Response Week 3

I resent ‘Pricksongs & Descants’ by Robert Coover because someone snatched my social security card while I was reading it. The snatching is due to how engrossed I had been while rereading this book. I was rereading it because, seemingly mid-sentence, I suddenly began to understand what was happening as far as plot and technique goes. Once I understood this book, it felt like a genius was speaking to me.

This understanding took place during The Brothers. Although it is periodless and foreign, it is still clearly told. One by one, I put my notes together and realized it was an alternative Noah flood story told by a hillbilly instead of God. Suddenly, the author seemed not just odd, but comical and creative. At one point, the wife says of Noah and his boat, “I know what he ain’t got he ain’t got no termites.” The narrator responds, “maybe we oughta make him a present” (96). This hilariously absurd and demonstrates harshness towards those deemed insane. The narrator concludes, “it’s not hard to see who’s crazy around here... I just left my wife inside where I found her I couldn’t hardly stand to look at her the way she was” (98). The author seems to ask the reader to be careful about who they believe insane, but the narrator fails to understand that, in dooming his wife to die for ridiculing the brother, he is still isolating someone whose views he now hates.

For parts on this book I did not like, I blame myself, as if to say I just do not understand. For example, at first I did not enjoy the Magic Poker because I saw it as simply the author having fun creating a new world. However, when Eric Olson pointed out that Coover purposely placed the word “door” in the middle of the Gingerbread House to symbolize an ending, I decided each line must have been thoughtfully crafted. If the author did this on purpose (and sure, why not believe he did?) then everything must have been done on purpose. The pants must be gold for a reason, so to speak. The author is, it turned out during my rereading, depicting and mocking the thoughts of all authors, through characters who serve as symbols for the writing process and by having the narrator in this story lose control when he writes something he regrets. Best of all, the readers of these stories become characters each time the author speaks to us. On page 111,the author apologizes for describing Wilber Klees death. “I’m sorry,” he writes. “What can I say? You are right to be angry. Here, take these tickets..” No authors have spoken to me before, and I feel honored! Despite my wallet mishap, I adored ‘Pricksongs and Descants’ because it was innovative, as a metafiction and as a tale twister.