Sunday, February 21, 2016

Reading Response #8: "Popular Mechanics" and "Reunion," pgs. 155-158

Post your reading response to "Popular Mechanics" and "Reunion," pgs. 155-158, below.  

Here are the guidelines:
  1. Reading responses must be AT LEAST 350 words.
  2. Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
  3. From the "Comment As" drop-down menu, choose Anonymous, then click "Publish."
  4. Reading responses are due by 10pm on the day PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.

18 comments:

  1. The introduction to Popular Mechanics is if I do myself perfect for this story. The way he describes how the weather is changing, but compares it to how the inside of the house, him-self, or the problem is changing as well. This story from the start lets you know that it is going to be very intense and something you might not be use to reading. The way the bad language is used in the dialogue helps the intensity grow to the perfect amount, and as the girl takes the baby picture and doesn’t let the man pack it up gives you a feeling that something like a fight is going to happen. The way this author used dialogue to tell the story helps give a better understanding on who is talking and how this story is taking place. The description of the small kitchen helps set the setting and helps imagine where this story might be taking place. I thought it was very intense on how they were fighting for the baby, the way they describe how the baby was turning red and yelling gave a great understanding on how simple words can give a great change to a story. If specific lines form the story were left out if would be as if something was missing. The ending I believe was perfect as well it left you wanting to know who was going to stay with the baby and makes you deeply think on how this issue was decided.
    Reunion used the same type of dialogue, the way they made each character express there thoughts gave the intensity to the story. The narration of the story help the setting of the story come together and help imagine what was going on. The language help describe the anger the father was feeling. I thought to myself that this story was not one of my favorites. I just got sad on how this boy was so excited to be reunited with his father and always looked for that attention and answer to why there parents weren’t together. The ending to the story was a perfect fit, it gave the reader the answer on why the boy’s parents were not together any longer and what the boy thought of his father.
    -Alicia Lucio

    ReplyDelete
  2. Popular Mechanics by Raymond Carver. I reread this piece twice thinking I would read over o see if I had missed anything. But nope; this piece is somewhat traumatic. I liked when the author mentions, “Cars slushed by on the streets outside, where is was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too.” (Page 155) Those two sentences got me ready for the brutal fight between two parents arguing about who got to keep their baby. This story definitely kept me on my toes. I wanted to know more and know why the father was leaving. The imagery I got throughout the story was incredible. For example, “The baby was red-faced and screaming. In he scuffle they knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the stove.” (Page 156) I can totally see this story being a scene in some sort of dramatic film. I enjoyed this piece. The author left the reader wanting to know more about the characters.

    Reunion by John Cheever. This story made me so angry. Seriously, it started off well; I was excited for the boy to meet up with his father again. Continuing to read the story the father just gets becomes more of a jerk. I wonder why the author would make the fathers character act like that. Why the boy would look up to his father in such a light then for it to all crumble down in a second. From what I took for the piece was a successful businessman and like all New Yorker’s he’s rude and obnoxious. The poor boy being humiliated restaurant after restaurant. Just wanting to spend the little time he had n between trains with his father who he hadn’t seen in a very long time. Finally seeing and realizing what a mean man he is; he decided to never associate with him again. The author could possibly be writing about his own life? Maybe he’s heard this story before or experienced it for himself? Who knows? The story was well put together and the language he used wasn’t hard to follow. The context clues before and after were helpful enough.

    - Monica Barbosa

    ReplyDelete
  3. “Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver is a very sad and odd story, a literal cliff hanger. I really like the excessive use of imagery, almost like Carver was foreshadowing what was going to happen by saying “But it was getting dark on the inside too.” Carver really sets up a very well thought out setting while leaving the names of the guy and the girl and the baby out. To me this story is laid out like its meant to be a play or something. The ending made me question what happened to the baby, was the baby taken from the guy? Did both of them pulling make the baby split in half (which is probably very unlikely) or did the baby’s shoulder pop out of the socket? The last sentence “In this manner, the issue was decided.” Is a very blunt sentence, it’s a very good sentence for caver to use to show a little mystery as to what happened with the baby and this sentence also lets the reader interpret for themselves what could of possibly happen to the baby.
    John Cheever’s “Reunion” is really sad, Cheever constructs the story in a way that shows that Charlie was really excited to see his estranged father, even comparing smelling him to the way his mom smells roses, he even describes everything about the way his father smells. I really like how he says “rankness of a mature male” because I know exactly what that smells like but I could never put my finger on it so now I know what to call it. Cheever, I think, intentionally made the first thing that the father say sound super condescending. I took a language and culture class and learned of certain words that are meant to put yourself on a higher pedestal than the other person, eg. “Son”, “Boy”. I also learned that you must be on an equal pedestal in order for a clear conversation to take place. So I Kind of predicted the father being a dick. I looked up what a Bibson Geefeaters and nothing came up but then I realized that earlier in the story the father asked for a Beefeater Gibson which I also looked up and it’s a drink. So I don’t know if that was a typo or if the father gave the waiter a non-existent drink order. Which makes the father seem more of a douche because it’s not even the waiters fault.

    -Lowen Sauceda

    ReplyDelete
  4. I read “Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver twice and my immediate thought upon completing the reading was that I wanted the story to continue. I did not like how it ended so abruptly, I feel as if it is too open ended and there is no closure. I want to know what happens to the baby and which parent gets to keep him. “In this manner, the issue was decided.”.... does that mean they just kept fighting back and forth over the baby? Or something happened to the baby and that’s how it was decided in that manner? I don’t like not knowing what happens specifically, I feel as if the story is incomplete. I also noticed the author did not use quotation marks for the dialogue, but I was still able to decipher which character was saying what and so forth. I know we discussed a previous story where the author did not include quotations I just don’t remember what the reasoning was, however in this story I felt like I was immediately thrown into the scene out of the gate. I felt almost like I was sitting in the room witnessing this entire ordeal go down.

    After reading John Cheever’s “Reunion” I am slightly confused. I get that the father might be some type of important businessman or politician towards the beginning but then as the story unfolds and with the situations I feel like he would have gotten A1 service anywhere he went so maybe he is just an asshole business man who likes to get a rise out of people. I don’t understand why he was such a jerk in the story or why his character was the way he was, I figured a father in his position with such little time would want to sit down anywhere and spend quality time with his child. Nothing really stood out for me up until the very last sentence: “… that was the last time I saw my father.” I feel like it doesn’t end there and somewhere hidden within the story are hints that allow readers to piece together what may have happened to him. I don’t know why but I get this feeling for some reason that the father died. That’s just the gut feeling I got after reading the story maybe I am entirely off.
    -Alfredo Montemayor

    ReplyDelete
  5. “Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver has a unique kick right from the start. Carver took an uncommon route for his language, and I would say he made it work. The writer uses profanity in his work, which is rarely seen in most literature, but in this setting the profanity helps support the tone of the story. One of the things that I noticed was the disappearance of quotations during vocal communication between the characters. In a previous reading, I failed to notice this and it did confuse me throughout the reading. In this passage, though, Carver did an excellent job of carefully structuring the characters’ lines. Through the use of words and separating dialogue in different lines, I was able to clearly tell who was saying what.

    “Reunion” by John Cheever instantly spiked my interest since I am coming from divorced parents, as well. I read this one twice in order to attempt to fully understand it. In my opinion, the language was too caved in. There was too much going on and not enough being told. Apart from that, the story was properly structured in a way that told the boy’s story from the first minute he saw his father again to the last one. The characters were my personal favorite from the story, and I believe they were the writer’s strongest points. We have the two characters, father and son, both very mysterious. Hardly any background information is given to both of the characters which will always keep the reader asking questions about the story. From keys in the story, such as the secretary and the son’s belief that his father would assist him with some form of campaigning, my guess would be that the father comes from a political background. That brings me up to another question; if he is coming from a political, possibly public, figure, why would the father do harsh acts such as rude comments towards servers, passing drinks to his (assumedly) underage son. Perhaps it could be a hint regarding the father. Obviously, he loves his Beefeator Gibsons, and undoubtedly was drinking both himself, which could’ve caused his divorce, and definitely caused his son from not seeing him again.
    -Jesus Pena

    ReplyDelete
  6. Popular Mechanics was very dark and from the first paragraph the reader could see where this piece was going, “But it was getting dark on the inside too.” Although we are unaware of the context of the fight we can see that it is serious. It then escalates into violence and a very real concern for the child. The story starts off dark but just gets darker and darker the more you read into it. Aesthetically the short story looks very neat and pretty, there is a pattern in the way that the paragraphs are structured. I believe that is done so that you can see a contrast between something beautiful and something ugly, which is the ugly situation unfolding within the neat paragraphs. There are no quotation marks and it at times is a little confusing but that adds to the stressful and chaotic situation that is unfolding. The way that this story is structured can be a model for short stories that are intended to say more than what is written. It is almost like an image that you can also read, which not only gives you some sort of literal information but visual as well.
    Reunion was another sort of grim read. Although like the previous short story, this one starts on a more positive note, a son excited to meet with his father. Although the meeting turns into one awkward experience after another it is interesting to see how the author immediately sets up the character of the father. The first time that we see the son talk to his dad, he doesn’t even respond, his secretary does. We can that his father is not a people person, not just by the way that he interacts with the various waiters but also with his own son. In future stories that I write in where I want to really nail down a characters personality, I can use this as a reference because of the amount of character that the author expresses on the father in such a short amount of space. With short fiction it’s all about getting your point across with the limited amount of words and I think this work accomplishes that well.
    -Alvaro Pulido

    ReplyDelete
  7. “Popular Dynamics,” by Raymond Carver made me remember how my parents just fought, not something important, but my point is that this story felt realistic. I definitely loved how this story was focused on one single moment, yet involved plenty of moments or things and ideas that lead up to this moment. As this story goes this story it happens with a mysterious hook, it captivated me with its introduction. This story to me flowed; everything made sense with the diction that Carver used, it was aggressive yet it was filled with all the sentimental right touches. It was a bit tricky for me though as I got confused in a few sections of meaning, like for example first both the mom and dad fought over their baby’s picture and then for their actual baby. I disliked the ending of this story; it was so quick, like taking off a Band-Aid. Also Carver did not use any quotation marks for the characters conversations, but he did put exclamation points to and surrounded the conversations with detailed previous or the next sentence to set the tone. In the end to me, the titled tied up to the story, I saw the connection it covered common arguments on maybe divorce, the loss of an element within the home and other things that happen in real life.
    For the second story, “Reunion” by John Cheever, was very strange story to read. Although it was interesting, starting with the same sentence he ended it. Great emphasizing that, that was the last time he saw his father. It was very interesting how he included another language: English, French and Italian. I had to look up their translation, but I didn’t have to since it fit the drunk, I’m right and you’re wrong attitude. I loved the repeated words mixture of “Beefeater Gibsons- Bibson Geefeater” and also the yelling in this paper, it irritated me made me want to just walk out and eat by myself or just make my train come faster. So towards the end I noticed that Cheever made the characters talk with the –y at end after sorry, made me feel like children were speaking: “sorry, sonny, daddy”. I felt like the attitude the father had might have been a reason for the mother to keep his son away and reason for their divorce. I also think that the title fit perfectly for this father-stanger, son reunion.
    -Maria J. Salinas

    ReplyDelete
  8. Popular Mechanics by Raymond Carver was definitely an intense piece. The imagery in the writing almost makes you feel like you’re watching it. As I kept on reading I noticed myself reading it faster and faster as the scene got more heightened. By what Carver describes at the moment, it seems both parents are unfit to care for the baby. It did make me wonder that maybe if she had let him take the photo maybe he wouldn’t have wanted the baby though. Why would he want to take a photo of the baby if he had planned to take the baby with him as well? I came to the conclusion that he was just fed up and wanted to take what he couldn’t, and knowing that he was physically stronger than her, he knew he was capable of it. The ending really makes you wonder what happened to the baby. Was it hurt? Did it end up with neither of them since they couldn’t come to a conclusion? Maybe CPS even came in the picture because they had both hurt the baby?
    Reunion by John Cheever kind of upset me. Charlie, I’m assuming, seemed like a young man who just wanted to see his estranged father. After reading the full story I completely understand why Charlies mother divorced him, as well as why that was the last time he saw his father (if it was by choice). Charlie claims his father smelled of whiskey, and by the flashback text we can see that his father was acting very obnoxious and couldn’t even get the name of the drinks right – ultimately I came to the conclusion that he was drunk. The dialogue shows a lot of character on the father’s part, and at the ending shows what Charlie thinks of his dad as well. It seemed Charlie was embarrassed of him and wanted to get as far away from him as possible. Maybe Im looking too into the piece, but throughout the story Charlie refers to his dad as “father” and in the ending says, “Goodbye, Daddy.” Maybe he wanted to get away from his father because he realized how much he had changed within 3 years. Charlie could possibly just want to keep the good memories of his dad, therefor wants to remember his childhood memories, which leads to him saying “Daddy.” Not that his dad would remember because he seemed completely wasted.
    -Alyssa Ramos

    ReplyDelete
  9. Raymond Carver in “Popular Mechanics”, started with a sentence that interested me right at the start! My thought was “how could snow be melting into dry water?” There’s no way water can be dry, water is wet! I’m sure there’s a very good explanation why the author wrote this sentence, it confused me, but a good type of confusing to where you have to keep questioning on why he might have written it. The author writes the conversations happening in the story in a different type of way, no dialogues and we’ve seen this before but this author and the way he spaces his paragraphs is also different. As soon as he starts the conversation between these two people with vulgarity, the reader can automatically depict that this novel could have been written with anger, a lot of anger. I’m curious to know why Carver decided to leave the names of the three characters out but I’m sure there could be plenty of reasons. What I liked most was that this piece was very dramatic, you sense it while reading, my personal opinion is that if you can make the reader feel as if this is happening to them, then the author is doing a good job when it comes to writing a story/experience.
    In Reunion by John Cheever, I could right away tell there was going to be conversations happening between people because there is dialogue taking place, unlike the other story. “…but as soon as I saw him I felt that he was my father, my flesh and blood, my future and my doom.” Speaking from experience, I can automatically relate with the character due to past occurrence, had me feeling sympathy for this boy. You can sense after reading the first whole paragraph this boy is infatuated with his father; he looks up to him but why? As I continue reading I come to find that this man is freaking rude! Working as a waiter, WE HATE PEOPLE LIKE THIS (Besides the point). I liked the title of this short story, it was short but it made a lot of sense to the story. The author also incorporates another language into this story which made it even more interesting to read! But as I got to the end, the story became dull, and finished really fast. Over all I enjoyed reading and I also liked how the author wrote this short story overall.
    -Natasha Villarreal

    ReplyDelete
  10. In Raymond Carver’s “Popular Mechanic” the author wrote this piece to be very simple but with an ending of all endings. The title first of all is genius and relates very well to the ending. In Mechanics there are certain screws that go certain way. The shapes are perfectly made for that specific part. The ending quote “In this manner, the issue was decided” because we know very well a baby should be handled with care, and the emphasis of “pulling hard” or “very hard” leads us to believe that the child was injured in ways that shouldn’t have been possible, but happened. The story was in chronological order. The story also starts off with a tone of darkness and tense. “ the snow was melting into dirty water” meaning that a bad situation is about to get worse, which leads me to the connection that when we get to the guy putting his clothes away in the beginning (bad situation) and when they start mishandling the baby (worse situation).

    In John Cheever, “Reunion “ starts off ironic with title because the boy is eager to meet his dad, so this sets off the mood of maybe something is happy about to him, but ironic because its actually the quite opposite at the end of the story. Also the dad seems to be showing off acting like some big shot strong macho man, he also seems like an alcoholic. I thought the dad was maybe delusional at some point. Yelling out languages was weird because nobody could relate, or maybe he was just speaking gibberish to seem impressive because he wants his son to see how cool he is for knowing all these languages.
    -Christopher Capello

    ReplyDelete
  11. I thought these two stories were well written, one had a bit of a lighter edge to it and the other was a bit dark. Although I was confused at the end of the first story “Popular Mechanics” and I’m still trying to understand the title. It wasn’t a difficult story to follow along with because the information and details were pretty straight forward but it’s the simplicity of the story that makes the whole reason or point of it that much more difficult to find. When you read a story with short and simple details it’s a bit hard to really and fully understand what’s going on plus it wasn’t in any type of point of view so you couldn’t really get into someone’s head you have to try and understand them through the simple details and dialogue that the author provides you throughout it. At the end of the story I had a hard time understanding, who ended up staying with the baby, or maybe the baby was a symbol of their relationship and it wasn’t a real baby at all? It just raised a lot of questions which is what I really like about a story. Leaves it up to my own imagination to find out what happened. In the other story “Reunion” it was a little easier to depict what was going on and to understand what the point of the story was unlike “Popular Mechanics”. There was more detail to this story which gave you a better understanding as into what was going on, I thought it was a bit funny in the beginning. The way the father talked, I figured it was going to be a funny type of story but towards the end you can kind of see what’s going on and it doesn’t seem so funny after all, the story had a bit of a twist to it which was also very enjoyable I felt bad for the main character in the end. Both these stories were really good and enjoyable to read. I did get a bit confused with the dialogue in the first story because there were no quotation marks, only in some parts was it a little difficult to understand who was speaking exactly but other than that it was really great. When it comes to structure to each their own, I guess.
    -Bibi Ann Gonzalez

    ReplyDelete
  12. Reading the short story Popular Mechanics by Raymond Carver was really a dark, sad story of two parents seperating and wanting to claim their one and only baby. I think it's horrible that the lady is screaming and the baby is crying loudly with a red face. Makes me wonder why people get so and and why is it we can get this angry. And why? Why can't we all get along? I guess it's the beauty of it. But it is sad they can not deal with the issue in a calm manner in a civil manner. They did not have to yank and pull on the baby like a toy. Why fight? The father was cornering the mom. What gave him the right and the feel of having the power to do so? I was hoping nothing bad happened to the baby in the story. I thought maybe the baby's arms were pulled out the sockets and that was how the decision was decided. They hurt their own child in the process and that was what they got not thinking of their baby.
    Reading Reunion by John Cheever, I felt the boy was disappointed in how his father really was. He was happy to se this father since he had not on the longest time. His father was rude to every single waiter and made ruse comments and demands. His father was not cival. His father got a kick out of making people angry. The son will never know why but you can tell he does not want to be around the father any longer. Maybe his dreams we're ruined of the perfect hangout with his father but the father made it a waste and embarrassing time of his life it seemed. But unfortunately the son had a bad time and did not think twice of leaving and never seeing the father again.
    -ADELISA FUENTES

    ReplyDelete
  13. Raymond Carver begins Popular Mechanics by setting the scene, and not the most ideal scene either. With snow turning into dirty water and slush covering the roads as it starts getting dark outside, Carver does not forget to mention the darkness that is also being created inside. With the tone of the story set, it is obvious that this was not going to be a cheerful read. After he creates the scene, It seems like the story begins to move at a fast pace as a couple's fight starts to unfold. Carver's language is really inviting as it was easy to get into this story and visualize this vicious argument between a mother and father fighting over their only child. Not leaving any details out, he gives us the image of the distressed baby in the middle of the quarrel and even a flower pot breaking possibly symbolizing that the home is broken.
    Just like Raymond Carver, John Cheever visually sets a great scene. From the beginning, it is evident how important Charlie's father is to him. After years of being estranged and having to make arrangements through his father's secretary, Charlie still has the same love for the man that seemed to have lost touch with him. As I continued reading about this reunion, I learned more about the father's character through conversations in the piece. Cheever uses dialogue between waiters and the father to demonstrate the father's obnoxious and entitled attitude that possibly lead to his divorce. He also uses the dialogue at the end between Charlie and his father to show how selfish the father really is, which was really upsetting.
    -Brittany Garcia

    ReplyDelete
  14. In Popular Mechanics, Raymond Carver presents a fast paced omniscient point of view narrative. He mapped the story out in this manner to make sure the reader did not pick a side in the decision of who got the baby. As I read the ending to this story, my anxiety built over the situation. The point of view however worked against logic and had me questioning if this was a real baby or a doll of some sort. As the last line read “In this manner, the issue was decided” I got chills as I reconnected it to the last sentence in the first paragraph which read, “But it was getting dark inside too”. Now the reality of what happens is in the reader’s mind. Readers are left to either commit the imagined murder or see it as an object called the baby that somehow turns red and cries. I know deep down that the author’s intentions are to depict an actual baby because of the description given to the physicality. This piece made me think of the story of King Solomon: two women claim a baby is hers, so the king devises a plan to cut the baby in half to give each woman a piece but the one who protested surrendering the infant to the other for the sake of its life was rewarded the baby.
    In Reunion by John Cheever, readers get a first person narration through the eyes and ears of a young man. The exact age is not disclosed but he is old enough to ride on a train by himself yet young enough to still have this innocent hero view of his jerk father. Cheever does well to characterize the father as a drunk rather than out right writing it from the narrator’s perspective. The abrasive behavior and language that the father uses suggest that the man is not only wealthy but possibly comes from wealth because lower class are less likely to know that many languages or treat working class that way. The anxiety is built in this piece when the characters move from location to location and the narrator has a train to catch. The prospect of this young boy possibly being stuck in New York with this rude drunk man has me nervous about all the possibilities for danger. This story stuck to the Short-short rule of not being overly dramatic. It is interesting to think about how Popular Mechanics was very dramatic and just leaves a reader in that point but it does adhere to the Short-short being ambiguous.
    ~Brenda Gomez

    ReplyDelete
  15. In “Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver, I instantly felt the suspense in the short story, as the first dialogue you read is “I’m glad you are leaving!” This is a very good technique to hook the reader in the story as it barely the beginning of the story and you can feel the emotions jumping out of the pages. From the start you can already see the tone and attitude of the story as Carver opens with “..The snow was turning into dirty water.” Meaning that something beautiful that both the man and the woman cherished was coming to an end. Overall, I enjoyed this story due to the tone and details Carver puts in as he depicts the man and the woman fighting over the baby.
    As for “Reunion” by John Cheever was a really sad story to read. Cheever did a good job in expressing this kind of emotion in the story. I loved the fathers dialogue in the story as he showed his true character, as he is a stuck up arrogant person. This contributes to the sad tone because the boy who hasn’t seen his father in 3 years has to see his father this way. I liked how Cheever used different languages in certain parts of the story. “I went down the stairs and got my train and that was last time I saw my father” was line that really got me because that is horrible last impression of seeing his father. This line heavily contributes to the sad and gloomy tone of the story.
    -Brandon Garcia

    ReplyDelete
  16. RR#8
    To be quite honest, I didn’t understand this piece from Carver. I liked the beginning how it started off with the guy packing his bags and wanting to take the photo of the baby because to me it seemed like that was going to be his last memory intake of the baby. Then the author brought the short story to a middle which was the confrontation of who’s going to keep the baby. Of course, the baby is going to stick with the mother but it made me wonder why she wouldn’t let the baby go with the father. Maybe we don’t know what the father did or an addiction the father may have. The ending was the most interesting part because I didn’t know if the baby died, or the baby fell and hit his head because the last words were “the issue was decided.” Or maybe the mother agreed and let the father take the child after the struggle. I somewhat enjoyed the piece because I could see it in my head – all the imagery. The words he chose to use were so normal but hit powerful to anyone who’s ever been in an altercation like that.
    Reading the second story I feel as if the author was making the character of the father to be a real butthole. He was one of those rude annoying customers that complain and say their words then leave to go do it to another person or restaurant. I feel as if the boy just wants to spend time with the father and left with the image of his father not even caring just rattling other people’s cages. The author did well with the settings as the train station being where it started and ended. Like all these complications happened in between and then yet there’s the heartbreaking ending. I felt both of these articles had complications in between and had a good beginning and ending. I think this story had a better title and made complete sense because some reunion…right?
    arianna tabares

    ReplyDelete
  17. I really enjoyed reading “Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver. The story has a mysterious vibe to it that kept me interested and held to it. The intensity of a couple seemingly breaking up (possibly a divorce?) and not only fighting over a baby, but physically fighting for it kept me wondering what was going to happen; if any harm would come to it. While reading this story it is a mystery as to who is in the wrong. Is the man leaving because the wife is kicking him out for being a bad father/husband? Or is he leaving because the woman did something wrong and is a bad wife/mother? It is hard to root for either of the characters in the fight for the baby since you are unsure who the protagonist and antagonist is. The story ended with a really cool cliff hanger. Did the mother keep the baby? Did the father get the baby from her grasp? Did they drop him or her? Did they rip the baby in half? Who knows?

    John Cheever’s “Reunion” was probably one of my favorite short stories so far. It was a very humorous story about a boy named Charlie who is waiting for a train in New York where his father, who he hasn’t seen in three years since his parents’ divorce, lives. He contacts his father for lunch, but ends up all over the city in so many different restaurants because the dad is a nuisance. The dialogue from the father was loud and obnoxious while heavily contrasted from the quiet and awkward short dialogue from his son. I really enjoyed this piece and had a good laugh reading it.
    -Ryan Bluhm

    ReplyDelete
  18. Both pieces had a theme of broken families and lack of communication. In "Popular Mechanics", it was evening and the author describes how it was getting dark outside as it was inside in a way that one person was packing up to leave and a broken or bitter heart heart, I infer, was being felt by the other. There was also fear, which is related to darkness, and the fear pertained to the baby being torn away from one or the other. I noticed how every like after the first introduction paragraph is aligned like a giant stanza leaving no room to breathe. The other piece, "Reunion" I thought would be more like those family reunions I hear about where everyone has a good time, but just as every wedding has its drama so do some reunions. This reunion seemed frustrating and chaotic. I felt the author did this to show his character (the father) was trying to avoid real conversations or perhaps just didn't know what to do. The ending wasn't the happy ending people look for it was realistic which I enjoyed.
    Lisa Marie Serna

    ReplyDelete