House by Tracy Kidder (Profile Reading)

Tracy Kidder's House is a short but concise tale about the daily life and routine of a carpenter in Apple Corps, and also the ways they deal with imperfection. A noteworthy mention for this piece is Kidder's attention to detail and dialogue. Kidder selects specific details that bear meaning to his subject and uses short dialogues to make the reading more dynamic. A good example would be the cat's paw, which he writes:

Each carpenter owns a short handed crowbar with a rounded claw known as the cat's claw...

"What would a carpenter do without a cat's paw, Ned?"

"Buy one," Ned replies

None of them carries his cat's paw, but each knows where it is. If he makes a mistake, he has to get the tool

The details that Kidder emphasizes doesn't just describe the scene, but sought to tell readers a little about the people that is being mentioned in his piece--how the carpenters aren't pessimistic but still aware that errors occur. In addition, the short and well placed dialogues that Kidder employs also gives flesh to the characters. Dialogues create a sort of intimacy that makes readers feel like their reading a conversation. In this piece, Kidder includes the casual, raw dialogues of carpenters, which is ideal to get readers to feel the rhythm of the job.

This piece, in my opinion, has helped me understand how writing is about being selective of details. Everything has to play a part or make sense in the grand scheme of things. If Kidder highlighted every random description and dialogue that had no relation to the plot, readers would not have learned anything or feel the mixed-uppedness of wanting things to be perfect, but at the same time acknowledging that mistakes happen. An, I think Kidder does a great job in showing that through his descriptions and dialogue.  

 

APE Inspired Essay-My Father and I

My father is not my brother. In fact, I never had a brother before, but I imagined—if I did—he would agree that my father and I were total opposites. My father is a quiet man, I am a chatterbox.

We both have the same dark brown eyes, same round head, same black hair. I imagined that when he was younger, we looked alike. But, he is slightly taller than I am, hands more callous, and grey strands have started to appear on his head. 

He often says i’m wasting food, judging by the amount of scraps left on my plate. His plate was always clean.

My father prefers to be still, I prefer to move around. It didn’t matter if I was going to see my friends or make a quick trip to buy some food, he was always irritated when I tell him i’m leaving.

He loves to buy imitations—watches, bags, electronics—not because he was cheap, but because he thought all the real branded stuff were unnecessarily overpriced. Sometimes, I detest his behavior to buy fakes. For my 17th birthday, he gave me an analog watch as a gift—an imitation. He said the watch was just as durable as the real one, said the glass was impervious to scratches and cracks. A week later the first scratch, then a crack rooted its way through the glass three months later.

He hates waiting. He always says, “I don’t like to wait for people, and I don’t like people waiting for me,” although there have been countless times he left me waiting for an hour after school. And that’s another thing about my dad: He hates to be wrong.

I admit it hurts to be wrong, to have your values and actions scrutinized, but when you are wrong; the best you can do is to apologize, swallow your pride, and shy away. But my father hated the idea of being wrong. It showed weakness. And so, he convinced himself that he could never be subjected to error. I always sought to expose his errors.

Sometimes he sees my tears, but turns away instead of laying his arms around my shoulders. He cries too. In silence. 

We both love watching movies, especially comedies. And when my dad laughs, he emits a distinctive loud high-pitched sound, that resonates around the room. His laugh is so infectious that I find myself laughing with him even if I don’t get the joke.  

My father is not my brother. Sometimes I ask myself what does “Father and Son” mean? Would we be better off more similar than different?

My mother showed me a picture of my dad holding a baby. His arms tenderly wrapping the child’s fragile frame. My father looked calm and delighted as oppose to how stern he looks these days. That child was me. I realized he loves me because I’m his son, his flesh and blood, his imitation, but I am not sure why I love him. I wonder if he has loved me less since the day that picture was taken.

The Words of Six Work Postcards

The Selection

At first, I wondered why Taylor said "it was difficult to find a common theme within all the different stories in Short Takes," but I soon discovered some truth to what she said. Nevertheless, after some arduous searching, I've found three picks that relate to each other both thematically and structurally. These selections are Lawrence Sutin's Six Postcards, Joe Mackall's Words of My Youth, and Kim Barnes Work.   

Theme

The unifying theme that is present in all these short stories is Youth and Maturity.

Mackall's piece is a recount of a moment of his life--young and unrefined--spewing words that he innocently does not fully grasp the meaning, but says it anyways without concern for the consequences. He makes mistakes, and in one account, Mackall was punched in the face for calling the "kid-man's" girlfriend a "dyke." This was a reality check for the author, and he begins to realize the faults of his words, but  concludes that these words naturally come along just like any other typical occurrences. 

Six Postcards is a retelling of Sutin's life accounts growing up. Sutin write about his journey as a boy to fatherhood. He recalls the growing pains with his father, and the feeling of being a father himself--full circle. He talks about the things he observed such as summer girls, and the lessons he learned like the bittersweet moments of taking care a child. 

Kim Barnes talks about the work she has done from her youth to adulthood. The story also focuses on the change of perspective on gender roles. She writes about her mother and her acknowledgement that she is of the submissive sex. On the contrary, in the last section, Barnes is seen in a role reversal as she is a strong woman who chops wood to earn some income for the family.

In my opinion, an important note in nonfiction is the theme. Writing can take many forms, styles and genres; but the most important thing is the central message to the readers. "What's important in this piece and why is this important to the reader" is a question writers should always ask when writing. It provides direction, and not a regurgitation of life accounts that do not add up.

Structure

In terms of structure, all the selected pieces are memoirs of the author. A memoir is a unique form of writing that is used in nonfiction. Unlike an autobiography, a memoir only covers certain portions of the author's life. It is a has a specific focus and seeks to implicitly/explicitly shared the experience and knowledge gained that has changed the author's perspective in life. 

These pieces also incorporate paragraph breaks--either by adding sub-titles or numbers. This is to signify a transition to a different segment of the author's life, a different lesson to be told. This method also compliments the memoir style as it only focuses on the experiences that matter--as opposed to an autobiography that seeks to reveal every chronological detail. 

In nonfiction, it is important to focus on what's important. Memoirs, as mentioned earlier, is a selection of crucial life-changing events that tell something about the writer and delivers a message to readers. I sometimes find myself inclined to write as many details as possible in my stories, trying to draw the scene as vivid as possible, but not every detail mattered. That crooked nail protruding from the wall would not be of importance to a story about an abusive father beating a child unless it had a purpose. Nonfiction. There is purpose, something to be told in nonfiction.

As Sutin writes: "The names and facts of my life as names and facts are insignificant...All I know is of these things or states and how they made me feel. That would be truth in this book." 

This Too Is Life by Lu Hsun

In his last months before death, Lu Hsun, a man considered by many to be the greatest modern Chinese writer, decides to use the remainder of his life to write two essays that reflect the mortality of a dying man. One of these essays is called This Too Is Life. 

Lu Hsun's essay may not be the easiest of readings. According to the Art of the Personal Essay, the piece incorporates classical Chinese technique which means nothing is straightforward. One of the intriguing aspects of this piece, as a whole, is its formlessness. It is as if Hsun had written his essay simply based on his thoughts, without a clear direction to steer the readers, talking about many themes on life such as illness, exhaustion, comfort. But, despite the lack of coherence between ideas, the essay still manages to convey a couple of key messages to readers--one that comes from the perspective of a dying man.

I particularly enjoyed reading Hsun's odd metaphor in his first passage on tiredness and relaxation. 

"I used often to boast that I did not know what it was to be tired. In front of my desk there is a swivel-chair, and sitting there to write or read carefully was work; beside it there is a wicker reclining chair, and lying there to chat or skim through the papers was rest. I found no great difference between the two, and often boasted of the fact. Now I know my mistake. I found little difference because I was never tired, because I never did any manual labor."

This metaphor, in my opinion is a careful observation of life. People, in general, don't really pay much attention to the comfort level of different types of chairs. It is the privilege of the privilege. And, this opens up to a wider context that only those who have endured suffering and pain, as Hsun encounters in illness, are able to distinguish the differences between the comfort of relaxation and the fearfulness of exhaustion in life, which I think this metaphor and later passages clearly show. 

I was really intrigued when I read the third passage. Hsun had succumbed to an illness, which led him to lose desire to do anything. He writes "I did not brood over death, but neither did I feel alive. This, known as 'the absence of all desire,' is the first step towards death." This sentence is effective because it clearly explains to readers the author's state of mind through the use of contrast. It is also interesting how the second sentence contradicts the first. Although the author did not think deeply toward death, he was, in a way, headed toward death because of his lack of will.The author, in his own mortality, understood that when a person begins to lose the will to live, he starts to die, although he is physically alive.    

The main message Hsun was trying to convey was how life is about looking at things as a whole and not as individual parts. He does this by saying "we notice rare blossoms, not the branches and leaves." This metaphor is simple yet thought provoking. Through the use of clever rhetoric and literary devices, the sentence critics and questions the logic of how we view life as only highlighting the high moments and disregarding the smaller, minor moments that led to that event. We need both parts, the good and bad times in life, to define who we are as a whole.

What is also interesting is the analogy in the next paragraph, which he uses to as an example of failing to look at life as a whole. He employs the fable of the blind man and the elephant. Due to the lack of sight, the blind man mistakes the elephant's foot for a pillar, implying how misleading our lives can be if the person doesn't look at the whole. One of the features of non-fiction is to be resourceful with your stories. Interpretations aside, this paragraph displays Hsun's resourcefulness in incorporating a fable, which originated from India, to spice up his essay.  

Trains to Womanhood

(In a Hunger Games manner) If I had to choose two essays as tribute, I would choose Danielle Daugherty's Innocence to Womanhood and Paul Zimmer's The Trains. I think two essays go well with one another as both these essays tend highlight the author's struggle with certain things in their lives. Danielle, on one hand is searching for inner femininity, of being a woman, while Zimmer is trying to regain the reality he never had. Both essays make good use of simple, concise sentences; let their propel the story; and portray a lot of personal reflections tied to key events of their lives--they try to make sense of things. They're both mixed up, and within their reflections they tend to bring up questions that motivate readers to think as well

What was I thinking? Why do I sit at my writing table at a time like this? (Zimmer)
What does it mean to be a woman? (Daugherty)

The raw emotions and solemn tone-- by using simple,non-extravagant words--makes these two essays a relatable read when pondering about life and struggles.

Onions of Relatibility

What does it mean to be relatable--and why is there a red line when I type this word? Rebecca Onion's article The Awful Emptiness of Relatable poses a thought provoking questions on the nature of relatability and how the present day society(college students) was using the term "relatable" as a default to avoid deeper, more meaningful analysis toward a subject.

"Relatable" is in the eye of the beholder, but its very nature is to present itself as universal. It is shorthand that masquerades as description. Without knowing why you find something "relatable," I know nothing about you or it.

When I think about this passage, the term "empathy" comes to mind. Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings to another. To feel "relatable" toward something, we first need to have the ability understand--we relate to something based on the similarity of experience. But even if we experience something similarly, our perspectives and outcomes that we take from that experience are different. Everyone has experienced failure, failure is relatable, but to what extent we feel failure seeping into our souls is entirely subjective.

And when we find something unrelatable, we become curious to make it "relatable." When did "relatable" begin its reign?  A curious question from the author, and I agree that the word has been used too often to silence further opinions on a matter. The phrase "Oh, yeah I find that relatable!" automatically assumes there is no need for further explanation. Shutting out all opportunities of learning something. Are we just too lazy/afraid to speak our opinions?

Although the article seeks to expose the flaw of the term "relatable," I find the article, as a whole, delightfully informative and ironically "relatable." It all depends on the usage, and even if we find something relatable, just like fingerprints, there is always a distinction, always a glint of individuality that is worth mentioning, always, because no two minds think alike. To what extent are we "relatable?"

Listen:

               In my opinion, the segment that best portrays Rebecca Solnit's concept of intertwined lives, and how we are defined by of others around us, is best described in the first Ice chapter. In this section, the story of Frankenstein and the abomination he created is retold, but instead of just retelling a story, Solnit performs surgery and dissects the author's life to show readers how different consequences are embedded in creating this horror/psychological classic. Just like how the monster's self was a consequence of Frankenstein's rejection and irresponsibility, the author, Mary Shelley, and her defined 'self'' is a consequence of others in her live--her father, her mother, her husband, her dead children.  

Mary was often called as "cold" because she was reserve, and she even said so herself. But, Solnit shows us a different way of "telling" the story: Mary was the mother of dead children, Mary was the wife of a pleasure-loving husband, Mary was the cast-off of her father, Mary was the death of her mother. Who she was, was influenced  by the people around her, and the people around those people. And, out of all that came the inspiration for the novel Frankenstein and the monster. A monster, the embodiment of Mary's loneliness,her father's irresponsibility, her dead children, and husband's neglect. There are other ways of telling.     

Argh!!

Let the arrow of ye compass point true North, lad; and the oars roll forward, leaving behind the "what may" and "what if." For what is an adventure without a hurdle or two? And what is a tale if there be not a sea monster, whose claws were as sharp as obsidian, face as putrid as a corpse on Monday, or a flesh-eating teeth that would shiver yer spine. Ya might come home scarred, without a limb, running to your mama's fanny, or you might be a legend, which stories would entail, making the man part of the myth. But yer be changed either ways. Yer be changed for good.