Chaos Reading discussion

I recently read The Babysitter by Robert Coover from Pricksongs and Descants, one of his collections of short stories. I'm really impressed by the multitude of themes and messages that are compacted into it.

While I haven't read a lot of short stories, this one instantly became one of my favourites. It would be great to have a discussion about it. As a starting point, what do you think about the following?

- The style in which the story is written
- The themes of the story and how the darker themes are handled
- The message behind the story

Ooooh. Just had a quick look and it looks really intriguing. I'll have to make some time to read it...

Here's an idea - The kitten loves being read a "bedtime story". Maybe I'll read her this one next time.

Then again, I really need to start checking the content for appropriateness first. Last time I picked a story at random. It was this Junot Diaz story. That got really... awkward.
http://ap4odyssey.wikispaces.com/file...

Ruby wrote: "Here's an idea - The kitten loves being read a "bedtime story". Maybe I'll read her this one next time.

Then again, I really need to start checking the content for appropriateness first. Last tim..."

Haha! Looks like a beast :) I'll have a read of it later.

Love the idea of night time kitten readings. I'm sure it will give your kitten some things to consider haha!

Leo X. wrote: "Ruby wrote: "Here's an idea - The kitten loves being read a "bedtime story". Maybe I'll read her this one next time.

Then again, I really need to start checking the content for appropriateness fi..."

I think she quite liked the idea of "government cheese" though.

Leo X. wrote: "I recently read The Babysitter by Robert Coover from Pricksongs and Descants, one of his collections of short stories. I'm really impressed by the multitude of themes and messages that are compacte..."

I've just finished it, and... wow. It's fantastic. I love the style, and the pace. I felt dizzy by the end of it.

**SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT**

I need to have a little think about the themes/messages for a bit. As you say, there's a whole lot packed into it. In the first half, I thought it was going to be about "violation", but it takes a few other turns after that that lead to broader things. I need a bit of time with this one..

Ruby wrote: "I need to have a little think about the themes/messages for a bit. As you say, there's a whole lot packed into it. In the first half, I thought it was going to be about "violation", but it takes a few other turns after that that lead to broader things. I need a bit of time with this one.. "

Glad to hear it! Look forward to your comments and will contribute alike :-)

Okay, bear with me as I try to think this through: Now I'm thinking that by and large, the variations on the narrative are all variations on the extent to which each character acts on their desire to "violate" someone else (in a variety of ways). I'm sure there's a better word than "violate", but it's more than just a sexual desire. It's something forceable, but it also has to encompass a violation of privacy too. It's not just the male characters - the babysitter herself is a protagonist.

Except for the wife. Dolly doesn't seem to have "desires". She's "sour" in every iteration. Repressed or "stuffed in". Passive, while other people do what they want with her. Hmmm....maybe that is one end of a domination-submission-spectrum, after all?

More thought is clearly needed..

Just read that back to myself after posting. Talk about stream-of-consciousness!

Nice! You're a Woolf in kitten's clothing haha :D

What I liked was the idea of entertainment saturation once TVs entered every house. The wife is unable to draw any conclusion about the horrible events that occur because they just aren't as interesting as the things that happen on TV.

The style I thought was a reflection of channel hopping. There is always something interesting happening in each snippet, but the story as a whole is digressive and it's difficult to coax any one conclusion out of it.

This quote from yesterday's The Guardian regarding Johnny Depp's potential retirement I think links in with the themes of this story:

"I wouldn't say I'm dropping out any second, but I would say it's probably not too far away," said Depp. "When you add up the amount of dialogue that you say per year and you realise that you've said written words more than you've had a chance to say your own words, you start thinking about that as an insane option for a human being."

Okay, it is Johnny Depp, but here's a man who feels he is losing his own identity as a result of overindulgence in entertainment, albeit from the perspective of an actor and not an audience member.

The Babysitter is a total modern classic!

Leo X. wrote: "Nice! You're a Woolf in kitten's clothing haha :D

What I liked was the idea of entertainment saturation once TVs entered every house. The wife is unable to draw any conclusion about the horrible e..."

Huh. I hadn't thought about any of that! In fact, I wasn't sure what to make of that last para at all!

I was more looking at the structure in terms of mentally mapping out what happened in every variation of reality (babysitter comes over, she takes a bath, husband & wife go to party etc etc) and then looking at the divergences from that basic narrative (the babysitter is assaulted by the father or not, the teenage boys come over or not, they assault her or not etc etc) and what they all have in common. All of those divergent events seemed to be about whether a character chose to act on their desires (which were mostly about violating or dominating someone else in some sense) or not.

[edit] The reason that probably jumped out at me was all the furore on Twitter this week about supposedly misogynistic trolls. I read this post last night and it really resonated with me. I think all women have these stories to tell (and usually far worse besides). It just had me thinking about women&vulnerability&power&stuff:
http://georgianlondon.com/post/567046...

I had been seeing the tv as a relatively minor element in all that - helping distinguish between the various realities, adding to the frenetic pacing toward the end, reinforcing the various themes. I did wonder about the tv in two scenes near the beginning though (the first couple of violent scenes where tables & lamps overturn and a tv crashes down) - but only to query where those scenes were set. You're right, though. They are ubiquitous, and towards the end they do bleed into reality. It helps make some sense of the last scene too. Good point!

Ruby wrote: "I was more looking at the structure in terms of mentally mapping out what happened in every variation of reality (babysitter comes over, she takes a bath, husband & wife go to party etc etc) and then looking at the divergences from that basic narrative (the babysitter is assaulted or not, the teenage boys come over or not, they assault her or not etc etc) and what they all have in common."

I think that's an interesting perspective as well, and not something I thought about myself. Certainly there is a strong contrast between action and inaction. Did you notice whether or not it always worked out badly when the characters acted on their desires? I'd be interested to know. I'll have another look myself :-)

The GR-ubiquitous DFW was a disciple of Coover's: "Why live when you can watch?"

I think it just almost always turned out badly - end of story!

The desires (or things people chose to act on or not) all seemed to me to be things that would in some way violate another person, even if they weren't all that maliciously intended. For example: The teenage babysitter was naturally curious about dicks, so she wanted to know what the little boy's felt like. Acting on the desire by playing with it would've been violating that little boy, even if that wasn't the intent.

By that logic, if any of the desires were to be acted upon, they would result badly for somebody. It's just a matter of degree.

Ruby wrote: "I think it just almost always turned out badly - end of story!

The desires (or things people chose to act on or not) all seemed to me to be things that would in some way violate another person, e..."

Hm... I'm now trying to think of how to link both of our analyses but I think it could descend into weird conversations about the gender of a TV haha!

Although I had another look, and I do agree that if you let Happily Ever After run on, it becomes Miserably:

"He loves her. She loves him. And then the babies come. And dirty nappies and one goddamn
meal after another."

Keeping it in the present tense mashes all these things together, maintaining timelessness... And we do get the sense that all these contradictory story arcs are happening at the same time. Fun and games and tears? Is there a predetermined tragedy from the very beginning, then?

Incidentally, this chat is making for a great thesis distraction, so thanks :D hydrolysis of Miscanthus grass is taking a backseat haha

Leo X. wrote: "Incidentally, this chat is making for a great thesis distraction, so thanks :D hydrolysis of Miscanthus grass is taking a backseat haha ..."

Heehee. I'm only being distracted from watching Big Brother. Which is also probably a good thing.

I don't think our theories contradict each other at all, so they can both be true in the same reality - yay!

The quote you used is from Dolly, isn't it? I had a hard time figuring her out. She seems to have no control over her own life at all - just floating along fairly passively, being pushed & pulled.. "Don't let them put me in a home".. as if everything was outside of her control. The only way she could fit into my theory is if she is at one extreme end of a spectrum: passive/inactive/desire-less/powerless. I'm thinking Mark must be at the other end of that spectrum. Whichever way you slice it, he's a rapist.

Ruby wrote: "The quote you used is from Dolly, isn't it? I had a hard time figuring her out. She seems to have no control over her own life at all - just floating along fairly passively, being pushed & pulled.. "Don't let them put me in a home".. as if everything was outside of her control. The only way she could fit into my theory is if she is at one extreme end of a spectrum: passive/inactive/desire-less/powerless. I'm thinking Mark must be at the other end of that spectrum. Whichever way you slice it, he's a rapist. "

Yeah it's from Dolly... I think! And I agree- it would appear that in any of the realities Mark is a rapist, even those in which he might not act upon his desires. There is indeed an intra- and interpersonal juxtaposition between activity and passivity.

I guess the reader is supposed to make the leap to extrapersonal, the message of hidden desires and passivity of society as a whole.

I see a lot of passivity, alienation and jadedness in London, and I do think it's harder to fix than "Switch off", "Be yourself" and "Live in the moment", there's very little self-awareness or understanding, and these concepts are hard work. Not that I'm any better at it!

Now I want some ice cream :(

A new thesis distraction could be The Depressed Person by David Foster Wallace? I'll create a thread for it later. Really enjoyed this discussion :-)

Leo X. wrote: "A new thesis distraction could be The Depressed Person by David Foster Wallace? I'll create a thread for it later. Really enjoyed this discussion :-)"

Me too. But I've got a story to suggest too. I just listened to a Jeff Vandermeer podcast that I LOVED..

Ruby wrote: "Me too. But I've got a story to suggest too. I just listened to a Jeff Vandermeer podcast that I LOVED..
"

Oh yeah of course! I'll take a look if you post the link :D

I loved this story when I first read it, but it had been so long ago that all I really remembered was how distorted a sense of time Coover effected upon me as a reader. So, I reread it over the weekend (and still love it).

Mentally, I kept trying to force three categories upon the paragraphs: what actually happened, what innocently happened, what happened when things went too far. I'm not sure those are valid or really serve any purpose, but what has always impressed me about this piece is the way the potential realities start to bend and bleed into one another. Perhaps you innocence, sexual curiosity, and deviance might be better categories. Perhaps we don't need categories per se, but there definitely seems to be a crossing over and even that which is innocent takes on suggestiveness or double entendres by virtue of Coover's writing.

He intentionally parallels and repeats portions of the text in such fascinating ways that it is unclear (at first) who is in the action (is it the boy in the tub or the father with the sitter, or everyone and they're all dead?!!!).

I was never able to rest upon a satisfactory explanation in my own head about the role of the TV. Just background distraction? It seems to start to bleed into the narrative too. Is it another field for our suppressed desires and violent tendencies? In the end have we just learned about another news story on TV, have we lived through it with the characters, or both?

Obviously, the story and your discussion above has got me thinking. I would only read this to a full-grown cat but I can be terribly old-fashioned sometimes ; )

Marc wrote: "I loved this story when I first read it, but it had been so long ago that all I really remembered was how distorted a sense of time Coover effected upon me as a reader. So, I reread it over the wee..."

Haha!

Great analysis :-) I think I enjoy the questions you raise about it more than the possible answers!

Marc wrote: "Mentally, I kept trying to force three categories upon the paragraphs: what actually happened, what innocently happened, what happened when things went too far...."

Yeah - those categories work for me too. It helps having something like that as a frame of reference. I really liked the misdirection with the start of some of those sections of text too. It's such an engaging story.

You're right about the PG13-months-for-cats rating too, I think. Not that I'm supporting feline censorship, but I do question a kitten's maturity level at that age. I think the risks of a young cat misinterpreting the story and acting upon it are simply too high.

Ruby wrote: "I think the risks of a young cat misinterpreting the story and acting upon it are simply too high...."

Oh $%^&! I left that book out where our youngest furline could read it last night and we've got a babysitter booked for tomorrow night...

When I was younger my cat hung out with me while I was reading Naked Lunch, and while she was probably about 5 I would argue that it gave her a greater perspective on the subjugating atrocity of our darkest desires. For weeks afterwards, she was much more pensive, and thought twice before getting back on the catnip.

Perhaps we all need a new shelf: "Books to be Read to Cats" or "Oral Tales for Felines" or "Kitten Story Time".

I shudder to think how others would suffer if I actually drank coffee (it being just a little after 8am in my nook of the world).

Haaaa that sounds awesome! We could fill it with terrible cat puns. Or the obvious ones like I Am a Cat: Three Volumes in One

Methinks your cats may be more literate than mine. I was going to start with the childhood favorite, The Fire Cat!

Taking the next logical leap (and also avoiding the work I'm supposed to be doing):
Murakami likes cats : All cats will like Murakami

Other cat favorites?

The Tiger Who Came to Tea. That's like a dad to cats, right? OH and definitely The Rabbi's Cat, he's like the Stephen Fry of cats! That reminds me, I need to watch the animation- haven't seen it yet but if it's anything like the graphic novel it will be great http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1355638/
Oh yeah and Murakami! But Kafka on the Shore is like cat horror.
Darconville’s Cat, if you like to get high with your cat, and then of course Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, because as we all know, that's where cats come from.

Now that you've stocked my shelf adquately, I think I'll call it:
"Purrfect for Felines"

Cats like torture and dismemberment, so I'm thinking American Psycho and possibly some of Marquis de Sade's works might fit well, too.

Oh yeah, there's some quality dog snuff in AP as I recall, they might find it CAThartic!

You are a very punny man! ; )

I'm rofling like crazy :D

The books-to-be-read-to-cats shelf is now up!
Here: http://www.goodreads.com/group/booksh...

I've added a few more to the mix, including: The Cat Who Went to Heaven, Swords and Deviltry (not that I remember much about those books, except there's a guy called the Grey Mouser!), A Street Cat Named Bob: How One Man and His Cat Found Hope on the Streets and All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku.

I'll start a nominations thread for it tomorrow (unless someone else gets around to it first?) Right now, my kitten is waiting for her bedtime story.. :)

Ruby, if you weren't halfway around the world, I'd drop a dead mouse on your doorstep. You rock!

Brilliant! How do you do the nominations again? Just thought of The Tiger's Wife, The White Tiger, The Orphan Master's Son and Life of Pi

Leo X. wrote: "Brilliant! How do you do the nominations again? Just thought of The Tiger's Wife, The White Tiger, The Orphan Master's Son and Life of Pi"

The books have been added, and there's now a nomination thread here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

tx mucho :)

Marc wrote: "Ruby, if you weren't halfway around the world, I'd drop a dead mouse on your doorstep. You rock!"

Awwww. Thanks, but Swanky's giving me enough "presents" to keep me happy for now! Yesterday, it was a huge lizard tail, still moving. I don't even want to know where the rest of it ended up..

FInally got time to read this one. (I saw all the posts and thought I was missing out on the most in-depth story discussion ever, but I see that at some point it predictably devolved into a thread on inappropriate books to read to cats. Why does every discussion have to revisit this tired old ground?)

Anyway, amazing story, needs a reread. Seemed like kind of a post-modern John Cheever. With all of the different and contradictory threads it was impressive that it was never confusing or frustrating.

I think it was because I read this in the middle of a George Saunders collection, but initially it seemed to me as if most of the side roads that the story took were the result of the fantasies of the various characters, and a mundane evening of television and kid-washing was the reality.

I want to rewrite this in a 'choose your own adventure' mode. "Does the babysitter take a bath? Turn to page 37, otherwise turn to page 14".

Whitney wrote: "...thought I was missing out on the most in-depth story discussion ever, but I see that at some point it predictably devolved into a thread on inappropriate books to read to cats. Why does every discussion have to revisit this tired old ground?"

But won't somebody consider the kittens?!

Re- The Actual Story: I think I had a similar thought about most of the side roads being fantasies to begin with, but I think after a certain point in the story they did become realities. I would love to map out all of those side roads into a Choose Your Own Adventure... but that seems like a massive effort!

Interesting you should say that about the fantasies of the characters... it could be an exposé of the underlying evil of an evening wasted living in TV fantasy.

How weird - I actually wrote a 'choose your own adventure' story for my wee short story collection, must have been thinking about this but didn't realise it!

Ruby wrote: "Re- The Actual Story: I think I had a similar thought about most of the side roads being fantasies to begin with, but I think after a certain point in the story they did become realities...."

That rings true. The fantasies of the various characters are the springboard, but then they are allowed to run riot and play out to their usually horrific ends. The babysitter is a stereotypical fantasy object in suburban erotica. For rapist Mark, my understanding from my male friends is that the teenage testosterone-laden years are an endless exercise in trying to suppress the explicit sexual imagery that floods uncontrollably into one's brain. Jimmy is old enough to be curious about the babysitter in the tub, and, as you said, the babysitter is naturally curious about dicks.

Dolly in her girdle seems representative of that (failed) suburban repression, with everyone at the drunken party trying unsuccessfully to stuff her back in. By the end, the girdle is a tattered ruin.

This story is a perfect entry in the 'dark side of suburbia' genre. I'd love to see the short film as directed by David Lynch.

Whitney wrote: "This story is a perfect entry in the 'dark side of suburbia' genre. I'd love to see the short film as directed by David Lynch."

Love it! And your discovery of the girdle symbolism. This has been my favourite discussion on Goodreads so far- deconstructing fiction is so much easier when you have other people to help and encourage!

I think that yeah, teenage years are sexual imagery-laden for males, but there's a bigger peer pressure to lose your virginity that comes from an almost completely non-sexual place and places a different kind of frustration on teenagers, from my experience at least.

Whitney wrote: "Dolly in her girdle seems representative of that (failed) suburban repression, with everyone at the drunken party trying unsuccessfully to stuff her back in. By the end, the girdle is a tattered ruin..."

I hadn't thought of her in those terms. It seemed to me that some people were trying to put her back in, some trying to pull her out, and Dolly herself was prepared to just lie there and go along with what everyone else decided.
And then there's the butter. I'm not sure where dairy fits in..

Leo X. wrote: "I think that yeah, teenage years are sexual imagery-laden for males, but there's a bigger peer pressure to lose your virginity that comes from an almost completely non-sexual place and places a different kind of frustration on teenagers, from my experience at least. ..."

The peer pressure to lose your virginity was much the same for girls in my day, (although precariously balanced with the need not to be seen as too slutty). In the story, the babysitter's fantasies were a lot more hearts-and-flowers than popping-the-cherry though, and I think that's realistic. While the peer pressure to lose your virginity is there, the real desire is for love/romance/affection more so than validation by peers.

At least, these are the dusty glimpses of my long ago youth that I've been able to salvage from the derelict hall of mirrors that is my memory ;P

I think that's a wonderful description of the story (Whitney's comment about it being a postmodern Cheever piece as both authors touch on white suburbia but Coover takes it on a metafictional rollercoaster ride).

Dolly's character is fascinating. I think viewing her as this symbol of repression opens up all kinds of wonderful interpretations. Once the girdle fails to hold that repression in, it seems to explode in size and there's no way of cramming it back together. Her tidy appearance falls apart alongside the narrative itself as its libidinous course turns ever darker and ever more confusing (but more on that in another paragraph). Other than the baby and maybe the little girl, Dolly is the one character that no longer seems to hold any sexual curiosity or desire for anyone, nor does she seem to possess any desire of her own (other than to gain back this former status as object of desire/attention)--how did others feel about this (I believe Ruby first brought this up above, but I'm using the app for Goodreads and I can't view the previous posts while I'm typing my own)? In a sense, it's almost like she's an undesired object, still. She's certainly presented as a kind of passive annoyance vs. any kind of active character. She dresses for a part no one seems to care she's playing.

This whole short story collection of Coover's is a series of meta-fictional riffs where he's either borrowing genre structures like fairy tales and putting them to new use or playing with the plot and structural conventions of short fiction. Just as he unleashes desire and lets it run rampant in this story, he does the same with the narrative thread. Subject and object frequently switch places, as do innocence and perversion. In the beginning, one paragraph's aggressor may be the next paragraph's victim, but somewhere around the middle or end, these changes are occurring within paragraphs. He uses the repetition of exact actions or phrases to retrace steps ambiguously so the reader is not entirely clear who is doing what or even when. He even contradicts the story--I was left saying things in my head like, "Wait, both boys can't be in the front yard and one of them still looking through the window!", or "Hey, she can't still have the father's underwear on!" But he does it in such subtle and well-paced ways that it's believable and you're kind of "lost in the funhouse" (sorry, couldn't resist borrowing Barth's story title). And yet it all seems to hold together, which to me, is part of Coover's magic. But did others feel that it held together? That each of the story lines seemed plausible or that it felt real even despite the contradictions and jumps in time and roles?

Excellent points, Marc!

I put it down to my own stupidity or lack of understanding the story at first, but there is an underlying confidence with which it is told that suspends disbelief not in the implausible nature of the story (since it's metafiction after all) but in Coover's ability to tell it.

I think I wrote earlier about the active-passive conflict that is definitely going on, in part contrasting:
- living a story and watching a story (on TV)
- absorbing a story and creating a story: we are in a sense unable to be passive in reading it because it is so jarring to the mind and we are forced to dredge up some linearity from it all, I think.

In that sense, it could be a reflection of our own character: which of these juxtapositional stories would we tell, and where does the entertainment and satisfaction arise, in the redemption of the characters or the morbidity of their trials?

That's an intriguing perspective I hadn't really given much thought to, Leo. Which of the story lines or characters do we most relate to? I found myself trying to relate different parts to different parts of my life (being the young boy attracted to or curious about the babysitter), being the highschool boy hoping his girlfriend would invite him over while she babysits, going through puberty, being married, hiring and interacting with babysitters (still seems weird that I text 5 teenage girls in our neighborhood), growing older/gaining weight/becoming less attractive. BTW, the cat (James Bond) did attack our sitter last Thursday and while I'd like to blame it on bad literary influences, he did this before discovering Coover...

The TV's role is also one I've not given as much thought to as it deserves. Structurally, it's kind of brilliant because it's like a textual mise en scene, or a fiction within the fiction. It's fake reality bleeds into the story's reality.

Even the reader is implicated by the end of the story!

Have any of you read any other Coover? His last short story collection was a ribald retelling of children's stories which was so-so, but it came with a pack of story cards that you can shuffle and reread resulting in a different story each time.

No, I read this story as part of a creative writing course, but I haven't even read the rest of Pricksongs and Descants! But I'm definitely hooked enough to read pretty much everything he's written haha!

He has a huuuuuge novel coming out soon does he not? And Pynchon has one in October, an exciting year for postpostpostpostmodernism :D

Leo X. wrote: "He has a huuuuuge novel coming out soon does he not?..."

This exemplifies the state of my memory: I actually wrote a blog post sharing an article about his upcoming novel and I already forgot all about it! There are a handful of authors whose every work I'd like to read and Coover is on that list. I haven't read any Pynchon, but hopefully I'll get to him one day. I believe Coover's newest book is going to be a sequel to his first novel, The Origin of the Brunists. Last I heard, it was supposed to come out next month: http://www.dzancbooks.org/news/2012/5/29/dzanc-books-to-publish-robert-coover.html

Cool! I'll need to read the first one before the sequel comes out. I've read most Pynchon apart from Mason and Dixon and V- Gravity's Rainbow is tough, but also really hard to put down :0)