Bad Writers are Easy to Find

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Bad Writers are Easy to Find
A Critical Analysis of
Isaac Asimov’s Short Story
The Fun They Had
( read the story )

by Thomas Jay Rush

Asimov’s story lacks almost all the qualities that one would normally look for in a well written story.  His short story writing career started in 1939.  This particular story was written in 1951 – 12 years after his first story.  It seems to me that if this is the level of the man’s work after 12 years of writing then he wasn’t trying hard enough.

The story related a lame episode in a young child’s life about 200 years in the future.  Teachers have been replaced with robots.  Schools are non-existent.  A young boy finds an old book – which is a total novelty to he and his little friend, a neighborhood girl.  The story relates their surprise at the foreign idea of a person teaching a child in a school setting.  Then the story ends.

I find no effective use of simile or metaphor, no use of symbolism or artistry of any form.  I find no under-story, by which I mean a hinted at second layer to the story.  The story is just one layer deep, relating boring events that happen to boring characters.

The basic idea behind the story is silly and sophomoric.  People have stopped teaching children anything.  Children cannot even imagine a day when a human being would stand up in front of a group of children to expound upon some sort of information.  How silly.  Why would anyone ever think that would be a good idea?  I can imagine a day when robots exhibit perfect fidelity to humans when it comes to communicating with human beings.  I can even conceive of a possibility where robots would be better communicators than people – but why in the world would anyone choose to replace a teacher with a machine that is so pathetically worse at communicating than Asimov’s robots are?  It makes absolutely no sense.

Of course, one may interpret the story to be saying that such a thing would not be a good idea and switching to a system where students do not interact with robots is not a good idea, but that’s not saying much.  Its like say ‘We shouldn’t use murders to teach our children.”  Everyone would just say ‘No shit, Sherlock’.

Beside the point that the story is so silly is the fact that the story exhibits no artistic effort whatsoever that I can find.  There are very few similes and/or metaphors.  There are no allusions or references to other writings or other writers, there are no artistic turns of phrase.

Scholar James Gunn, in 1980, wrote of Asimov’s I, Robot:[42]

The robot stories—and, as a matter of fact, almost all Asimov fiction—play themselves on a relatively bare stage.

I think this quote applies to this story as well.  This may be his style but it’s quite poor.

I love Isaac Asimov.  I spent many hours reading a reasonable portion of his 500 published books, but this particular story leaves me very disappointed, which is perhaps why I am so harsh in this analysis.

Even the title of the story sucks.  All Mr. Asimov did was take the last four words in the story and make it his title.  How ridiculous.  No wonder he was able to write 500 books if they sucked as much as this story.  I guess it just goes to show that ‘Bad Writers are Easy to Find’.

Katie is So Funny

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Katie has said two of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.  One time we were talking about something about some kid who didn’t have a father and I said that I thought it was a shame. This made Katie mad because she was friends with this kid and she thought I was insulting him.  She was mad at me – I could tell – and she was just sort of standing there in the kitchen when all of a sudden she said “I wish I didn’t have a Dad.”  I thought this was very funny.

Just now she said something pretty funny too.  She asked me if I had Planet Earth on my computer.  I said, in my best smart ass voice, “Yeah, Katie – I have the third planet from the sun on my computer” – this made her mad again – what she really meant was “Did I have Google Earth on my computer”.  I told her I removed it from my computer because “Google Earth takes up a lot of space and its ugly” because it is and it does.  After a few seconds she said “You take up a lot of space and you’re ugly too, Daddy.”

Deus Ex Machina

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If you have any interest in the novel I wrote in November this definition (which I found online somewhere) says everything:

Deus Ex Machina: Meaning “”a god from a machine,”” originated in Greek drama, in which playwrights sometimes introduced a god to resolve a problem so that a play could end. These intervening gods descended onto the stage by means of a mechanical device. Today, deus ex machina is used to refer to any unlikely, contrived or trick resolution of a plot in any type of fiction. Critics–and readers–generally object to this technique, which is most commonly used by beginning writers.

Turning a Phrase

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Turning a Phrase
A Critical Analysis of
John Updike’s Short Story
A&P
( read the story )

by Thomas Jay Rush

I never understood why people said John Updike was a great writer, however, after reading this story I do.  This is an amazing story.  Mr. Updike’s use of the English language is wonderful – in the literal sense of the word.  He says things in ways that I’ve never heard before.  Is this because he is a southern writer or because he’s a very creative writer. I think it’s probably the latter.

In this simple story a young man is mesmerized by a girl that comes into the store he works in.  The girl, and two of her friends, come into the store wearing only bathing suits.  The story revolves around a description of the prettiest girl, the “queen bee” (Queenie thereafter), as she moves through the store looking for a jar of “Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream: 49¢”.  When the girls finally make their way to the checkout slot the manager of the store chastises the girls for being indecent.  The narrator, a young man that cannot seemingly help himself, quits in protest of the manager’s treatment of the girls.

Throughout the piece Mr. Updike uses the most pleasant choice of words.  His turn of phrase is quite entertaining.  This interesting turn of phrase makes itself know in the first sentence where Mr. Updike simply jumps right in with both feet starting the story with “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits” which is actually a partial sentence, but it totally works.  Other wonderful turns of phrase include him saying that the girl’s upper chest looked “like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light”, saying the girls walked up the “cat-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice-raisins-seasonings-spreads-spaghetti-soft drinks-crackers-and-cookies aisle”, that his friend Stoksie had “two babies chalked up on his fuselage”.  These types of magical formulations appear in almost every paragraph, making reading the story a pure joy.  Careful study of the text, as I’ve done in the table below, is well rewarded.

The author uses a couple of other techniques that I particularly liked as well.  Throughout the beginning of the story he repeatedly refers to things as “white”.  White shoulders, white skin, two crescents of white skin under a girls bathing suit bottoms, white shoulders, white shirts.  This simple symbolism implies the purity of the girls.  It also reiterates the feeling a young man might experience when a slightly scantily clad young women comes near.

The author frequently uses words that can be interpreted as sexual.  For example he uses the word peach twice in the story, peach being a colloquialism for a pretty girl.  At one point he says that one of the characters opened a paper bag as if he as “peeling a peach”, clearly a reference to remove a pretty girl’s clothes.  Almost any time he describes any physical attribute of Queeny the words he chooses can be interpreted as being sexual: “racks”, “rub the inside of my apron”, he uses the word “pink” a lot.

Another technique I enjoyed is found near the middle of the story when the author says “Now here comes the sad part of the story” indicating with no ambiguity whatsoever the transition from the start of the story to the middle and end of the story.  This is an odd thing to do perhaps, but in this story it works perfectly.

The entire concept of the story – on top of its wonderful use of words and interesting phrases – is also very entertaining.  A boy, in a rash moment, thinking he might win the love of a pretty girl, figuratively jumps off a bridge but tragically does not win the girl. That’s cute – and so indicative of something a young man might do.

I think this is an excellent short story. It not too long – it moves quickly – almost every paragraph contains some interesting or delightful turn of phrase – and it tells a cute and fun story. This story was first published in the New Yorker on July 22, 1961, also later appeared in the collection Pigeon Feathers. A short film was made of the story which you may view here.

I do not find a whole lot of symbolism in the story.  Some writers interpret the A&P to be a symbol of middle class society – and Sammy’s rebellion against the A&P as a rebellion against convention, but I don’t see that.

A list of the interesting or unusual phrasing in this piece:

Phrase

My Reaction
? In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits   This is the opening sentence.  It’s titillating.  Its interesting.  I want to find out about these girls. 
? soft-looking can   Describing a fat girl’s ass. 
? two crescents of white just under it   A place on the girl’s ass that is not tanned but shows.  Good observation. 
? one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty   Updike is mean to the regular customers in this story – he shows them disdain every time he mentions one. 
? By the time I got her feathers smoothed   He made the customer feel better.  The customer is a bird.  Other customers are compared to pigs, sheep, etc. 
? a little snort   There is a recurring theme of customers being pigs in this story. 
? one of those chubby berry-faces    A strange description of someone’s face, but you get the idea clearly. 
? white prima donna legs    Updike starts describing the prettiest girl as a queen early in the story and then calls her Queeny from there on.  This is how he describes Queeny’s legs. 
? dirty-pink – – beige maybe, I don’t know — bathing suit with a little nubble…    First of all he interjects the little ‘I don’t know’ in there reminding us that he was there and it is he that is describing this story.  Secondly – the use of the word nubble is titillating.  You can feel this young man’s boner growing. 
? looped loose around the cool tops of her arms    Why does he add the word “cool” here?
? shining rim    The slim sliver of white skin exposed by her bathing suit top hanging down because her shoulder straps are off her shoulders.  To notice that this thin strip of white skin even exists – and then to make it clear how sexy that is – is one of the reasons why this is a great writer. 
? like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light   An odd way, but wonderful, to describe her shoulders the part of her body  between the bottom of her shoulders and the top of her chest. 
? kind of dirty-pink…sort of oaky hair…

kind of prim face…

   Use of “kind of” and “sort of” is the character talking.  It gives us an idea of where this kid speaking came from. 
? oaky hair that the sun and salt had bleached   A good description.  Very clear what color it is. 
? She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my shoulder Stoksie…    An odd but poetic way of putting it.  Weird punctuation.
? but she didn’t tip   She didn’t let on that she had noticed the boys noticing her.  I find the word “tip” suggestive somehow. 
? …her eyes moving across the racks, and stopped, and turned so slow it made my stomach rub the inside of my apron…    His stomach was not the only thing rubbing against the inside of his apron.  The word “racks” is suggestive.
? …when Queenie’s white shoulders dawned on them…   Describing the other customers as they encountered this girl walking around with her bathing suit top down.  The word “dawned” is perfect. 
? cat-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice-raisins-seasonings-spreads-spaghetti-soft drinks-crackers-and-cookies aisle    A funny way of saying it.  You can feel the young writer flexing his muscles.
? The sheep   Again a stab at the customers this time as sheep. 
? this jiggled them   Used to describe how the customers felt when the encountered Queeny’s white shoulders – but the word “jiggled” implies that they encountered something else as well. 
? house-slaves in pin curlers   Another mean shot at the customers. 
? …all those stacked packages, with her feet paddling along naked over our checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor .    The words “stacked” and “naked” again hinting at the authors growing interest in this girl.  The “green-and-cream rubber-tile floor” just a fun way of saying it and very visual.
? …two babies chalked up on his fuselage already    World war two reference which would have been prevalent when this was written.  Shows a nineteen year old’s lack of respect for fatherhood. 
? Great Alexandrov and Petrooshki Tea Company   A joke that in the 1950’s would have been read as the Russian’s taking over the country. 
? big summer colony out on the Point… we’re north of Boston.    The summer colony is of rich people – like Queeny, not him.  He lives in a town where some people “haven’t seen the ocean for twenty years”.  This paragraph is where Updike inserts setting.  He doesn’t make a big deal of it.  It is just naturally part of the story. 
? varicose veins mapping their legs   Again with the attack on the older women shoppers. 
? twenty-seven old free-loaders tearing up Central Street   OK John.  Let’s attack the old guys bums now.  Showing disrespect for everyone – as young late teenage boys do. 
? Diet Delight peaches    The girls are peaches.
? sizing up their joints   Joints is interpreted loosely here. 
? Now here comes the sad part of the story    He’s helping the reader understand that he’s moving into the middle of the story. 
? The whole store was like a pinball machine…. around the light bulbs..    This is such an unusual way to put it but it is 100% understandable.  This is perfect.  The little added “around the light bulbs” is perfect. 
? an old party in baggy gray pants    A bum.  A little bit of respect here “old party” but he means bum. 
? into my fingers icy cold   Technically this says that his fingers were icy cold but its clear he means the jar.  Interesting that the word cold or cool is used frequently in this piece.  Queeny is cool – unapproachable – unattainable. 
? Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream: 49¢.   Wonderful detail.  Its things like this that makes this story stand out.  This is a memorable detail. 
? the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top   The word “nubble” again.  What does that make you think of? 
? The jar went heavy in my hand   What he’s saying is that he was stunned when she reached into her bathing suit top to get her money, as any nineteen year old red-blooded American boy would be. 
? Then everybody’s luck begins to run out.   Especially the author’s.
? haggling with a truck full of cabbages   Lengel, a new character, doesn’t just come in he comes in from haggling with a truck full of cabbage.  He’s not haggling with a truck driver, nor with the cabbage, but with the truck full of cabbages.  Another perfect detail. 
? the girls touch his eye    He doesn’t just see them – they “touch his eye”. 
? the way it [her voice] ticked over “pick up” and “snacks.”    The use of the word “ticked” is interesting.
? All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room…   What an interesting way of saying it.  In other words he understood her.  This is almost cinematic – you can almost see the camera going down her throat and arriving in her living room. 
? a really sweet can   “can” is an old fashioned word now.  It makes the story a bit nostalgic. 
? her lower lip pushing   Every time this guy describes something about this girl’s physical body it is titillating.  “Lower lip pushing” is titillating. 
? her very blue eyes.   The word “very” here is quite effective.  Queeny is no ordinary person with ordinary blue eyes. 
? shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a peach   That’s pretty gentle.  Not to mention that if one thinks of the girls as peaches then “peeling a peach” has a sexual connotation. 
? it begins to make a little song    Let’s throw sound into the party while we’re at it.  Just an added bit of fun. 
? two smoothest scoops of vanilla   A tasty way to describe Queeny’s tits. 
? her narrow pink palm   Take every opportunity, John to remind us of her sexuality.  The use of the word “pink” is suggestive. 
? they flicker across the lot to their car   Why “flicker”?  Because of the electric eyes?  Just fun.
? Leaving me with Lengle and a kink in his eyebrow.    Lengle is pissed.
? I started to say something that came out “Fiddle-de-doo.”    That is just funny.
? …like scared pigs in a chute.   Let’s take one more shot at the customers before we end. 
? The bow tie is theirs, if you’ve ever wondered.    Never did – but thanks for letting me know.
? in my white shirt that my mother ironed the night before    Why does he add this detail?  Cause he’s an great writer that’s why.  It hints toward the difficulty he is going to have when he explains why he lost his job. 
? the door heaves itself open    I would have just said the door opened but like the artist he is Updike never passes up an opportunity to be wonderful. 
? outside the sunshine is skating around on the asphalt.   How can someone ever think to say something so interesting? 
? my girls   Now they are his girls.  He wishes.  He will probably never see them again. 
? as if he’d just had an injection of iron   Iron backbone – what Sammy just exhibited. 

Interesting Animated Poem

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This is interesting I think:

  
The Dead
by Billy Colins

The dead are always looking down on us,
they say,

while we are putting on our shoes
or making a sandwich,
they are looking down
through the glass bottomed boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly
through enternity.

They watch the tops of our heads
moving below on earth
and when we lie down
in a field
or on a couch,
drugged perhaps
by the hum of a warm afternoon,

they think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift thier oars
and fall silent and wait,
like parents,
for us to close our eyes.

Pillows

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I belong to this website called http://allpoetry.com where I post some poems but mostly because I get to read a lot of poems from other people.  This one guy, called Uncle Dunk, posted this one poem there that was really funny (I thought).  His poem was in response to a picture prompt contest (someone posts a picture and people are supposed to write a poem in response to the picture).  His poem is here http://allpoetry.com/poem/5681793.

You’re allowed to make comments on other people’s poetry so I wrote:

I used to have a pillow
that me wife was jealous of
Because I held it tightly, nightly
And whispered it sweet love.

I came home from work one night
Found that she too had killed me pillow
But, when I found her in the bedroom,
She had surrounded herself with jillow.

To which he wrote:

What a brilliant use of ‘Jillo’
My, you are a clever fillow.

 Which I thought was a very funny thing for him to say.  http://allpoetry.com is a cool site.  You should check it out.

NaNoWriMo

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I’ve been done with my ‘novel’ for a couple of days. It was a amazing thing to do for me. I learned a lot – mostly what not to do – for example – don’t start writing a book without having any idea of the plot. That’s the first lesson. Second lesson – do not stop typing no matter what and you will eventually get to the end. Third lesson – never allow anyone to read your first draft.

Here’s a quote from Nate “Daddy, if you write one novel for each of the next 20 years – at least one of them will be the best you can do.” Thanks Nate. That’s great. Really appreciate that. I put the novel, called Sea Isle City, in a box in the attic and there it stays forever.

I have started taking notes for my next novel. Back to poetry for a couple of weeks.

Day #10

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I did it.  I wrote my 50,000 word just now.  I am done.  I’ve written a novel.  I would never in a million years allow anyone to ever read it.  In fact I think it should probably be deleted – but its done.  In just 10 days.  5,000 words a day.  I can do this.  I can write.  I always sort of knew I could in the back of my mind but now I know for sure.

Day #9

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Its the morning of the ninth day.  I have only abuot 7,500 more words to go to get to 50,000 so I am 100% confident that I will make it.  I long ago gave up the hope that this book would be anything other than a total mess so how the book ends doesn’t matter to me.  The only thing that matters is that it will indeed end.  I know how its going to end so that makes things a lot easier.

I’ve learned a huge amount about writing a book – 1) its not that hard to physically write the book – it only took nine days – I can do anything for nine days 2) its really hard to write a good book 3) I should have a much better idea of where the book is going before I start 4) its important to do some sembelence of research and/or planning.

I’m going to finish today or tomorrow.  I plan on printing the thing out (190 pages) on A5 paper and having it two side copied and bound.  Feeling pretty good about it – can’t wait to start the next novel.

Day #8 (redux)

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Just reached 40,000 words.  I know I’m going to finish but at this point I don’t even care any more.  The work has gotten so stupid and boring at this point that I just want to finish it so I can start another novel – a real novel.  This one is just a play novel.  But I did actually physically write the entire thing in two weeks which pretty much amazes the shit out of me.

Day #8

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35,900 words.  I think I pushed through the wall because I saw the end of the story so I started writing towards the end of the story but now I’ve arrived there too quickly and I have to come up with 15,000 words after the climax of the story – the climax was a stupendously large storm that wiped out an entire city – the nine people that were all having trouble thinking of things to do in the city are now sitting on an island that has been wiped completely clean.

Due to various unusual things (about which I am too embarrassed to report) they cannot get off the island and no-one can get on.

So – basically – what happened yesterday is I wrote about 7,000 words about a storm that moved them from an island with a city in which they were bored to an island without a city on which they are bored.

I move on – forging ahead – I can see the end – only 15,000 words left – so that’s a much better thing than yesterday morning.

Day #7

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Day 7 of NaNoWriMo and I’m doing better today than yesterday.  I pushed through the big black void.  Not because I actually thought of anything for my characters to do but because I stopped caring if they had anything to do – it you can’t beat them join them.

At one point yesterday I had invented a character who’s great great grandfather had invented the bicycle.  I did this simply to allow me to explain why the entire group of my nine characters, all of whom had found beach rentals on the same block, were choosing to ride around the beach town they were in on bicycles.  I needed the bicycles because I had already had each of them walk around the beach town twice, and I was getting a little bored with all the walking.  I thought it would be interesting to have the bike instead of just walk.  It wasn’t.

But last night I decided to not worry about it and just push forward.  I’ve written about 5,000 words since then, but I am now at around 32,000 so I can sort of see a glimmer of the end.  If I ever choose to I can go back and re-write this entire thing – I just want to get to the end at this point.  You can be sure that bicycles will play a small part in draft 2.  And I’m pretty sure that the inventor of the bicycle will be nowhere to be found (I’m keeping him in the first draft so I can keep the word count high).

I will try to recount some more unfortunate choices I’ve made in tomorrow’s post.

Day #6

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I’m going to try to document, even if only for myself, what’s happening to me during this NaNoWriMo.  I’ve been writing for about three hours every day for the last week.  I started writing without any real plan about what was going to happen.  Now I am about half way through the process (word count wise) and I’ve come upon an unfortunate realization.  The realization is this – one should plan ahead when one writes a 10,000 word novelette let alone a 50,000 word novel.

I’ve completely lost the track of the story – as if there ever was one.  As I said yesterday, at one point in the story I had a guy sitting on a couch watching TV and he couldn’t think of anything to do with himself.  While I did accurately (and if I must say so myself, not inartfully) describe the guy’s pain I think I may have allowed the author’s feelings to come through a little bit too forcefully.

I gets worse….but I’ll wait to share that mess with you until tomorrow.

NaNoWriMo

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I started NaNoWriMo on November 2.  The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel (that’s about 175 pages – really a Novella).  One is supposed to write this novel over the 30 days of November.  I started writing on Nov 2nd (one day late).  As of today I have 20,495 words.  Almost half way through – but – today I wrote the following sentence:

“John sat there watching TV.  He couldn’t think of anything else to do.  He just sat there staring at the screen.  Think Think he thought.  He couldn’t think of anything.”

I’ve reached what I would call a huge – black – unimaginably dark empty void.  I literally cannot think of a single other thing for him to do.  At one point I had the guy riding a bike – and he couldn’t think of anywhere to go.

Oh my God.  What am I doing?