This course has been my first experience with short stories,
and it has definitely been a great ride. We read such a variety of short
stories, and I was exposed to so many different narrative voices, writing
styles, and a huge variety of subject matter. For many of the stories that we
read in this course, I wished that it had been a whole book rather than just a
short story. I wanted to know more, and I didn’t want to accept the fact that
this was the end of the story. Oftentimes the small glimpse we get into
characters’ lives wasn’t enough for me. But for the short story “Adams” in our
latest book, I was completely satisfied with it just the way it was. It was the
definition of “short and sweet”, and it might have been the first time I was
content with only seeing a glimpse of this character’s life. Although it was
one of the shortest stories we read this semester, it might have also been the
most hilarious story.
There are a
few major reasons why this story amused me so much. One reason why this story
was so entertaining was because of its narrative voice. The narrative voice,
the way Roger talked and explained things to us in itself, was very comical yet
real. Through this story George Saunders continues to use unusual yet appealing
narrative voices that we first experienced in “Jon”. The way Roger talks makes
you feel as if you are watching his whole thought process. He basically says
everything he thinks, and so you can see the different connections between his
thoughts and why he came to a conclusion. Roger doesn’t try to clean his story
up, he just leaves it the way it is and writes down whatever comes to him. I
especially liked the part in the text where Roger said “So I wonked him again,
as Lynn came in, saying, Hey, Roger, hey. With Roger being me.” (102). This
passage in particular gave me this feeling that Roger was telling this story
instead of writing it, and I could almost hear his voice in my head narrating
this whole situation.
Two other
reasons why this was one of the most entertaining stories so far was because of
its hypocrisy and absurdity. Roger throughout this story is obviously the one
doing all of the wrong, “wonking” Adams (or at least attempts to) every chance
he gets, barging into his neighbor’s house and knocking over his wife and
children, and even stealing knives and guns and chemicals from Adams. Yet
throughout the story Roger is planning ahead and preparing to react to the bad
things that he predicts Adams to do. He even puts himself in Adam’s place and
prepares to react to the revenge that he would take upon himself if he were in
Adam’s shoes (What?). Overall the whole hypocritical and absurd situation
taking place in this narrative was wildly entertaining for me. Did the rest of
you enjoy "Adams" just as much as I did?
