New Yorker Short Story Discussion: "Christie"

Am I the first one to finish?

Well, I loved the way the story started, but I admit reading it made me eminently grateful that I neither live in that city nor have pretentions to society. Who comes out looking good in this story? Christie, maybe... though we've been taught to hate her from the first.

It also seemed obvious that the story was either going to end with her being much more than she pretended to be, or else committing suicide. Since this was the New Yorker, I expected the first.

What else can we say? That the readers feel good knowing that we "catch" most of the "important" aspects... that we know what Hotchkiss is, or St. George... that we understand the "it bag" or why Greenwich is acceptable?

Living in the material world? What a difference between stories.

Gotta read the story. Be back.

I liked it. Very different from "The Painted Drum", indeed, and the Erdrich story is more to my taste. But I liked this one, too.

What I particularly liked is how it examined the "pseudo-friendships" of women, with lots of very true and finely observed touches. The line about, "she called and left a message to start the back-and-forth that would culminate in our having lunch a few weeks later" for example, and the story that the narrator created for Christie; that is something people do (I do, anyway, but I'm kinda weird), take the bare bones of a person's story and speculate as to what will happen. And it was unflinching in showing how the narrator's self-aggrandizement, her positively comparing herself to Christie, was so much hot air. The narrator is likable enough that you feel badly for her, but unlikable enough that you feel she deserved it.

I generally thought the voice was true-to-life -- not reading the author's name beforehand, this time, didn't really affect things much as I thought it must have been written by a young woman. (I don't know how old the author is, but I don't know too many Caitlins over 40.) That could be seen as a literary failing -- being too much oneself -- but I enjoyed it.

The "point" of the story as I see it is a little clunky:



But it's something I really understand and indentify with.

I tried to find out how old Macy is (haven't yet) and found this, from Tasha Robinson's review of Macy's first novel in the Onion, which I really agree with:

I loved this story. When it comes to a story like this one, I have unbridled wonder at how anyone ever conceived of telling it just this way. The story, of course, is not about Christie but about the narrator. It's a little hard to know what Christie is really like since everything we know about her comes to us through this sour, dissatisfied woman, who'd like to be able to believe that her friends are all worse off than she is and all just as miserable as she is, or better yet, more miserable.

In the end, Christie seems, as in the beginning, insatiably devoted to collecting all those things that are supposed to lead to or be symbols of happiness or status, but she seems to accept all her good fortune somewhat more gracefully than the narrator does her own somewhat less good fortune.

Christie seems willing to help her old "friend;" whereas, the old friend, once a spiteful detractor, is now willing to become a cynical user.

Luckily for me, I've never known anyone like these two, but I think they were described for us so that they really come alive.

Sozobe, I too liked many of the lines.

"Christie laughed the way you laugh at something you don't quite believe..."

"Still, whatever his problem, whatever the big bad family secret, it was just the slightly burned edge on a cake that everyone still wanted to eat. How bad could those family problems really be, you'd ask yourself more than once, if, at the same time,you had a house on the Vineyard?" (As if this would make everything okay)

The expression of cynicism and distain is beautifully artful.

Pifka, you are right. Best not to be involved with this ingrown materialism.

Very very very true. I have a fondness for that kind of oblique storytelling.

Thanks Hazlitt, their way of interacting doesn't seem very friendly, why do they bother? The story gave us all a taste of that life, since "things are seldom what they seem," even for the reader. We are tricked, a little, because the reader wants to identify with the narrator, but then, her flaws become all too apparent. I had to laugh, that SHE had told everyone on first meeting them, that she was descended from Mayflower people.

Makes me wonder what the first thing is that I say to another in the first moments of meeting. I'll have to think about that!

Yeah, that was a really nice touch -- she is so busy pilloring Christie for her pretensions, and what was the first thing out of her mouth?

Being a Mayflower Descendent helps define her status to their group, I'm sure, and is quite likely true... is it still a pretention if true? But in the end, "So what?" we want to say to her, to them, though it is hard not to be impressed on some level.

I thought the friends' conversations about Christie were so awful... cruel stabs of the worst kind. No mortgage on a trailer? Vicious. Is this the way rich people are in NYC? And when we think of the true misery going on in the world, it's so incredibly shallow. A $100,000 wedding is, IMHO, not only ludicrous but nearly criminal. Good Lord, give some of that lard away to the poor and destitute.

A very interesting juxtaposition of this story and the last. I will be interested in the next.

This is fun.

(Sorry about all the typos. I think I've corrected MOST of them.)

It's pretentious, even if it's true. As one of the first things out of her mouth, anyway.

I did really like the whole unreliable narrator thing; if it had been a regular likable person standing in judgement of Christie it would have been much more irritating as a story. I like the ambiguity and subtlety.

This IS fun!

Pifka, I agree with your abhorrence of these two. I know I couldn't cope-- wouldn't try. I think they "bother" because they have nothing else. It's all they know. There is nothing to their lives except to try to rise "above" their peers. Since it's hard to do, they just do it mentally, by imagining the peer to be dismally poor and unhappy.

This story is an elegant put-down of the type.

Sozobe, I agree, this is fun. Don't you feel delightfully superior to these slezay social climbers?

Hey Readers...Here's the latest New Yorker fiction -- it's hard to describe, except to say it is magical realism and makes you feel good when you read it.


http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/content/

Thanks for the url, Piffka. Here's the new one:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=135474#135474

I like to make new threads for each discussion so that we can continue to pull in new people. (I just got back from out of town, sorry for not doing it Monday.)

I just loved this story and am thrilled to have found a new interesting author.