It's Interactive!

Ben's short fiction selections for tomorrow are very interesting. What is immediately apparent about them is that each of them say a lot with few words. This is a characteristic of writing that I really admire. It makes the interpretation of the reader a part of the text, creating an interaction between the reader and the characters of the story. Each of the fictions generally seem to be about social ritual, and involve communication between two subjects. The two women in the Lydia Davis piece take turns using the word extraordinary, the first placing the emphasis on the word and the second placing the emphasis on the verb and thus on her own opinion, which seems to both agree with and trump that of the first woman. The change in emphasis across the two lines of dialogue puts the lines in conversation with each other, along with the two women. While the two lines appear to be almost identical, they each have a different tone and reveal different information. In fact, it is not absolutely clear that the second person speaking is a woman; she is simply referred to as 'the other' and so we assume that she is another woman. The title, "They take turns using a word they like," becomes necessarily a part of the story that is required in order to interpret the two line conversation. According to the title, the conversation is really not about anything. This frees the reader from interpreting the actual content of the conversation, and instead allows her to consider the inherent meaning behind the interaction. The conversation really seems to be about the competition between two women, couched in a dramatic but meaningless word, extraordinary, and exaggerated politeness.