Like last week we will discuss the intro until Tuesday and then, on Wednesday, I will post some thinking questions an the topic will be open discussion on the entire story. Feel free to email me any questions that you would like to be on the list before Wednesday and I will be sure to include them in the post.

26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss
by Kij Johnson

quote:

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1.
Aimee’s big trick is that she makes twenty-six monkeys vanish onstage.
2.
She pushes out a claw-foot bathtub and asks audience members to come up and inspect it. The people climb in and look underneath, touch the white enamel, run their hands along the little lions’ feet. When they’re done, four chains are lowered from the stage’s fly space. Aimee secures them to holes drilled along the tub’s lip and gives a signal, and the bathtub is hoisted ten feet into the air.
She sets a stepladder next to it. She claps her hands and the twenty-six monkeys onstage run up the ladder one after the

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Its like a standard magician: Take a card, any card - now the audience is focused on the card, that no matter what the magician does (lose it in the deck, burn it, put it under a cup, etc...) we are going to be focused on the card. In this case, the author manages to hook us on the first line, and so we keep reading through the description of the trick.

It also strikes me as a microcosm of the implicit promise/payoff dynamic. There is a promise (a cool magic trick) and then we keep reading for the payoff.

When the immediate and readily observable attributes of voice in an opening, the conventional attributes of narrative voice, person and tense, etc., correlate to a story's subtler voice attributes, tone, tenor, mood, register, I'm onboard for the ride.

"26 Monkey's, Also the Abyss" the title starts me off into a secondary world engagement. The rich byplay of a troupe of monkeys and such and the symbolism of Abyss suggest to me a raucous, dark primordial emotional chasm of immeasureable depth. Then the story's opening is in an emotionally deadpan mood, the contrasts and connections resonate with a mood introduced by the title.

The story's opening in third person direct address present tense, an unconventional tense for third person, tells me the action will unfold in the now of the story's moment, and that defuses the alienation of direct address and transcends into an immersing indirect address method by its self-reflexive tone. Huh, third person reflexive is an uncommonly seen and advanced writing voice.

I am fully engaged by the deadpan mood of the opening, its contradicted emotional promises, the way I'm subtlely transported on an emotional plane into empathetic alignment with Aimee through a participation mystique engagement.

I recast parts of 26 Monkeys in first and second person, and in the three persons in past present tense to get a sense of their influences on Johnson's choices. Second person came closest to a similar impact. First person and present pasts fell flat.

Third person transference for a focal character's "autobiographical" experiences makes managing present tense's time sense problematic, but this story handles time sense effectively by remaining in the now moment. No lengthy flashbacks, momentary in the moment recollections, though.

I think present tense in first person tends to be unmanageable because it impinges on willing suspension of disbelief from being illogical. How logically can a first person narrator narrate an unfolding story in direct address to an audience and at the same moment in time be involved in the story's action?

First and second person reflexive do that, frequenty in after-the-fact reporting--present past--but then a first or second person point of view narrator in either present or present past all but has to engage in lengthy reflexive meditation while a story unfolds. In present tense, that can be burdensomely meditative. Third person present tense allows for timely and judicious freestyle reflexive meditation. More of a story can be outside in the landscape instead of spending a lot of story real estate inside thoughts.

Opening in a past tense up front says a story happened in the past, distancing a core story in some small or large remove from the immediacy of unfolding action. 26 Monkeys unfolds immediately at the ideal narrator-narratee interface.

By being in third person narrator present tense, a narrator becomes a disembodied spirit experiencing an unfolding story, transference narrating a focal viewpoint character in the now for readers. I can't see that voice working in omniscient access to multiple characters, though, thus, a best practice reserved for short stories. However, for every writing principle there are exceptions.

I also agree that the present tense is essential for the telling of the story, but whoops I should wait til later to discuss this so I don't interfere with those whom have not yet read the entire story.

Even though the hook isn't in the first thirteen I think there's an oddity to the opening that draws me in. It really makes me wonder where this is going and so there is no doubt that I'm going to continue reading. The magic trick itself is just a magic trick, until you add the monkeys. Then all sorts of images come to mind and it becomes very intriguing.

I find the list format interesting. I don't know how it's going to hold up, or if it does, throughout the story. But it does put things in small, easily digestible bites that often make it easy to continue on. When I'm reading a book I get sucked in more by shorter chapters because I look and say, 'oh, it's just a little bit'. The next thing I know it's three hours and a lot of little chapters later and I haven't had dinner and I should be going to bed but now there's not much book left so why don't I just stay up and finish it because I really want to find out what happens and the next chapter is just a short one - and the cycle continues until the book has been devoured. I don't know how this is going to work in a short story but I don't see it as a bad thing.

That said it works and that is the important part.

-Part 1 The hook to me was the first line. Having it so bold, front and center, felt like a device, almost cheating, but it worked for me, and very well, in fact once, it felt brilliant, but if I saw it done too many times, I would feel differently. Does that make sense?

Part 2- I had no real problem with this part, but wasnt really drawn in so much either. It explained the trick in a descriptive but one that didnt drag the pace down. I could clearly see it.

As with the first piece we looked at, I havent connected with a character as of yet, its emotionless, which is so different than what I read or crit here at hatrack. I think this is interesting, and feel its good to have my eyes open to other styles, voices, and techniques in writing.

I draw a few conclusions, though it's a direct, bland, and understated address, the opening uses aspects of the free indirect discourse method to accomplish that deep immersion. It's the understatment of the first sentence that transforms a direct address into a free indirect discourse semblance.

The litotes of the first line would have been spoiled for me if "big trick" were all caps, capital case, or in italics for emphasis. Third person makes it all the more critical to avoid calling attention to understatements. I recast it in first person and saw that emphasis wouldn't have spoiled the litotes quite as much. //My BIG TRICK is making twenty-six monkeys vanish onstage.// But the immersion effect benefit of a moody voice is dimmed by being in first person.

What are the three most predominate characteristics of the MC?

Did the author make good use of details in this story to make it more vivid/believable to the reader?

Did the story demonstrate a traditional plot scheme? What were the elements of its plot

At what point in the story did the plot climax?

Did the ending tie together the theme of this story?

In what ways did the MC attempt to resolve the predominate conflict of this story?

Did the story begin at a proper moment of incitement for its progression?

Aimee's age, pertinent when compared with Geoff's. She's forty-three; he's twenty-eight. Scandalous? There's a longtime social convention for acceptability of age disparity in intimate relationships. The older partner's age halved and add seven equals the appropriate age of the younger partner. Spot on. Although the convention had/has a gender bias traditionally applied to men as older partners. Women as older partners is no longer totally anethema, enjoying wider acceptance of late.

But it's the voice of the story that I found most engaging. Matter-of-fact, deadpan, emotionless, straightfoward prose, a disembodied affect, the way Aimee is emotionally disembodied. No clever darlings. No hyperbole. Just the facts, ma'am. A sort of verbal irony in the way that it's nonetheless powerfully emotional. Huh, emotional by being unemotional. Paradox. More than one paradox in this story, at least more than one conventional writing wisdom or social convention set on its ear.

I place the climax when all the salient facts are known. No great opposition of forces climax, except Aimee's wanting to know how the monkeys do it. And Zeb's answer in session 20 is all there is. It just is. Like life, it doesn't have to make sense to live it, to trust life to provide.

Aimee's middle-age identity crisis is in part caused by her husband's middle-age crisis (a traditionally acknowledged male experience--running off with the administrative secretary, sports car menopause).

Aimless, Aimee--hah!--revists the puella aeternus--eternal child--of vocational play as a cathartic journey of rediscovering shattered self-identity. She cannot have a logically stated purpose up front and still be aimless. Therefore placing an outcome remaining in doubt becomes salient only once the story is complete. Aimee doesn't know what her purpose is until she's gotten to an outcome, except her fixation on how the monkeys do it is her distracting purpose. But Aimee doesn't know she's come home, returned to her core again until Zeb passes on in session 21. Her epiphany follows the story's epiphany. And the message in session 22, a brutally pithy maxim, yet still understated, "There is no trick."

"Carhartts and tees," brand name coveralls and T-shirts. Work clothes. Nice contrast with sequins and glittery dress and "Fairs . . . as artificial as titanium knees." Work contrasting with play.

The distance of the voice in this story leaves a lot of space around the facts. It is a space that the reader is given to fill in for themselves. This story insists on participation from the reader. I think that's part of what makes it resonate. Since we have no choice but to bring our own experiences to the story it is like it is custom fit, at least to some degree.

I was surprised to find out that the number of monkeys changed. When the story started and there were 26 monkeys and the last one inn was Zeb I was expecting something alphabet related. I'm not sure if this is an intentional misdirect or not. It doesn't seem like this author would do anything accidentally. So why insinuate the alphabetical correlation? I think it was to draw the reader into the puzzle. Though it seems that disappearing monkeys was plenty of puzzle for me. Any other thoughts? Did anyone else imagine this connection?

Other numbers, 23 sessions--I won't call them chapters, not for a short story--43 and 28, Aimee's and Geoff's ages, I imagine that age relationship as coming from acceptable age disparity, though 43 is a prime number, and 28 as a product of the age disparity formula. 24? 26? Twice 13? Though the alphabet parallel is a valid supposition, what with the alphabet soup of monkey varieties, and Zeb--zeta. Interesting though seemingly coincidental progression in Geoff's age and the named numbers of monkeys. 24, 26, 28?

Three years "with the band," 3, a prime number about right for when a meaningless but fun job starts to wear thin. $4.50 hotdogs and $3.25 Cokes, no need for pocket change smaller than quarters, a common carny pricing strategy for stocking a till, no nickel and diming, nor pennies. "Then one day," "Six weeks later," "thirty-eight feet," I suspect the numbers were selected basically for their plausibility, distinction, and need for specificity.

I do these kinds of mental explorations to see if perhaps an author has hidden subliminal meanings, for example, numerology or cryptography. Really, though, specificity of numbers can be trying in a story, to invent and to read. I like prospecting for strategies that inform my own writing.

The inciting crisis for Aimee is her loss of self-identity, an existential crisis that happens before the story's beginning and is related in timely and meaningful if skant backstory detail later in the story. An unconventional kind of in medias res opening in that there's no action, per se, going on. Dramatic action, yes; physical action, not so much.

Other plot benchmarks: Her impending tragic crisis is Zeb's approaching death, from which she sees another loss coming on to add more sorrow to her burden. Her resolving crisis comes when she recognizes that change will/has happened, life goes on on the disappearing monkey magic act caravan and they and she are still okay. Nice parallel connection with the backstory inciting crisis, disappearing husband, disappearing job, disappearing sister, disappearing emotional center, "Also the Abyss."

Overall, I don't know if I liked this piece. I was only mildly drawn in by the first 13. While reading it I enjoyed every second "chapter". One section would really draw me in to the mystery, then it would be followed by something boring, like a list of monkey breeds. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been half it's lenght. Did anyone else feel that way?

I found the ending satisfying in this piece, my thoughts regarding that are, part 1 told us what the story was about and the last line ended it. It was perfect in its simplicity.

Zeb, probably "a de Brazza's guenon," though not stated, weighs about 18 pounds. In my imagination he looks somewhat like an aging playwright of the 19th Century Russian stage, which connects to Swan Lake. Naming the species gave me similar but not as vivid visual sensations of the other monkeys.

In my estimation, 26 Monkeys has at least three parallel plot lines. A superficial one--and I don't mean superficial in a negative sense of shallow, merely on the surface--the mystery of how the monkeys disappear. That one doesn't resolve satisfactorily. They just do it, that's the answer.

A subtler plot, the complications and outcomes of life among a monkey troupe led by a dying patriarch. Zeb's passing also doesn't satisfy in the resolution. Life goes on. Matriarch Pango takes over by universal acclaim.

A subtler yet plot, Aimee's identity crisis, which does satisfactorily resolve.

And all three connect in precise alignment and are indivisible right up through the climax. A simple imaginative premise of magically disappearing monkeys in a raucous though amiable--hah! Aimee--tour bus fairs and festivals carnival world providing a cathartic interlude for damaged souls. Take away the unexplained monkey disappearances and the story fails because an emotionally damaged emcee couldn't keep a bunch of real monkeys performing and in line if she wanted to, knew how to. They're their own keepers.

Masterful storycraft.

"Medusa Complex" by Christie Skipper Ritchotte at Fantasy Magazine.

http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/2009/11/medusa-complex/

This have a very interesting pov.

or

"Cesare" by Megan Arkenberg, also at Fantasy Magazine.

http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/2009/11/cesare/

This one has an interesting protagonist.

Both of these held me to the end. But I'm fine with whatever comes up next.

"Cesare" third person present tense indirect address.

Neither are on the awards horizon yet, which might make for a welcome change of pace. Medusa is indexed at Free Speculative Fiction Online along with two other stories by Ritchotte. Cesare isn't, maybe because Arkenberg hasn't quite met SFWA membership standards yet or FSFO host Richard Cissée has overlooked it.

If I'd be allowed a recommendation after taking first turn by nominating "Love Among the Talus," I'd second Phobos' previous recommendation for something from Flash Fiction Online. Any one will please me.