I am not old enough to know what age is. Age means nothing when you have not lived. I only notice everything because life is new. Every new color, new pattern, new texture is duly noted, but I don’t try to figure it out. There will be time. My kitty is old, but I don’t understand. I call her like I’ve always called her because I want to play. She is big and fuzzy and I always lay my head on her while she makes her funny kitty noises. She won’t come. I call her over and over, all day long. I don’t see my mother’s face. She doesn’t know why kitty won’t come. That is what she says.
It’s a fact, so they tell me. A fact of life. No use debating it, honey. It’s just there. It is. What is it? It is not what, it is. Darling, just don’t worry about it. You’ll find out when you’re older. Why does age dictate knowledge? No one answers. How old are you? Exactly.
I can't decide whether to end it all depressing or more hopeful. Suggestions as to what would work best with the rest of the piece?
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I would just like to say that I am offended and insulted that you would insult our group by deciding to reject our name. I do not know that I can edit your piece or comment on it at all. This hurts.
ReplyDeleteI am siding with Sammy on this one. Oh my.
ReplyDeleteyou would, you are lame as well, if you don't like the name we should come up with a better one! god..... and you said I was the hater, sheesh. C'mon margo, back me up here.
ReplyDeleteLike I have already told you, I like the ideas that I found in this piece, but I thought that you were too vague which caused you to do more telling than showing, I thought. I think if you could tie in more short images it could make this piece and your writing in general a lot stronger, like the image of screaming into the storm at the end and making snow angles.
ReplyDeleteTo the ending, I think you should make it bittersweet, happy and sad, cause I think that is what the piece is about, but that could just be me. The good with the bad, dunno.
^snow angles. Lolwut.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, one of the things I think works best about this piece is the agile, rapid-fire rhetoric. Short sentences help to take the reader into the mind of the writer. This to-the-point speech also helps to convey the youth of the narrator.
One thing that makes me raise my eyebrows just a tad is the existential quips in between the stories. They take a bit of a condescending tone that I can't say I'm a fan of. Ending them the way you do means you're expecting a specific reaction from the reader. If the reader does not have such a reaction, the message is a bit lost. Also, don't assume automatically that questions like "Why does age dictate knowledge?" have no answer. This question especially is fairly easy to answer (or at least provide one possible explanation) via the nearly universal perception of children as symbols of innocence. Knowledge is the opposite of innocence. Therefore, "You'll find out when you're older."
All in all, great job. I really appreciate the language in this piece and I think it is pretty successful.
Like Gerson, I really like the bitter sweet emotion of this piece and think it would be great to develop it further. In the third paragraph, you talk about how "that even when kitty leaves, everything will be okay." This line really stuck out to me and I would love to have read more about your kitty and what happened when she finally did "leave".
ReplyDeleteIn the fifth paragraph, I was a little confused who "her" is. At first I thought you were personifying time or mortality, but I'm not positive because of the metaphors at the end of the paragraph. I think you are making a good point about age and comparing your older self to your younger siblings and with a little clarification it will be very strong.
By the end of the piece, you are talking about how you are older and have knowledge. Just an idea but I think it might be stronger to add a bit of that bitter sweet back into the piece and talk about how you can tell your sister some things b.c. you are older than her but then talk about / give an example of some thing that you still don't understand and may not ever understand (ie go back to that strong idea of mortality or time).
Finally, I smiled and chuckled a bit when I read the lines "Why does age dictate knowledge? No one answers. How old are you? Exactly" This statement is very true and I think its an idea and an experience that everyone can relate too. And the way it is written is sweet.
so you already know how i generally feel about your style of writing, but heres what i think:
ReplyDeleteso i think this comes out interestingly between the "question-exactly" sessions vs. the narrative of you and your sister by trying to understand the age of the narrator in each part. so i read this as you growing up and becoming the people asking the questions you ask in each "exactly" section. time becomes a generational cycle. time changed you. and i read the vaguenesses posited in each narrative section as traits symptomatic of a young you trying to grasp reality from a confused, immature view. that self-exploration comes out cleraly through the huge amount of questions the narrator asks in telling her narrative. in the end, i feel like the take home message for me is that what we believe in now is inevitably going to change, and that the narrator has come to associate with the authorities who she used to challenge and rebel against, which is something that is inevitable because time changes people.
so i guess the cool thing i like about this piece is that even though the writing comes off as ridiculously vague im still drawing a clear theme fairly easily out of it. idk if that's what you're intending, but your intent doesnt matter :)
though the way im reading it is making me scratch my head at various points. at the start, it seems strange that you're commenting on how you can't appreciate your own age... that takes a damn lot of self awareness. and im not really seeing how a matured narrator talking with the mindset of a child really works in the narrative, esp. since that strange divide doesnt seem to really come up throughout the rest of the piece.
then, i just kinda got frustrated reading through the paragraph after the time discussion since so much of it are vague abstract rhetorical questions that are left unanswered. it makes it sound so strained, academic, and preachy at times. im fine with some of those, but it's kind of inundating me right now. on the other hand, it seems like the only paragraph in the narrative that relies on it so heavily, so i guess it reinforces the confusion during transitional time. i guess i wish there was just something more concrete in this piece, since it's almost completely formed by abstract rhetoric with vague, underdeveloped existential feelings running throughout. i read the piece, and i feel like something's missing.
thats what i got for now.