on MYSTERY STORIES

I'm a big fan of mystery. I don't need to know all of the inside angles all the time. I like to explore, to guess, to figure things out and accept that there are some questions I'll never know the answer to. In this sense, I prefer to remain in the dark as to an author's intentions behind a piece of writing when I'm looking at it for the first time. That is to say, I prefer to view it with a blank slate to see how, unaided, the text resonates with me.

As I was reading through the first fiction packet in anticipation of this week's class, there were several pieces that I enjoyed. Jamaica Kincaid and Sherman Alexie's pieces were both exceptional, and James Tate's "The List of Famous Hats" was a lot of fun, but one piece that really struck me was Sharon Krinsky's "Mystery Stories". The thing I enjoy about this selection is that it elicits a sense of wonder, wherein one recognizes that, as the reader, we will only ever be able to see a portion of the total picture; in this sense, then, it is our duty to finish the narrative ourselves.

At times, this selection reads like a recollection of dreams. I believe this effect is achieved, in part, from the omission of certain details, and, in another part, due to the fact that it is written in the present tense. In the section entitled "The Japanese Man", the author references both dreaming and waking life:

"I dream that I am this Japanese man. I wake up crying in the dream but not in real life."

Because the author draws this distinction between dreaming and waking life, we must assume, then, that these stories are not summations of dreams, but some other type of stories. Yet, there is something in the writing itself that makes these stories feel too ethereal to have taken place in our world. Perhaps it is the omission of certain details that I alluded to earlier; indeed, there is something in her writing that allows even the most commonplace of occurrences to take on an otherworldly feel. Take, for example, the section entitled "The Record Store":

"A rock 'n' roller all dressed in black comes up behind me while I
am flipping through the albums in a record store. He kisses the top of
my head. Later, he comes to visit a waiter at the restaurant where
I am the manager or hostess."

There are many questions that are posed by this section: Why does the unnamed 'rock 'n' roller' kiss the top of her head? Do they know each other? And why does she state that she is the manager or the hostess of the restaurant? Why doesn't she know which one she is? Is she both? What is the rock 'n' roller's relationship with the waiter? There are many items left unanswered. And that, in my humble opinion, is the beauty in this piece. It brings to mind a quote by the inimitable Pablo Picasso:
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
What would our lives be without questions to stoke our curiosities?