Andrew Foster Altschul's "y=mx+b" (Ploughshares, 2008/09)

What do you get when you mix alliteration with existential crisis and a dog named Barkley? In this case, one cool story.

The pacing is furious, the details craftily vague. Andrew Foster Altschul writes just enough of this character so that anyone who’s ever worked for a day, owned a dog or had an emotion can identify.

"Our man" is in the pits and our narrator wastes no time tellin’ it straight. All this story needs is The Chemical Brothers to write its soundtrack and Guy Ritchie to direct the action. What could have been overwrought alliteration ends up adding an OCD element that matches the protagonist’s predicament perfectly. The predicament is your standard case of cubicle madness. The fiancée, who figures only dimly, is no bright spot. The 30-something blues have descended to make “same ol’, same ol’” a torturous reality. 

This is how the day begins: Badly. Bleary and bloated and many other b-words. There’s vomit on the blanket and he’s not sure whose. Maybe the dog, Barkley? A bottle on the nightstand, a butt in the tray with a dead two-inch ash. The boiler is broken again, the shower bitterly cold. The driveway? Blocked—call a tow truck.

The only upshot is Barkley. It’s the dog who teaches our protagonist to roll with it. If the story can be said to have a moral—and thankfully it cannot—it’s that dogs do this thing called life with more ease and aplomb than a man can ever hope to.

Barkley brings the ball once more, drops it at your side, panting hotly in your face…. Barkley knows best: Sometimes there’s no knowing. Things turn for the worst, no one to blame, no preparing…. And how about the ball? Well, nothing can stop it.

In what amounts to dramatic apostrophe in print (Now I shall address thee, good audience), Foster Altschul calls attention to the story-ness of his story:

(But wait. Let’s think. Let’s break it down. A briefcase? Who carries a briefcase in this day and age? Which day, which age? And who was he calling? ... Booze and cigarettes—that old story?...)

And later: "There are obstacles, tensions, complications galore."

In this case, the meta-narrative doesn’t detract from the story but suggests something beyond itself—maybe it’s the higher consciousness and unfulfilled potential of our man; more likely, it’s the author saying, Look, I know I’m not the first person who’s spun a tale, but I’m going to do it anyway. 

And he does it in a voice all his own. 

-LB

Read the story here!

Chopin's "A Respectable Woman": To Touch or Not to Touch (1894)

Can a well-mannered woman give in to her sensual side and remain well mannered?

Chopin’s Mrs. Baroda is by all accounts a good wife. When her husband dresses, she makes “a bit of toilet sociably” with him. When he has a friend come to town, she regards him with a healthy suspicion. But to her surprise, the strange man awakens in her a physical self, and our virtuous Mrs. Baroda finds herself tested.

Unlike her gregarious husband Gaston, Gouvernail is a soft-spoken, “rather mute and receptive” man. His gentle nature opens a space wherein Mrs. Baroda can discover what might be called her masculine powers:

...finding that Gouvernail took no manner of exception to her action, she imposed her society upon him, accompanying him in his idle strolls to the mill and walks along the batture. She persistently sought to penetrate the reserve in which he had unconsciously enveloped himself.

The subtle inversion of roles seduces Mrs. Baroda, despite her resistance. She cannot help but become attuned to the tactile world, observing for instance, “…the air that swept across the sugar field,” which “caressed him with its warm and scented velvety touch." As Mrs. Baroda and her visitor make conversation under an oak tree, she is nearly overwhelmed by her attraction. 

She was not thinking of his words, only drinking in the tones of his voice…. She wanted to draw close to him and whisper against his cheek—she did not care what—as she might have done if she had not been a respectable woman.

For a time, and in an effort to maintain her faithfulness, Mrs. Baroda requests that her husband never again invite Gouvernail to stay. She gives him the impression that his friend had made a poor houseguest, and she shows “strenuous opposition” when Gaston talks of another invitation.  

At the heart of this story is a woman’s struggle to reconcile what society expects of her with what she desires in private. Before the story starts, we are to assume that Mrs. Baroda was so influenced by external forces that she married a man with whom she shared, apparently, only friendship. It is not until she interacts with Gouvernail that she comes to understand carnality. In a triumphant shedding then of convention and respectability, Mrs. Baroda decides to explore her dormant desires.

Gaston is pleased that she has overcome her distaste for Gouvernail. ‘“Oh,’” she tells her husband, “laughingly, after pressing a long, tender kiss upon his lips, ‘I have overcome everything! you will see. This time I shall be very nice to him.” Chopin seems to believe that respectability is overrated. A woman, her story implies, must learn herself no matter what the risk to her reputation.  

-LB

Read the story here!