Friday, February 18, 2011

drunk like love

Response 3

First, I stumbled upon Carver's obituary. Here it is, although, I think it's only helpful for us as teachers and wouldn't add much for students unless you were asking them to write obituaries.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5DB1630F930A3575BC0A96E948260&pagewanted=all

On to current event connections. This may be a loose connection, but I couldn't stop thinking about Chris Lee after reading the prompts. No, there are not any craigslist references in Carver's stories, but they are about being drunk and what love means. I can only imagine that Chris Lee was under the confusion of at least one of these things when he posted a self-pic to a very, very, very public site, and named himself there. idiot. I thought Terri said it more directly in "What We Talk About...", but she says, "People are different, Mel." In reference to her abusive husband. I had it in my reading mind that she said something like, "We all do crazy things for love." In "Where I'm Calling From," Roxy finds a boyfriend when her husband, JP won't stop drinking. Chris Lee was obviously out looking for love. He is different, and he sought out love in a way that didn't make sense to most of us. Stupid, but maybe he was trying to figure out love. A discussion starter.



Response 4

I created the wordle using Terri's dialog. The biggest words were "Mel drunk like love." poetry. also crazy and Marjorie were pretty big. Both of these stories could be described this way, I think. "crazy drunk like love."

Starting with "What We Talk About" I thought of all the times I've been in love at the beginning of the story. I was especially struck with Mel's question about where that love goes when the relationship has ended. I've ended 3 long-term relationships and always used to think that the love was not in vain. That the love I shared with those women was important and will remain a part of me. I'm not so sure anymore. I still don't believe it was in vain, but that love has certainly left me, and I am satisfied with the love I have now, although I will say that I learn every day how difficult and beautiful love in a marriage turns out to be. As my great grandfather liked to say "It's hard work." (and he was married 70 years.) That's the personal part.

The responding to the text part: There is great irony as I look back over this story, especially with Mel. He states that he doesn't love his ex-wife any longer, but the drunker he gets, the more it seems that there is something there that he at least misses. He may not love Marjorie any longer, but he doesn't just hate her. There is too much regret. The ending of the story is not quite foreboding, but certainly at least resigned. They fall in silence into the dark. I especially like the lines, "I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving..." I've been at that table where something deep, profound, and unmet has been dared to be spoken. When you are suddenly aware of your own fears that love may not be true. Where you wish you could dissolve with the others into the sunset, so as not to be challenged or grounded by expectation or feeling.

Carver says a lot about love and its many manifestations. I think in terms of using this in high school, I am at first inclined to only use the first 3 pages.

In "Where I'm Calling From," Carver also gives a portrayal of life and love gone awry. This one ends abruptly too, and maybe there is symbolism in the allusion to Jack London's "To Build a Fire," and we could all write 5 paragraph essays on lots of English junk, but overall Carver's stories leave me with the impression that we are all just a drink, a step, a relationship away from being in the halfway house, or prison, or on the street. That our lives are more fragile and tenuous than we let ourselves think about. That those moments at 11:38 at night when we think, "what am I doing" may soon turn into "what have I done?"

4 comments:

  1. 3. I guess Chris Lee just wanted to be wanted? I have said this sarcastically to some of my feminist friends, but really, what must politicians wives be like that not only do these guys cheat, they cheat in idiotic ways? Maybe all Lee wanted was someone like Ed.

    4. All I can say to all the stuff about love is that it changes the chemical state in our brains. I guess there is active love and then previous loves go into some kind of remission?
    Great call on using the first three pages. I think it would work.
    Our lives are tenuous.
    And I will just throw this in here, I read the obituary. Makes sense that he was an alcoholic. Also, Pastoral was his first published story? I think that makes sense too, because I was searching for meaning more than ever during it?

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  2. It may also make sense then that Pastoral was not included in the collection I have which, as mentioned in the obituary, was edited by the author.
    As for chemicals in our brains, I know this is true, but to me it is just like a guy I know in college who said that music was nothing more than mathematics. Technically that is true. Perfect harmonies and rhythms can be measured, perfected, edited, auto-tuned, re-mastered and spliced together to get "musical perfection." But doesn't leaving out feelings and the human element mean that we are missing what makes it real? Isn't it our imperfections that heighten, enhance and accentuate our strive for perfection and meaning? So it is with love, I think. Sorry to go off, but it always makes me think. Music and love are part of what may be called spirit, or soul, if you believe in something like that...

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  3. 3. Definitely an interesting connection with Chris Lee, one I had never even thought of. I'm not sure if he was looking for love, but I think you're right when you say it might have been a possibility. It makes me think about ways in which love can be sought today. A long time ago people would have to rely on physical communication, letters, and phone calls. Now, with the rise of the internet, people talk through the internet, send pictures, text one another, and rarely send letters anymore. I wonder that, with this idea of constant communication, the meaning of love has shifted. Even better and more relevant to Mel's comments, how the hell do we even know what love is?

    Dictionary.com defines love as, "a profoundly, tender, passionate affection for another person." Surely, it would be illogical to go pigeonhole ourselves by being slaves to this definition. Could we feel this "passionate affection" without ever meeting a person, physically? Chris Lee onto something?

    In the words of the Haddaway song from "Night at the Roxbury," What is love?

    4."Carver's stories leave me with the impression that we are all just a drink, a step, a relationship away from being in the halfway house, or prison, or on the street. That our lives are more fragile and tenuous than we let ourselves think about." I think you really summed up my feelings with your statements, here. It does seem like we're always one decision away from having completely different lives. It's funny because I feel like routine and fear encourage us not to think or reflect on our lives until the moment comes where we break down and we have to reflect and make changes.

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  4. 3. Like you said, although it may be a reach, it's good to connect our texts to something tangible in the real world. We need to use what everyone is talking about at the time to our advantage. If we have the blur the connection, so be it. We're pretty suave users of language and can make it happen. What's important is that the connections we ask our students to make are meaningful. I think the lesson you derive from the Chris Lee situation to the literature does just that.

    4. You bring up some heavy questions in your response here. You just had me evaluation all the "loves" of my life. Yikes. I like your point about what Marjorie means to Mel. I think the fact that they have children together is a bond you cannot break. Their love may be over, but their children are permanent reminders of the love they once had. I wonder is that is something Mel cherishes, or is it something that would drive him to drink?

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