The Sladen Suit: One of more open ended stories. Author's interpretation of things the readers don't know in the story. There is a lot of assumption. Remaining crew members, no idea what happened to them. Interaction between characters is like going into the unknown. Those who are left behind have no idea what happened. There's no solutions there. The suit makes it so you can survive, so you can breathe underwater. The suit is now the opposite, it is death, or is it? Goes back to the unknown. In between life and death; purgatory. It's left open to interpretation, which may be key for this class. What about the twins and the voice pipe? What does it mean to be alive and or dead? And what is the difference? Philosophy.
Hurlock's Law: Narrator is watching Hurlock, who takes pieces of paper and makes rules and propositions based off of them. Red Haze Nimbly, but he cannot find haze and he cannot find it. He becomes obsessed until he thinks that he really should be obsessed and constantly thinking about it. One night, he is laying in bed and he literally just disappears. Robot trying to take things from his memory. Half organic half mechanic. Narrator isn't first to observe Hurlock, this all happens to everyone who observes him. Believes it's a story about trying to find meaning, uses rules to give himself meaning, when he actually finds it and is transcended, it's the most simple rule, now you see it, now you don't. Maybe robot is jealous, trying to take on human features and skin. Memory versus reality.
- Think about postmodernism. Meanings and feelings can shift.
Discrepancy: Idea of speed of life. Is there really a speed to life? How do you get sensation that things are slow or fast? This story makes it seem stranger. Most different than what we've read, has a sense of strangeness. Idea of being, or thinking one is mental. How do you catch back up to time? People can relate.
- How Evenson choses to write and how to put these things in the story almost acts as an anchor. Is it a play on language?
Knowledge: 3 people. No one has any idea how it happened, everything is proven wrong. The detective notes the truth. The district attorney utters the truth, and the pathologist says knowledge will just come, within it's own power. Pretty deep, if you think about it, about how the 3 characters go about things. Maybe Evenson is taking knowledge and assigning each possible definition a character. (Super good point, I think.) The last line: You expect him to come to a conclusion, but he doesn't.
Baby or Doll?: Doesn't know the difference between a baby and a doll. Knows one of them is alive, but which is which? Almost like he loses touch with reality. There's no truth in anything. He found comfort in false truth. Therapist may have been the thoughts inside of his head, the reality, trying to tell him what's still real. He's trying to figure out what's going on, so he can then move on from it. He has to come to terms with his thoughts in order to move on.
The Tunnel: Starts in tunnel with 3 people and 3 perspectives. Ends up the old man is alive, it's implied that he may or may not be alive. Depending on whose perspective the story is being told in, or who is telling the story, can change it. There isn't a lot going on, a place of void and time. Again that idea of reality and time.
- Evenson almost uses grotesque images to distract you from the true meaning behind the story.
South of the Beast: Trying to translate to finding the words in writing. Living up to your own name (when the sun burning his name before him). Something finally hit him as he was writing. (3 basic points). It's hard to find the right words sometimes to tell someone something or to express something. Is there really a best way to tell a story? Personal explanation of why he writes maybe. Personal reflection.
-Class finds books interesting because they can take bits and pieces in order to make it relatable to themselves. They're also interesting. Is it because of the way Evenson writes? How he makes his stories so intriguing even though they're dark and gloomy, or even strange? He's trying to tell us something, and this is the genre he uses to tell us.
