"Going" by Amy Hempel

I love the short story "Going" written by Amy Hempel. In such a short story she was able to tell so much her Character. I also like how the story would explain itself on how and why each thing happened and the story starts off good right off the bat he is in the hospital and he wakes up noticing that there's a typo on the menu when he wakes up, instead of being concerned about his own health and what had happened in 2 days he was pretty calm to be just waking up. Another thing i liked about the story and like the connection of the binoculars while driving : two ways. Sometimes you can have two feelings at once and can be difficult to describe and Binoculars while driving (fast and slow, far and close all at the same time)is a great way to describe that feeling. Amy also made her character very interesting in a way that he had a bit of mystery behind him. The last thing he remembers was seeing a scorpion sting itself to death cause the bartender put tequila on its tail and then when he was leaving the man asked where he was going and he simply responded he was just "Going"... but Why 2 days of memory loss i still didn't get why 2 days?

"Big Me"

"Big Me" by Dan Chaon was a story i really enjoyed reading but i felt like i didnt fully understand it and needed to read it a second time to see if there was anything I had missed the first time because the first time I read "Big Me" the end of it left me with a lot of questions about Andy's life growing up, and how his imagination had taken a far bigger role then reality did which made him to have these "black outs". I wasn't sure if something more traumatic then what is explained to him is what actually happened and maybe his brain actually created these new more enjoyable memories that had this fun story of him being a detective who goes on these missions to gather as many facts as he can on Louis Mickleson the teacher who moved into his hang out house and will also be his 7th grade teacher who apparently looks like an old version of himself so... I going to have to agree with his wife when she said "If I told you that I had periods when I... lost time... wouldn't you be concerned? Wouldn't you want me to see a doctor?" to him having, 'black outs', at certain points was something to be concerned about, and its likely to be something his brain had intentionally blocked out because its something traumatic, and he mentions his childhood being terrible, and how dysfunctional his family is. I'm going to have to agree with Mrs. O'Day... im concerned for Andy and hope things work out for him

US Drag pt 2

i was very disappointed by the ending being so.. uneventful it felt like the story was building for something bigger to happen. I also did really see MUCH change but consider all of the characters were so unique in the some of the oddest ways yet not TOO odd, they all seem like they have personality disorders like Christopher might be autistic or something. I also feel the play would have been a lot better had they found ED or at least developed on the the "ed" situation considering everyone is staying away from ed i guess they did a good job at it then i guess, but i guess not finding ED makes it more realistic considering no matter how interesting me and my friends my be if we were to set out to find a serial killer I'd say were not very likely to find him. U.S. Drag spoke for its self in being a Drag for me

GOING Amy Hempel.

To me, being a writer is the ability to tell a good story in a few words. Amy Hempel fits into my box of a good writer.She is able to divert my thoughts in many different ways.The way she starts the story gets the reader involved immediately.My mind started working ,trying to picture whatever she was saying.She starts by talking about the hospital menu. She makes us realize there is a mistake with the spelling of "served" on her breakfast tray. It was rather spelled as "severed".She now connects this to her accident by saying a menu that says pot roast "severed" with buttered noodles is not what someone who flipped his car twice at sixty and landed side-up in a ditch would like to see.This smooth connection reveals her mastery of writing skills- being able to pass across a message without using a lot of words. She keeps doing this through out the story.She also links the nurse's question to her school teacher who talks about Realization.Just when you think she is going to narrate a particular event with details, she takes your mind off it,and starts talking about some other thing seemingly related to her previous topic. This makes her writing interesting and captivating because you leaves you wondering what she would say next.
Her "olfactory hallucinations" is one thing i found very hilarious, as she says she was able to smell the smoke of her parents' house burning three states away.I begin to wonder how this is possible,but then this adds to the 'flavor' of the story. In essence, this story is about her car accident and the memory loss. But the style she uses to say this is what makes it ideal.
Love the story.

Going

It is a strange little tale with many tiny images of madness. The way he used to drive through binoculars is just a tiny fact suggesting suicide and relates to the scorpion stinging itself to death with just one drop of the same Tequila he was drinking. The olfatory hallucinations which are an indication of schizophrenia, the worm smell he sensed after being out – meaning “almost dead” – for two days. Someone who was close to be under the ground, like the worms. The idea of someone being “there” just because the smell of her is there. And finally, the phrase that I liked the most: “I can’t even remember all that I’ve forgotten.”He realizes something that happened to him but does he? How do you do to know you just realized something? What is he realizing? What did you just realize?

Going" by Amy Hempel

Hi everybody,

I was really surprised at how short the story was. I knew it was supposed to be short but when I opened my book I thought "It's only a little more than a page?" The story isn't spectacular but it does have some interesting details. I liked that the character in the story was driving the car and was looking through the binoculars at the same time. I didn't think it was smart but I had to admire it because I don't think I would be able to come up with something so different. But I guess Amy Hempel would have been able to either seeing as how she got the idea from a real life experience.

I also liked how instead of saying that the nurse in the story was very beautiful she managed to convey the idea in a funnier way by saying "...this nurse makes every other woman look like a sex-change." I thought that was a unique way of describing her.

I also found it interesting how in the interview it was said that she wrote a story that was only a sentence long. I don't think if I'd consider one sentence a story but reading that someone has written one definitely surprised me. Does anyone else think a sentence is to short to be a story?

The Writer's Block: Big Me

This story was very interesting but a little dark in the same time. I mean the Character Allison had a bit of a negative energy around her and not just her. Some of the other characters were very sensitive as well. However I am personally a fan of of this type of style of play making or movie writing. It a harsh reminder of what human beings are some are cruel and some not so much. If someone is attacked and stabbed like mentioned a being who wasn't very close with that person probably wouldn't care very much but then again that is not our fault. But I have to say that Ed person is a real sketchy character, going around and slaughtering people