Wolff's short stories always feel like this very event surely happened much as it is written. There is a looseness about them, a lack of a strong central theme, that gives me this idea. In "Next Door" a couple listen to the the horrible fight going on next door. The wife asks if she can sleep with her husband in his single bed that night. (We don't know why they are sleeping apart) but when her husband tries to initiate sex she rejects it. This very short story ends with him thinking how he would rewrite a movie he'd been watching: El Dorado. The contrast between the noisy violence next door and the passionless stiffness of the couple is stark. You can't help but wonder if what he would really like to rewrite is his life.
"An Episode" concerns a professor at an MLA conference. He meets a woman who is helping with the catering and has a one-night stand. He believes he's gotten away with this but a colleague knows and his wife smells the woman's perfume on his shirt. There are a lot of other strands here: the backbiting of professors at a conference, the annoying colleague he gives a ride to, cancer, the enjoyment of poetry that is less than scholarly, how hypocritical so many of us are. And it surely paints a harsh picture of those in the academy.
7 comments:
Oh, that sounds interesting, Patti. And quite the look at academia! Sometimes, too, a loose style can work for a collection of stories.
Patti, I've read some Tobias Wolf and agree with your analysis. He takes a dim view of the academic scene.
I wrote a long post. It was here. Now it vanished.
Unlike the others, I haven’t read this author. Sounds a little depressing, though.
Sorry, Jeff. I don't know why that happens. You can always send your post to me via my email and I will post it.
Or definitely save it and try reposting it, Jeff...
Both of the short stories sound interesting but bleak. Sometimes I like bleak in a story (or book), sometimes not. Both of the memoirs sound good too.
Post a Comment