#indepth analysis

The sad human says as they are home not understanding why they don’t feel like they’re home before realizing that they don’t feel like their home because they aren’t.

Home, is up to the person but to me it means where the person is more comfortable being and no matter where it seems the person may go they don’t feel comfy they feel off like they’re don’t belong anywhere because the places they have ever been have berated them over and over and over for doing something wrong blaming it on them and not giving them the proper tools to fix this problem only telling them to “fix it” without a explanation or step by step.

"I mean he is talking directly to a woman"

John:

It’s been 6 days since my last analysis post due to a couple of my usual complications: wrist pain and issues with my sleeping schedule. The latter is something I’m steadily addressing, but the former is something that I’m starting to accept will be a chronic problem. There are going to be days when my wrists are feeling stressed and I’ll have to refrain from writing anything more than a short journal entry.

I’ll be trying to change things up again today though. Allotting only one hour to write in, with breaks, has only left me feeling dissatisfied with the amount I was getting done in a day. This time I’ve scheduled four hours as a writing period which is even longer than before I had wrist problems, but I’m lifting all restrictions on tabbing out to watch YouTube videos. The idea is that even if I spent 75% of this time resting, it’ll still be more time spent writing than before. 

Admittedly, I could have just written past one hour before, but it was hard to muster the motivation to work what felt like “overtime” according to my own schedule. Instead of trying to convince myself to work overtime, I’m just changing the schedule itself so that extra time is no longer overtime: it’s just the regular writing time.

Anyway, I’ve been chipping along at a paragraph a sentence at a time. Based on the past couple of sentences, it’ll likely continue to list out the different types of callers that Nicholas has had.

Source

The same afternoon brought a rather disreputable-looking weasel, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely followed by a slip-shod elderly horse mare.

I’m not actually sure what exactly “the same afternoon” is referring to here. Looking at the sentence in isolation, one would think it describes how both this weasel and mare came by in the “same afternoon,” but that’s sort of redundant when the mare is described as having “closely followed” the weasel. The alternative is that this is the afternoon of the same day as the porcupine that came by “one morning,” though I suppose the wording would have explicitly said “the same day, that afternoon.”

Taking a second look, it’s really the redundancy that made me second guess things here. This sort of redundancy would normally imply some level of importance, yet it’s pretty clear that the individual details here aren’t too important because it’s all coming in as items in a list. Still, even if it’s important for the reader to know that this pair of mammals sequentially met with Nicholas in the same afternoon, I feel like just one of these descriptions would be enough: having both doesn’t add anything other than the redundancy itself.

Though I say the nature of these details being part of a list makes them appear less significant, the weasel here is likely to be an analogue of Duke Weaselton from the movie. He’s even specifically described as being “much excited,” which can leave the reader curious. If he actually shows up again later in the story, it’s likely a small part since I don’t recall it, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised about it.

As for the old mare, she doesn’t seem remarkably important given the details here. She largely seems to be here to contrast with the disreputable and excited weasel, as well as all of the other callers of course.

On another occasion an old white-furred squirrel had an interview with my companion; and on another a platypus in the velveteen uniform of a railway porter.

The list of callers continues. With the “rule of three,” I wouldn’t have been too surprised for the prior sentence to have been the last one. Though, if we’re looking at the number of callers on this list, the prior sentence skipped straight over three by adding two more. At this point, Judith is really hammering home the idea that all sorts of mammals come to see Nicholas, regardless of species, age, gender, or social status. As far as Judith can tell, they all have a variety of business with the fox as well.

My first impression when seeing the interview was actually that Nicholas was the one being interviewed, perhaps as a follow-up after a successful case or something. After thinking about it, it’s probably more likely that the squirrel may have been a witness and Nicholas was the one conducting the interview. The way it is phrased though, I think it could still work either way and it would be more clear if interview were used as a verb rather than a noun here.

Since my return to these posts last time was a bit disappointing, I’ll be trying to keep this preamble bit shorter so I can get into analysis proper before having to take a break.

About that disappointment though, I could probably do with being more open to not saying much about a sentence. I’ve been able to write quite a bit about nearly every sentence thus far, so I’ve come to expect it. Though, it’s not like an interesting thought was absent, and thinking back, there were plenty of sentences where I only had a single thought before moving on. I don’t need to force it, and assuming I eventually come back to edit things, I can just leave it to my future self to fill things out with a second perspective. (Though, to be honest, it might be more likely for me to trim things down rather than expanding things.)

Source

One morning a young porcupine called, fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more.

I had been a bit hung up over not having much to say regarding Trunkaby’s brief introduction, but it seems that some of this paragraph is functioning as a list. In this case, it may be more enlightening once we see the rest of the paragraph and what the list shows as a whole.

This specific item (speaking in terms of a list) mostly seems to contrast with the first. Sternness is something I associate with age and maturity, which contrasts with “young.” There’s the huge difference of size here between an elephant and a porcupine. Trunkaby visited multiple times, while this porcupine seems to have had a single, lengthy visit. It gives the impression that not only are Nicholas’ callers varied, but so too is the nature of their business with him.

Otherwise, I don’t actually get the idea that this specific porcupine is actually important to the narrative at all. Since it became apparent that this was just a single item in a list, it suddenly becomes easier to dismiss the importance of it. This creates another contrast from Trunkaby, who I paid special attention to since I hadn’t been aware of the list (at least I intended to.) Of course, Trunkaby also happens to be named, so that also increases her apparent importance.

Looking at the last post I’ve written in this series, it seems that I’ve ended up taking another week off. It wasn’t something I had planned after committing to having alternating writing days, but I just had continued and persistent problems with my wrists. When I awoke yesterday though, it felt like something(s) in my wrists suddenly snapped back into place and things have felt much better since, so now I’m back to writing this post.

This doesn’t mean I’m quite ready to jump back into writing two hours at a time, shooting to cover one paragraph at a time. I’m going for one hour today, with 10 minute breaks every 20 minutes. Beyond that, I’m making a conscious effort to take my hands off the keyboard whenever I’m not actively typing anything to get frequent, short breaks from the repetitive action that is typing. I want to see how well I can maintain these things and how I feel after doing so for an hour. I’ll stick to this limited pace for at least a few posts before deciding how to scale my productivity back up, assuming my wrists stay fine.

Anyway, thus far I’ve covered two sentences of a paragraph about Nicholas’ callers. I noted some further signs of Judith’s prejudice in the implication that she had assumed Nicholas was a liar by default, and that he had proven himself to have told the truth about taking callers. I also criticized the specific chronological details: they’ve been all over the place for the paragraphs of this section, and the specificity of the details only highlights how messy it is. There were some other points, but that’s enough of a recap.

Source

There was one stern-looking elephant who was introduced to me as Ms. Trunkaby, and who came three or four times in a single week.

Before diving into the details here, I want to remind that I’ve read through this story before as well as its sequel. Ms. Trunkaby, unlike Ramford thus far, has been a recurring character, so I have a solid impression of her already. I make this reminder because anything I say about her will be influenced by this established impression, even while I try to get into the headspace of someone reading the story for the first time.

The first curious thing about this sentence is the hyphenation of “stern-looking.” The immediate meaning is that Trunkaby “appears stern.” The curious thing to me is that “looking” does not only refer to the way one appears when looked at by others, but is something that someone actively does themselves. What I mean to say is that this could also describe Trunkaby as someone who “looks sternly. I suppose this is nearly inherent to someone appearing to be stern, but I think there is a subtle distinction. Not that I think “stern-looking” only means one of these things; I actually think it more interesting for it to mean both.

The variable schedule thing is still pretty weird, and I’m honestly not even sure when I actually woke up. I’m making do and am writing this well before I’ve become tired for the day.

As for the whole wrist situation that’s been limiting my productivity, they’ve mostly felt fine since waking, but still not ideal - the discomfort is subtle, making it difficult to describe. Something I’ve thought of trying is to alternate writing days instead of having a more traditional 2-day weekend. It further reduces my productivity, but I’m looking for something more sustainable in the long-term, and I could always switch back if things improve. I’ll see how my third day in a row of IDA goes for now, but I did end up feeling the strain writing my journal last night. 

Another alternative is to really shift my perspective on my daily writings. I could try to feel more comfortable with writing in very short bursts with long breaks throughout a larger portion of the day. The main question here is if I actually have the discipline to repeatedly switch off from writing and to actually return to it each time.

Anyway, I covered a single sentence last time, but had a quite a bit to say about it. I’m actually not expected to even match the amount since I’m already feeling the pressure, but I’ll endeavor to take some breaks and see what I can manage.

Source

Presently, however, I found that he had not been lying when he told me that he took callers, for he appeared to have many acquaintances, and those in the most different classes of society and type of mammal.

Right from the start of this sentence, the word “presently” leaves me pretty confused. It’s a word that describes things happening in the present, in the moment, and right now. Even ignoring the conceit of this story as an autobiographical recollection, we’ve gone from “as the weeks went by” to the “the first week” to “presently.” I’ve already discussed the effects of this confusion with the last sentence so I won’t continue to harp on it, but it is quite amplified having this chronological whiplash two sentences in a row. If this confusion is unintentional, then I’d have recommended leaning more into the self-reflective nature of this segment, focusing more on Judith’s thoughts and feelings and less on the specific details. The more specific the details get, the more attention is called to them, yet the impression I have so far is that the specific timeline here isn’t all that important.

Anyway, Nicholas did, indeed, tell Judith he took on callers as something she might potentially find bothersome. The way Judith describes the fact that he wasn’t lying makes it seem like some sort of novel discovery, revealing that, even if on an unconscious level, Judith had assumed Nicholas was a liar. He’s proven himself capable of telling a truth, and it comes as a small surprise. It’s really quite in-line with what Judith believes about predators in general, and I’m impressed by the subtle inclusion here.