"Midnight, Licorice, Shadow" by Becky Hagenston
Reading Becky Hagenston's short story Midnight, Licorice, Shadow was a roller-coaster ride of emotions, to say the least. I very much enjoy stories that make me feel all sorts of emotions, and this story did deliver. While I was mortified at the events that transpired at the end, I was left feeling very satisfied with the overall story because the narrator took me on a journey that went from curiosity, to trust, to sympathy, to doubt, to horror, then to sadness, and finally to understanding.
Donna is a very believable character. She is complex enough to keep me interested in her but also not too over-the-top to be cliché or resembling some sort of caricature. She keeps me invested in her life and thought process as she drops little hints about her past that may or may not be elaborated on, but seem to have a pattern and most definitely give dimension to her character. Her distinctive voice develops a trust in me as a reader - at first I was skeptical about Jeremy, but as she narrates and I trust her more and more, I therefore trust Jeremy more and more. This gave much more weight to the end, when Jeremy kills the kitten - I trusted him because Donna trusted him, and so therefore I was just as numb and traumatized as Donna was.
The form of the story is very telling of its theme. I particularly enjoyed the way information was dropped like little bread-crumbs between real-time events and flashbacks until the bits would coalesce, like when Donna sees the family outside her motel room. All her mentions of family and vacations finally merge together to bring to light the important details of her childhood. Or like when she's in Mrs. Jarvis' bathroom and checks the bathtub: "The tub was empty, of course—no old lady lying there with a razor blade beside her, her eyes closed under the red water" (Kardos 236). This shows Donna's fixation with comparison and expectation - she is looking for her traumas while also trying to run away from them. Donna is highly removed from the present moments of her life. She jumps around from memory to memory because she is fragmented in herself. This is why she is so intent on naming the kitten - the search for the cat's name mirrors the search for herself. And she is very far removed from herself, which is why the perspective is in third-person limited. And this is why, when face-to-face with another traumatizing event, she takes on the role of the nameless kitten and continues to search for her self: trauma is recursive like that. (It also begs the question of whose "trip" this is - "Donna" and Jeremy have bonded over this song {I am familiar with the Ritchie Valens song and know the lyrics rather well} and as he "finds her" she momentarily finds herself; whatever trauma they are both running from subsequently eased momentarily but then is shattered when something happens that breaks that shared realty of false peace. But that is another paper for another time.)
I very much enjoyed this story, even though it is rather depressing. I will probably be thinking about for awhile, for many reasons. It is a very well-crafted, complex story, in my opinion.
K.T.Trigg 2017.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Response & Analysis - "Gimpel the Fool"
"Gimpel the Fool" by Isaac Bashevis Singer
I appreciated "Gimpel the Fool"'s focal character's voice, but only after a dubious initial read-through. At first, the language seemed stilted, but then I realized it was translated into English and I learned a bit about Isaac Bashevis Singer, who, for one, only wrote in Yiddish. Then the stilted-ness became part of the characterization and I was reading with a deeper understanding of the sentiments due to the time and place. For enjoying the theater and old films so much, I have only seen Fiddler on the Roof rather recently, but I am glad I did because I could really picture the types of people and the particular internal struggles of righteousness that the main character, Gimpel, encountered (plus, my older sister is a devout, albeit converted, practitioner of Judaism).
Gimpel, the story's eponymous main character, seemed a passive character but it was shown rather early in the story that he was concerned with goodness, which in certain stories creates great internal stakes for the main character; an internal of battle of good and evil followed by some sort of a transcendence is expected to take place.
In the early days of his town's people tricking him, he would try to kid around with them, the people would get angry. So he resolved to allow the teasing: "I believed them, and I hope that at least did them some good" (Singer 994). Gimpel knows people take advantage of him but he believes it better to allow them to think he is a fool. It seems he pities the townspeople, and I think it is due to his fixation with righteousness. The rabbi agrees with him: "It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself" (Singer 995). Gimpel then spends the story trying to be the righteous fool, to the righteous husband, to the righteous father during the course of the story, searching for the dream of paradise, but no less transcending each state he puts himself in. The story does end with Gimpel finding his paradise, but it is an expected internal one, but delivered so poignant and subtly.
Gimpel sets out to raise his status from "fool" and is enticed by the idea of marriage for "when you're married the husband's the master, and if that's all right with her it's agreeable to me too. Besides, you can't pass through life unscathed, nor expect to" (Singer 995). He then finds out that he has been duped by the townspeople into marrying the town prostitute, who already has one bastard and is expecting another. Gimpel simply goes along with all this, accepting his new role as husband and quickly transferring that acceptance to his role as father.
A turning point comes for Gimpel when the second baby is born. He says, "I began to forget my sorrow. I loved the child madly, and he loved me too. ... He was forever catching the evil eye from someone, and then I had to run to get one of those abracadabras for him that would get him out of it" (Singer 997). This might not seem like much more than Gimpe's changing internal emotions manifesting themselves externally, but it is really the beginning of his change to storyteller, the beginning of his path of transcendence to paradise, and therefore godhead.
The indicator, to me, is the offhanded mention of the purchasing of abracadabras for this bastard child Gimpel has come to love. Abracadabras are mystical amulets that protect against evil and sickness. In Hebrew, the words to enchant the amulet sound like "ha bracah dabarah" but literally translates to "speak the blessing". Additionally, in Gnosticism, the word "abrahadabrah" was used to refer to the deity Abraxas or the god who acted as mediator between humans and the overall god-head or creator. To me, the fact that Gimpel is buying these amulets for something he did not have to accept but so markedly changed him indicates to me that he is bound for greater things: perhaps as a mediator between the voices of good and evil to humans by "speaking the blessing", making real what he speaks -- becoming a storyteller.
Eventually Gimpel catches his wife cheating on him. After a humorous and nearly piteous exchange with the rabbi as he fights with his weakness of inaction, he divorces her. But he misses her and the children so much that he tells the rabbi he made a mistake. The rabbi seeks the counsel of other rabbis and one finds "an obscure reference in Maimonides" (Singer 999) that allowed Gimpel to nullify his divorce and return home. Yet Gimpel finds his baking apprentice in bed with his wife upon his return. However, Gimpel "resolved that [he] would always believe what [he] was told," reasoning that "today it's your wife you don't believe; tomorrow it's God Himself you won't take stock in" (Singer 999) indicating that he not just idealizes but values the concept of a righteous man. Righteous men ascend to great heights. So by overlooking his wife's infidelity, he is, at least to himself, a righteous man. And yet on her deathbed, Gimpel feels she is just having one final laugh at him when she admits to her infidelity and that none of the children are his own. Thoughts of revenge against the town's people begin to brew within him.
One night, he is visited in a dream by his perception of the devil who persuades him with a version of the Latin idiom "mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur" to urinate in the bread that Gimpel bakes for the town. The "Spirit of Evil himself" said, "The whole world deceives you...and you ought to deceive the world in your turn. .... Let the sages of Frampol eat filth" (Singer 1001). So Gimpel answered the call to nature in his freshly risen dough. After baking the bread with the apprentice, Gimpel falls into a doze and is visited by the spirit of his late wife who scolds him for his acts. He beings to blame her for his current misfortunes and actions but she tells him, "You fool! Because I was false is everything false too? I never deceived anyone but myself. I'm paying for it all, Gimpel" (Singer 1002). This is Gimpel's climactic inner battle of good and evil. These visions are both aspects of himself, but they are also the archetypal "angel and the devil on the shoulders". Moved by his vision of idyllic righteousness in the form of his late wife to right his wrongs, Gimpel then rushes to bury the freshly baked bread in the dirt, much to the confusion of the apprentice. And then Gimpel says goodbye to his children (he only loved them because they were almost like him, they were essentially half orphans) and then he left his town and out into the world. And even though he would be forever seen as a fool in his hometown of Frampol, he laid to rest one stage of his life by literally burying the bread, the culmination of his sins, so that he could find and transcend into his paradise.
"I heard a great deal, many lies and falsehoods, but the longer I lived the more I understood that there were really no lies. .... The children run after me, calling 'Grandfather, tell us a story.' .... When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived" (Singer 1002-1003). If that doesn't sounds like paradise to Gimpel, after all we have come to know about him, then I don't know what does.
This story was not only compelling, but also very thought-provoking to me. I liked its over-all meta commentary on storytelling. I also appreciated the main character's internal struggle manifesting itself outwardly that ultimately interacted with fate in a powerful way.
To me it reads like a myth -- a living story that serves as a guide to righteous human behavior. Mythology has an ability to act on and explain the psyche and so too does story. Mythology gets humans in touch with an aspect of holiness, and to know holiness is to know eternity. And eternity is synonymous with paradise. In this case, the story of Gimpel's rise into storyteller is him transcending himself yet at the same time acknowledging his roots, this penchant for believing and remembering. Storytellers are given a chance to sort of "play God" in a sense when they create characters and setting -- they ultimately build a world. Gimpel found the elevated status he was searching for (he went from fool, to husband, to father, to traveler, to "grandfather") by becoming a storyteller. But he was able to find this kind of paradise because he believed in and lived by his own righteousness.
K.T.Trigg 2017.
I appreciated "Gimpel the Fool"'s focal character's voice, but only after a dubious initial read-through. At first, the language seemed stilted, but then I realized it was translated into English and I learned a bit about Isaac Bashevis Singer, who, for one, only wrote in Yiddish. Then the stilted-ness became part of the characterization and I was reading with a deeper understanding of the sentiments due to the time and place. For enjoying the theater and old films so much, I have only seen Fiddler on the Roof rather recently, but I am glad I did because I could really picture the types of people and the particular internal struggles of righteousness that the main character, Gimpel, encountered (plus, my older sister is a devout, albeit converted, practitioner of Judaism).
Gimpel, the story's eponymous main character, seemed a passive character but it was shown rather early in the story that he was concerned with goodness, which in certain stories creates great internal stakes for the main character; an internal of battle of good and evil followed by some sort of a transcendence is expected to take place.
In the early days of his town's people tricking him, he would try to kid around with them, the people would get angry. So he resolved to allow the teasing: "I believed them, and I hope that at least did them some good" (Singer 994). Gimpel knows people take advantage of him but he believes it better to allow them to think he is a fool. It seems he pities the townspeople, and I think it is due to his fixation with righteousness. The rabbi agrees with him: "It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself" (Singer 995). Gimpel then spends the story trying to be the righteous fool, to the righteous husband, to the righteous father during the course of the story, searching for the dream of paradise, but no less transcending each state he puts himself in. The story does end with Gimpel finding his paradise, but it is an expected internal one, but delivered so poignant and subtly.
Gimpel sets out to raise his status from "fool" and is enticed by the idea of marriage for "when you're married the husband's the master, and if that's all right with her it's agreeable to me too. Besides, you can't pass through life unscathed, nor expect to" (Singer 995). He then finds out that he has been duped by the townspeople into marrying the town prostitute, who already has one bastard and is expecting another. Gimpel simply goes along with all this, accepting his new role as husband and quickly transferring that acceptance to his role as father.
A turning point comes for Gimpel when the second baby is born. He says, "I began to forget my sorrow. I loved the child madly, and he loved me too. ... He was forever catching the evil eye from someone, and then I had to run to get one of those abracadabras for him that would get him out of it" (Singer 997). This might not seem like much more than Gimpe's changing internal emotions manifesting themselves externally, but it is really the beginning of his change to storyteller, the beginning of his path of transcendence to paradise, and therefore godhead.
The indicator, to me, is the offhanded mention of the purchasing of abracadabras for this bastard child Gimpel has come to love. Abracadabras are mystical amulets that protect against evil and sickness. In Hebrew, the words to enchant the amulet sound like "ha bracah dabarah" but literally translates to "speak the blessing". Additionally, in Gnosticism, the word "abrahadabrah" was used to refer to the deity Abraxas or the god who acted as mediator between humans and the overall god-head or creator. To me, the fact that Gimpel is buying these amulets for something he did not have to accept but so markedly changed him indicates to me that he is bound for greater things: perhaps as a mediator between the voices of good and evil to humans by "speaking the blessing", making real what he speaks -- becoming a storyteller.
Eventually Gimpel catches his wife cheating on him. After a humorous and nearly piteous exchange with the rabbi as he fights with his weakness of inaction, he divorces her. But he misses her and the children so much that he tells the rabbi he made a mistake. The rabbi seeks the counsel of other rabbis and one finds "an obscure reference in Maimonides" (Singer 999) that allowed Gimpel to nullify his divorce and return home. Yet Gimpel finds his baking apprentice in bed with his wife upon his return. However, Gimpel "resolved that [he] would always believe what [he] was told," reasoning that "today it's your wife you don't believe; tomorrow it's God Himself you won't take stock in" (Singer 999) indicating that he not just idealizes but values the concept of a righteous man. Righteous men ascend to great heights. So by overlooking his wife's infidelity, he is, at least to himself, a righteous man. And yet on her deathbed, Gimpel feels she is just having one final laugh at him when she admits to her infidelity and that none of the children are his own. Thoughts of revenge against the town's people begin to brew within him.
One night, he is visited in a dream by his perception of the devil who persuades him with a version of the Latin idiom "mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur" to urinate in the bread that Gimpel bakes for the town. The "Spirit of Evil himself" said, "The whole world deceives you...and you ought to deceive the world in your turn. .... Let the sages of Frampol eat filth" (Singer 1001). So Gimpel answered the call to nature in his freshly risen dough. After baking the bread with the apprentice, Gimpel falls into a doze and is visited by the spirit of his late wife who scolds him for his acts. He beings to blame her for his current misfortunes and actions but she tells him, "You fool! Because I was false is everything false too? I never deceived anyone but myself. I'm paying for it all, Gimpel" (Singer 1002). This is Gimpel's climactic inner battle of good and evil. These visions are both aspects of himself, but they are also the archetypal "angel and the devil on the shoulders". Moved by his vision of idyllic righteousness in the form of his late wife to right his wrongs, Gimpel then rushes to bury the freshly baked bread in the dirt, much to the confusion of the apprentice. And then Gimpel says goodbye to his children (he only loved them because they were almost like him, they were essentially half orphans) and then he left his town and out into the world. And even though he would be forever seen as a fool in his hometown of Frampol, he laid to rest one stage of his life by literally burying the bread, the culmination of his sins, so that he could find and transcend into his paradise.
"I heard a great deal, many lies and falsehoods, but the longer I lived the more I understood that there were really no lies. .... The children run after me, calling 'Grandfather, tell us a story.' .... When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived" (Singer 1002-1003). If that doesn't sounds like paradise to Gimpel, after all we have come to know about him, then I don't know what does.
This story was not only compelling, but also very thought-provoking to me. I liked its over-all meta commentary on storytelling. I also appreciated the main character's internal struggle manifesting itself outwardly that ultimately interacted with fate in a powerful way.
To me it reads like a myth -- a living story that serves as a guide to righteous human behavior. Mythology has an ability to act on and explain the psyche and so too does story. Mythology gets humans in touch with an aspect of holiness, and to know holiness is to know eternity. And eternity is synonymous with paradise. In this case, the story of Gimpel's rise into storyteller is him transcending himself yet at the same time acknowledging his roots, this penchant for believing and remembering. Storytellers are given a chance to sort of "play God" in a sense when they create characters and setting -- they ultimately build a world. Gimpel found the elevated status he was searching for (he went from fool, to husband, to father, to traveler, to "grandfather") by becoming a storyteller. But he was able to find this kind of paradise because he believed in and lived by his own righteousness.
K.T.Trigg 2017.
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