Instructions
So far, in Self Help, 3 out of the 4 stories have been written in 2nd person. As the title suggests, these 2nd person stories have been written out as sort of instructions. In 2 of the stories we read, "How to be an Other Woman" and "A Kid's Guide to Divorce", these instructions have been very specific, clearly telling a story through these instructions. Every detail is clear in both of these stories, and it gives the effect of being in the story rather than reading them as instructions.
However, in the story "How", I noticed a few differences. For the most part, it is the same sort of 2nd person style, with very detailed, exact instructions on what will happen and what you should do in response. The first time I was reading, however, I noticed a few places where Moore breaks this. Rather than specifying an exact detail that needs to be true, she gives multiple options for some details. This created the effect of those details not really seeming to matter. The story is so specific for the most part, much like the other two, that if those details have multiple interchangeable options, then they must not be important things that need to be set in stone. The story actually starts out this way with figuring out how the two characters meet. It doesn't really matter where you met him, what he does, the only thing that really matters is that he exists. Right off the bat, this set a different feeling in the story for me. It made this story feel more like a self-help book, more like instructions, since it applies to multiple different scenarios. While as the story progresses, important details get ironed out and the story does become more about one person, the fact that Moore keeps some of these details vague and unimportant doesn't allow me to fully experience the character. I can't be the character because all of these insignificant details change, allowing me to see multiple different things that could happen. It's an interesting effect, telling a story that's clearly about one person yet simultaneously not necessarily having to be strictly one thing, preventing me from experiencing the events through the character's mind.
I would probably still be able to experience the story from the character's point of view were it not for a passage at the top of page 57. While most of the details can be overlooked, ignored as I read the story, this particular passage stuck out to me: "Somehow - in a restaurant or a store - meet an actor. From Vassar or Yale. He can quote Coriolanus's mother. This will seem good. Sleep with him once and ride home at 5 a.m. crying in a taxicab. Or: don't sleep with him. Kiss him good night at Union Square and run for your life". The details up to this point that can be interchanged have all been insignificant, not impacting the story at all. And I suppose this detail is also trivial to the narrator. Sleep with him, don't sleep with him, he doesn't really matter, he isn't really important. I really wasn't able to see the story from the perspective of the character from this, however. For me, the two details are so different that it forced this strange perspective of not being able to experience the story as about a single character and yet at the same time it only being able to be about one specific person's experiences. It's a really interesting way to give a fresh take on a 2nd person perspective, and it also has a way of telling the reader which details are important or not.
However, in the story "How", I noticed a few differences. For the most part, it is the same sort of 2nd person style, with very detailed, exact instructions on what will happen and what you should do in response. The first time I was reading, however, I noticed a few places where Moore breaks this. Rather than specifying an exact detail that needs to be true, she gives multiple options for some details. This created the effect of those details not really seeming to matter. The story is so specific for the most part, much like the other two, that if those details have multiple interchangeable options, then they must not be important things that need to be set in stone. The story actually starts out this way with figuring out how the two characters meet. It doesn't really matter where you met him, what he does, the only thing that really matters is that he exists. Right off the bat, this set a different feeling in the story for me. It made this story feel more like a self-help book, more like instructions, since it applies to multiple different scenarios. While as the story progresses, important details get ironed out and the story does become more about one person, the fact that Moore keeps some of these details vague and unimportant doesn't allow me to fully experience the character. I can't be the character because all of these insignificant details change, allowing me to see multiple different things that could happen. It's an interesting effect, telling a story that's clearly about one person yet simultaneously not necessarily having to be strictly one thing, preventing me from experiencing the events through the character's mind.
I would probably still be able to experience the story from the character's point of view were it not for a passage at the top of page 57. While most of the details can be overlooked, ignored as I read the story, this particular passage stuck out to me: "Somehow - in a restaurant or a store - meet an actor. From Vassar or Yale. He can quote Coriolanus's mother. This will seem good. Sleep with him once and ride home at 5 a.m. crying in a taxicab. Or: don't sleep with him. Kiss him good night at Union Square and run for your life". The details up to this point that can be interchanged have all been insignificant, not impacting the story at all. And I suppose this detail is also trivial to the narrator. Sleep with him, don't sleep with him, he doesn't really matter, he isn't really important. I really wasn't able to see the story from the perspective of the character from this, however. For me, the two details are so different that it forced this strange perspective of not being able to experience the story as about a single character and yet at the same time it only being able to be about one specific person's experiences. It's a really interesting way to give a fresh take on a 2nd person perspective, and it also has a way of telling the reader which details are important or not.
I agree that this story seemed a bit more hypothetical (and actually like a self-help book) than some of the others, because Moore was detailing not a specific situation but a "kind" of situation in which one might find oneself. I definitely was thrown off by the contrast of the vagueness at the beginning followed by more specifics at the end though, and I'm not quite sure what to make of that.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it would seem important, whether or not "you" ends up sleeping with this actor or not--this does seem different from some of the other "multiple choice" moments in this narrative. But I don't know, maybe it's an even graver indictment of this unsatisfying relationship that ostensibly "cheating on" this guy doesn't actually matter much, if the emotional effect is the same. The guy can quote Coriolanus's mother--he stands as a kind of cultured, intriguing alternative to the guy she's with, who "doesn't even know who Coriolanus is" (and it will change precisely nothing if he goes and looks it up!). The point is that her current partner pales in comparison to this charming "actor," and everything she sees seems to drive home just how little chemistry they have.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the sleep with him was ambiguous. Your character in this story is obviously supposed to develop some sort of relationship with this man but how? I still enjoyed the inevitability of the choose your own adventure with Moore's How.
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