I hope you are all refreshed and rejuvenated from your holiday break and ready to provide insightful critique and brilliant deduction. As my New Years gift to everyone, I pruned the Guess From list a bit.
quote: She threw down her towel and stalked out of the room again. A moment later, the back door squealed open, then banged shut loudly.
It was Father’s turn. I could have saved him the trouble, I knew the argument so well. “You should do omaggio before you take this job, Enzo.”
Now I sigh. Now he acts defensive. Now I explain my atheism again. Now he reasserts that it isn’t about God, Lorenzo (and he uses my full name to let me know that this time he’s serious about omaggio). It’s about tradition. It’s about our heritage. It’s about our family.
I wanted to tell him, no, it isn’t about our family. It’s about you and Abuelo, and how he used to stand with you in church every dawn, and hold you up to the stained glass windows so your eyes would be the first eyes, of all the eyes in Sangre, that the morning light touched. I wanted to say, it’s about how you and Abuelo sung omaggio together. It’s about how your father, my Abuelo, betrayed all that, when he lost his mind in alcoholism. It’s about your desperation to prove you are more than he ever was by making me into that little boy being held up before the stained glass windows, and you into the man he was before the alcohol.
Well written. Good technical skill; good flow (except perhaps for the first paragraph, which suffers from losing whatever came before it). I think a male author. Very Hispanic flavor -- I suspect deliberately so.
The question is whether that is a real clue or a red herring? I lean toward red herring.
Thus I guess saxon75.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
No.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Actually I don't think its that technically well written. The second paragraph in particular needs a grammar doctor. There seems to be a lot left unsaid, which is to be expected. The question is, does the writer assume we know how to fill in the blanks, how to pace the paragraph so it matches the one they heard when they typed it.
I think its a bit younger of a writer. Good, with plenty of inate skill, but needing some practice for the craft. Tom Davidson?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I'm confused about the new rules. Am I allowed to guess again now? If I do, do I need to provide more/different analysis/reasoning?
And dkw, did you get my excerpt a few weeks back? Or do I need to resend it?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Hmm. The second paragraph, while not grammatically perfect, has a good rhythm. I like having an author leave room for interpretation -- within reason.
Oh, and based on his critique and timing of same (waiting to post until someone else went first, which COULD be coincidence), I guess Dan_Raven. Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
If it were Dan he'd be praising it to the sky. And, compared to the average Hatrack age, how young is Tom, really?
Which is to say, you're both wrong. And Rivka, yes, I got it. Thanks.
Posted by celia60 (Member # 2039) on :
i would have said "in alcohol" or "to alcoholism"
and i guess rivka because her reasoning would get her lynched if this were mafia. Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Wow, that would have been a brilliant ploy of rivka’s -- to ask whether or not I got her submission -- if Celia hadn’t come along and ruined it.
.
.
.
And if rivka had actually been the author. Which she isn’t.
Posted by celia60 (Member # 2039) on :
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
*giggle* It worked!
On CELIA! Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Oh, I forgot to answer your rules question. You can guess again, but you don't acumulate points. (Of course, since I still haven't figured out a new scoring system, that's moot anyway.) More critique is always good, some sort of rationale behind the guess is required.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Some good development in this one, especially in the last paragraph. But the voice and tense get twisted without warning, and that makes the reading difficult. Clear that up with a little more explanation on Enzo's part. The problem starts with the sentence: "You should do omaggio before you take this job, Enzo." It's in the wrong place at the end of the paragraph, and I can't tell if it's actually spoken by Father or part of the imagined argument. If it's actual dialogue, put it in its own paragraph, and indicate who spoke it. If it's part of the imagined argument, make sure you say that explicitly.
It took me a couple of read-throughs to get what's going on here. I like it--it's good writing.
I like the imagery of holding the boy up to the stained glass window and having the first light touch his eyes. I also like the way the back door sounds.
I'm going to guess ScottR.
[ January 05, 2004, 12:56 PM: Message edited by: advice for robots ]
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
The non-existent rules would suggest that providing some more critique for Scott would be nice, since the round went so fast.
[ January 05, 2004, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: dkw ]
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
No WAY! I never guess right! Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I just discovered a new way of killing a thread!
Posted by Christy (Member # 4397) on :
There's a lot of good thought and emotion behind this piece, but its lost in the confusion of the dialogue. It needs a way to keep the emotion, but still clarify exactly what is going on.
I assume the "she" in the first line is the mother?
The Now's seem clumsy to me.
I would put the "my Abuelo, your father" in the first use of the name. However, I think that last paragraph is the strongest of the text here.
Very interesting piece!
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
Abuelo is Spanish for grandfather. The people in this piece would seem to be Italian, but the two languages are pretty similar, so I'd imagine that it means the same in both.
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