I disagree. The experience of the reader is not, and can never be, part of the story. The writer can never know this, so cannot include it, except perhaps in the case of a fictitious reader.
One story I thought if that does match your description is “the white bear” episode of the Black Mirror. If a show episode can be considered a story… I thought of it before reading the story, but now that I read it, I realize there is, in fact, quite some number of similarities between your story and the white bear… Both highly disturbing, as I am sure it is meant… Charlie Brooker is a much more cruel story writer than you, however (thankfully to all of us your fans here). For me the white bear was extremely traumatizing, I recommend against it, in fact, for anyone with a fragile psychic…
As a natural trouble-maker, I'm challenging youmg Keret [😎) to make Sisyphus a care-worn, married 60s feminist, fed up to the back-teeth with an endless cycle of laundry, ironing, cleaning, cooking and washing up. Who clears away after Friday night kiddush and dinner, eh? Oh, death where is thy sting ....? 🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪
Infinite jest! 500,000+ word novel that ends at the earliest point in the narrative chronology and begins at the latest point. What makes it truly infinite is the implication that the the reader needs to go back to the first chapter to find out what happened next. But of course once you're back at the first chapter there's no reason not to keep going, and then you return, eventually, once again, to the final chapter. And then the first chapter...
Did you see that there was a performance artist eating it? Literally, page by page. I DO wonder if she ever finished, but I'm not looking it up. I guess I'm perceiving my wondering as part of the performance. If I find out organically, that's fine, but I'll enjoy the mystery for as long as it lasts.
WOT?? Some yrs ago, an Israeli wpman 'artiste' postured by publicly defecating on a degel (Israeli flag). I'll leavs you to ponder and if you so wish, comment on such behaviour.
Yes! But that's just like the Torah cycle - and - er - giving that priority over national security is what helped to cause the tragedy we're still going through now.
I can very much see the similarity to the Torah cycle! I'm not Israeli so frankly it's not really for me to say if simchat torah was given priority over national security. It strikes me there's always gonna be some day in the year where people (as in, the people) are observing something, celebrating something, remembering something.
It's brilliant. The novel is broken down into 7 books, of which only 4 are translated into English so far. If you read only the first one, the ambition quotient drops! The general story line concerns a woman trapped in a time loop. Every day (for her) is November 18th.
Thanks Etgar, but I didn't really understand. Did the old guy really die, or didn't he? If he died, how did it happen again? If he didn't really die, what happened?
I did think of another story which might qualify, "By His Bootstraps", by Robert Heinlein, one of the best SF stories I've read.
Agreed. But maybe yr unaware that the gross mistakes of Oct 7 incl pulling IDF personnel off the sthn front and sending them to the West Bank to prorect religjous folk there. Oops!!!
Etgar, so interesting to see the preoccupations and obsessions of the old Keret germinating in the prose and themes of the young Keret. As to the comments of that old dude, I say Hooey!. I'm still trying to wrap my head around his concept of linearity. Even though I'm mostly a prose poet and short story writer, I came of age reading classics on the novel like Sheldon Sacks' Fiction and the Shape of belief, Eric Auerbach's Mimesis, and Booth's The Rhetoric Fiction, and I don't remember any of those books offering the "linear" approach. Critics who rely on prescriptive instead of descriptive approaches to fiction suck the life out of fiction. They remind me of philosophers (who I call ass-scratchers) who privilege the intellect over intuition. Good fiction has the same kind of leaps that good poetry has, even if you have to wait longer for the punch line. Maybe an image or the "suggestion" of what that image itself suggests appears as an actual image at the end of the story, which makes the entire narrative come full circle back to itself. To me, everything I associate with Sisyphus hovers over your short narrative.
Speaking of Sisyphus, much of the frustration you hinted at in your introduction permeates one of my prose poems, quite appropriately called, "Sisyphus." Hope you find the time to read it, though Lord knows how it will end up being formatted in Substack
The idea was to write an Old School New School Poem, none of that fashionable irony where poets sit around their endowed swimming pools laughing at the rest of us who have kids and work for a living. Who don’t have the money or time or the inclination to meet a terribly confused coed at the local No-Tell Motel. Who have a real pet instead of some stupid cat named Shakespeare. Hey, I’m just being honest. But back to the Old School New School Poem. On second thought, I already wrote that poem. Let’s talk about Sisyphus. Camus said the myth of Sisyphus proves there’s “no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” He said Sisyphus reached a place of contented acceptance. He said, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” But what about the fucking boulder? What about the unheavenly heaviness in Sisyphus’s legs and arms? What about that archetypal sweat stinging his eyes? Or the stars looking down on him, hugging themselves against that bowel-loosening chill pale-faced, anorexic philosophers call angst?
What kind of idiot would argue that Sisyphus “surmounted” anything, much less scorn? Certainly, Sisyphus would’ve gladly passed off the boulder to Camus or pissed on his many books of false prophecies. That would’ve been a very different story, don’t you think? One brimming with the kind of heroism even I’d have to admire.
What about “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”?
Good example, Ehud. But probably doesn’t qualify because, though Ivan’s life doesn’t change, the experience of reading the story changes the reader.
I disagree. The experience of the reader is not, and can never be, part of the story. The writer can never know this, so cannot include it, except perhaps in the case of a fictitious reader.
When he wake up, the dinosaur was still there. Monterroso
No exactly circular by itself but same subtext. There's a promise of relief somewhere in the future
What a great story for a first story! He missed something when he didn’t read it.
One story I thought if that does match your description is “the white bear” episode of the Black Mirror. If a show episode can be considered a story… I thought of it before reading the story, but now that I read it, I realize there is, in fact, quite some number of similarities between your story and the white bear… Both highly disturbing, as I am sure it is meant… Charlie Brooker is a much more cruel story writer than you, however (thankfully to all of us your fans here). For me the white bear was extremely traumatizing, I recommend against it, in fact, for anyone with a fragile psychic…
So, what was your professor's reaction?
I was a young student and he was a genius who wasn't that good in listening and I never got him to read the story.
As a natural trouble-maker, I'm challenging youmg Keret [😎) to make Sisyphus a care-worn, married 60s feminist, fed up to the back-teeth with an endless cycle of laundry, ironing, cleaning, cooking and washing up. Who clears away after Friday night kiddush and dinner, eh? Oh, death where is thy sting ....? 🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪
I'll give it a shot...
Infinite jest! 500,000+ word novel that ends at the earliest point in the narrative chronology and begins at the latest point. What makes it truly infinite is the implication that the the reader needs to go back to the first chapter to find out what happened next. But of course once you're back at the first chapter there's no reason not to keep going, and then you return, eventually, once again, to the final chapter. And then the first chapter...
Did you see that there was a performance artist eating it? Literally, page by page. I DO wonder if she ever finished, but I'm not looking it up. I guess I'm perceiving my wondering as part of the performance. If I find out organically, that's fine, but I'll enjoy the mystery for as long as it lasts.
WOT?? Some yrs ago, an Israeli wpman 'artiste' postured by publicly defecating on a degel (Israeli flag). I'll leavs you to ponder and if you so wish, comment on such behaviour.
Ew. Would've made for interesting poo.
Yes! But that's just like the Torah cycle - and - er - giving that priority over national security is what helped to cause the tragedy we're still going through now.
I can very much see the similarity to the Torah cycle! I'm not Israeli so frankly it's not really for me to say if simchat torah was given priority over national security. It strikes me there's always gonna be some day in the year where people (as in, the people) are observing something, celebrating something, remembering something.
If you've not yet read On the Calculation of Volume, I highly recommend it.
That's an ambitous read.
It's brilliant. The novel is broken down into 7 books, of which only 4 are translated into English so far. If you read only the first one, the ambition quotient drops! The general story line concerns a woman trapped in a time loop. Every day (for her) is November 18th.
Thanks Etgar, but I didn't really understand. Did the old guy really die, or didn't he? If he died, how did it happen again? If he didn't really die, what happened?
I did think of another story which might qualify, "By His Bootstraps", by Robert Heinlein, one of the best SF stories I've read.
I believe the blame and guilt keeps him alive, and dying, every week.
I like Ruth's explianation and Heinlein's story is awesome.
Nailed it.
Published the day after Groundhog Day (Groundhog Day Sheini?). Coincidence?
The opening sentence of the intro says 'In honor of Groundhog Day'. No coincidence. :)
Thanks. I missed that. (And I thought I was so clever.)
You are!
Forget about that, Prof. You can’t please everybody. You’re talented and that’s it.
Agreed. But maybe yr unaware that the gross mistakes of Oct 7 incl pulling IDF personnel off the sthn front and sending them to the West Bank to prorect religjous folk there. Oops!!!
Etgar, so interesting to see the preoccupations and obsessions of the old Keret germinating in the prose and themes of the young Keret. As to the comments of that old dude, I say Hooey!. I'm still trying to wrap my head around his concept of linearity. Even though I'm mostly a prose poet and short story writer, I came of age reading classics on the novel like Sheldon Sacks' Fiction and the Shape of belief, Eric Auerbach's Mimesis, and Booth's The Rhetoric Fiction, and I don't remember any of those books offering the "linear" approach. Critics who rely on prescriptive instead of descriptive approaches to fiction suck the life out of fiction. They remind me of philosophers (who I call ass-scratchers) who privilege the intellect over intuition. Good fiction has the same kind of leaps that good poetry has, even if you have to wait longer for the punch line. Maybe an image or the "suggestion" of what that image itself suggests appears as an actual image at the end of the story, which makes the entire narrative come full circle back to itself. To me, everything I associate with Sisyphus hovers over your short narrative.
Speaking of Sisyphus, much of the frustration you hinted at in your introduction permeates one of my prose poems, quite appropriately called, "Sisyphus." Hope you find the time to read it, though Lord knows how it will end up being formatted in Substack
The idea was to write an Old School New School Poem, none of that fashionable irony where poets sit around their endowed swimming pools laughing at the rest of us who have kids and work for a living. Who don’t have the money or time or the inclination to meet a terribly confused coed at the local No-Tell Motel. Who have a real pet instead of some stupid cat named Shakespeare. Hey, I’m just being honest. But back to the Old School New School Poem. On second thought, I already wrote that poem. Let’s talk about Sisyphus. Camus said the myth of Sisyphus proves there’s “no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” He said Sisyphus reached a place of contented acceptance. He said, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” But what about the fucking boulder? What about the unheavenly heaviness in Sisyphus’s legs and arms? What about that archetypal sweat stinging his eyes? Or the stars looking down on him, hugging themselves against that bowel-loosening chill pale-faced, anorexic philosophers call angst?
What kind of idiot would argue that Sisyphus “surmounted” anything, much less scorn? Certainly, Sisyphus would’ve gladly passed off the boulder to Camus or pissed on his many books of false prophecies. That would’ve been a very different story, don’t you think? One brimming with the kind of heroism even I’d have to admire.
Dear Etgar, of course. Isn’t the short story of many life’s?
So, what happened when you showed it to your distinguished professor? Did he kill himself? And you stayed guilty for life?