First-Person Fiction

The narrator in this story believes that they have a story to tell when there are red bugs found on the elm tree that grows in his yard, and his neighbor tells him that he needs to chop down the tree so that his own elm trees don’t get infested. This is an important issue for the narrator, given that the elm tree in his yard is over 200 years old, and has been around for longer than he has been alive. It would seem as though the narrator is mainly either writing or thinking, as he begins the story by relaying his personal biography to an audience of some kind. Otherwise, he speaks with Mr. Pike on occasion, but the majority of the narration is not relayed to the reader through dialogue. As the reader, it feels as though the narrator is confiding in us throughout the story, as he never mentions any of the internal struggle he is going through to his wife or anyone else. I would describe the nature of this presentation as a reflection of the narrator aging in comparison with this elm tree that needs to be cut down in order to make way for new life. The narrator describes his relationship with his wife as good, but they almost never interact with each other throughout the entirety of the story. He also mentions that his wife does adventurous things without him, by saying, “Age, it seems, has left my wife alone. She ice-skates and will swim nude in a mountain lake. She does these things without me, however, for now my life has slowed” (pg 3). Perhaps the narrator thinks that by preserving the elm tree, he is also proving that he has some relevance in modern society and a reason to continue living despite the setbacks in his health. It seems that he feels as though he is being left behind by everyone he knows, with his wife continuing to enjoy the adventures they used to go on together by herself and Mr. Pike determined to clear his elm tree and preserve his own young ones.

The tone of this story is mostly downcast, due to the many things in the narrator’s life that he now has to miss out on, and the impending death of a tree that has been a constant in his life. Towards the end of the story I would say that it becomes almost vengeful towards Mr. Pike, with the narrator’s plot to release the insects on his elm trees as well. But once he gives up on that plan, the tone of the story becomes more wistful. It seems as though the narrator has some regrets, and some things he wishes he could still do despite age catching up with him. I think that the narrator changes over the course of this story by realizing more all the things that he could have accomplished in his lifetime, and recognizing that there are some things he is no longer able to do. This realization is a hard one for many of us as we get older; everyone has regrets of one kind or another from time to time, and aging is a fact of life that not everyone is ready to face. This story represents the constant movement of time, and how we may try to resist changing times or death and decay, but it will always continue on whether we like it or not.

This story is full of elements that should be discussed—the mirror scenes, the connections, time, generations—but it is the narrator that most intrigues me. He is an emotional man who feels the advancement of his years bearing down on him; this is in part due to his decreased mobility and lack of elation and anticipation in his life. He is in a one-sided rivalry with Mr. Pike over his elm tree—a tree older than the Liberty Bell, he points out—and he feels that this is an “out with the old, in with the new” situation. However, Mr. Pike merely wants to protect his own young trees from the ant invasion, but the narrator doesn’t see it this way due to his limited understanding of Mr. Pike. And it is his foresightedness of Mr. Pike’s character that leads to the climax of this story.

Constellations

The narrator feels things deeply, and it is unique moments that bring him intense emotions. He says that

“…certain moments have always been peculiarly moving for me, and the mention of a century was one. There have been others…as couples and families converge on the concert hall from radiating footpaths…filled me with a longing…the spectacle of a thousand human beings organizing themselves into a single room to hear the quartets of Beethoven is as moving to me as birth or death. I feel the same way during the passage of an automobile across a cantilever span above the Mississippi…these moments overwhelm me.”

He is moved by abstract things and gestures, and by moments that seem mundane or inconsequential. He is not “overwhelmed” by people, and certainly not Mr. Pike. On the contrary, he describes his neighbor as “a thick and unpleasant man with whom I have rarely spoken.” The narrator acts on his feelings and sets out to, for all intents, exact revenge on Mr. Pike for having his beloved tree cut down. However, when he is in Mr. Pike’s bomb shelter and sees the man and his son outside, he becomes aware of his misunderstanding of Mr. Pike. He says that

“Then I realized that he was pointing out the constellations, but that he didn’t know what they were and was making up their names as he spoke. His voice was not fanciful. It was direct and scientific, and he was lying to his son about what he knew. “These,” he said, “These are the Mermaid’s Tail, and south you can see the three peaks of Mt. Olympus, and then the sword that belongs to the Emperor of the Air.” I looked where he was pointing…what he had actually described was Cygnus’s bright tail and the outstretched neck of Pegasus.”

This observation of Mr. Pike and his son are what prompt the narrator to look into their living room window. But why exactly did he do so? The narrator realizes that Mr. Pike shares his own love of astronomy and that there is now a connection between them. The narrator must have also wondered if—due to the public’s limited knowledge of constellations—Mr. Pike’s father had

been the one to teach him the names. After all, he does refer to them with authority despite the names being incorrect. Here again the narrator shares a connection with Mr. Pike—the narrator was taught the constellations by his father. Mr. Pike is teaching his son about them. With all this in mind, the narrator looks through the window. He says that

“Mr. Pike had his hand on Kurt’s shoulder. Every so often when they laughed at something on the screen, he moved his hand up and tousled Kurt’s hair, and the sight of this suddenly made me feel the way I do on the bridge across the Mississippi River.”

The narrator forgoes his act of revenge because he is filled with jubilation. He is invigorated by Mr. Pike and instead of looking to his tree, he turns instead back to the stars. Mr. Pike was a moment and a gesture that overwhelmed the narrator. In other words, Mr. Pike created beauty for him. As we see in the end, the narrator begins to instruct the newspaper boy on the stars, as his father did for him, and as Mr. Pike did for Kurt. The narrator becomes a renewed man, and it came from a person that he least expected.

The narrator, a 69-year-old man who teaches astronomy and biology at the local high school, is telling the story of how he learned to embrace life, even after death. This is shown through the conflict between him and Mr. Pike, his neighbor over their elm trees. The narrator’s elm tree is infested with bugs that could possibly kill the tree. Fearing for the life of his young elm trees, Mr. Pike wants the narrator’s elm tree to be chopped down, despite the fact that it is 250 years old. The narrator does not want this to happen as it has lived longer than the Liberty Bell. It holds a special place in his memory as he used to climb the tree when his parents were not looking. After trying to get rid of the invasive insects in the elm tree unsuccessfully, he is delivered a letter in his mailbox that says if he does not cut down his tree, the authorities will do it themselves to protect the young elm trees in Mr. Pike’s yard. In an attempt to change Mr. Pike’s mind, the narrator dresses up as a burglar and takes some of the insects with the purpose of letting them invade the young elm trees on the basis that they might not die if they were infested with the insects.

After hiding in the bomb shelter in Mr. Pike’s backyard and watching how affectionate Mr. Pike is with his wife and son, he decides against it. He and the elm tree have lived a long life. Even after they both are gone, there will always be life as life is constantly renewing itself. It ends with him staring at the elm tree and stopping the paperboy to look at the stars with him. This is a coming of age story not in the sense of growing up but of getting older and realizing that while life is precious, it eventually dies out and is replaced with new life. It happens all the time, especially with all the stars in the sky.

The part that struck me the most was whenever the narrator, Dr. Xavia, was saying prayers in the morning. “Why are you punishing him, Padre? I asked. I never thought you had such a mean streak.” While I haven’t been to church since I was fourteen, (and it was a Methodist church which meant that they liked to focus on more heartwarming parables and the miracles of the gospel rather than the harsh brutality of the Old Testament) it was still never lost on me that God is vengeful, or maybe- rather was vengeful. Abraham and Issac, the suffering of his people in Egypt, the flood that wiped out most of humanity, and so on and so forth. So for the narrator to make the comment about God having a mean streak almost made me laugh in a morbid sort of way.

Much like the Old Testament, this story was brutal in a way that made me think that there almost wasn’t a reason for the suffering other than to make the characters (maybe the readers as well) appreciate what they have. The doctor made a note about how hands were important, and it makes sense for a doctor; no one would want to have someone who couldn’t use their hands to perform any sort of surgery on them. For Gregorio? This was his whole life, a secretive and mysterious one, that we could assume was all over after having them crushed. Much like the narrator, I couldn’t help but to think how much of a waste it was. It was like I was hoping along with Dr. Xavia that this museum of Gregorio’s was worth it, because otherwise what was the point? For an artist, a person’s hands are their lives.

It was also an interesting detail how the museum had always been unlocked, but it was just that as far- as the narrator knows- no one had gone into it. The more I think about it, the more I wonder about if Gregorio wanted people to enter, or if he knew that everyone thought that he was a quack so why should he worry about people going inside.

It took a while for me to understand the story, but it became clearer to me as I read. It’s a sad story and one that make me relate to it more than I thought I would.

This story is about a man who is afraid of dying and not leaving any indication he was here at all. Our main character used to do so much in his life and never really stopped to think about mortality or what he’s leaving behind. The first time he’s really had to think about it was when the fire came when he was younger and he watched his father scramble to save all of his research materials and the framed bugs he made. He admits he was never scared of getting hurt or dying when he was adventuring before his heart attack and he was forced to confront it when he had his heart attack. Even after he had his heart attack and he was forced to remain sedentary, he distracted himself with books and magazines and other things that made him think he was fulfilled.

He’s forced to confront his morality and his approaching death when he has to make the decision of whether to keep the tree, or cut it for the safety of others and the health of the trees surrounding it. He’s afraid of getting rid of it and planting another one because he wouldn’t be alive to see it grow, and he even admits that the one thing that begins to scare him is the thought of a century passing. He wants the tree to remain because, in a way, he sees himself in the tree. It’s been there longer than himself or Mr. Pike, and he himself has been in the neighborhood longer than Mr. Pike. If he’s forced to remove the tree and erase its history in favor of planting a new tree, he’d be confronted with the fact that he’s also fairly easy to erase and replace and that scares him. So instead of removing the tree for sake of everyone, he plans to poison Mr. Pike’s trees. It’s a pretty clear statement of “if I’m going down, I’m taking you with me,” and that’s a toxic mindset to have when one is discussing what’s the best course of action to save the community.

The only reason he doesn’t is because he realizes that he is leaving an impression for when he passes. He’s willing and able to spread his love of the stars and their meaning and he brings a new generation of star lovers into the world. He realizes his impact isn’t a grand one like the tree’s, but it’s still an impact he wasn’t aware he was making until it’s accidentally thrust in his face. Once he realizes that impacts don’t have to be physical, he starts thinking toward the next new generation and considers having a child to raise and spread more of his knowledge to. It’s a wonderful, coming to terms story that almost mirrors a coming of age story, but in a midlife crisis sort of way.

The narrator may very well been speaking or writing in this story. They certainly had an audience, which is expressed in the very first line of the story, “Let me tell you…” it said on page 1. It seemed as though the events regarding the pests in the elm was what set this story in motion because it followed through with his actions to handle the infestation. The story, while in past tense, is immediate in perspective. The narrator seemed to know that this story is about none other than himself and his way of handling his problems in a last, desperate and foolish attempt to settle them. He thought it may only be about that at least until the end where he may have switched views and thought instead life is better, to keep moving on, and so on, which I saw when he mentioned something about a child at the end. He seemed to know that his actions, at the end, aren’t alright, which brought the story into a revelation, I think, with a nostalgic and tender tone to tell the story. Despite he was upset about certain things, I think it was because of this revelation he had, which related to the child he wanted, that he spoke more calmly about the entire ordeal.

One of the strongest components of Otessa Moshfegh’s “A Better Place” is how convincing it is. The reader is so drawn into the world she creates, it’s difficult to discern if the narrator is crazy or not. Initially, it’s easy to believe that nothing she’s saying is real because it’s so bizarre. The narrator just seems like someone who has been brainwashed by their brother and now fosters some pretty crazy world views. However, Moshfegh writes the story in a way where the readers begin to doubt their own perception of reality by the end of the story. One of the ways she manages this is by how utterly steadfast the narrator is in their own beliefs. When writing a fantasy or sci-fi, the best way to make that world believable is to have the narrator believe in it. The consistency with which she refers to her mother as “the woman” and the conviction with which she addresses her desire to kill and go to another world fully traps the readers. However, this alone is not enough to create the uncertainty of this story. Series of events that either could be coincidences or circumstances that confirm the narrator’s beliefs take place. She randomly hears a name that she believes is a man she should kill, it’s a name that her mom has a very serious reaction to, and furthermore her ability to find out where that man lives despite her openness to kill him. Readers know in their better judgment that this narrator is crazy, but still, Oshfegh creates a nagging doubt. This doubt is one of the many pleasures of this short story, not knowing what to believe makes it all the more interesting.

This short story was certainly a very interesting read and very light in comparison to what we have been reading recently. I enjoyed the careful thought and deliberation Ethan Canin put into each sentence. The overall story plot is quite simple, an older gentleman who is feeling the pains of age more than those around him, and reminisces about past memories and realizes that he missed out on certain joys of life.

As people get older, there hovers a certain longing of younger days to redo things that they never got to do, or things they were to afraid to do. Yet, all it would have taken was taking that jump and not letting others hold you back. Canin was able to instill a feeling of longing into me when I have not even had the chances to experience. His writing style was so peaceful to read and felt incredibly smooth. It is extremely impressive to read short stories by professional writers, not just see, but FEEL the difference in their writing compared to mine.

When I think about all of the stories and poems I have written in my life, I wonder at what point will I become a writer that I can be proud of. The simplicity and beautifulness of Canin’s story made me think this, which speaks bounds onto how impactful a story can be.

I believe that this story was life changing for the narrator because it created a space where he was able to reflect, grow, and dream again, just like he did as a child. The wonderment and scheming this 69 year old man got up to reflected that of his younger self and harbored a nostalgia that I hope I will be able to have once I reach that age.

To say the least, I think this story was more strange and convoluted than the rest of Otessa Moshfegh’s stories combined. The point of view was very different as well in comparison to the narrators in all of her other stories as well. For one, the narrator in this story is a young child, who has a voice that is very detached and contradicts the typical internal monologue of a young girl. The narrator believes that this story is about finding relief from the pain of being in her own body, and that in order to go back to where she originates from she needs to either die or find the person that she needs to kill. Everyone in this story has odd sounding names, which originally made me believe that this was just a kids’ game or something similar to begin with. However, the way that the narrator takes this so seriously leads readers to think that there is more at play here than what meets the eye. The narrator, Urszula, tends to be thinking to herself more than speaking or writing throughout the story, and she internalizes most of her thoughts and opinions. Even so, she still interacts with Waldemar often without saying much of anything, and the connection that they have is maximized upon, especially with Waldemar’s reluctance to let the narrator try to kill Jarek Jaskolka. A prime example of this is when Urszula states, “I try to sound cheerful, like I don’t know that Waldemar’s heart is broken. He can see right through me, He has that ability, as my brother” (pg 288).

I thought it was particularly interesting how Waldemar was very helpful to the narrator at first, by coming up with the other way to get to the better place, but once Urszula believed that she found the person she needed to kill he immediately became somber and tried to prevent her from doing so. This led me to believe that Waldemar may have only come up with the idea that killing someone was the only other way to go back to the better place because he thought that it was impossible for Urszula to do. With death as the only option originally, I think he may have intended to have the other option as a way to give his sister some hope and a will to keep living, but instead it backfired. However, the style of writing Ottessa Moshfegh uses in this story makes it increasingly impossible to tell whether or not the narrator is telling the truth, or whether this is simply a game between children in order to escape the harsh reality that is the real world they live in. I think that the childish perspective the narrator and her brother have of the world represents the loss of innocence that most of the other narrators in her stories have already experienced and adapted to long ago, and it helps readers to understand fully what it means to get to the point that the adults in the other stories are already at. For all of them, there must have been a point when they realized that the real world is much more of a disgusting, cruel place than they originally thought, and Ottessa Moshfegh captures this emotion in her last story perfectly well. Overall, I think that this story is the best way to wrap up her book, and the unique perspective it provides into the imperfect world we all have to live in and the desire people have to find a place better than the one we have gives all the previous stories a lot more depth as well.

I’ll fully preface this post by saying that this story was entirely baffling to read, and I think it also goes without saying that it being strange to read was the point of it. The whole notion of the story was unsettling, kids having to kill, strange ideas of not being from this planet, and how detached the girl was from everything around her was deeply weird. I’m trying to think of any other way to describe this story, but weird really is the best word for it; sinister would be the only other way to describe it in my mind. The very last line of the entire book  on p. 294 was: “I wait for the bad man to let me in.” The level of uncertainty that leaving the story off on that note was crazy to me. We can figure that the girl probably is just human, but who knows considering how Moshfegh wrote the whole story? To pull something like this girl legitimately being from another world sounds like something right up her writing style’s alley. Not only that, but the mother clearly wants her kids to stay away from this man’s house, so I whenever I was reading this I got the sense that the girl was probably going to get killed- or worse.

Though, in a way, the way that this story blows all of her other stories out of the water with its strangeness put the whole book into perspective. In all of the stories there’s this grittiness, this underlying disgusting nature that left me feeling conflicted about whether I enjoyed the story. It made me wonder whether I even should have enjoyed the stories, and “A Better Place” really just put a magnifying glass on those feelings for me. It was definitely a different experience, most authors like to leave their readers off on at least a quasi-hopeful note; I know I already talked about the last line, but it really is a horrific thought to leave the reader on. Someone’s probably going to die, either the narrator or the man, and it also leaves the question of what will happen to her brother as well. It’s a morbid and somber final hoorah, and it makes me wonder what Otessa Moshfegh wanted her readers to get out of the book at all. Were we supposed to be repulsed by humanity, find solace in any solidarity we found, feel relief in comradery with our darkest thoughts, worry about our own aptitudes for awfulness, or- what? It left me with a lot of questions, which may have also been the point.

I believe that “A Better Place” is one of the best short stories within this collection. After reading all of the other stories of characters who are trapped in their own lives, it was exciting to see one of her characters trying to escape from theirs. “A Better Place” was filled with the aspects of other stories from hidden trauma, fear, and (in all honesty) a slight insane main character. Yet, to me this is what made it so inherently entertaining to read.

The dream of finding the better place fuels the narrator to keep living, but her methodology behind how to get there is way off. The dynamic between this family of three makes me curious of how it came to be. The mother has trauma of her own, along with being a widow with twins, and Waldemar seems so lost yet knows where he belongs. Urszula is the outlier of this family who dreams of elsewhere.

When I really think about this story and its characters, I started to realize that compared to the rest of the short stories, it is the complete opposite. The narrators of the previous stories may hate their lives and want things to change, but they never actually try to change things because in some way they are content with how their lives are. However, Urszula wants to be somewhere else so badly, that she developed her hate and resentment of the world she is already in. This desire to be anywhere else is leading her to kill a man, hate her own mother, and abandon the sibling love her brother has towards her. Urszula did not have an outstandingly horrible life compared to the other narrators within this book, but yet she is so ready to give up everything she does have.

The interaction between this story and the other stories within this book is truly an interesting one. As I had previously stated two blog posts ago, the title of this book ties into every single characters’ longing to be in another world.

Ottessa Moshfegh is a ground breaking writer. Her ability to create such deep characters and fill every scene leaves no stone unturned. “Nothing Ever Happens Here” follows along the life of a young man who left everything behind to become an actor in Hollywood. The story line does not seem adherently great, in fact it sounds quite boring and somewhat like a coming of age story. However, Moshfegh takes this rather typical topic and flips it into the realistic. She leaves out no detail too small and creates a world the reader could attempt to relate to. The story is not so clean and shiny, but slightly gray and foggy.

Moshfegh developed the mode and overall feeling of the reading so well, the reader is able to hold onto it throughout the duration of the story. As the narrator changes, so do the characters around him. Mrs. Honigbaum, his mother, and the faceless Bob Sears. To the reader, it may be obvious that the narrator is trapped in some kind of scheme to take advantage of those chasing their dreams, but overtime, the reader too wants to start rooting for the narrator. His negativity follows him, but there is an underlying amount of determination that lingers with him as we learn more about him.

This story was one of Moshfegh’s less gruesome stories within this collection, but the quality of story telling is still there. I believe that there was at least one lesson that could be learned from this story an its characters, and that is to call your mother. As Mrs. Honigbaum says, “Every mother loves her son” (202).

This post is going to be short because there’s so much happening in this story and I don’t know how to process it.

Unlike the rest of the collection, this story holds a fantastical element that play a key role. We’re told time and time again that our main character and her brother are not of this world and the main plot is her trying to get “home.” We know the rules of getting home and we know the consequences that would arise should one fail to accomplish their goal. We know the main character is too young to fully understand everything going on around her and we know that her mother was assaulted before the story took place. We know that the main character is set on killing “her person” and leaving because she’s too good for this world she lives on currently.

What we don’t know is why. Why does she believe she’s not from this world and why does her brother feed into her thoughts? Why did he make up the rule that you must kill in order to return to the titular Better Place? Why does the mother and daughter resent each other so much? Why does no one bat an eye at her declaring her desire to kill? What does this story mean?

Throughout the piece, we as readers are left unclear in regards to what’s real and what’s in the narrator’s head. That much is clear considering we’re seeing the world through her eyes, but that adds another layer to this story. She truly believes she’s not from Earth, but we’re given no hints as to why this came to be. One of the first scenes we’re given is her birth scene, so is this a reincarnation story? She’s unsatisfied with her current life and wants to try again? But why is the killing element there since in many cultures, reincarnation only comes for those who’ve earned it by being good in life. Killing isn’t necessarily a good thing from what I’ve been told in life. So why is that a major role?

Long story short, I’m confused.

Of the many things different in this story from the others—the present tense, a child narrator—one of them is the fairytale elements. There are several moments throughout the story that invokes the fairytale. On page 274, Urszula tells Waldemar “You look like a witch” when he places a blanket over his head. Urszula and Waldemar—a boy and a girl near in age—live in a house in the forest with their mother, an old woman. As Urszula says, “The room where Waldemar and I sleep looks out into the forest.” These two children are akin to the story of Hansel and Gretel, also a boy and a girl who, though they don’t live in the forest, do get lost in it and are taken captive by an old woman/a witch. Furthermore, the mother of Urszula and Waldemar bakes several sweet goods: “For breakfast the woman gives us bowls of warm fresh yogurt and warm fresh bread and tea with sugar and lemon, and…a slice of onion cooked in honey.” Therefore, she can be seen as the witch figure. Keeping with the Hansel and Gretel story, the poisoned berries the children eat are parallel with the bread crumbs. The narrator Urszula mentions when she eats the berries that “they are soft and cold. If I snag one on my fang, goop spills out and tastes bitter, like the poison that it is.” If we look at the word “fang” this brings to mind a wolf, specifically the one from Little Red Riding Hood. In addition, seemingly healthy food is always fatal in the fairytales, such as with the red apple in Snow White; the berries can also be seen in this context. They are, after all, what Urszula intends to use to weaken Jarek Jaskolka enough so she can kill him.

A collection of fairytales

When Urszula goes to Jarek Jaskolka’s house, she describes him this way: “When he moves away from the window, his fingernails tap against the glass. They are long and yellow like an ogre’s.” Again, the word “ogre” invokes the fairytale. We once again touch on the witch figure when Urszula pulls “a big black pot from the cupboard.” Later on, she says that “I light a fire on the stove and set the pot on the flame…I stir the berries…the only light comes from a few lone stars through the darkened windows and the blue fire from the burner.” In this case, the narrator becomes the witch character laboring over her black pot mixing up a magic brew. Furthermore, the premise of the story wherein a child takes it upon themselves to kill the villain can be seen in Hansel and Gretel, but more importantly in Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack outwits the giant and is the cause of his death when he hacks down the beanstalk. In some adaptations, the giant is also described as an ogre. Urszula described Jarek Jaskolka in this way and in the end of the story, she plans to outwit him and kill him with a knife. In addition, in the fairytales the children are often warned against doing something by an adult, and when they succumb to their curiosity, they find themselves in danger. There is a hint to this when Jarek’s sister tells Urszula that “curious girls get what they deserve.” Lastly, as in all fairytales there is magic, and a magician makes an appearance in this story but Urszula understands how he does his tricks.

Despite the fairytale elements, this story is still uniquely Ottessa Moshfegh. Though but a child, the narrator is like her other narrators—there is something about her life she hates. In this case, Urszula sees no potential for betterment in the world, and she firmly believes she will be happy somewhere other than earth. Everything about her present condition she dislikes, and she finds numerous faults with the people around her—she never calls her mother “Mother” or “Mom”, but simply “the woman.”  Though she clearly loves her brother, he is not enough for her to stay. For her own peace of mind, she must leave. Ottessa writes this story from the perspective of a child, I think, because she knows bad things and emotions are not limited to adults. Children, in fact, are even more susceptible to them. And where is this more apparent than in fairytales? Bad things always happen to the children. There is no clear ending to “A Better Place,” not one we would read in a fairytale. The story ends before the action, as they often do with Ottessa’s work. And since “A Better Place” is written in the present, we don’t know if Urszula lives or dies. This is just another interesting aspect both of this story and Ottessa’s writing.

The lovely story of Miniature Man is set in a little mountain town in Spain and focuses on the reclusive Gregorio, a miniaturist whom no one believes will be successful. He has been building a miniature museum for 15 years, and even won the lottery during a past stay in England, but he used most of his winnings to invest in his museum, which earned him the resentment of his neighbors and relatives.

The narrator, Dr. Xavia, is the cousin to Gregorio’s mother and tries to maintain a neutral stance in their familial conflicts. The conflict that sets the story into motion is when Gregorio’s hands are crushed and he comes to Dr. Xavia for help. Regular people, as it is stated in the story, move their hands a million or more times a day, even without realizing it. For an artist, their hands mean everything. Dr. Xavia knows that much of Gregorio’s motor ability in his hands are going to be rendered null from this accident. Unable to use his hands, he’s forced to rely mainly on his mother, who tends to infantilize him while also being quite unsubtle about how extremely unsupportive she is towards his artistic endeavors.

Throughout the story, the doctor tends to inflect a certain lens of pity upon Gregorio and his ambitions, a certain sense of ‘you were such a gifted child, what happened?’ even if Dr. Xavia may not mean to. But Dr. Xavia ultimately attempts to support Gregorio by the end, which shows itself when he recruits Gregorio’s British nephew, Patrick, to film his miniature museum in a positive, beautiful light. Gregorio’s parents, who were two of the most vocal critics of Gregorio’s miniature museum, are brought to tears by the beauty captured in Patrick’s film, and though not stated, it is implied that their stance on Gregorio’s project has changed substantially.

The story was about a little girl, I believe, who thought that there is some place not on Earth and far from it that she was once on and wished to return to it. I believe the narrator was thinking throughout the story as opposed to writing or speaking it due to all the immediate thoughts and commentary for every event in the piece. I do not believe there is an audience the narrator imagined as much as she was relaying her actions, thoughts, and perceptions of others. Since the story was told in present tense, all that happened, happened as she said they do. I feel that the narrator knew this story was about her and her actions and beliefs of the other world she wished to return to. While it seemed to be a straightforward story, the narrator didn’t truly understand anything. She didn’t understand her mother who didn’t like her (but that may be reasonable especially since the child she had didn’t even call her mother), she thought she knew her brother well but she didn’t care how she affected him, and finally, my biggest point, she didn’t even know about the other place — how to describe it or how to get there — and her brother did. She also didn’t understand what Jarek had done to her mother either. The narrator presented the story almost as an explanation of how and why she was trying to get to this other place, but there isn’t enough information to make us think she wasn’t delusional. She only became more egocentric throughout the story and looked down on more and more people as though she was better, and this can be seen through her presentation of the story, tone, and the slight change in confidence she had on page 274 where she instantly “knows” that the name she came up with out of thin air was the name of the man she had to kill, “And then, suddenly, I am sure,” and that surge in confidence fueled the rest of the story.

This story gives us a look into the life of “Stephanie Reilly,” a surrogate president for a foreign ran company. Through out the story we see Stephanie slipping more and more into a hole of loneliness and despair. It is hinted at that She doesn’t have any close family and the only people she seems to surround herself with are Gigi, Lao Ting, Robbie, and the random men she meets at clubs. This lack of connection has obviously taken a toll on Stephanie as she is seen desperately trying to fill this empty void inside herself. She seeks out drugs, validation, and sexual exploitation to find some substance in her life. She is never known to have explicitly have sex in the story due to a genital mutation that causes abnormal pain and swelling of the vaginal area. I believe she holds a surplus of self hatred, and is ashamed of this reality. In a way, she may feel trapped in her physical body which is only disabling and painful for her.
The only time we find her coming out of herself and seeking actual validation from someone is after Lao Ting is pronounced dead. She seeks out a nineteen year old who she tells about her genitals and even allows to sleep on her couch. I believe this young man was just a “surrogate”, as the title indicates, for Stephanie’s misplaced emotions. She has lost one of the only people she considered family; Her safety. So she is now left to replace her feelings of emptiness and despair with men and drugs. These things she uses to fill the space are the surrogates for her own happiness in the story.

In the beginning of the story we had the impression that it was going to be a very depressed story. We see this person that is very harming to themselves and loves only death with no beliefs of a godly figure. But the narrator is the opposite: she is innocent and full of life. She’s very shy and not outgoing but has a relationship with God herself. Then the story seems to move to a depressed awful love story. The narrator finds out when they get locked into a room alone that he is not the person she wants to be with anymore. The narrator has misunderstood the boy for being someone outgoing and fun because of his weird personality. But she finds out that he is the opposite of outgoing, he’s not caring and has no feelings at heart. She also misunderstandings herself because she says she is not outgoing or fearless like him. But finds out that she has more of those traits than him when they were stuck alone. She fearlessly tried to climb out the window and get that man’s attention. She was outgoing enough to put herself out there and break up with him too. I feel like this story was a reflection on the narrator’s life, she found that she does have traits that she thought she didn’t. She had proved something to herself that she doesn’t need to always to make others happy but only herself. I am not sure if that’s the only thing the narrator is trying to get us to understand, she could also be telling us that belief in God will allow you to be a better person or overcome things you are struggling with.

Ottessa Moshfegh is an incredibly talented writer, but the stories she created are very far from being wonderful to read. Each narrator of her stories had their own problems going on in life, and these problems were definitely not small. However, the world’s Moshfegh created around each character were a pleasure to read, at least the description alone had me rereading parts just to make sure I could picture what she was saying.

I have to agree that many of the topics were quite sensitive to follow. Stories of abuse, self-harm, objectification, and lost people truly made me understand why the book was named in such a way. Homesick for Another World is a book about those who struggle in their day to day lives and dream to escape, but who seem content in what they have to deal with. At some points it was deeply saddening to read these character’s lives and just visualize that somewhere in our real life we have passed by someone who is experiencing the same thing.

“The Locked Room” was a peculiar read. It did not seem to outwardly fit in with all the previous short stories within the book. Moshfegh created the suffering of Takashi as the main focus of our narrator. Slipping in more and more details about his life through the short couple of pages. However, when Moshfegh ends the story, it is not focused on Takashi anymore, it is focused on our narrator and her relationship with her own mother and herself. “You should try harder to please me.” I had reread this sentence multiple times and tried to visualize the life that our narrator has that is not talked about. This is particularly why this story stood out to me because almost every other story had discussed the lives of the narrator and did not really discuss the other characters other than description. Where this followed almost purely on Takashi.

This entire book so far has really made me think about things, and I am glad.

In “The Surrogate,” the narrator— under the alias Stephanie Reilly— works for a family as a surrogate vice president to negate any racism the real vice president, Lao Ting, might experience if he went to the meetings she attended instead. Stephanie, looking back on her time working there, clearly believes the story is simply about her old job, the men she met throughout her life, her interaction’s with Lao Ting’s wife Gigi, and her pituitary condition. But, of course, it isn’t. Her constant discomfort with herself (and especially her body) is telling. She has an abnormal genital structure which bothers her immensely and seems to occupy her mind constantly, and she doesn’t know how to interact with men— whether this is directly because of her finding her genitals unattractive or because of the self-esteem issues it causes her is both unclear and unimportant.

Stephanie spends the story trying on various masks with an unhealthy amount of compartmentalization. She’ll dress up in make-up and heels to go to meetings as Stephanie Reilly to seduce people into the contracts with Lao Ting’s company. She’ll throw on a teddy and a trench coat and mingle at a club, and peel it off for a man just to feel something, but she still can’t quite take the mask off, she still can’t have sex with them. The closest she gets to taking off her mask is with the 19 year old boy who she lets sleep on her couch for a night. With him, at least, she is able to discuss her unease with her genitals with some level of vulnerability, unlike how she seems to offhandedly speak about it to her coworker Robbie. When he finally says, “You’re still really pretty, though. … You have that going for you.” it only confirms her fears. Her inability to be intimate with anyone is tied intrinsically to her fear of being seen in her imperfection. She can be pretty all she wants, in her mind, but no man will ever want her because of her genital structure. Even when she strips for men, she won’t let them touch her; it’s all fun and games until there’s the potential for them to actually want to be with her, and then the fear comes surging back. She doesn’t know how to love other people because to let them touch her, she’d have to abandon her masks and manage to get through her fear, and she doesn’t know how. She can’t love anyone— even tells Gigi this— but she doesn’t understand that it’s because she can’t allow anyone to love her. Not until the very end.