Thinking about our discussion last class, there were a couple things I noted while reading. First off, the fact that most of this story is lead off of description and narration over dialogue. I’m not sure how much I loved this as I found myself re-reading some sections as my eyes glazed over the page. Although, some of the descriptions were quite interesting, which moves me to my second point. I felt this large parallel was being drawn between the narrator and their brother through the descriptions. You could feel the physical and emotional distance between both of them increase throughout the pages, coming to a circle at the end. I enjoyed how the author described this as them living in the physical reality while their brother lived in the virtual one. It helped me, as a reader, understand their complicated relations and peek behind the curtain of how it effected the narrator. It made me curious about what the story would be from the perspective of Will. Lastly, I thought the ending was whole, and it felt complete. It also rang true with the idea of sibling bonds, and how no matter how far or distant, they’ll be there.
The beginning of the story caught my eye, as I found that I was instantly caught off guard by the phrase “the first time I threw out my back,” as that doesn’t tend to be something that happens often. The narrator then segways into how her brother stayed by her side throughout the experience, relying more on internal narration instead of dialogue, much like what we saw in Annunciation. We instantly get characterization of the brother as a kind individual who is very close with the narrator, which we see change as time goes on, such as in the airport scene where they are notably more distant. As an older sibling myself, it was nice to read a story where the sibling bond ebbed and flowed but remained throughout time, as in many of the books I personally consume, there is either very little focus on siblings, or the protagonist is an only child.
Reaching the end of this relatively unfortunate story, all I could think about was our conversation about Annunciation, when we mentioned that good stories tend to be dark or sad. However, at the same time so is life, and I feel as though this story really highlights that life isn’t an early 2000s comedy, where everything works out in the end and where life is not hard, and where the answers to all of life’s problems are relatively obvious. Besides the overall sense of darkness and misfortune in this story, an aspect of craft that I found interesting from this story is the use of different jargon. I feel as though the author used younger generation slang that I myself would use in everyday life when the narrator told events from when they were 21 years old at the beginning of the story. As the story progressed, the language used became more and more sophisticated, intelligent and arguably less figurative language being utilized in the last 3-4 pages at the end. I feel like this resembles the idea of life becoming more dull over the years of the narrator’s life, leaving her not in the black depression state that she had experienced years before but rather suffering in physical pain instead of mental pain. I found myself waiting through the story for the reason as to why it opened with the aspect of throwing out her back. The correlation of her back to the narrator’s life events was less climactic than I thought it would be. It was heavily incorporated, leading to the failing of her marriage and to being all alone in this scene at the end where she is all alone in another country and in immense pain. I also found it interesting that there was the recurring theme of her not wanting to feel weak in the story. I personally understand that aspect but at the same time I feel as though there weren’t many times where she helped herself in trying to rehabilitate herself and fix her back. I mean I am 21 right now, also an ambitious person and have also thrown out my back, from deadlifting, feeling the exact same spasm of shooting pain when trying to walk after that she describes. However I feel as though that doesn’t determine that I will end up like her, even if I don’t make an effort to rehabilitate myself. As much as her throwing out her back affected her marriage and her mental state, I don’t think that event was the definite cause for all of her misfortune, even though the parallel between her back and her misfortune is strong.
This story seemed to me to read a lot more like an essay than the previous stories we have read. It was like reading an excerpt from an autobiography. I found some parts of the story to be quite engaging but other parts to kind of drag on. What I really appreciated about this story was that it spanned over a pretty large amount of time yet it didn’t feel like the different time frames were separated in a weird way, it still read pretty smoothly to me. What stood out the most to me was the change in attitude of the narrator. Her back and forth between abhorring and finding the good in technology paralleled well with her back and forth of being connected to her brother. I assume the main lesson in this story, as it is titled “My Brother William”, was to understand the limitations we place on ourselves by only relying on in-person contact to keep relationships alive. The narrator’s relationship with her wife failed in the end, despite their physically being close together for years whereas she was able to save her relationship with her brother by using technology. In the end, the very thing that saved her was being able to call her brother.
In the grand scheme of stories we’ve read so far, I will say I was a bit disappointed in this one. I was reminded of the section in our fiction writing book where the author talked about how their stories were usually regarded as anecdotes rather than full stories. I kept waiting for something to happen, and as the story was in past tense I expected it to be pretext for the larger event that was going to play out (like in our past two readings, the man leaving in camp emeline or Griselda’s death in Annunciation). I was surprised when the story ended because it never felt like there was enough of a climax to warrant an end to the story (the back incident is technically the final climax, but it felt like too little too late). Overall, I would not call this a bad story, but I would hesitate to call it a full piece of short fiction. Like I said previously, an anecdote or perhaps a snippet of a larger piece.
While reading this story I felt the constant “my life is pain” gimmick to be tiring. I understand its general things are not great, but I felt in all, this story just felt like an overly talkative family member telling me their life (sob) story while I desperately think of a reason to leave. In all I found it a tad hard to relate to and found myself not taking to the story in a lot of its aspects. There was, however, one aspect quite liked. The story is even titled after the narrator’s brother and discusses in about 40% of the story their relationship. I loved the transition from “close till the end” to a “sadly too distant.” I feel the author struck the right chords with this part. The tragedy of growing distant with someone so close rings well through the story showing that neither party had the time and sadly grew apart. This could be perhaps this hits close to home, that I find it written well, I may be biased. Regardless, I found this aspect of the story quite compelling where my only gripe is that it’s not expanded on a tad more. Through the story I feel that it shows how life gets in the way and we forget the brother that the story is named after which perhaps was part of the intent, but in all I found that the constant ” woe is me” from the narrator tiring, despite the architecture of the story being quite sound.
Something that I really liked throughout this story was the use of dialogue. The author uses a unique approach to dialogue, never actually having quotations but rather choosing to have the characters interectations viewed through the lens of the woman who is experiencing them. We learn a lot about how this character interprets interactions this way, and it makes me consider the effects an unreliable narrator could have on this. Particularly since we covered dialogue last class, I’ve been a lot more cognizant of different ways to approach dialogue and this reading served as a great example of an alternative method of conveying information that was delivered through speech without howing the story loaded with talking. The overall message of the story missed the mark for me, I’m not particularly sure why it didn’t resonate with me much but I’m hoping some discussion will let me understand and see it from different perspectives. In general, I felt that because of the way the story was structured, I was left feeling like there were details that needed explored that weren’t or information that wasn’t important that they spent a lot of time on; I think its a story about connections and how those may grow and change.
I really like how “My Brother William” discusses experiences of depression. The narrator doesn’t talks about the emotional aspects of depression much, instead focusing on the physical parts, making the limitations made by depression and by their back sound similar. On page 170, there’s a description of how depression affected the narrator’s life, of the vicious cycle caused by chronic pain, less sleep and a worsening mood. Then, on the next page, I believe how she talks about coming out of that depression is realistic and completely relatable; seeing the “vividity of the world” as though for the first time again, hearing music from a jazz club and feeling it connect straight to her heart, and this connection strengthening her faith in the world at large. This is often how I come in and out of depression, focusing on physical sensations since the inside feels empty, but using music as a kind of mediator between me and the outside world.
She also explains how her brother wrote an article about the similarities between physical and emotional pain. Between this and the times he stayed on the phone with her while her back made her bedridden, I think that he would’ve understood her best during her black period(s), if only she had reached out to him.
I loved the descriptors throughout this story. The tricky relationship between the brother and sister ended up really pulled the story together, drawing the reader in for a realer environment. I felt that it was hard to comprehend at times because of the jumping storyline over decades but the lack of dialogue actually moved the story forwards instead of holding it back. Not to mention the misleading narrator at the beginning, I thought it was interesting how I assumed the narrator was a man while reading, too. This story reminded me of my own younger brother, and how growing up we’d fight and argue yet our mom was always right when she’d say things like “He’s gonna be there when no one else will be there.” I love to write about my own younger brother, and this story inspired me to use more descriptors when I do.
I feel like the narrator’s voice really comes through to me in this story right off the bat, the other stories that we’ve read have of course had characters with distinct personalities and voices, but for some reason with this style of writing a feel like I get the jist of the character within the first paragraph, and it is only reinforced later on, while I feel like in some other stories the narrator’s voice isn’t truly established until the second or third page. I feel like I really understand the snarkiness of this character right away, and although this is something that is done well in the other stories as well, I feel like I get a sense of the character’s relationship with his brother in just a few short lines. All in all I believe that this story has a really strong opening, where the main character is established immediately.
I found this story to be relatable and emotionally touching. The explanation about what it feels like to fall into a depression felt very accurate. On page 170 the narrator says ” I felt blurry, dissociated. I had difficulty following the trains of simple conversations. With my plummeting mood my back weekend. — During the nights the pain kept me up, interrupting my nightmares, the visions of bombed out redwood groves and raging wildfires.” The attention to detail helped give me a strong visual of the story and I could feel the emotion of the narrator explaining his headache of constantly false hope with relationships. This story brings awareness to mental health and the need for support of others especially loved ones that can make all the difference. This story also shows the struggle physical injuries can have on mental health at such a young age. I felt more could’ve been done with the ending it didn’t seem to give the closure I was hoping for.
While reading “My Brother William,” I found it interesting how well the author was able to make these large time skips flow so smoothly. I think that the reason they worked so well was because the main character’s voice stayed consistent, but overtime carried a deeper perspective, almost removed from life as it was happening. It was a sense of maturity that came with the aging of this character, a sense of being removed, of watching life pass by. I think this style choice was very affective, especially since the character struggles with depression. Life may feel for her, removed or slow, or like it is passing her by. This story was one I enjoyed as it brought up a lot of emotions. Spinal issues run in my family, and so I understood the main character’s pain. I also understood and felt very in tune with how this author expressed the character’s frustration with her pain and her limitations. The frustration was conveyed very well and it was a strong emotion that really pulled me in as a reader, placing me in the character’s shoes. I think it was done so in a way that those who have not been or seen someone been bed bound because of spinal conditions or back injuries, could relate and empathize with this character. I found the plot of the story to be a little slow at times and a little like it was lacking direction. I could tell it was going somewhere, but even toward the end I found myself still asking “why?” There wasn’t that much growth in terms of the character. I don’t mean that I expected her injury to go away, but instead emotional growth. She was still texting her ex even toward the end and making poor choices like spontaneously going on that trip that led to another injury. Additionally, the brother’s character confused me a little. I kept expecting him to play a bigger role in the story than he did. Something I did enjoy about this however, was that the story came full circle in the end with the brother talking to her and being a comfort for her while she was bed bound. It was a nice conclusion.
This story was seemed very different from the other stories that we have read thus far. “My Brother William” talked about a lot about the relationship that the main character had with her brother, and how over time it changed significantly. I really like how they were able to show that this character and her brother changed so drastically over time, and how much life changes with siblings as you get older. I know that with me and my siblings we still all really try hard to make sure that we are in contact at least once a day, but with our bust schedules it does not happen as often as we would like. The one thing that really stood out to me was while this story was all about the relationship with an older brother and growing up, I feel like we missed so much of their relationship and being able to see why they stopped being as close as they once were. It just indicated that they stopped talking but that was it.
13 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 10”
Thinking about our discussion last class, there were a couple things I noted while reading. First off, the fact that most of this story is lead off of description and narration over dialogue. I’m not sure how much I loved this as I found myself re-reading some sections as my eyes glazed over the page. Although, some of the descriptions were quite interesting, which moves me to my second point. I felt this large parallel was being drawn between the narrator and their brother through the descriptions. You could feel the physical and emotional distance between both of them increase throughout the pages, coming to a circle at the end. I enjoyed how the author described this as them living in the physical reality while their brother lived in the virtual one. It helped me, as a reader, understand their complicated relations and peek behind the curtain of how it effected the narrator. It made me curious about what the story would be from the perspective of Will. Lastly, I thought the ending was whole, and it felt complete. It also rang true with the idea of sibling bonds, and how no matter how far or distant, they’ll be there.
The beginning of the story caught my eye, as I found that I was instantly caught off guard by the phrase “the first time I threw out my back,” as that doesn’t tend to be something that happens often. The narrator then segways into how her brother stayed by her side throughout the experience, relying more on internal narration instead of dialogue, much like what we saw in Annunciation. We instantly get characterization of the brother as a kind individual who is very close with the narrator, which we see change as time goes on, such as in the airport scene where they are notably more distant. As an older sibling myself, it was nice to read a story where the sibling bond ebbed and flowed but remained throughout time, as in many of the books I personally consume, there is either very little focus on siblings, or the protagonist is an only child.
Reaching the end of this relatively unfortunate story, all I could think about was our conversation about Annunciation, when we mentioned that good stories tend to be dark or sad. However, at the same time so is life, and I feel as though this story really highlights that life isn’t an early 2000s comedy, where everything works out in the end and where life is not hard, and where the answers to all of life’s problems are relatively obvious. Besides the overall sense of darkness and misfortune in this story, an aspect of craft that I found interesting from this story is the use of different jargon. I feel as though the author used younger generation slang that I myself would use in everyday life when the narrator told events from when they were 21 years old at the beginning of the story. As the story progressed, the language used became more and more sophisticated, intelligent and arguably less figurative language being utilized in the last 3-4 pages at the end. I feel like this resembles the idea of life becoming more dull over the years of the narrator’s life, leaving her not in the black depression state that she had experienced years before but rather suffering in physical pain instead of mental pain. I found myself waiting through the story for the reason as to why it opened with the aspect of throwing out her back. The correlation of her back to the narrator’s life events was less climactic than I thought it would be. It was heavily incorporated, leading to the failing of her marriage and to being all alone in this scene at the end where she is all alone in another country and in immense pain. I also found it interesting that there was the recurring theme of her not wanting to feel weak in the story. I personally understand that aspect but at the same time I feel as though there weren’t many times where she helped herself in trying to rehabilitate herself and fix her back. I mean I am 21 right now, also an ambitious person and have also thrown out my back, from deadlifting, feeling the exact same spasm of shooting pain when trying to walk after that she describes. However I feel as though that doesn’t determine that I will end up like her, even if I don’t make an effort to rehabilitate myself. As much as her throwing out her back affected her marriage and her mental state, I don’t think that event was the definite cause for all of her misfortune, even though the parallel between her back and her misfortune is strong.
This story seemed to me to read a lot more like an essay than the previous stories we have read. It was like reading an excerpt from an autobiography. I found some parts of the story to be quite engaging but other parts to kind of drag on. What I really appreciated about this story was that it spanned over a pretty large amount of time yet it didn’t feel like the different time frames were separated in a weird way, it still read pretty smoothly to me. What stood out the most to me was the change in attitude of the narrator. Her back and forth between abhorring and finding the good in technology paralleled well with her back and forth of being connected to her brother. I assume the main lesson in this story, as it is titled “My Brother William”, was to understand the limitations we place on ourselves by only relying on in-person contact to keep relationships alive. The narrator’s relationship with her wife failed in the end, despite their physically being close together for years whereas she was able to save her relationship with her brother by using technology. In the end, the very thing that saved her was being able to call her brother.
In the grand scheme of stories we’ve read so far, I will say I was a bit disappointed in this one. I was reminded of the section in our fiction writing book where the author talked about how their stories were usually regarded as anecdotes rather than full stories. I kept waiting for something to happen, and as the story was in past tense I expected it to be pretext for the larger event that was going to play out (like in our past two readings, the man leaving in camp emeline or Griselda’s death in Annunciation). I was surprised when the story ended because it never felt like there was enough of a climax to warrant an end to the story (the back incident is technically the final climax, but it felt like too little too late). Overall, I would not call this a bad story, but I would hesitate to call it a full piece of short fiction. Like I said previously, an anecdote or perhaps a snippet of a larger piece.
While reading this story I felt the constant “my life is pain” gimmick to be tiring. I understand its general things are not great, but I felt in all, this story just felt like an overly talkative family member telling me their life (sob) story while I desperately think of a reason to leave. In all I found it a tad hard to relate to and found myself not taking to the story in a lot of its aspects. There was, however, one aspect quite liked. The story is even titled after the narrator’s brother and discusses in about 40% of the story their relationship. I loved the transition from “close till the end” to a “sadly too distant.” I feel the author struck the right chords with this part. The tragedy of growing distant with someone so close rings well through the story showing that neither party had the time and sadly grew apart. This could be perhaps this hits close to home, that I find it written well, I may be biased. Regardless, I found this aspect of the story quite compelling where my only gripe is that it’s not expanded on a tad more. Through the story I feel that it shows how life gets in the way and we forget the brother that the story is named after which perhaps was part of the intent, but in all I found that the constant ” woe is me” from the narrator tiring, despite the architecture of the story being quite sound.
Something that I really liked throughout this story was the use of dialogue. The author uses a unique approach to dialogue, never actually having quotations but rather choosing to have the characters interectations viewed through the lens of the woman who is experiencing them. We learn a lot about how this character interprets interactions this way, and it makes me consider the effects an unreliable narrator could have on this. Particularly since we covered dialogue last class, I’ve been a lot more cognizant of different ways to approach dialogue and this reading served as a great example of an alternative method of conveying information that was delivered through speech without howing the story loaded with talking. The overall message of the story missed the mark for me, I’m not particularly sure why it didn’t resonate with me much but I’m hoping some discussion will let me understand and see it from different perspectives. In general, I felt that because of the way the story was structured, I was left feeling like there were details that needed explored that weren’t or information that wasn’t important that they spent a lot of time on; I think its a story about connections and how those may grow and change.
I really like how “My Brother William” discusses experiences of depression. The narrator doesn’t talks about the emotional aspects of depression much, instead focusing on the physical parts, making the limitations made by depression and by their back sound similar. On page 170, there’s a description of how depression affected the narrator’s life, of the vicious cycle caused by chronic pain, less sleep and a worsening mood. Then, on the next page, I believe how she talks about coming out of that depression is realistic and completely relatable; seeing the “vividity of the world” as though for the first time again, hearing music from a jazz club and feeling it connect straight to her heart, and this connection strengthening her faith in the world at large. This is often how I come in and out of depression, focusing on physical sensations since the inside feels empty, but using music as a kind of mediator between me and the outside world.
She also explains how her brother wrote an article about the similarities between physical and emotional pain. Between this and the times he stayed on the phone with her while her back made her bedridden, I think that he would’ve understood her best during her black period(s), if only she had reached out to him.
I loved the descriptors throughout this story. The tricky relationship between the brother and sister ended up really pulled the story together, drawing the reader in for a realer environment. I felt that it was hard to comprehend at times because of the jumping storyline over decades but the lack of dialogue actually moved the story forwards instead of holding it back. Not to mention the misleading narrator at the beginning, I thought it was interesting how I assumed the narrator was a man while reading, too. This story reminded me of my own younger brother, and how growing up we’d fight and argue yet our mom was always right when she’d say things like “He’s gonna be there when no one else will be there.” I love to write about my own younger brother, and this story inspired me to use more descriptors when I do.
I feel like the narrator’s voice really comes through to me in this story right off the bat, the other stories that we’ve read have of course had characters with distinct personalities and voices, but for some reason with this style of writing a feel like I get the jist of the character within the first paragraph, and it is only reinforced later on, while I feel like in some other stories the narrator’s voice isn’t truly established until the second or third page. I feel like I really understand the snarkiness of this character right away, and although this is something that is done well in the other stories as well, I feel like I get a sense of the character’s relationship with his brother in just a few short lines. All in all I believe that this story has a really strong opening, where the main character is established immediately.
I found this story to be relatable and emotionally touching. The explanation about what it feels like to fall into a depression felt very accurate. On page 170 the narrator says ” I felt blurry, dissociated. I had difficulty following the trains of simple conversations. With my plummeting mood my back weekend. — During the nights the pain kept me up, interrupting my nightmares, the visions of bombed out redwood groves and raging wildfires.” The attention to detail helped give me a strong visual of the story and I could feel the emotion of the narrator explaining his headache of constantly false hope with relationships. This story brings awareness to mental health and the need for support of others especially loved ones that can make all the difference. This story also shows the struggle physical injuries can have on mental health at such a young age. I felt more could’ve been done with the ending it didn’t seem to give the closure I was hoping for.
While reading “My Brother William,” I found it interesting how well the author was able to make these large time skips flow so smoothly. I think that the reason they worked so well was because the main character’s voice stayed consistent, but overtime carried a deeper perspective, almost removed from life as it was happening. It was a sense of maturity that came with the aging of this character, a sense of being removed, of watching life pass by. I think this style choice was very affective, especially since the character struggles with depression. Life may feel for her, removed or slow, or like it is passing her by. This story was one I enjoyed as it brought up a lot of emotions. Spinal issues run in my family, and so I understood the main character’s pain. I also understood and felt very in tune with how this author expressed the character’s frustration with her pain and her limitations. The frustration was conveyed very well and it was a strong emotion that really pulled me in as a reader, placing me in the character’s shoes. I think it was done so in a way that those who have not been or seen someone been bed bound because of spinal conditions or back injuries, could relate and empathize with this character. I found the plot of the story to be a little slow at times and a little like it was lacking direction. I could tell it was going somewhere, but even toward the end I found myself still asking “why?” There wasn’t that much growth in terms of the character. I don’t mean that I expected her injury to go away, but instead emotional growth. She was still texting her ex even toward the end and making poor choices like spontaneously going on that trip that led to another injury. Additionally, the brother’s character confused me a little. I kept expecting him to play a bigger role in the story than he did. Something I did enjoy about this however, was that the story came full circle in the end with the brother talking to her and being a comfort for her while she was bed bound. It was a nice conclusion.
This story was seemed very different from the other stories that we have read thus far. “My Brother William” talked about a lot about the relationship that the main character had with her brother, and how over time it changed significantly. I really like how they were able to show that this character and her brother changed so drastically over time, and how much life changes with siblings as you get older. I know that with me and my siblings we still all really try hard to make sure that we are in contact at least once a day, but with our bust schedules it does not happen as often as we would like. The one thing that really stood out to me was while this story was all about the relationship with an older brother and growing up, I feel like we missed so much of their relationship and being able to see why they stopped being as close as they once were. It just indicated that they stopped talking but that was it.