quote: Trucks were rushing past and splashing dirty water on the windshield. The weather had been nasty all the way across Nebraska. The wipers weren't working too well so I had to stop at a gas station occasionally and squeegee the windshield clean. Lindy wouldn't get out unless the gas station had one of those big flat roofs over the pump area. She complained that she was already getting paler, and showed me her legs reflecting the water running down her window.
I told her with legs like that she could stop trucks if we got stranded. She gasped and cuffed me one, but didn't use the knuckles.
In Omaha, once we got off the freeway, the engine light came on so I nursed the car over to a Conoco and dumped a couple of quarts into the engine. When I started the car again the light stayed off so I dropped the hood shut and we went looking for a motel.
Lindy was mad at me about the car. She didn't want to get stranded and I guess I'd promised her the car would make it. It had been a good car in its day, a Cadillac DeVille, a land boat, fully electric. It had wood trim and soft leather seats. Built for trips like this. I hadn't counted on it running out of oil because it never had before. I knew I wasn't much of a mechanic, just a funnel and a rag in the trunk, and a jack and lugwrench I hoped I'd never have to use.
posted
I also think it is a man, and the part about the tan fading, in my opinion, seems to suggest someone from the south or west, so I'm going to go with Icarus.
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posted
Well, I think that a really good female writer could have pulled this off. It shows great pacing, and I find myself easily drawn in to a subject that, on the surface, would normally bore me to tears. This shows great craft.
posted
I agree that its most likely Male and American, either Western or Southern from the secriptions given. Probably older (past 20) since Car love is fading into Computer Love for most young (under 20) men. I say car love for though the driver claims not to be a car guy, he gives a name, brand, and rundown of the car.
posted
There’s a lot of stuff I like in this except, particularly the descriptive details, the world-weary and self-deprecating narrative voice, and the hints of dry humor.
I agree with Tom about the choppiness, though, especially in the last paragraph. The first and third paragraphs have some sentence structure problems, too, which I suspect have a lot to do with the excerpt’s point of view. The narrator seems to be stuck in a distant (zoomed out) point of view, even as he tries to describe exchanges better suited to an intimate (zoomed in) POV. (I have a similar problem, only I tend to get stuck in the zoomed-in POV.)
I agree that the author sounds male, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say sarcasticmuppet, who, if I am right, has done a fabulous job developing a plausible male voice.
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posted
The male voice is impeccable. If a woman wrote this I would be mightily impressed (certainly not a dingle-writer).
I think the tone is great, and the prose definitely brings to mind images of the many road trips I've been on. Not sure if it was intentional, but I think the resonance of the term "land boat" with the watery weather is nice.
The characterization is subtle. We do get a sense of the narrator's personality, but it's never foregrounded. There's a quality to the narrator that's not quite a latent misogyny; he doesn't seem a woman-hater as much as the type that rolls his eyes at the silliness of women.
So a guy... I agree that it seems like someone a little older. I don't think a younger writer would have used a Cadillac DeVille, plus there's just a maturity to the writing that I would have a hard time believing a new writer would be able to pull off. I get the feeling that it's someone who's been married before, or at least has been or is in a long term relationship.
quote: There's a quality to the narrator that's not quite a latent misogyny; he doesn't seem a woman-hater as much as the type that rolls his eyes at the silliness of women.
I felt that, too. It made me wonder if he always feels that way (about either women in general or Lindy in particular) or if he's just reacting to Lindy's hostility. At any rate, she does come off as quite a hag, and he seems to see himself as very put upon.
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posted
To buy myself another guess, I’ll elaborate on what I said earlier.
quote:She complained that she was already getting paler, and showed me her legs reflecting the water running down her window.
Nice image, but the sentence structure could be stronger—too many present participles (“reflecting…running”). Also, as is, it sounds like she’s showing him the reflections on her legs, not the paleness of her legs, which happen to be reflecting the rain. You could go with “she was already getting paler, and showed me her legs to prove it,” but then I think you would have to zoom in closer to add the detail about the rain. I can’t think of any other way to do it.
posted
Two of the sentences in the last paragraph kind of mess up the regular rhythm of the flow. The "Built for trips like this" is a fragment and sticks out too much from the rest of the simple SVO sentences. The last sentence is almost a run on and uses one too many clauses separated by commas. It's jarring and harder to read.
I think the narrator is a bit more enthusiastic about the trip than Lindy is, by the way he tries to humor her. I'd like to know why they're on the trip in the first place.
With that, let me guess...Tom?
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posted
I liked it, too, sax. That’s why I singled it out.
I also really like the second paragraph, but I’m torn because I feel that the bit about her legs getting paler should be in the second paragraph, not the first, but the image of the rain reflecting on her legs and the line about her cuffing him are both so strong I hate to move them out of the prime paragraph-ending spots they now hold. Maybe the author could shuffle things around a bit so the rain image opens the second paragraph.
Man, I’m stumped.
Sndrake?
(If I’m right, I think I should get double credit.)
edited: Oops. Second paragraph, not first. Thanks for the heads up, afr.
posted
I don't know, Dierdre. Putting the image of the water reflecting off her legs at the beginning of the first paragraph would make it part of the setting, and take the focus off of Lindy and her seeming obsession with her skin getting pale. And I think the narrator is a little to macho to point out any innocuous images like that. He's pretty much giving a thin play by play narration as he sees it.
I think this could be Papa Moose.
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quote: I knew I wasn't much of a mechanic, just a funnel and a rag in the trunk, and a jack and lugwrench I hoped I'd never have to use.
He's a lot more mechanic than a lot of not-mechanics. If he is more of a mechanic than a not-mechanic (I know, so eloquent) maybe he should say that he knows a bit. If he is a not-mechanic, maybe he should know less?
Not a clue who wrote it, although I agree that it's probably written by a male person.
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posted
For some reason this reminds me of the beginning of Where the Heart Is, except from the perspective of the male.
I don't see why Lindy is mad. She'd have a right if the car actually broke down on the side of the road, but it hasn't yet. Maybe 'apprehensive' is a better word.
For my benefit and yours, a list of the already guessed: ScottR Icarus Slash mackillian Geoff ZGator me (har har Deidre ) Bob Irami Dan_raven Tom Ryuko Sndrake Papa Moose
quote: I think the narrator is a little to macho to point out any innocuous images like that. He's pretty much giving a thin play by play narration as he sees it.
Possibly. I agree that the image seems out of place, but I figured it had more to do with the distance of the point of view. I didn’t see it as out of character because I took him for someone who acts like a tough guy but secretly notices little things like the reflections of raindrops.
Hmmmm...maybe that’s a clue. Could this be the crack—or, "dingle," if you will--in our mystery writer’s nearly flawless male façade?
Whattaya say, Jatraqueros? Would a guy ever pay attention to stuff like that? Or would he only notice legs?
posted
I'm trying to figure out who would use a phrase like "cuffed me one." They've gotta be older, or from somewhere on the east coast - used to a dialect I'm unfamiliar with.
Wow. Everyone I would have guessed had been nixed.
Strider?
(And Kayla - you have no right to accuse me of using words that do not mean what I think it means when you use gems like "emphaticalness" )
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I think the aggravatingly elusive mystery author uses too many "...so I..." sentances: "wipers weren't working too well so I had," "light came on so I," "the light stayed off so I," and so on.
posted
Hmm. You know, if the Cadillac runs out of oil here, chances are its engine will freeze before the end of the story.
Is Lindy really just mad at the narrator for not making sure the car had enough oil? Or is she mad about something a little deeper than that, and the oil problem is just the proverbial straw? I don't think she wants to be on the trip at all. She's scared of being anywhere where her skin doesn't look as tan.
Two obvious attempts to draw out the author.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I don't see it as Lindy having a deeper problem. I see it as a kind of quirk of Lindy's. It might not be a big deal, just this thing that our protagonist puts up with. I think the POV is excellent, and though he is not thinking towards her as I would to my signifigant other, I think that many men would have this attitude. I've experienced that in the past. I can identify with this person. (It does not state in the story, I might point out, that the protagonist is male.)
I do believe it is a midwesterner, however. Out here (in California) we call them "land yachts", though my friends and I refer to them as "land leviathans".
Well, I just wanted to analyze, but I've earned another random guess:
The Tick. <----Completely Random. Posts: 1843 | Registered: Aug 2003
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