NYSSD: "On the Streets"

Oh, Trevor! But but but I don't have the magazine yet. Maybe I will read the piece online after work today, or maybe I will wait for the slow magazine from the far side of the postal service.

Looking forward to this discussion.

Right, I haven't gotten my magazine yet either. Sometimes today, more often not 'til Thursday. Looking forward to your contribution, Osso.

I've read the story. These are two strange people. Be back in a while.

I'm going to read the story today in the print edition. Will be back when I have.

I ended up reading it online...well, it is an effective study of 2 people who have an obsessive relationship and can't or won't detach from each other, even though their marriage ended long before. Trevor is a skilled storyteller so he manages to make the pathology believable. But it is still pathology. That's the only thing that holds me back from calling this a first-class story--the characters are freaks.

I agree with you, Larry, that the two of them are pathological. Arthurs is gone for sure. He apparently has his fantasy world mixed up with his real world. If, indeed, he has a real world. I did feel sympathy for Cheryl. She seems to realize that she made a mistake by marrying this guy, but having done so, she decides she ought to help carry his baggage. Then, upon divorce, for some reason she decides to keep on carrying it. She seems to enjoy crying over Arthurs' sad misfortune. It strikes me that she may be crying over her own misfortune.

I thought the story was well told. I could feel the agony that Arthurs was going through; although, being, myself, at least semi-sane, I couldn't help wondering why the man couldn't get a grip. But then it is the nature of this sort of thing that a grip is hard to get.

Now, I'm trying to figure out how this story might be intended as another comment on 9/11. Let's see. If I start with the premise that Arthurs is President Bush...

The story is definitely well told. If you are looking for a political allegory, how about Arthurs representing Bush and Cheryl representing Tony Blair? Our two countries are "divorced" ever since the Revolution, but Cheryl/Blair just can't tear herself free from Arthurs/Bush. Arthurs is the more deluded but it is a folie a deux since Cheryl (like Blair) plays along with his delusions. Just a thought!

Brilliant. I think you've got it.

Does that make Saddam the lady in the restaurant?

Larry, I hope some serious soul comes along and rescues us from this line of thought.

I have read a lot of Trevor. I would be really surprised if he was making an allegory about 9/11.

His characters live in the environs of their enclosed lives, lives enclosed by the culture and the direct influence of the immediate village, and their own choices. What you are supposed to do weighs heavily, and what you can do weighs heavily. Shoulders are crushed by rocks of ages, in a way. Trevor is not about much sweet and light...but has pristine moments that are completely real..

Well, I look forward to reading it.

I have read at least one fat anthology and two thinner ones, of Trevor...he has changed in his writing incrementally over time, but my favorite, the one I sing about from time to time on abuzz or here, is not in my hands. I leant it to someone and it is gone down some pipeline, and I don't have the title. Not so easy to clear this up, either, since he has more than one fat anthology.

For anyone who his work appeals to at all, I would suggest starting earlyish in his writing and just going forward. This is not his first New Yorker short story.

What a sad story. What sad people. It's very well-written, but horribly depressing. I feel as if I've been peeping or eavesdropping on them and I know too much!

Ossobuco, we were not seriously reading Trevor for a political subtext, just having some fun with the story. Obviously he is not writing a political allegory.

And I came along as the serious soul Hazlitt was hoping for!

Still no New Yorker...

Me neither. Hmph. May break down and read it online, or print it...

Ossobuco, Thank you for your little introduction to Trevor. Sorry that Larry and I led you to think we were serious. Last weeks story had a 9/11 tie in, and my original comment and Larrys brilliant follow up referred back to that and were in fun. These things notwithstanding, I'm always happy to find a serious soul.

One thing that kept me interested in this story was that it was not until the last couple of pages that I knew the nature of Cheryl's involvement with Arthurs. Up until then, my sense of it was that she might be in danger from him. It was surprizing, a bit of a horror, that their sad existences were entwined in so pathetic a way. In fact, her life didn't seem so bad until her dependence on him was revealed.

I like to give a story a chance to live. If I dismiss it too quickly as simply weird, I forgo the chance to see another side of human existence.

Sozobe, I'm eager to hear what you have to say. I printed the sorry Monday afternoon. I had to take the train downtown to exchange some tickets (a regular feature of retired life) and read it once on the way down and again on the way back. I also got a nap (another feature of retired life).

Mascam, it's funny how some stories leave you with that peeping-tom feeling. Getting that feeling lets you know the story you've read has really taken you in.

I actually got the New Yorker in the mail today, and it's just my own squeamishness that's kept me from reading the story. I'm really not dealing so well with the war stuff, and I'm so not in the mood for something dark. On the one hand, it's selfish, and on the other, I'm trying to wait for a mood in which I'll be able to react more objectively, as right now I'll pretty much automatically dislike anything gloomy.

Sozobe, It's not a happy time, that's for sure. The cloud on the horizon is now overhead.

Thanks for inviting me to this thread, sozobe. I love Trevor and have read all his novels and stories, except for the most recent. So I haven't read this one yet, but I plan to soon. Having said that, I probably shouldn't comment on the idea that he's written a story with elements of political allegory here.

But I will, just to say that he hasn't been an allegorist in the past; his characters, though they live in political worlds, are only themselves. Again, I haven't read this one, and it's possible he's changed his M.O. as this point in his career. I think he's a wonderful stylist, and I'm glad to see that others love him, too...

As usual D'Art gets it wrong. We were toying with the notion of this story as a political allegory just for the hell of it, not as a serious reading of the text. If you actually read the discussion up to this point you will see that clearly stated.