Emil, this is such a cool way to celebrate the subjectivity of fiction (and writing in general). I'm flattered you saw my comments as worth publicizing, and while this isn't a competition, I do have a little twinge of victory adrenaline seeing that my comments jostled your reality even a little.
Thanks for sharing your side of things, too! It's fascinating to see, and a rare gift for a writer to be so open about this stuff.
All good fiction is an inkblot test.
…and I LOVE inkblot tests.
Never underestimate my powers of over-analysis!
Lest you forget, I used to talk to my smoke detector!
—
LOOSE ENDS:
Ah, you're right, I missed the “blood mother”! Though technically she’s just a noun, and her earthly-plane position (below the other women) is made clear from “blood” in her name.
Confusion Hill Bridge—good point! I wasn’t sure what I could read into the burnt-out car, but now that you point it out, it seems to represent the husk that will remain of the protagonist at the end (in my humble opinion), the remains of his funeral pyre, the “confusion” of his sublimation and ascent (hill+bridge, similar to my point about Fickle Hill Road, which means you use hill to represent transcendence from mortality twice—that makes it a recurring theme! And “bridge” between worlds, of course).
I see what you mean about this job being a moral act on the protagonist's part, but I'd counter that with the fact that every single person on this earth believes they're acting in the name of some personal version of morality. With the right slices from Hades's life, I could probably string together a compelling argument for why stealing Solomon's harvest was a moral act to help out his own literal or figurative family, or right some other wrong. From the text, I get the impression that YOU and Solomon go back a ways, but I don't actually see a kinship beyond the familial tie of business. For instance, we don't know how YOU feel about Solomon's small bit of "success" at buying a house, or even how angry you may or may not be about his harvest getting jacked. If I'm going by the text alone, their relationship is a loyalty notch or two above defending one's business, which I have to assume all drug operations need if they're to survive for any length of time. So reading it now, even with your comments (which are fascinating, this is so cool to see, thank you for sharing this), I still see YOUR leap into action as jumping at the chance to sacrifice yourself in the only life you knew how to live. Solomon says, "What's one more Body?" (meaning a murder to right a wrong), and YOU echo that, but your version points to the loss of meaning/self from the Saint's suicide and/or your imminent self-sacrifice, which you consciously or subconsciously decide is a more noble way to go than pissing off some kid down the street.
I'm embarrassed to realize I didn't latch onto the final line in my initial analysis.
"Blood sprays the barley."
It does sing; it's a beautiful line, gorgeous, tragic image.
A lot of talk about the harvest, including a literal harvester. A blood sacrifice made to guarantee a good harvest.
"The harvest started too early"—if you tweaked it to "came too early," it could mean YOU being cut down before your time. Just as the Saint was cut down before her time. "Cut down" doesn't stick as well to her suicide by hanging, but then one must be cut down when the hanging is finished—when they are ripe for "harvesting." Forgive me for that grisly thought, but I had to see it through.
Not only that, but YOUR blood spills into the patch of earth from whence you came—your return to the underworld. Blood seeping into the rich, dark underworld soil.
Oh, and I can't believe it took me this long to realize the Ritual—another word for "harvest sacrifice," a repeated act of destruction in the name of fertility and creation, the whole bloody cycle of growing and dying—is itself a curved handheld blade: a sickle…
I like that you keep going even fucking deeper, my God. (However for more context to chew on, literally go check the lyrics to the songs I mention in my inlines.)
No one outside of like, my mom and my closest has EVER given this much thought to a story that I wrote and my imposter syndrome demands I object to you having put this much thought into it.
Absolutely, holy shit. I thought I had enough rules and strictures on this mode of writing, the dice was loaded, he comes through and blows my lid back and I'm like, "..... Maybe he's right... But on god this is what I meant!"
Also reminds me of how I basically met Charlene Elsby. Read her book The Devil Thinks I'm Pretty, which obviously had autobiographical snippets, but you know, I'm PRETTY sure she didn't have sex with the devil in highschool? But I don't know. So it was read for Goth Book Club, and there was a discussion and then questions and all this shit that seems incredibly loaded with an excess of meaning or prelaid symbolism or frontloaded theme, I ask her question after question and every time it's like "oh... So there was actually a girl like that at my highschool." or "Oh... So there WAS a talent show."
And looking back knowing her now, and knowing how I write and how she writes and how everyone I know writes... I shoulda fuckin' known.
Emil, this is such a cool way to celebrate the subjectivity of fiction (and writing in general). I'm flattered you saw my comments as worth publicizing, and while this isn't a competition, I do have a little twinge of victory adrenaline seeing that my comments jostled your reality even a little.
Thanks for sharing your side of things, too! It's fascinating to see, and a rare gift for a writer to be so open about this stuff.
All good fiction is an inkblot test.
…and I LOVE inkblot tests.
Never underestimate my powers of over-analysis!
Lest you forget, I used to talk to my smoke detector!
—
LOOSE ENDS:
Ah, you're right, I missed the “blood mother”! Though technically she’s just a noun, and her earthly-plane position (below the other women) is made clear from “blood” in her name.
Confusion Hill Bridge—good point! I wasn’t sure what I could read into the burnt-out car, but now that you point it out, it seems to represent the husk that will remain of the protagonist at the end (in my humble opinion), the remains of his funeral pyre, the “confusion” of his sublimation and ascent (hill+bridge, similar to my point about Fickle Hill Road, which means you use hill to represent transcendence from mortality twice—that makes it a recurring theme! And “bridge” between worlds, of course).
I see what you mean about this job being a moral act on the protagonist's part, but I'd counter that with the fact that every single person on this earth believes they're acting in the name of some personal version of morality. With the right slices from Hades's life, I could probably string together a compelling argument for why stealing Solomon's harvest was a moral act to help out his own literal or figurative family, or right some other wrong. From the text, I get the impression that YOU and Solomon go back a ways, but I don't actually see a kinship beyond the familial tie of business. For instance, we don't know how YOU feel about Solomon's small bit of "success" at buying a house, or even how angry you may or may not be about his harvest getting jacked. If I'm going by the text alone, their relationship is a loyalty notch or two above defending one's business, which I have to assume all drug operations need if they're to survive for any length of time. So reading it now, even with your comments (which are fascinating, this is so cool to see, thank you for sharing this), I still see YOUR leap into action as jumping at the chance to sacrifice yourself in the only life you knew how to live. Solomon says, "What's one more Body?" (meaning a murder to right a wrong), and YOU echo that, but your version points to the loss of meaning/self from the Saint's suicide and/or your imminent self-sacrifice, which you consciously or subconsciously decide is a more noble way to go than pissing off some kid down the street.
IN WHICH YOU CONTINUE TO MAKE ME QUESTION WHAT I MEANT IN MY OWN DAMN STORY!!!
I'm embarrassed to realize I didn't latch onto the final line in my initial analysis.
"Blood sprays the barley."
It does sing; it's a beautiful line, gorgeous, tragic image.
A lot of talk about the harvest, including a literal harvester. A blood sacrifice made to guarantee a good harvest.
"The harvest started too early"—if you tweaked it to "came too early," it could mean YOU being cut down before your time. Just as the Saint was cut down before her time. "Cut down" doesn't stick as well to her suicide by hanging, but then one must be cut down when the hanging is finished—when they are ripe for "harvesting." Forgive me for that grisly thought, but I had to see it through.
Not only that, but YOUR blood spills into the patch of earth from whence you came—your return to the underworld. Blood seeping into the rich, dark underworld soil.
Oh, and I can't believe it took me this long to realize the Ritual—another word for "harvest sacrifice," a repeated act of destruction in the name of fertility and creation, the whole bloody cycle of growing and dying—is itself a curved handheld blade: a sickle…
I like that you keep going even fucking deeper, my God. (However for more context to chew on, literally go check the lyrics to the songs I mention in my inlines.)
No one outside of like, my mom and my closest has EVER given this much thought to a story that I wrote and my imposter syndrome demands I object to you having put this much thought into it.
I found the coda card!
I need to go back and read it again, then read Zach’s take, then read this.
I love having too much reading to do 😂
Fascinating look behind the curtain of one’s creativity.
Gotta love having Zachary as a reader.
Absolutely, holy shit. I thought I had enough rules and strictures on this mode of writing, the dice was loaded, he comes through and blows my lid back and I'm like, "..... Maybe he's right... But on god this is what I meant!"
Also reminds me of how I basically met Charlene Elsby. Read her book The Devil Thinks I'm Pretty, which obviously had autobiographical snippets, but you know, I'm PRETTY sure she didn't have sex with the devil in highschool? But I don't know. So it was read for Goth Book Club, and there was a discussion and then questions and all this shit that seems incredibly loaded with an excess of meaning or prelaid symbolism or frontloaded theme, I ask her question after question and every time it's like "oh... So there was actually a girl like that at my highschool." or "Oh... So there WAS a talent show."
And looking back knowing her now, and knowing how I write and how she writes and how everyone I know writes... I shoulda fuckin' known.
"I'm going to shove the devil into this story and also fuck growing up in a trailer park sucked."