The Copper Kettle

[Byronic]

This was an exercise I did about a year ago to write a short story in less than 500 words in a single sitting. It came out as a bit of a cough attempting to be modernist - please don't judge me too harshly ;).


The sky is full of fire as I sip my tea and hope and pray that my imaginings have not been too exquisite, vivid that they bloom in the face of reality, which may seem pale and disappointing, as I meet with him for the first time. I beg to remember how it felt to be here on King’s Parade, drinking strong tea and laughing giddily because I escaped the library and left the others with their unpalatable expressions lifted gloomily for a moment to see that something around them had changed that was not the flicking of a page.

All the months of waiting, watching, with silent fervent hope, and now the word ‘hello’ seems thoroughly inadequate. Yet when he approaches my solitary table, as social custom dictates of me, I smile and ‘Hello’, and promptly knock over the milk jug. This alone puts him at ease. Several false starts later, blushes fading, we launch into intense conversation, abandoning gauche apprehension. Dry conversation becomes cautiously passionate with time. Students protesting at the Senate House, against rising fees and ineffectual government are dismissed as self-absorbed and pretentious, objects of ridicule, not revolution. There is a touch of Bloomsbury about us as we reject politics for art at Kettle’s Yard, the Riley Exhibition, and generally, why Cubism is overrated. He will not hold my flippant critique of Picasso against me.

The thrill is when his hand is placed delicately upon mine, as if by accident, yet so clearly by design. I sit, delicious truant and giddy, trying not to be nervous, hands shaking with the intangible excitement of possibility with him. I have studied him so carefully and academically in this half hour that I believe I could write us both. I am living my novel through life, and not through the page. Knowing this, I can deal with the caustic contempt of my academic teachers, with sarcastic Dr Carter as he tears my feeble, hasty essay to neat and violent shreds. I am too happy to think of that.

Together, my friend and I (is he now more than ‘friend’?) criticise life in the biting manner that only undergraduates do, and when we part after a happily spent hour or two, I shall meander back to the library in euphoric trance. Down King’s Parade, past Senate House and Caius library, stopping in the lane by Trinity College to sniff the air, which smells of linen because of the washroom on the corner. The Cambridge bells will be less melancholy than ever before, more cheerful their songs on days of weddings and baptisms.

We are nothing settled or categorical yet. There is a story for each of us, and they are not yet stitched together, parallel books on the shelf. I am determined that they will be more, that time will write them into one. Tea in the Copper Kettle shall be our introduction.

[hillwalker]

It's dreadfully overwritten. Sentences stretched beyond endurance by disconnected adverbial clauses making it impossible to make sense of for much of the time.

Modernist? That might have been the case if this was written 100 years ago. You seem to have settled for a precious, over-formal style of story-telling but unfortunately I found it much too twee to take seriously.

H

[jayat]

That's a jungle of words. Zero impact. I gave up trying a reading from the first line.

[Byronic]

Hello H, thanks for your response.

In reference to you - 'Modernist? That might have been the case if this was written 100 years ago.'
I'd just like to point out that by using the term 'Modernism' refers to the Modernist movement, which is writings of the late 19th and early 20th century - therefore about 100 years ago. Literary modernism is not modern writing. :)

[hillwalker]

I realise this style of writing was popular 100 years ago - but times have changed. Why would anyone need to fall back on such a
self-indulgent style nowadays?

H

[Grit]

I read this last night. I actually liked the wordy style in which it was written. It made me smile in the beginning.


I beg to remember how it felt to be here on King’s Parade, drinking strong tea and laughing giddily because I escaped the library and left the others with their unpalatable expressions lifted gloomily for a moment to see that something around them had changed that was not the flicking of a page

This sentence made me chuckle. It sets a very light tone. Laughing giddily for escaping a library? The easy life of a bored academic. The tone and voice of the writing matches up with that idea.

However, I had no idea what gender the narrator was, which made it confusing with this man later on. I initially interpreted the narrator as male and figured he was gay but there's nothing to confirm or deny either way.

The prose may be overwritten at parts, taking too long to say what it wants to but I thought it had a unique voice.

[F.E. Michael]

Surely you can see the merit of writing in a different style to develop perspective, Hill? He said it was an exercise, so I won't be too critical. This one wasn't able to pique my interest, but I have a hard time getting into non-fantasy themes if they are set in the past.

[hillwalker]

Surely you can see the merit of writing in a different style to develop perspective, Hill?

It's fine to experiment with different writing styles in the privacy of your own home - but once you post it in a public forum for critique it obviously means the piece has taken on more relevance to the OP than a mere writing exercise. Would I bother posting something on here that I scribbled twelve months ago as a stream-of-consciousness exercise? That's hardly likely unless I felt it might hold the reader's interest.

The fact that the OP chose to share this particular piece of writing with us rather than any others he may have written more recently implies he thinks it's one of his better pieces (?). My opinion was that it's let down by the style which undermines anything he was trying to tell the reader. Writing to impress instead of express.

H

[F.E. Michael]

Writing to impress instead of express.
Good point. I don't know if a forum is a bad place to share experimentation, though, I know I never try to impress with writing even though I've tried different things developing a "voice". Maybe only because I'm new to writing fiction I enjoy seeing people try a hand at a past style even though this one wasn't great.

[Byronic]

I'd just like to point out at this stage that I am actually a girl! :) And why wouldn't someone post an experimentation on a forum like this. Surely it's good to see what works and what doesn't-isn't that the entire point of an experiment?

[F.E. Michael]

Well, at least perspective stuff is cleared up. I take the story was a female perspective then?

[Byronic]

Yes, I tend towards female perspectives when I write. And there is no implication that I think this is one of my better pieces - I think the point of having an exercise and a time constraint to write creatively is that it breaks down your writing style to essential merits and, more importantly, essential defects as well. All part of the creative process. :)

[F.E. Michael]

I'm not a critic, just an interested party. Care to lend a female perspective to my short in this forum? Keep in mind it's a first draft in heavy revision. I'll be posting draft 2 in the next day or so.

[Byronic]

Of course, I'd be glad to. :)

[jayat]

Yes, I tend towards female perspectives when I write. And there is no implication that I think this is one of my better pieces - I think the point of having an exercise and a time constraint to write creatively is that it breaks down your writing style to essential merits and, more importantly, essential defects as well. All part of the creative process. :)

That's a fake. There's no female, Marxist, male, lefty, and all the -isms perspectives. You are writing literature not a pamphlet, neither evoking a very past time unless your intention is to impress few about-to-sleep listeners. All that is the same self-indulgence you use to write your old-fashioned piece of work but now to cover up the unwillingness to take critics and a mess in your mind: There are not right and left, no female or male views: there are good politics and bad ones...So there are good literature and bad one, end of the story. Would political rules from 100 years ago (although good at that time) work today? Even the main democracy (with capital D maybe?) concept was different…

If I were you, I would use your ability with words to tell something, not to make people fall asleep.

[Byronic]

That's a fake. There's no female, Marxist, male, lefty, and all the -isms perspectives. You are writing literature not a pamphlet, neither evoking a very past time unless your intention is to impress few about-to-sleep listeners. All that is the same self-indulgence you use to write your old-fashioned piece of work but now to cover up the unwillingness to take critics and a mess in your mind: There are not right and left, no female or male views: there are good politics and bad ones...So there are good literature and bad one, end of the story. Would political rules from 100 years ago (although good at that time) work today? Even the main democracy (with capital D maybe?) concept was different…

If I were you, I would use your ability with words to tell something, not to make people fall asleep.

I beg your pardon? Perhaps I need to make myself clear. 'I tend towards female perspectives' actually meant that when I write I tend to use female narrators-I literally tend to write from a female perspective (i.e. using a woman as my narrator). . It meant nothing more than that. Anything else you read into that sentence was projected by you and has nothing to do with me.

Besides that, I think the schools of Marxist and feminist theory would consider you incorrect when you say that there are no different perspectives, as they are founded on the premise that people inescapably see the world from different perspectives- these differing perspectives clearly exist or there would be no different schools of thought. It is also incorrect for you to insinuate that literature and politics are incompatible as many writers have used their politics to influence their work: for example, Shelley's belief in anarchy was explored in his poems; Ayn Rand's theory of objectivism (a belief in capitalism and selfishness) was developed through her novels. Are you claiming to know better that such illustrious literary figures? If so, I think that such an arrogant and ill-founded assertion would show a great deal more self-indulgence than you claim I do in writing my piece.

I am happy to receive any criticism from readers, positive or negative and have not indicated otherwise anywhere in this whole feed. But I do not invite that my words should be as wilfully misconstrued as you have done.

[F.E. Michael]

A little harsh, Jayat. I think I can feel the heat of your pen from here.

[Steven Hunley]

This was fun, and since it was short, enjoyable. There's been plenty of experimentation on these pages just lately, and many not as entertaining as this. I noticed it wasn't a period piece when I hit the reference to Picasso. Sure, it's overwritten in places. You have the style and vocab. down if you want to write a period piece later. And of course, there's a woman's perspective! I betcha you can write modern too, there's hints of that all over the place. I'll look forward to it.

[jayat]

A little harsh, Jayat. I think I can feel the heat of your pen from here.

I hope without sexual connotations...

[jayat]

I beg your pardon? Perhaps I need to make myself clear. 'I tend towards female perspectives' actually meant that when I write I tend to use female narrators-I literally tend to write from a female perspective (i.e. using a woman as my narrator). . It meant nothing more than that. Anything else you read into that sentence was projected by you and has nothing to do with me.

Besides that, I think the schools of Marxist and feminist theory would consider you incorrect when you say that there are no different perspectives, as they are founded on the premise that people inescapably see the world from different perspectives- these differing perspectives clearly exist or there would be no different schools of thought. It is also incorrect for you to insinuate that literature and politics are incompatible as many writers have used their politics to influence their work: for example, Shelley's belief in anarchy was explored in his poems; Ayn Rand's theory of objectivism (a belief in capitalism and selfishness) was developed through her novels. Are you claiming to know better that such illustrious literary figures? If so, I think that such an arrogant and ill-founded assertion would show a great deal more self-indulgence than you claim I do in writing my piece.

I am happy to receive any criticism from readers, positive or negative and have not indicated otherwise anywhere in this whole feed. But I do not invite that my words should be as wilfully misconstrued as you have done.

I beg your pardon, sincerely. If you felt offended, it wasn't my intention. Don't consider me a rude chap but someone who likes to talk flat and straight. I wanted to say that, and bringing out your words, The schools of thoughts are in fact a gang of resented know-it-all people who uncapable to reach a high, elaborate level when using and playing with language (i.e. literature in capital letters) need to deviate the attention from the main subject: literature is art(ifice), beauty embodied in words, not a mean for propaganda and doctrine promotion. Anarchy is not explored. No need to do it. It's a white and black subject: it's a doctrine, and like all the doctrines you take it or you leave it. Objectivism doesn't exist and it's a trap which can drive anyone crazy and brings us nowhere, it's a hell nonsense...Literature is art for art's sake and entertainment. The rest are words used for political, religious, economical, whatever you want, purposes, aims and wills. In other words, cinema (like literature) is one thing and the cinema who works for politicians are a very different matter but not the seventh art (as well as words used in...pamphlets, not literary text).

What's more, saying there are female views and perspectives apart from male ones is actually sexist. It's like saying "look at this, I do something different and brainful. My words have this label: 'woman's perspective'". I knew you were a female member of the evoluted monkeys community which we belong to not because of your main piece of art but because you say it (quite pretentiously I can recall) in one of your later posts, which had nothing to do with the original piece of writing work. Anyway, Why don't you consider the idea there is just one view: from the homo sapiens sapiens XXI century.

It's instructive to keep a word with you. Please feel free to answer any kind of reply 'you better esteem'.

[Byronic]

I beg your pardon, sincerely. If you felt offended, it wasn't my intention. Don't consider me a rude chap but someone who likes to talk flat and straight. I wanted to say that, and bringing out your words, The schools of thoughts are in fact a gang of resented know-it-all people who uncapable to reach a high, elaborate level when using and playing with language (i.e. literature in capital letters) need to deviate the attention from the main subject: literature is art(ifice), beauty embodied in words, not a mean for propaganda and doctrine promotion. Anarchy is not explored. No need to do it. It's a white and black subject: it's a doctrine, and like all the doctrines you take it or you leave it. Objectivism doesn't exist and it's a trap which can drive anyone crazy and brings us nowhere, it's a hell nonsense...Literature is art for art's sake and entertainment. The rest are words used for political, religious, economical, whatever you want, purposes, aims and wills. In other words, cinema (like literature) is one thing and the cinema who works for politicians are a very different matter but not the seventh art (as well as words used in...pamphlets, not literary text).

What's more, saying there are female views and perspectives apart from male ones is actually sexist. It's like saying "look at this, I do something different and brainful. My words have this label: 'woman's perspective'". I knew you were a female member of the evoluted monkeys community which we belong to not because of your main piece of art but because you say it (quite pretentiously I can recall) in one of your later posts, which had nothing to do with the original piece of writing work. Anyway, Why don't you consider the idea there is just one view: from the homo sapiens sapiens XXI century.

It's instructive to keep a word with you. Please feel free to answer any kind of reply 'you better esteem'.


I don't know how it is possible to 'quite pretentiously' point out that I was female-I did so because all previous posts referred to me as 'he'. I was correcting a FACT. How exactly is correcting a fact quite pretentious???

It is also incorrect to say that acknowledging a difference between male and female perspectives is sexist-sexism occurs when one gender is discriminated against or its social role is stereotyped. It is not sexist therefore to acknowledge differences between the genders, be they biological or otherwise-that belies a crude misunderstanding of the nature sexism. By your definition, pointing out any difference between the genders would be sexist.

But AGAIN you have misunderstood that when I said I usually wrote from a female perspective, I meant I usually used female characters. That is all. I hope that you understand this now, if you don't please feel free to contact me for clarification. I'll try not to give a 'pretentious' factual answer, whatever that is.

[jayat]

Besides that, I think the schools of Marxist and feminist theory would consider you incorrect when you say that there are no different perspectives, as they are founded on the premise that people inescapably see the world from different perspectives- these differing perspectives clearly exist or there would be no different schools of thought. It is also incorrect for you to insinuate that literature and politics are incompatible as many writers have used their politics to influence their work: for example, Shelley's belief in anarchy was explored in his poems; Ayn Rand's theory of objectivism (a belief in capitalism and selfishness) was developed through her novels. Are you claiming to know better that such illustrious literary figures? If so, I think that such an arrogant and ill-founded assertion would show a great deal more self-indulgence than you claim I do in writing my piece.
.

The School of thoughts elaborated the perspectives, no viceversa. There are no several perspectives, there’s just a perspective, human perspective or the first necessities perspective, which is the only fundamental care of people, them being black people, brown people, red people, poor people, rich people, women, fat women, tatooed women or white tall, gay men with a hat and a tie. There are individuals who assure Malvolio in Twelfth Night Shakespeare comedy is a demonstrative icon of Marxism current when Marxism didn’t exist in seventeenth century and by no means that was the autor intention, by God's light, or are we crazy? Feminists see oppression wherever they look a woman or a girl sweeping with a broom. Through the human evolution poor people (we, almost me) became available for colleges and universities, when that was a privilege for some people just a century ago. Now girls can earn their own money, smoke their cigarrettes, take a drink on their own, going out at night without the fear to be called with those ugly words that begins by “b” or “w” or “s” and all thanks the main evolution, one evolution, homo evolution. Do these things made girls and women more free in their lives? I doubt it, but feminists are right there to wave the flag, they feel in the right to criticise literary documents too by I don't know what kind of authority: traps and pamphlet sellers. I repeat it: traps and pamphlet sellers. Literature has nothing to do with that.

Literature has something to do with beauty, figures of speech, narrators’s points of views, well-developed, catchy themes, and a long etcetera contained in any good book about theory of literature you find in the market, but not in a pamphletlike school of thought who only purpose is to control another piece of world, in this case, literary world, for their own interest. Instead of talking from a square or in their reviews they had to come to the literary analysis, to poke their noses where nobody calls for them. Instead of The school of thoughts we should call them the school of resentment, or the resented ones. They tell you how to view a book, to analyse it, to “under…stand” it, in accordance to their rules, and now yes, of course, their p-r-e-s-p-e-c-t-i-v-e-s. If not, you’re a dumb or a troglodyte or someone with a log which growls. By saying “oh, yes, Ms. Feminist, Olivia in this Shakespearian writing is the oppressed woman from the very beginning of the seventeenth century who cannot came out from her own house due to the very chauvinist society she lived, of course, I can’t agree more…”, you are her lamb. No chauvinist concept in that time, no oppressed women, just fear or needs or lack of knowledge, lack of evolution, not just the nowadays thinking because the circumstances were others than we have today, but not the last century lies (an unfortunately now too) to deviate the subjects and distort reality, whatever it is, whenever it is or it was, to self-profit.

Feel free to “think free”, i.e., by yourself and don’t be the puppet of these liars. The only thing you achieve is ease their business. I mean you look cleverer than that.

P.S. In my country girls say “hey, guys, I’m a girl” and not talk if they came out from a époque film by saying “I'd just like to point out at this stage that I am actually a girl!”. It would sound ”pretentious” in my area at least. “arribats a aquest punt, us haig de dir que sóc una noia…” wow! Either this issue or someone in her late eighties.

[Byronic]

P.S. In my country girls say “hey, guys, I’m a girl” and not talk if they came out from a époque film by saying “I'd just like to point out at this stage that I am actually a girl!”. It would sound ”pretentious” in my area at least. “arribats a aquest punt, us haig de dir que sóc una noia…” wow! Either this issue or someone in her late eighties.

Well in my country saying 'Hey, guys, I'm a girl' would be ridiculed for sounding Americanised. I'm not American and therefore I don't speak in an Americanised way. I must live in an époque film then because this is how myself and my contemporaries talk, in full/proper/grammatical phrases.

I understand your querying a Marxist reading of Marvolio, but I think you misunderstand the fact that such readings highlight that readers themselves have a perspective when reading a book. It is not just an author who has a perspective in writing. If it were then any kind of writing meant for delivering a particular point would have no other effect on the reader. Before I understood the illusions and political context behind Akhmatova's great poetic cycle Requiem, I still thought it was beautiful beyond words - such was my technically ignorant and purely emotional perspective.

I must question your understanding of feminism. There is no one feminist reading or opinion - in fact there are many different schools of feminist thought which carry different opinions on subjects such as the handling of a broom and they tend to fight bitterly over such issues. It is wrong to use the term 'feminism' collectively for such issues. There are feminist perspectives, but not a feminist perspective.

[AuntShecky]

If no one minds my saying so, this thread is getting muddled not only by establishing the author's gender but also by esoteric philosophy --Marxist, Feminist, propaganda, Ars gratia artis and all that jazz.

How refreshing it would be for a LitNutter to post a short story that makes me laugh!
(I mean, intentionally of course.)

[jayat]

I must question your understanding of feminism. There is no one feminist reading or opinion - in fact there are many different schools of feminist thought which carry different opinions on subjects such as the handling of a broom and they tend to fight bitterly over such issues. It is wrong to use the term 'feminism' collectively for such issues. There are feminist perspectives, but not a feminist perspective.

Even worse then...Not only a pamphlet seller but several franchises from it...Well, "I'd just like to point out at this stage" I don't know Akhmatova’s poetry neither pronounce this unusal name, as well as some other author’s name (I’ll have to believe you) you post in here all through your messages. Anyway, you don’t need to show me how much you read or the uncommon, selective readings you do as if you would like to show off either my ignorance or to give some kind of credit to your words.

Forget that crap, sincerely; it doesn’t amaze/impress me. Focus to the simple and easy idea that literature like painting, cinema or music is a world by itself made of beauty, catharsis, empathy, self-recognition, but not a post for propaganda. It’s about reordering your feelings and emotions or even pulling them out of you. Otherwise, every time I read a piece of so-called literature that is denouncing Slavism or racism or how females suffered along the story I throw that propaganda sheet into the bin or close that “book”. While I was reading the first section/chapter (?) of “the sound and the fury” by Faulkner this afternoon I felt wrath, and basically that emotion, enough to stop reading due to momentary mental collapses this reading suggested to me.

If a want to listen the moans of a preacher I go down to the street and head to downtown, to the first big square my feet reach (never happens so far). The rest is what I look for: entertainment and meal for the brain in alphabetical shape.

If all the people in the world got to denounce her/his individual problems and proclaim it as a collective problem and they could fly it would be 24 h. nighttime due to the tons of pamphlet sellers it would be covering the sky.

[jayat]

If no one minds my saying so, this thread is getting muddled not only by establishing the author's gender but also by esoteric philosophy --Marxist, Feminist, propaganda, Ars gratia artis and all that jazz.

How refreshing it would be for a LitNutter to post a short story that makes me laugh!
(I mean, intentionally of course.)

Don't come here to read what we post, as simple as that. If you want to laugh meet your friends or switch on the TV for the news. :yawnb: