The Writer As Explorer

This story reminds me of a fable or a biblical story because of Gregorio’s accident. An artist losing his hands seems like a divine punishment, as if he had stolen and got his arm axed. I didn’t expect there to be much of a story after his accident. What was he to do? I thought. But then he paints using his teeth, proving his determination and passion for his art, and his village recreation in particular. Despite his family continuing to dismiss his talent and devotion to it, I think slowly they start to gain some respect for his perseverance, even though they continue to encourage him to do anything else. To make something of himself. I see a lot of irony in the fact that he truly is making something of himself, in a literal sense and in artistic one. His families discouragement shows a lack within of an artistic and creative ability. I wonder if they feel jealous of Gregorio because he was able to do what he loved for so long and they could not. I think their tears when his art is revealed is telling of their grief for a life absent of passion.

While reading “The Truth About What Happened” by Lee Child, there were a few things that popped out at me (especially after reading “Soir Bleu” right before it).  Some of these were very obvious, such as the author’s choice to use dialogue for the primary structure of the piece, but there were other details and interpretations that I personally experienced and would like to point out.

The first, of course, is the structure of the piece.  As I have previously mentioned (and you all have read), the story of “The Truth About What Happened” is shared almost entirely through spoken dialogue between Albert Anthony Jackson, an FBI agent and the main character that we follow, and Slaughter, Vanderbilt’s boss and the one leading the interview/deposition with Jackson.  This encounter came after Jackson had done a previous deposition, though one that is entirely off the record.  This gets explained as the interview goes on.  The main thing that stood out to me was the use of near constant dialogue.  There are plenty of times when it becomes difficult to understand who’s saying what; this can effect the overall flow and speed of the story, but I feel like it’s actually really fitting here.  Since it is a deposition-style interview, it’s supposed to feel contained and almost sterile, in a way.  In addition, it gave me the feeling of being in a dark interview room – the lack of description of the room itself gave me the ability to make my own.

Another thing that really stood out to me was the overall theme of the story.  It starts with Albert Anthony Jackson leaving one deposition to go right into the other, when they’re really two sides of the same coin.  As Jackson explains the story of him and Mr. Hopper trying to learn more about Sherman Bryon, who they were looking at “recruiting.”  As they continued their search and more information was revealed, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread as I waited for something bad to happen, either to Jackson or Mr. Hopper themselves or between the relationship of Sherman Bryon and these two mysterious women.  Except… nothing happened.  What was believed to be a cheating scandal ended up being a time out between Mr. Bryon, his wife, and mother-in-law.  It wasn’t until the very last paragraph when it was reveled that Mr. Bryon was dead that my feeling of dread was recognized in any way.

Finally, there’s the ending, and specifically how the ending ties in with the beginning.  In a literal sense, both points are Albert’s closing thoughts about how well he did during each deposition.  However, each deposition is a retelling of the same story, since it was my understanding that the first deposition at the beginning of the story was the one that was required after Mr. Sherman Bryon’s death.  It is this full circle that surprised me and it was very satisfying to recognize.

“Soir Bleu” is told through the perspective of the beret-clad artist, Vachon. He observes his surroundings in a pessimistic manner, chiefly his model, Solange, whom he claims as his Muse. Vachon exhibits intense egotism throughout the story, boasting that Solange has ‘fallen deeply in love with his genius’ and that ‘she no longer exists except by my hand.’ The latter gives indication of an inferiority complex that only solidifies throughout the story through his controlling attitude towards Solange and territoriality against other men. 

I found his one-sided conversation with Pierrot the clown intriguing. At the beginning of the story, the first impression is that he is a self-absorbed egotist with an innate insecurity about his masculinity in regard to keeping Solange to himself. His memory of the pantomime was quite poignant and displayed a child’s vulnerability stemming from wariness of his father. As he recalls this, he is doing a self-examination, though he arrives at no great conclusion nor epiphany.

Vachon goes looking for Solange and finds her in bed with the soldier. As soon as the soldier leaves, Vachon strangles Solange, effectively reenacting the pantomime of Pierrot and Columbina in silence, vengeance, and passion. The clown actor reappears in the room and removes his face to reveal that he is in fact an apparition of Vachon’s drunkard father. By murdering the closest woman he had in his life, Vachon has repeated the cycle of violence that his father set in motion by snapping his mother’s neck, and by extension that the pantomime set in motion by planting the idea in his father’s head.
In “Soir Bleu,” it would appear that commedia dell’arte serves as a dark inspiration for crimes of passion, in particular the crimes committed by Pierrot. It banks on insecurity and dissatisfaction with life to instill the belief that perhaps, just perhaps, things could be better if one is willing to commit a transgression to ‘free themselves’. Of course, there’s also the question of whether Vachon’s father would have committed the crime anyway without watching the pantomime; however, that is not something that we will ever know.

In chapter one of Audubon’s Watch, we follow the point of view of a father. The father goes in between talking about himself, his life, the people around him, and birds. He often intertwines these factors throughout the story. Upon my first read, I found that there is a slight feminist agenda taking place. We follow a man who is in a wonderful relationship and has a wonderful family. In today’s media we see a lot of examples of marriages in which the man “holds the power.” The man is the one who is unhappy in the relationship, so he cheats. The man sees the woman as an object or tool and not as a human. The man is the one who isn’t getting his needs met, while the woman raises the children, does all the housework, and has a job. We often do not see a man who adores his wife, supports his wife, or even enjoys his wife. You may be able to blame this idea on the mass influx of media this generation has lived through, but it could be just in the nature of it all. Later on, we realize that everything was not as pure as it seemed. The rose-colored glasses come off and it doesn’t anger me while reading, it is merely another disappointment from a man.

Another underlying theme that I found compelling was the main character grappling with his dwindling youth. He compares himself to birds, having the ability to “climb up the trees”(13) and move as they as he could in his youth. He worries about his mind being in “ruins” and his “wits”(14) being dulled. Somehow, the connection between the grief of growing old and birds just works. When you think of birds, you imagine free flying, energy-filled, and song singing animals. When you think of aging, those do not come to mind. If that is what you crave, by the writing it seems like the narrator does, then grief would be expected.

At the near end of the chapter, it writes “Always your mother has welcomed me back with innocent wonder and gratitude, her fidelity unwavering, her faith steadfast and pure” (20). The feminist agenda I once saw has now been ripped out of my hands. Not only speaking of infidelity while the woman, the partner, still remains without knowledge of the fact, but also, the themes of sanctity, pureness, faithful, innocent, and naive are excruciatingly present.

I failed to understand the themes of the family and the letter. I would love to hear others’ thoughts on these and why it feels important to have these themes.

This week I have decided to write about “Soir Bleu” by Robert Olen Butler. Butler starts off with the setting of a hotel lobby where three people are the center plus a peculiar clown, Pierott, who is later revealed to only be seen by the narrator. There is a deal to be made on one of the narrator’s paintings to Colonel Leclerc who is more interested in the narrator’s muse, Solange, who is also his lover, than anything else being offered to him. Right away it was easy to sense the underlying suspense that Butler was trying to portray here, which made the story interesting to read in hopes of finding out what was next. The richest part of the story is what comes from the narrator’s interaction with Pierott.

In the beginning they communicate with no words, understanding each other with just hand gestures. Butler gives them a sense of familiarity with each other without fully describing it at first. In any normal circumstance a clown appearing magically at your table would be unsettling for many, but it seemed to have no real effect on the narrator. He reveals that he has in fact seen Pierott before, maybe not the exact actor, but he has seen the show, and he recalls that memory even though he knows he shouldn’t and how hard it will be for him. While revisiting that memory, he remembers his father:

I have not listened to myself speaking to the Pierott of this veranda in Nice, but I hear myself suddenly fall silent with him. And in that theater in Valvins, as Columbina dies, I enter another pantomime beside me. I turn my head to look at my father. His muscled bulk. His drunkard’s bloated red nose. His vast, pocked red nose. But a smart man, for all that. A dealer in bonds. Even a refined man. My father frightens me and he enchants me.

After this it is revealed that after that night the narrator never saw his father again.

That night at the theater is the last time I will ever see my father. The next day my mother is dead, her neck snapped. And he has vanished.

The underlying suspense that Butler captures us with in the beginning is now back as we discover that the narrator’s father has killed his mother. It brings our attention back to Colonel Leclerc and Solange, who are discovered to be having an affair. The Colonel blames it on Solange, only saying that she seduced him, and he rushes out of the room, leaving the two together. The narrator kills Solange only to be met by Pierott again as they now look at her dead body.

Pierott is standing barely an arm’s length before me. His face is solemn. He nods once more and raises his right hand and it pauses at the base of his throat, and he grasps something, and now his hand is rising and the whiteness is rising with it. More. It is his skin, his flesh rising, and the bones of his neck are emerging and now the chin of a skull, and higher his hand goes, passing upward, and the skull’s teeth appear and the bones of cheek and lip and now a fleshy nose emerges, preserved in this skull, and in one final stroke he rips off the rest of the clown’s face and all is gray bone and empty eye socket. All but the nose, which remains uncorrupted by the grave. A drunkard’s bloated red nose. A vast, pocked red nose. As skulls are apt to do, it is smiling. I cannot share the smile. “Father” I say, “What have we done.”

Butler showcased perfectly the effects of trauma from a young age and the way that generation cycles and repeating cycles can come into play. The narrator repeated the same action of the man that frightened him and stole his innocence at such a young age. He didn’t repeat these actions because he admired him, but because that was all he knew to do at the time. Now he has become the thing that was haunting him and the man that he hated which is truly a punishment worse than death itself.

As I’m not here to critique or comment on my super personal views on this story, I wanted to try and discuss what works in this story and what ultimately doesn’t. I wanted to find a reason for this method of storytelling, as it is quite different than what we’ve read so far. Something initially noticeable is the narrator’s use of second person in the first few paragraphs. “Try it. One day it will save your ass. Because unwise responses are tempting at times” (53). As you start to read, you think it’ll be first person narration, which it is until this moment. The narrator is speaking directly to us, the audience. How do we know? The key feature here is there are no quotation marks to showcase that this is spoken dialogue (as the story mostly contains). This is our narrator speaking either in his head or writing it down to share with others.

As I previously stated, this story contains quite a lot of dialogue between only two characters. While I’m a firm believer that overwhelming amounts of dialogue can slow the story, the right amount can progress it. This doesn’t seem to be the case in this story, but I also don’t think progression is the true meaning here. This story is about our narrator teaching us how to construct the perfect interview via his “three second method.” On the very first page he states: “My answers were brief and concise. My control was good. I said nothing I shouldn’t have said. I used an old trick someone taught me long ago, which was to count to three in my head before replying to a question.” The purpose of this story is to prove that this method does indeed work and it provides us with a positive example for proof. If this story wasn’t mostly composed of dialogue, we wouldn’t be able to see how this interview goes right or wrong, we’d just have to take the narrator’s word for it.

In the end, we can see that Slaughter is satisfied with Jackson’s responses. Jackson says he walked out feeling good; he had said nothing he didn’t want to say. What does this say about art? Show what you have to to get your point across, it might not make sense any other way. Take risks by branching out and trying new methods. Everything came full circle in the end of this story, and while the pacing might’ve not been ideal, it still feels like a complete story.

Carrie Brown’s “Miniature Man” takes us into the life and mind of Tomas Xavis, a doctor in a small town in Spain. When his family member,Gregorio, is injured we are given a story about obsession and family. Gregorio is a man who is obsessed with art specially making miniature figures. His whole family is against his obsession and are concerned about him.They think he his art has made him a hermit since he is always working in his museum. A museum that no one even tried to look into. Once Gregorio has injured his hands we get a deep look into how family can be either a great help or a detriment and how grief effects a whole family.From the perspective of Dr.Xavis we see through his dreams that he feels subconsciously guilty about Gregorio’s injury. Each dream he feels like he has to help Gregorio  be understood. He wants  his art to accepted by the town and his family. Gregorio who was  estranged is now forced to be in close proximity to a family that does accept him. We see him become frustrated with both his family and himself but that does not stop him from trying to create his art. Celeste  is probably the most important character of the story, for she is the one who initiates an internal shift within the family. Her constant need to hover and smother Gregorio ignites Tomas and eventually Patrick to try to actually understand the reasoning behind his obsession. At the end we finally discover that Gregorio ‘s art was not only driven by obsession but also by love; since the museum he had been working on for years was a collection of figures that represented everyone in the town including his family. It also turned out that the museum had always been unlocked the whole time but no one had cared to check it out before. Carrie Brown has done a great job of presenting the themes of grief, obsession, and family while also creating a beautiful short story.

George’s interaction with Picasso tells a story about how meeting someone you admire, and interacting with them, changes you. Or how it doesn’t. It speaks to the way people fantasize and laud people they look up to and how that often transforms into a cultivation of unrealistic expectations. I think maybe George didn’t tell his wife because Picasso wasn’t what he expected. His praise and awe of him leads me to believe he was looking for something magnificent. He saw him create live and witnessed a work of his that nobody ever will, which is magnificent, but I wonder if he was disappointed that it wasn’t what he imagined. Or maybe he was disappointed that his dream is over.

Based on Edward Hopper’s painting of the same name, Megan Abbott’s short story “Girlie Show” follows a woman named Pauline as she experiences a turning point in her unhappy marriage. Pauline’s husband is a painter who, after hearing from a friend about a particular exotic dancer, becomes obsessed with painting her. He enlists Pauline to pose for this painting without revealing to her what it is, and repeatedly returns to the club where the woman works. Pauline, who is so rarely asked to pose for her husband’s paintings, is excited to be receiving his attention again, even though it means posing naked in the cold for hours at a time. However, after noticing his increased coldness towards her, Pauline reveals the painting, and soon decides to follow her husband to the club. This is where she meets the dancer her husband is infatuated with, Mae. Mae is kind to her, inviting her into her dressing room and offering her chocolates, and even agreeing to help her exact poetic revenge on her husband.

Throughout the story, it is clear to the reader that Pauline’s marriage is not, and likely never was a healthy one. Earlier in their relationship, her husband would often paint her, which she enjoyed as some of the only time they spent together. At the point where the story begins, however, he no longer allows her to model for his paintings despite her eagerness, preferring to pay young women. He does not spend any meaningful amount of time with her, feels comfortable having vulgar discussions within her earshot, talks down to her, and even strikes her. She also describes sex that was so violent she had to get stitches. Despite all of this, it seems that Pauline is still desperate for his attention. When he asks her to pose for him, she does so enthusiastically, even though it hurts her. She tries to ignore the signs of his infidelity, choosing instead to believe that he had gotten her a gift and simply forgotten her size, that he was out for legitimate reasons, etc. despite all signs pointing otherwise. 

Pauline experiences a turning point when her husband becomes frustrated with her appearance and replaces her as the model for his painting. This hurts her so deeply that she uncovers his painting, revealing a crude image of a naked woman who looks nothing like her. The fiction that she has created is broken, and she decides to follow him one night to confirm her suspicions. This is where she meets Mae, the woman from the painting, who in real life is not so alarming as the painting of her. She is kind to Pauline and understanding of her situation, inviting her into her dressing room and talking with her for a long time. Pauline’s relationship with Mae acts as a return to her independence. Up until this point, her self-worth had hinged on her husband’s approval, but once she was able to accept that he never had, she gained a sense of freedom to express herself.

In the story “The Girlie Show,” we are introduced to a woman named Pauline, a wife cheated on by the husband whom she loves and who abuses her. The story has many hints of abuse that we pick up through Pauline’s eyes. A few quotes that we receive from Pauline that give us those minute hints: 

• “Stand by the stove,” he says, rolling his shirtsleeves above his elbows. That angry vein in his forearm…”
• “You’re not anything,” he says coolly. “But the painting will be called the ‘Irish Venus.’”
• “The canvas on his easel was torn in half, and he was gone to McCrory’s till four. When he finally returned, knocking over the milk bottles on the front step, he did some nasty things under their covers that she was required to be part of. She had to go to a doctor the next day and have some stitches put inside. Pushing through the train turnstile made her cry in pain.”

When I first read this, the number one thing that caught my eye was Pauline and her husband’s relationship. The matter of the story opening by sexualizing a woman’s body speaks a lot about the characteristics of the husband and friend. It became evident that, by their tones, these conversations happen often. It was no surprise until we, the audience, found out that one of the men was married and talking about this in earshot for his wife to hear. It showed that he and his friend could have a casual conversation about this and that the man did not care enough about his wife, who could hear such vulgar things. 

Another thing that struck me is that Pauline truly wants to be seen by her husband and be loved by him. In the scene in which she comes home to the shoes two sizes too small, anyone seeing that would know that he was cheating. However, to Pauline, it was the first time in a while that he had done something to show his love. You want to be loved by your partner, and Pauline shows this by giving him chance after chance, even if he may not deserve it. With these subtle (and not so subtle) hints to provide insight into their relationship, I was pleasantly surprised when Pauline followed her husband and met with Mae to get revenge on her abusive, cheating husband. The last scene in the story reminded me of a movie called The Other Woman (with Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann), in which a wife and two of his mistresses plot revenge on her conniving, weasel husband. Both of these stories show that women do not have to always tear each other down, and the fault can usually be traced back to the man.

Ray Bradbury is known for many of his strange and intriguing stories, though “A Season of Calm Weather” seems very normal in comparison. There are many aspects of this story that I find interesting, including the title  and the point of view in which it is being told. This whole story is being told from an outside perspective, which gives the reader extra insight into the story. This third person narrator even goes so far as to let the reader know in advance that George and Picasso will cross paths:

“So the shore-line stage was set, and in a few minutes the two men would
meet. And once again Fate fixed the scales for shocks and surprises, arrivals
and departures.” (2)

The title of this story stood out because it felt separate from what the story was about; sure, it may be taking place during a seemingly calm day, but George does not fully take it in because he is so obsessed with Picasso and his artwork. The sand artwork is special because it is made by a profound artist whose work is sold for very high prices, and yet it only exists for a short amount of time. It will never exist again, and it holds a special moment for George and when he meets his favorite artist, which makes the artwork invaluable. After it is washed away, it will only exist within George’s memory.

This ability to look at the story from the outside not only draws the reader in more, but also reflects the way that George sees things: through a different lens. The story would be much different if we were looking at the world purely through George’s eyes, but then we would not get as much information on the actions of other characters and how they affect the story.

The narrator introduces the reader to this story by describing the arrival of a very average American man with a very average name: George Smith, though George Smith is special in that he takes in his new environment through the eyes of Pablo Picasso’s paintings. This fascination with Pablo Picasso’s art later influences his accidental meeting with the artist himself, who is in the moment creating artwork in the sand. The artwork in the sand becomes George’s main focus as he tries desperately to come up with some way to preserve the work, even though it will be washed away by the rising tide eventually. George’s ideas for preserving it would not do the art justice anyway, and he realizes this, which is why he doesn’t bother to run back to the hotel to grab his camera; it will not look any better than it will in the existing moment. So he takes in every aspect of the piece in the sand, locking it into his memory to keep.

Though the ending of this story is inevitable, it leaves the reader with a relatable feeling of wanting to hold onto the past, of drinking in as much of the beauty in the world as you can before it is gone. All that is left is a memory to cherish, as time marches on.

This week’s reading, “The Girlie Show” by Megan Abbott, brings us the character Pauline. Pauline is a middle-aged woman who is in a  bad marriage with man who both abuses her and cheats. The beginning of the story shows us that Pauline is a woman who works hard to provide for herself and her husband while he pursues his career in art. We see that their marriage is very strained, to say the least, and toxic. With Pauline feeling the need to walk on eggshells when she is with her husband. When he asks her to pose nude for him as she has done in the past, I felt as though maybe their relationship could maybe mend itself with them spending this time together, but I was mistaken. I think the one thing we do see is Pauline finding herself again and being reminded of her own beauty. An example of her awakening is the first night of her modeling, she described a moment in which she saw her own nude reflection and smiled to herself. Later on in the story, we find Pauline with the stripper Mae, one of the women her husband has been pursuing. Instead of being mad at Mae or any of the other women, Pauline took the moment to reinvent herself from a humble woman who is not even seen by her husband to a star who is seen and admired by many men.

This is part of the reason I love this story so much. Here we have a protagonist who is forty-two years old living in the 1940’s, a decade in which women were oppressed and were to be seen, not heard. This makes it extremely hard to be able to express their needs or wants or to tell others when their safety is threatened. Pauline went through extreme abuse and mistreatment from her husband, but through meeting the woman who should’ve been a threat to her, she found herself opening up to the world and to herself. Through this impulsive and brave act, I believe, Pauline freed herself from her own unhappiness, and in the end her husband also received his karma — a serious beating — which hopefully will give her a chance to finally leave him.

In “Girlie Show,” the setting of the story is never stated, but the painting used as the ekphrasis foundation was created in 1941 and based on the description of Pauline’s clothing on page 5 (dress, stockings, slip, brassiere, step-ins), it would be logical to assume that the setting is the same period. The 1940’s were a time when women were expected to strictly adhere to the role of the Good and Loyal Wife who obeyed their husband without complaint and provided ‘service with a smile.’ The protagonist, Pauline, spends 90% of the story on the receiving end of her husband’s emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. There are multiple signs that he is seeing other women (shoes that don’t fit her, staying out constantly, drawings that certainly do not look like her), yet Pauline continually chooses to ignore the evidence up until pages 12-13, when she happens to spot him out and about and she follows him to a theater. It is also on page 13 that Pauline meets her first true ally at the theater.

Mae approaches Pauline in a cordial manner and confirms that her husband is indeed a regular at the theater. Mae drives off a catcaller watching Pauline, then takes her backstage to prevent any similar happenings, at the same time protecting her from the remarks of the other performers they pass by. In Mae’s dressing room, Pauline nearly cries until she sees gifts from her husband to Mae. She no longer wants to cry; instead she feels rage bubble up inside of her. Mae helps Pauline transform into a dancer and gives her a brief time to perform onstage, to enact revenge on her unfaithful husband. The plan works and he is taken outside and beaten to a pulp by the bouncer, screaming blame at Pauline for his situation.

The automatic assumption in my mind while reading was that Pauline and Mae would have a catty, antagonistic relationship with each other upon the reveal about Pauline’s husband. I was pleasantly surprised and intrigued when they did not take that route. They instead established an immediate closeness. While they are together, Pauline recalls childhood memories that shine a more positive light on her life, like scarfing down forbidden candies with a female peer. It is incredibly apparent that Pauline feels far more comfortable with Mae than anyone else, namely by:

• Relaying the stolen candy story to Mae, despite never having told anyone before
• Noting Mae’s physical features
• Feeling bashful while Mae does her body makeup
• Outright flirting with each other

At the end of “Girlie Show,” after watching her husband be pummeled, Pauline returns to Mae’s dressing room, closes the door behind her, and, one would assume, furthers her already intimate relationship with Mae.

Pauline’s warranted rebellion and being around Mae was a breath of fresh air to walk through. More often than not, in fiction stories, there is a prominent aloneness for female protagonists. They must deal with personal struggles by themselves or at the least with a mother/sister figure to pat their back and offer reassurance. To witness women who barely know each other helping one another out purely out of sympathy or empathy is immeasurably gratifying. In our own world, women will help other women whether in small or large ways, whether by providing supplies in times of shortage (personal or familial) or taking information about unknown dates that they plan to go on or seeing someone who looks uncomfortable in a place/talking to someone and offering to accompany her. All of these establish unity between one another and a desire to protect the wellbeing of fellow women from all walks of life. I am so very glad that this was the path Megan Abbott took Pauline down.

While I was initially taken aback by the drawn out sentences and near lack of punctuation, Ray Bradbury’s short story really intrigued me at its end. We learn throughout the story that our protagonist, George Smith, is quite the dreamer and often in his own head. Alice Smith, his wife, is quite the opposite. I’d even debate calling her the realist of the story, the grounding. As I’m sure others can agree, the ironic twist at the final act of the story was endearing as an outsider looking in, though I’m sure for George it was surely overwhelming. Meeting his favorite artist on the beach by sheer happenstance while getting to see him at work no less, sketching in the sand. What I loved most about this story in particular was the ending. The set of dialogue between George and his wife about what had just happened to him:

“Anything interesting happen on your walk?” she asked.
“No,” he said
“You look funny; George, you didn’t swim out too far, did you, and
almost drown? I can tell by your face. You did swim out too far, didn’t you?

“Yes,” he said. (5)

The phrase being presented here about swimming out too far is a great metaphor for the experience George had with Picasso. He was obsessed, enthralled, completely enamored by the artist’s work. So his loss of not being able to capture Picasso’s work in the sand must’ve been heartbreaking. I really liked the line, “He kept on doing this until there was no more light in the sky or on the sand to see by.” (4) This line was what really put the metaphor together for me. He’s lost after not being able to capture the artwork, he’s too far out to sea. There is some foreshadowing on the first page as well about this metaphor, as George says he wishes he never heard the rumor about Picasso being in town. The stars can’t align that perfectly for them to meet under normal circumstances, but when they do, it ends bittersweet. George’s dream is fulfilled to an extent, and he walks away with something only he knows, a connection between him and Picasso that only they share. This is what makes the last line of the story not only sad but powerful. The tide coming in represents change, new beginnings, an erasure of what was.

“Just the tide,” he said after a while, sitting there, his eyes still shut. “Just the tide coming in.” (5)

The story that I decided to write about this week is “In A Season Of Calm Weather” by Ray Bradbury. In this story Bradbury creates the character of George Smith who is an avid lover of art, but mainly of the artist Picasso. George seems to see the world through Picasso’s eyes which, in my opinion, is an interesting way of perceiving things since Picasso is widely known for his abstract art. Bradbury takes the experience of George going on what is supposed to be a relaxing vacation and time spent between him and his wife and turns it into the way a man has been captivated by art and the artist and how he applies it to the real world.

The fact that Picasso himself is only a few miles away from George is something that a lot of us cannot even process. Imagining that one of my favorite artists or inspirations is only miles from me would be something that would be hard for me not to focus on the same way that it is for George. This art has become his life and he is truly amazed by it. In the story George is able to witness a man on the beach that I believe to be Picasso creating art on the sand. This stands out to me because Picasso’s art is clearly something that is so powerful and captivating. Even Bradbury’s descriptions of the artwork convey to the the reader that Picasso is talented. Being able to put his artwork onto the sand was so ironic to me, though. It shows that art is truly his passion and he does it because he loves it, not just because it is a job. Sand is so fragile and one movement can change the whole piece. He created this art piece on the sand where it is so easy for it to wash away or be destroyed. That is something that is truly so beautiful to me.