The One That Got Away - Short Story Blog 4 (Interpreter of Maladies)

"When she whipped out the hairbrush, the slip of paper with Mr. Kapasi's address on it fluttered away in the wind. No one but Mr. Kapasi noticed."

~Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies

I think it's much better that the address flew away. If Mrs. Das had kept it, Kapasi would have just gotten a couple pictures and then never heard from her again. He would eventually have to accept that she has a husband and doesn't really like him that much. His life obviously sucks, and does he really need that right now? Or ever, for that matter? Because he saw the address fly away, he can at least pretend someone wants to communicate with him, but she just never got the chance. Sometimes, I think we need to be able to imagine things are the way we want them to be. Even if it's not true, he got a little bit of hope from the situation which can keep him going for a while. It sounds harsh, but at least there is some positive in this story.

It's Going to Be Lengen, Wait For It... Dary! - Short Story Blog 3 (How I Met My Husband)

"So I said yes, and I went out with him for two years and he asked me to marry him, and we were engaged a year more while I got my things together, and then we did marry."

~ Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband


The title is not the only ridiculously similar characteristic shared by How I Met My Husband and the popular television comedy How I Met Your Mother. The two are very structurally similar. How I Met Your Mother is a show about Ted, who is telling his children the story of how he met their mother. He takes many seasons to get there (and it still isn't over yet), and tells them about many, many, many, many women that he meets along the way. How I Met My Husband is very much the same. Edie tells the story of how she met her husband, although most of the story is comprised of her experiences with another man. She only gets to her husband in the last two paragraphs; in Mother, the series will end with Ted meeting his wife. The two also have pretty much the exact same idea of telling the story of how the main characters met their spouses.

That's Awkward (Dramatic Irony) - Short Story Blog 2 (How I Met My Husband)

"He always tells the children the story of how I went after him by sitting by the mailbox every day, and naturally I laugh and let him, because I like for people to think what pleases them and makes them happy."

~ Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband


This last part of the story made me really uncomfortable - the dramatic irony was just too much! First of all, she writes this whole long story about how she obviously loves the pilot (and probably is still in love with him), even though they only had a brief fling. She talks about how she admired him and bonded with him, and then he just leaves her and never responds, so she settles for the mailman. Who, by the way, only has two paragraphs. Her husband only has two paragraphs, but her four-minute infatuation gets a freakin' novel. While we as readers know all of this, the mailman doesn't. When he thinks she is interested in him, we all know she's just waiting to be swooped up by a different man; this makes it SUPER awkward when he tells his children she couldn't stay away from him. Can you imagine her telling him the truth? "Umm, no honey, I was actually desperately in love with another man and still am..."

This kind of makes me think of women today. Women say they want a nice guy, but they always go for the bad boy when given the chance. The respectful guy just isn't that exciting, and especially for naive, sheltered girls (think about Roncalli girls. I fear for the female portion of our grade next year), someone who is a little more aggressive is a very intriguing and enticing idea. But, fear not, good guys, you all prevail in the end. A woman will always settle down with the nice man when she is ready to grow up and face reality. And that is exactly what Edie did.

Suspense. Or Lack Thereof - Short Story Blog 1, Week 1 (A Rose for Emily)

"Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint ad invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair."

~ William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily


Okay, that ending was pretty messed up. Although the end may give people the creeps, the story ironically lacks suspense. Usually, when horror movies/books or thrillers progress, you ascertain information as the plot continues - you find out one element of the real story at one time. Finally, the protagonist is mucking around in some situation they shouldn't be (i.e. breaking into that creepy neighbor's house and going through his stuff, going down into the basement after hearing strange noises, or doing some type of ancient voodoo to evoke the presence of a ghost to hopefully get rid of it, though you usually die afterwards), then, that big piece of evidence is found and the light bulb goes off in the protagonist's head. This is then followed with a chase/killing scene where either the good guy or the bad guy ends up dead. (I think horrors generally end with the good guy dying and thrillers with the bad guy. Not always, but it's just a speculation) Yes - Emily kills her husband so he won't leave her and sleeps with his dead body every night, but we aren't scared throughout because the story isn't in chronological order. I'm sure Faulkner actually did the non-chronological thing to create suspense, but it actually just created more questions. While we do want to know what's happening in this type of story, the plot was all screwed up because it jumped around so much that you had to read it two or three times before even understanding it. You kind of understood the ending, so it was almost like reading a spoiler alert beforehand. It would have been much more effective if Faulkner had stuck to chronological order and just given us pieces of information at a time. Now please enjoy this picture of a creepy old lady.