Escape Artists
PseudoPod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Bdoomed on September 18, 2008, 10:27:46 PM
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Pseudopod 108: The Teacher (http://pseudopod.org/2008/09/18/pseudopod-108-the-teacher/)
By Paul G. Tremblay (http://www.paultremblay.net/)
Read by Mur Lafferty (http://murverse.com/)
Days and weeks pass without another special lesson. We’ve had plenty of time to waste. Our first term grades are good and we lose ourselves in the responsibilities of senior year; of college recommendations and applications and social requirements.
On the first day of winter term the TV returns. Mr. Sorent doesn’t have to tell us what to do. We pull our chairs in tight and put away our books. Mr. Sorent says, “Lesson two, gang.”
There is a collage of clips and images, nothing in focus for more than a second or two, of car accidents. The kind of stuff some of us saw in driver’s ed. The images of crushed and limbless and decapitated bodies are intercut with scenes from funerals, and there are red-eyed family members, the ones who never saw any of it coming, wailing and crying and breaking apart.
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Listen to this week's Pseudopod. (http://media.rawvoice.com/pseudopod/media.libsyn.com/media/pseudopod/Pseudo108_TheTeacher.mp3)
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Wonderfully read, and deeply disturbing. I need to listen to it again though, as it got me wondering when exactly it was that I became so cynical, and I think I may have missed something.
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Now THAT was "horror"!
I've felt disturbed and creeped out all day, now.
The only thing I feel I wanted that I didn't get was for some idea of the Teacher's motivation. Mind you, it's a bit more scary -at times- when you don't have one. In this case, though, I feel a tiny bit left out. That's not a big criticism, mind you, just about the only one I could find.
This is definitely what horror should be like!
Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)
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Imagery was disturbing - I just didn't get it.
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Quite disturbing, and pretty much good all around, though the reference at the end to Zeno's paradox bugged me, mostly because I can't stand that bit of idiotic "cleverness." I see the point of including it, I just don't care for it.
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Meh.
Seemed a bit over the top to me. I know it's a short story, but the instant 180 just left me dry.
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Didn't impress me much, sorry. A cynical, self-absorbed child in a cynical, self-absorbed world taking a class from a demented Mr. Chips.
A little supernatural in my PP, please.
Next please.
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Funnily enough I was driving to my job when I listened to this story. My job? SAT prep. Today's class was at a high school.
Now, plot-wise, it's a bit confusing. I'm not certain what exactly I'm supposed to think of everything. The language of the story, however, was horrifically disturbing, and the setting felt pretty perfect (you are kind of a cynical self-absorbed bastard in high school).
And while the plot might have been a bit too murky for my tastes, it (and Alisdar's outro), reminded me of how much effect a teacher can have on students.
It reminded me of the students I know I have actually reached and made a difference in the lives of, kids who'd be the first in their families to go to college.
Made me want to be a better teacher, for certain.
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So what was the course -- Nihilism 101?
i was waiting for Mr. Sorent to whip the point out of a hat in that last scene there... or maybe there wasn't one to whip out. but since he came to class on the last day all shaved and cleaned up, i expected something.
if anything, it pressed home to me that real life can serve up horrors as great (or greater) than any horror fiction.
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Maybe someone can help me understand this story.
Is the teacher introducing the children to cold reality, or is he showing them how they can avoid facing evil and death by refusing to grow up?
Or is he simply giving them the choice?
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Imagery was disturbing - I just didn't get it.
Ditto.
I'm going to have to give this one another listen.
I feel like I should get it. There's significance to the "journals" each student kept and that the narrator's was blank/uncompleted at the end of the story.
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I dug this story and Mur’s reading.
Though the very ending of the story confused me, what I took away from it was the teacher was standing in for life itself when viewed from a mature, grown-up perspective. Life is brutal, unfair and full of things you’d like to know but never will. They see the teacher as cool at first, then are hostile toward him, then just accept it. Kind of like life.
As for the empty journal--I think the main character had already internalized this lesson from her experience with the two boys and the frog. While others are pouring out their thoughts on the horrors they are seeing, she can’t because she’s seen something horrible and has never been able to express it, so she is “stopped up” in a way. She had internalized it all and, like so many of us, is trying to either make sense or let go of these awful things.
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she can’t because she’s seen something horrible and has never been able to express it, so she is “stopped up” in a way.
Sorry, just had the phrase "emotional constipation" pop into my head and had to share that thought with the world. Please continue.
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I've got mixed feelings about this story. It was horrific, but it did not have a point that I could see. I like it when there is a point that hits you just when you get to the end.
As I attempted to understand the piece, I had begun to come to the conclusion that the students were already dead. I'd started to think we were seeing death scenes in the T.V. The teacher was trying to inform them slowly of their own death. I had believed the boy was here brother and he had passed on too.
I started doubting my conclusion with her encounter with the baseball players. The mention of all the generic horrific imagery the teacher later exposed the student to blew up my theory. I think this piece had more to do with becoming socially numb to all the terrible things in life. Kids start out as selfish idealist who see everything from their own point of view. Then they see the reality around them as they go through their teen years, their view of their family and the world becoming more realistic. Finally, they just stop paying attention intentionally and become numb to the world's miseries. Only the one girl couldn't accept it and went into denial, thinking she could save the boy by not seeing the ending. I'm not sure if that was intended to be a bad ending or a good ending.
I still can't fit the half of half steps thing in, and the teacher's renewal. This made it confusing for me. I wish the teacher had turned into a monster and ate the class, that would be satisfying.
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the techniques that the teacher used seem similar to Darren Brown's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-TURhK90_8) (explained (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybmOlQRuaYM)). it's a bit unsettling to read a story that contain these tricks, you gotta wonder if the writing is structured to target the reader.
i don't feel like i've got a handle on the story's message. something about being afraid of growing up (or the world in general) and trying to save your childhood? maybe?
while i didn't really enjoy the story i've spent more time thinking about it than usual. that's a success of some sort.
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I took the idea as what most people would call "the loss of innocence." Although I don't really think it's innocence lost, I think it's more of idealism being lost, or maybe cynicism being born. It's kind of like a coming of age story, except istead of giving you the sense that you can take on the world at the age of 18, it leaves you with bruises and scars and regrets and life-long doubts.
Interesting listen, for sure. And it's always nice to hear Mur.
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Hiya all, Ellen-your-friendly-slushpile-reader here.
I've been following the comments on this week's story with interest, largely because I pushed to get The Teacher podcast here. No, it's not the usual supernatural horror fare, but I think it's one of the best-written short stories I've had the good fortune to read in a long time. Mur's reading really does it justice, and Alasdair's outro is awesome.
Now I know stories are open to interpretation, and this is a difficult one to pin down. It's undeniably creepy and unpleasant, but a number of commenters here seem to be asking what's its point? What's going on? So here's my take on it.
What's horror, really? (Bear with me here, or, yanno, skip to the next comment. Meh. *shrug*) Think about this for a minute: you're driving a car. It's winter. You hit a patch of ice, and the car spins. That's the kind of thing which makes your heart race, your adrenaline pump. Then imagine that it's dark, and as you spin, your headlamps catch the front of a truck, a really big rig, a split-second before it hits you. In that split-second, there's the horror. It comes from powerlessness, from the knowledge that pain and death are coming and that this is completely, utterly inevitable. There is nothing you can possibly do to make a difference.
The futility of action. The irrelevance and obliteration of hope.
Whatever lessons Paul Tremblay's teacher set out to teach his students, these are the ones which they take away with them. Maybe he wants to fire them up, get them mad at the injustice and random cruelty of the world around them, inspire them to make a difference. Or maybe not. But it's the random cruelty of the world, demonstrated lesson after lesson, frame after frame, in the videos the teacher shows, that destroys his students.
Innocence and childhood are lost, but they have no enlightened idealism to take its place. The shine is gone. Families are no longer a place of love, warmth, safety. Friends are the people you can be cruelest to. There's no capacity for trust, not any more, because anyone, everyone, the world, will do the most terrible of things for no reason at all. And this is all the more horrific when you remember that these students are the brightest and the best, the students who should be full of optimism, who should be getting ready to leave school and change the world.
With the video of the boy, Mr Sorent appears to be suggesting that all possibilities are present until one finally reaches an ending. While the boy is in flight, he isn't injured, dead. The wall isn't the inevitable outcome that it appears to be. And when he asks Kate to return to her seat so that they can watch the end of the video, he's closing off those possibilities, pointing out that the end of everything is death. But in her refusal to take the final step, Kate rejects his teaching, holding on to the moment of infinite possibility. After all the torture and torment and death she's seen, if she hangs on to the happier, friendlier days of her childhood, she won't die. She'll never reach that wall.
Upbeat, right? Well, no. Because we, the readers, the listeners, we know death is coming. Some day that wall will hit Kate, just as it'll hit us. The car won't spin forever. The big rig will plow through you. The moment of infinite possibility is also the moment in which horror lives.
So, there you have it. My take on some of what's going on in this story, and why I think it's a great horror story. Feel free to disagree. Remember, this is just my opinion: YMMV! (your mileage may vary)
Have a great day. Don't hit that wall.
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Hiya all, Ellen-your-friendly-slushpile-reader here.
... Hey! No fair!
Ben, Alasdair, what gives with hiring a smart, articulate, insightful slush reader? How are we supposed to ignorantly whine about 'not getting it' if she's going to pop in with such great answers?
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Ladies, Gentlemen, Mrs Ellen Allen:) My best friend, and one of the sharpest critics I know.
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Hiya all, Ellen-your-friendly-slushpile-reader here.
... Hey! No fair!
Ben, Alasdair, what gives with hiring a smart, articulate, insightful slush reader? How are we supposed to ignorantly whine about 'not getting it' if she's going to pop in with such great answers?
I second that! I started reading this thread with one thing on my mind: I read it and didn't really get it and I wanted to let the world know!
Now I dare not even say that. Even though I just did. Hey, you're right! There are infinite possibilities! I just did something even I dared not think about. Woo, look at me, being all philosophical.
Without kidding, I'm very very impressed by Ellen's reading of the reading and I get the story a bit better now. But I think I need some time to let it sink in, because it kinda swept me off my li'l feet.
Speaking of reading and li'l feet: YEAH! Mur! I love her voice! Woooooo :]
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... Hey! No fair!
Ben, Alasdair, what gives with hiring a smart, articulate, insightful slush reader? How are we supposed to ignorantly whine about 'not getting it' if she's going to pop in with such great answers?
*blush* Thank you! I can leave you to it if you'd rather... *hides back under a rock* ;)
Ladies, Gentlemen, Mrs Ellen Allen:) My best friend, and one of the sharpest critics I know.
*big hugs* Thanks, Al!
I second that! I started reading this thread with one thing on my mind: I read it and didn't really get it and I wanted to let the world know!
Now I dare not even say that. Even though I just did. Hey, you're right! There are infinite possibilities! I just did something even I dared not think about. Woo, look at me, being all philosophical.
Without kidding, I'm very very impressed by Ellen's reading of the reading and I get the story a bit better now. But I think I need some time to let it sink in, because it kinda swept me off my li'l feet.
Feel free to vent away - that's one of the things the board's here for! :) Not everyone has to like or understand or agree with every single story we do (thank goodness), though I must confess I like most of them. Then again, I'm fortunate enough to help pick the stories which end up here. Go me! I love this job! :D
I'm glad I could help, though I'm not entirely sure I understand the story fully. There's an awful lot in there, which is one of the reasons I love it.
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Well, that killed the conversation! Sorry, guys!
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Well, that killed the conversation! Sorry, guys!
I don't think it did. I think that this one comes down to either making people think or making people shrug.
I fall into the shrugs. (And the shrubs, but that's another story...)
For the record, I don't mind if PP makes me shrug. There are enough stories that I really like to make it worth the shrugs.
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Well, that killed the conversation! Sorry, guys!
No, I appreciated your take on it. It made me want to listen to the story again. (Not that I didn't like it before, mind you, but just because I'd be curious to explore it a little bit more.)
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I reallly really liked this story. I gave me "the wiggans" and made me worry for the future of it's charactors. There were moments where I gign't fully "get" the thought experiment taking place in the classroom. I liked the ending to me it sparked of hope. Almost enough hope to overcome the futility of the rest of the classroom experience. Is hoipe enough? WOW! No, to me this was good.
Well, that killed the conversation! Sorry, guys!
NO! Feedback is WONDERFUL! I like that you pushed for this story. And like Zathras said: I don't mind the storys that make me shrug. So what if one story isn't to my taste? One will come along thast IS. And that's fabulous, finding a new story that gets me a buzzing!
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I do have to agree. With one listen I could not see a point to the story except showcasing violent behavior, but with Ellens explanation of why she supported this piece I can at least understand it a bit better. I guess it is like back in school when I was told why I should like Of Mice and Men or any number of "Classics". When a passionate cheerleader for the story was able to convey their take on a story and explain it a little in depth, I tended to find myself while not necessarily liking the story at least not hating it.
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i'm surprised that people find this a happy ending. stuck staring at a wall, scared to turn around because of what you may see.
it didn't seem like the protagonist had made an affirming choice at all. more like she was driven into herself, made to see a world so ugly that she tries to freeze things in case it gets worse.
like the child in the video, the teacher chooses her for a random act of violence. isolating her, making her part of an act she wants no part of.
i like to think that that teacher was actually trying to give these kids hope. that it turns out the falling boy bursts through one of the posters on the wall and flys down a super happy fun slide, squealing with joy into a big pile of puppies. her teacher just pushed her too far before drawing her back.
sure that doesn't make any sense, but it's still better than standing frozen with your nose against a wall.
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This story was strange and disturbing. As a father of a young child who often does the daddy-toss and other physical make-the-kid-laugh-with-exhilaration stuff, the kid-into-wall was pretty scary. Also, the girl getting tied up with the jumprope, I feared the story would turn to some sort of kid-on-kid sexual violence. I'm glad it didn't, but the fact that there was a possibility of it happening was also scary.
I've also been a teacher (college english) and I know the rush of power you feel as a teacher.
I didn't get the teacher's motivations, and the fairly-rapid devolution of the plastic family into what is more realistic felt rushed to me. The author did kind of nail Kate's character, but he still felt like an outsider. Given the relative time it takes to publish a story, by the time it hits our eyes/ears, the slang and technology is already somewhat dated. Kids don't really IM anymore, I don't think... I think they Facebook each other. But that's a small thing.
My biggest problem with the story was the motivation of the teacher. Also, Kate seemed kind of petty about her soccer games.
I kind of liked the ending, where she refuses to hit the wall, where she controls her destiny in that one small act of rebellion.
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And your icon is appropriate, Listener!
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I found the whole premise silly. Kids these days have the internet and Grand Theft Auto, and trust me, they've seen a lot worse than some kid crashing into the wall or a teenager shooting themselves. One hour every weekday with a freaky teacher is supposed to turn Honors AP kids into rejects, stoners, and goths? I have been a teacher, too, and you just don't have that much affect on most of the kids most of the time.
I just never understood the relationship between the teacher and the kids, nor the kids to each other. Inexplicably, the kids love the teacher and we're supposed to accept that. Inexplicably, the kids hate the teacher, and we're supposed to accept that, too. The ending was equally confusing and seemingly overloaded with cliche symbolism.
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still on my story backlog, but reading that last comment....
as a recent high school student, i'll be the first to tell ya that the student-teacher experience is incredibly varied. My last English AP teacher was the epitome of awesome, and the one before that was the female version of that same epitome :P
They gave hard work, which no one likes, yet everyone loves them.
On the other hand, i had a few teachers whose classes were incredibly easy and in some cases easygoing too (as in not uptight). I friggin hated those teachers and those classes (but not all of them, again it varied). My math class last year was one of the easiest classes of my life, as was my economics class, and i HATED both of those teachers with a fiery hot passion.
the AP teacher i loved last year had many of the same teaching traits as my math teacher did (a subdued "my way or the highway" attitude, but not really, hard to explain). But for some other reason i hated my math teacher. Maybe its because i hate math, but ive had math teachers who ive loved.
its pretty random. I guess its the "aura" around the person and the interpretation of that aura that invokes these feelings toward a teacher. so yes, you have to accept it :P
Kids don't really IM anymore, I don't think... I think they Facebook each other.
yes we still do, and ... yes we do.
i hate facebook (not really), but it has reconnected me with SO many people i was friends with growing up before i moved. tis crazy.
and yes, one hour a day with someone who's every word is revered can change you. haven't you ever seen Dead Poets Society?
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I didn't quite get the point of this story. It was disturbing, in a way - the thought of the eager class being slowly corrupted was creepy. But without any understanding of why the teacher was doing this, it felt random and abstract. I found it very hard to suspend disbelief. I also found the narrator's voice inconsistent - she often felt closer to being 13 or 14 than to being a high school senior.
Here's my own creepy teacher anecdote -
In my penultimate year of school (this was in Israel), my math teacher was a relatively young guy - mid twenties, probably, certainly younger than I am now. Before that school year started, in the summer vacation, a bunch of my friends and I spotted him in town, wearing a t-shirt for a rather racist far-right political party. But we never did anything about that, because, well, what could we do? And besides, he was a math teacher, that didn't really allow him a way to express his politics in class.
Except that about 2/3rds of the way through the school year, he decided he hates teaching math. So he stopped. It began by the fact that he complained about being trapped in class, and suggested we go outside and have our lessons in a nearby park. And then, instead of maths, he started reading us books of Taoist philosophy. And later, short stories. Short stories whose underlying theme was mostly "the best defence is a good offense", and "you need to strike before your enemy strikes you". At which point, we got the school managment to intervene and he went back to grudgingly teaching math.
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so yes, you have to accept it :P
You misunderstand me. I'm not talking about whether or not a teacher *can* have a certain "amazing" aura as you put it. I'm talking about suspension of disbelief. The reader is essentially asked to accept that the student love the teacher, without any evidence, and then that they hate the teacher, again without any evidence. This violates one of the principle of good story-writing, i.e. SHOW me don't TELL me.
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and yes, one hour a day with someone who's every word is revered can change you. haven't you ever seen Dead Poets Society?
I have seen it, but I dispute whether such an experience is actually *changing* you, as much as you are simply at a place where such a change can happen and the teacher is basically there as a catalyst, facilitator, and cheerleader. For example, in DPS, one of the boys, Neil, decides to pursue acting instead of following a career as a doctor that his overbearing father has planned for him. This is not so much the influence of Mr. Keating (Robin William's character), as much Neil is realizing and following something that he has already held and realized in his heart. Perhaps, absent of Mr. Keating's influence, Neil's character may have suffered through medical school, perhaps even graduated, but eventually he would have been forced to deal with his deep personal unhappiness and lack of fulfillment. And if it were not Mr. Keating, it may well have been another teacher or event that would have catalyzed Neil's realization. To say that Mr. Keating changed Neil, IMHO, is both giving Mr. Keating too much credit, and belittling the individuality and freedom (in the deeply personal sense) of Neil. To give another example, what do you think happened to the rest of the boys after Mr. Keating left the school? Some of them would have been expelled, of course, but do you think the ones that were allowed to stay in school would have had their Ivy-league and Trust-funded lives fundamentally changed? Even Charlie Dalton, the founder of the Dead Poets, showed a defiant and mischievious streak well before meeting Mr. Keating. If it were not "O-Captain My Captain", it would have been something else. "You are not a unique snowflake" perhaps.
Having been a martial arts instructor for many years and spending time as a SAT prep tutor, I can say that as a teacher, your goal ultimately isn't to save and uplift every student that come through your class. Many of the poor-performing students are that way because of things that are completely outside of your control: e.g. family troubles (divorce is big), parental pressure, drugs (ritalin and worse), financial troubles, etc. On the bright side, many of the best-performing students are that way because of things that are beyond you as well: stable families, encouraging/empowering parents, etc. The best you hope for is to encourage the ones that are on a good trajectory, go through your script with as much enthusiasm and sincerity as you can muster, and hope some of what you say sticks to a few of them. I'm not saying this to be depressing, because teaching is one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had, but that as a teacher too much emotional investment can easily backfire and flip into bitterness.
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Heh. Viewing this story as the anti-Dead Poets Society is kind of awesome and makes me want to listen to it again...
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Hey all,
Very interesting and gratifying discussion, here (even the posters who hated it...heh). I've had a fun ride with the story (first published at Chizine in January 2007 and then declared a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award earlier this year), and I can't tell you how cool it is to see Pseudopod's listeners posting passionately about it, and posting about all the pod stories. Good stuff. Nice to see some people still care about short fiction. Short horror fiction.
FWIW, I've been a high school math teacher for going on 14 years now.
And, if you'll allow a moment of spam, my latest short story, also published by Chizine (this story was their contest winner), "The Blog at the End of the World" is live at www.theblogattheendoftheworld.com If you liked "The Teacher," I think you may dig this one. If you didn't like "The Teacher," you probably won't like this one either. ;)
paul tremblay
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If you liked "The Teacher," I think you may dig this one. If you didn't like "The Teacher," you probably won't like this one either. ;)
What if we liked it, but felt like we didn't completely get it?
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I was being a little snarky (sorry).
The blog story is much less opaque than "The Teacher," which, for good or bad, I did leave purposefully a little muddy.
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Didn't impress me much, sorry. A cynical, self-absorbed child in a cynical, self-absorbed world taking a class from a demented Mr. Chips.
A little supernatural in my PP, please.
Next please.
Yep. The last thing I want to see in my Escape Artists podcast is the same cynicism and carelessly lethal buttholery that I see on a day-to-day basis. If I want to struggle against unfocused teenage angst, my church is looking for youth workers. Overall, meh.
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The last thing I want to see in my Escape Artists podcast is the same cynicism and carelessly lethal buttholery that I see on a day-to-day basis. If I want to struggle against unfocused teenage angst, my church is looking for youth workers. Overall, meh.
"We must fear evil men and deal with them accordingly but what we must truly guard against, what we must fear most is the indifference of good men."
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The last thing I want to see in my Escape Artists podcast is the same cynicism and carelessly lethal buttholery that I see on a day-to-day basis. If I want to struggle against unfocused teenage angst, my church is looking for youth workers. Overall, meh.
"We must fear evil men and deal with them accordingly but what we must truly guard against, what we must fear most is the indifference of good men."
Then all must quake in fear of my very presence.
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The last thing I want to see in my Escape Artists podcast is the same cynicism and carelessly lethal buttholery that I see on a day-to-day basis. If I want to struggle against unfocused teenage angst, my church is looking for youth workers. Overall, meh.
"We must fear evil men and deal with them accordingly but what we must truly guard against, what we must fear most is the indifference of good men."
Then all must quake in fear of my very presence.
Sure. If by 'quake in fear' you mean 'shake their heads in weary resignation'.
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Interesting story. A bit *too* calculatedly obtuse (and, as a Robert Aikman fan, I love me some calculated obtuseness) as it makes one wonder if there is a specific viewpoint or just some observations. But obviously a deeply felt work and that counts for a lot in today's world of writing...
I would have liked better to read it on the page, as it was a bit murky and unfocused as an audio narrative. Also, I wonder if there's an age factor at work here as it seemed a story that would have more impact on a younger reader.
Good choice by Pseudopod, et al.
Thanks for listening.
“The audience’s shock of recognition is essential for punk art to operate successfully; images which merely evoke only surprise or shock are ultimately useless at conveying a vision of anything (this is why punk rarely employs nonsense or generally absurd forms). The audiences must be made to feel somehow that the images they are being exposed to, no matter how distasteful, surreal, or ugly, are speaking to them in a shared (if twisted) vocabulary.”
Larry McCaffery, “Cutting Up: Cyberpunk, Punk Music, and Urban Decontextualizations”
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a little bit of threadomancy here
just listened to this story last night...
wow.
i loved it.
i'm going to have to give it a few more listens to flesh it out fully in my head :P, but i can definately say this is my favorite PP yet (still working on my backlog tho heh)
the story grabbed me from the start because i had a teacher last year that we all loved because of a lot of the same qualities, in their own way (no movie posters or bumper stickers but the same feeling, if you get my drift). of course, he did not subject us to disturbing images of people dying... but ... ya know.
anyway...
great reading by Mur, i've missed her :P
awesome story, very well written, definately my favorite PP so far.
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This story was like a poem: beautiful language, interesting but confusing, and clearly there was meant to be a point buried beneath the words.
But, as is not unusual when I read poems, I didn't get it. At the end, my reply was "huh?". For a poem, that's fine. I don't expect a poem to have a coherent plot. But when I finish reading a story I kind of like to have a clue what happened, otherwise the story just leaves me annoyed and feeling stupid. A message within a story is fine, but if the story itself makes no sense, then I will rarely like it--I like a story that carries a message, not a message that carries a story (or in this case, runs over the story and drags it under the bumper for 17 blocks).
I'm glad that Ellen joined the thread to give her thoughts on the story. If I'd gleaned all that from listening to the story itself, I would've disliked the story less.
Besides all that, I found it a little hard to believe that the teacher could get away with showing stuff like that and no one found out about it.
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Good reading by Mur. And I thought the character work was pretty fantastic in this story.
Many thanks to the diligence of Ellen and all the slush readers. :)
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In a way, I am glad that Ellen (our friendly neighborhood slushpile reader) stepped in offer her interpretation of this piece. Her comments helped me solidify my own opinion: basically, although the narration and imagery were strong, this piece felt like the sort of overly pretentious, "high-brow," modern-lit piece that you need a microscope and a lesson from Jaques Derrida to get any sort of thrill from. In short: it's the sort of thing that allows a lit-crit satire like House of Leaves to exist.
No offense to Ellen or anyone else who liked this piece intended, but from where I sat it was just a mess of imagery that led up to the same anti-climax all nihilistic pieces lead to: the world is hopeless, everything is terrible, you can't change it, then you die. Whoopie.
WARNING: EDITORIALIZING AHEAD
I usually try to keep my editorializing to a minimum, but this sort of piece is obviously inviting it, so I feel a little might be appropriate. Nihilism is a funny thing, and I think it (in its pure state) fails to elicite horror since - ironically - it undoes itself.
Nihilistic tenant #1: The world is a cruel, random, unfair place.
Yes, but this is a matter of perspective. It is only cruel because we expect kindness, it is only random because we expect order, it is only unfair because we expect justice. There is a sort of freedom which can be found in accepting a rudderless, amoral cosmos. Far from grinding one down into cynicism, it can awken a true lust for life - since that is all we have, after all - eventually the "boy hits the wall, right?"
Nihilistic tenant #2: You will die
Yes, but mortal death happens to us all. Just like eating, drinking, sleeping and farting - we cannot avoid it - so why be so afraid? I like horror where the fear comes from a gradual dread of something truly terrifying - not from the revelation: "Boo! You're gonna die someday!"
Anyway, I write all of this here only to show how I felt this story failed (for me, anyway). When the horror vanishes with only a few degrees drift in perspective, I don't consider it an effective scare. It's tries so hard to conjure up a fear of inevitability, but why not just answer "so what?" How come none of the kids figured out that there is no way to avoid that oncoming semi-truck of death? Why turn away into the blackness of the night? Why not just face the headlights, crack a beer, light a smoke and have a party while you still can? After all, at least you'll be in the light.
Anyway, please remember: these are just my opinions.