found that I had a very hard time following them. Once I get bored or lost in a story it makes it harder for me to understand them and have the motivation to finish them. I do not want to keep reading something that does not make sense to me. This story really has nothing that you would imagine a normal short story would have. There was absolutely no action whatsoever, not even in the slightest. There wasn’t really even a setting either, we also couldn’t find any characters. It was almost as if the story was being told by this lone disembodied voice that didn’t belong to anyone. Yes someone had written the story but they hadn’t written any life into it at all. With the texts we found ourselves asking the question what does it mean to exist or be? If there is a disembodied voice telling the story does anything or anyone exist in the story? It is unknown. How can we speak or know about something that is unspeakable or unknowable? It is discouraging, kind of like having to read something you don’t understand. Yes, you may reach the end of it but in time you will find that all it was and all it meant to you was words on a page. In the end it was as if you had not even read it in the first place. Like having a disembodied voice, it makes you wonder if it is actually there at all or just a figment in your imagination.

Sonny’s Blues

In Sonny’s Blues I believe tha narrator’s information was left out in order to allow the reader to step into the role of the narrator. It is much easier to relate to a character if they are left up to interpretation. This was very smart of the writer and made it easier for the readers to make connections and feel more involved and a stronger connection to the story. Sometimes the writer’s lack of details make it hard to comprehend the exact situation he is referring to. This is an example of how lack of detail and specificity can hurt a story. Overall I think the techniques the author used were successful, and when read slowly the story is manageable. It is easy to see that the narrator is struggling with some things in their life. Because the characters spend much time reminiscing on past events and deciding how they feel about certain things it is easy to see a possible connection to the author. When someone spends that much time looking at their past they are afraid they have made incorrect decisions and worry about how their future will be affected. This story was also so beneficial to the author because of this though. Because they were able to talk through the issues of the character, it gave them enough distance from the situation that they are able to analyze the situation and see the big picture rather than all the separate parts.

Sonny’s Blues

Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” at first was confusing to read with the several flashbacks that are included in the text. After rereading it a second time, it was much easier to separate what the flashbacks were form the text. This nonlinear structure of the story is associated with chaos and disorder. I believe Baldwin does this intentionally. The descriptions of Harlem in the jazz era were bleak and pessimistic. It seemed that the people that grew up in Harlem would just stay there creating trouble and struggling for the rest of their lives. This lifestyle was simply a vicious cycle. The narrator however, became a teacher and left the predictable life of Harlem.  The narrator’s brother, Sonny, though got arrested and the brothers seldom talked to one another until Sonny cleaned up his act. Sonny’s music rehearsal creates an epiphany for the narrator. Seeing Sonny in that atmosphere made the narrator realize who Sonny is and what he is capable of. This quote describes the story more than any other quote: “Yet, as the cab moved uptown through the streets which seemed, with a rush, to darken with dark people, and as I covertly studied Sonny’s face, it came to me that what we both were seeking through our separate cab windows was the part of ourselves which had been left behind.” The narrator and Sonny are both struggling with their lived. The two windows they look out of as they’re in the cab symbolize the two perspectives they have as they struggle with the same neighborhood. The feeling they are sharing is a ghostly reminiscence of the part of themselves they left behind.

“Sonny’s Blues”

This story, written by James Baldwin, is a story with, yet another, unnamed narrator.  I believe that Baldwin has done this to add a little mystery to the story.  To keep the reader wondering who the narrator really is.  Baldwin may have also done this to leave the interpretation of the narrator up to the reader.  One thing I’d like to point out about this short story is that every motif and theme seems to relate to christianity in some way.  In this story, the narrator was told to carefully watch over his brother by their mother.  Suddenly, the mother dies and the brother’s life becomes stricken with prison and drug-abuse.  This is extremely similar to the story in the bible of that of Cain and Abel.  The narrator is not sure as to whether he is supposed to be his “brother’s keeper” if you will.  At first, the narrator tells his brother that he is as good as dead to him and fails to be that keeper.  However, as time goes by he sees the light and carries out his mother’s wish that he would watch over his brother; just as after Cain murdered Abel, he came to the light, light being Jesus, and confessed his sins and went on to be a man of worship and holiness.  There are other themes and motifs in this story that relate to the bible such as the theme that being angry and holding grudges holds no reward in the long run.  To me, it’s as if the author, Baldwin, is trying to teach the readers of his story a lesson and point them in the right direction by writing a story that shows what happens when one does follow his heart, and when one ignores it.

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2

As where Samuel Becketts number 1 revolved completely around this disembodied self, searching for answers in a contradicting world.  “2” is different in the sense that we are actually given characters.  It is more of an attempt at showing how the essence of 1 exists in everyone.  And a large part of life is understanding this concept, and observing all these people as singular entities, just like yourself.  To me, I see these stories as steps.  The first step “1” is this journey into self where nothing matters except this confused voice in your head that is tried to get straight over and over again.  So 1) We are this perpetual level of living between two or more truths.  Once we realize that we take it to step 2) We are all extremely similar in our disembodied selfs.  By understanding these similarities, connections can be made through people, and relationships formed etc.  But the core of it is, you can not understand someone else before understanding yourself.  Even if your understanding of self is a huge contradiction, because it is more than likely that this confused state is what the majority of people exist in.  I don’t particularly like how ambiguous he is with his stories mainly because I think these big ideas would have a hell of an easier time being passed between minds if a different approach was taken, but I guess that would have been boring for Beckett.

1

This story by Samuel Beckett is probably one of the most experimental I have ever read, but that does not mean that it is not also probably the most intelligent story I’ve read this semester.  Intelligent in the sense that all aspects of the traditional story, such as setting, plot and character are all discarded and reworked magnificently to also portray or carry the message of the story.  Or rather, these parts of a traditional story are manipulated in a way that reflects the occasion for which this story is written.  That occasion, I believe, is an existential crisis, in which nothing makes sense to the speaker.  The speaker is a disembodied voice juggling very intense problems within his/her/it’s psyche.  Problems such as determinism and free will, the ontology of life, has the voice spiraling deeper and deeper into this dark world of contradictions.  These contradictions found in every day life are highlighted by the writer repetitively contradicting himself at every corner.  I actually think every statement he makes, he goes back and rephrases it to mean the exact opposite of what he initially said.  The lack of character, setting, and plot gives the reader this feeling of floating in nothingness.  It is as if a whole narrative was written, the only this voice was plucked out and suspended in air.  This levitating anxiety is Samuel Becketts “1”

The Vane Sisters

While reading The Vane Sisters, I can say that I was very confused. I thought that there were many thoughts going on in one story and that tripped me up.  We first learn that Cynthia has died, only because the narrator has come into contact with an old colleague D. We soon learn that this death meant something to him because he had had a relationship with Cynthia years ago. The reason I found this so confusing is because the only reason he meet Cynthia was because of the death of her sister, and his former student Sybil. While reading the story, it never really seemed that the narrator loved Cynthia, instead was just an interesting person to hang out with. Cynthia believed that dead people controlled everything, and it was evident that the narrator had a different belief on the matter. Two people who have completely different beliefs about that are clearly going to butt heads. When the narrator realizes Cynthia has died, this belief of hers becomes almost eerie and ironic towards the narrator. He begins to think that Cynthia’s ghost will come back to haunt him, just as she had always believed. He does all in his power to dispute these beliefs of hers, and justifies rational thought as much as he can. The part that I found weird in the story is that he all of a sudden cared about Cynthia again after she died. However, for years before, she did not matter. It was almost as if her ghost was haunting him because all of these thoughts were coming back to him.