Anders couldn't get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders -- a book critic known for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed.
With the line still doubled around the rope, one of the tellers stuck a POSITION CLOSED sign in her window and walked to the back of the bank, where she leaned against a desk and began to pass the time with a man shuffling papers. The women in front of Anders broke off their conversation and watched the teller with hatred. "Oh, that's nice," one of them said. She turned to Anders and added, confident of his accord, "One of those little human touched that keep us coming back for more."
Anders had conceived his own towering hatred of the teller, but he immediately turned it on the presumptuous crybaby in front of him. "Damned unfair," he said. "Tragic, really. If they're not chopping off the wrong leg, or bombing your ancestral village, they're closing their position...."
This is from Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain." Notice the psychological shrewdness and the way form matches content. Anders is a deeply unhappy man, and we might wonder if he chose this hour of the day specifically because a part of him wanted the pleasure of feeling enraged. The ranting first sentence puts us inside Anders's troubled mind. Is the overheard conversation really "stupid"? And "murderous"--a bit strong?
Wolff has a poetic way with the English language. "Weary, elegant savagery" -- not one of the three words seems an obvious compadre for the other words in the set, but we know exactly what Wolff is talking about.
How we all get stuck in our own heads and fail to empathize: It *is* a little inconsiderate for the teller to close and then just chew the fat with a colleague. (If she had closed and rushed off to an appointment, that would be another story.) It *is* a little crazy for the women to look at this rude teller "with hatred." But what is the truth about irritation? It's contagious. Anders hears the glib sarcasm in his neighbor's voice--and he feeds it right back to her. There's something particularly mean about denying a stranger the right to a mild complaint. (And haven't you been here before? Recently, in the hell that is a NJ Transit train, I heard a man say, "It's 2019. You'd think they would have installed automatic doors." All he wanted was a gesture of agreement, but instead the lady behind him spitefully, and crazily, said, "You're one of those people who really need everything JUST SO--aren't you?" And then everyone's head began spinning.)
I love the heightened quality of the diction: "conceived" (as if birthing a child), "towering," "presumptuous crybaby." It's very easy for "hell" to become "other people," and Wolff has thrown us into just that particular situation. An unusual scene for the start of a story. A blurring of inner and outer worlds--so we feel as if we're in a Bosch painting, and not just in a bland suburban bank!
With the line still doubled around the rope, one of the tellers stuck a POSITION CLOSED sign in her window and walked to the back of the bank, where she leaned against a desk and began to pass the time with a man shuffling papers. The women in front of Anders broke off their conversation and watched the teller with hatred. "Oh, that's nice," one of them said. She turned to Anders and added, confident of his accord, "One of those little human touched that keep us coming back for more."
Anders had conceived his own towering hatred of the teller, but he immediately turned it on the presumptuous crybaby in front of him. "Damned unfair," he said. "Tragic, really. If they're not chopping off the wrong leg, or bombing your ancestral village, they're closing their position...."
This is from Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain." Notice the psychological shrewdness and the way form matches content. Anders is a deeply unhappy man, and we might wonder if he chose this hour of the day specifically because a part of him wanted the pleasure of feeling enraged. The ranting first sentence puts us inside Anders's troubled mind. Is the overheard conversation really "stupid"? And "murderous"--a bit strong?
Wolff has a poetic way with the English language. "Weary, elegant savagery" -- not one of the three words seems an obvious compadre for the other words in the set, but we know exactly what Wolff is talking about.
How we all get stuck in our own heads and fail to empathize: It *is* a little inconsiderate for the teller to close and then just chew the fat with a colleague. (If she had closed and rushed off to an appointment, that would be another story.) It *is* a little crazy for the women to look at this rude teller "with hatred." But what is the truth about irritation? It's contagious. Anders hears the glib sarcasm in his neighbor's voice--and he feeds it right back to her. There's something particularly mean about denying a stranger the right to a mild complaint. (And haven't you been here before? Recently, in the hell that is a NJ Transit train, I heard a man say, "It's 2019. You'd think they would have installed automatic doors." All he wanted was a gesture of agreement, but instead the lady behind him spitefully, and crazily, said, "You're one of those people who really need everything JUST SO--aren't you?" And then everyone's head began spinning.)
I love the heightened quality of the diction: "conceived" (as if birthing a child), "towering," "presumptuous crybaby." It's very easy for "hell" to become "other people," and Wolff has thrown us into just that particular situation. An unusual scene for the start of a story. A blurring of inner and outer worlds--so we feel as if we're in a Bosch painting, and not just in a bland suburban bank!
Comments
Post a Comment