Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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Lionflower Hedge. I have NO idea what that story is about. Aside from Link, who sort of made sense in a strange, zombie-riddled way, this short story is by far the most incomprehensible one I've read. Are they still little kids? Or is this a memory that happened a long time ago? Is the hedge a type of portal to the past...or to the future? We've talked about portals in class...but this one (to me at least) doesn't begin to make a distinction as to whether they were going or coming. Why write this story? If there's a lesson or a deeper meaning in those 9 paragraphs I haven't found it. Nor did I find it a particularly imaginative or interesting story. Where's the fantasy? It could all be a daydream or a nightmare (dispose of the estate= dead parents?) the kids had, or even too much alcohol in the adults. Is the "lionflower" significant? Why lionflower? What is a lionflower? I googled it and found "dandelion" and "lion's tail" but no lionflower. And what kind of punishment is being "sent into the hedge" anyway? Apparently this story really got to me, and not in a good way.
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6 comments:
I didn't get it all either!
I think they're transported back in time...perhaps. maybe, dunno.
I didn't like it :(
The term 'short but sweet' springs to mind and quickly dissolves. I think that this story had potential: another labyrinth theme, recapturing the innocence of childhood, solving Freudian mother issues...but I didn't like the length. I don't often complain that an author needs to explicate more; I'm quite a fan of the obscure. However, it was as if this blurb was struggling between specific and abstract. It never managed the specific part because of the length and it never managed the abstract part because of the set events. Honestly, I feel like I'm reading a starved version of a fleshed-out plot. Ever been to the BOOK-A-MINUTE website? If not, you should go. It's great fun.
As teeny-tiny-short stories go, I prefered "Directions." Probably because I have the anal literary opinion that short-short-short stories should read more like poetry instead of novellas lacking a few puzzle pieces.
The story felt a bit old to me. Old, not in the sense that I've read it before, but old in the sense that I've been there before. The whole thing felt like a throwback to my childhood, playing in a bush that I was convinced took me to Africa instead of just the ditch befind my house. It just felt very elaborate, a game they were really into, half imagined from the point of view of the adult author. As if Sher was re-playing the game from with the imagination and thorough-ness of an adult.
Overall, I think this would have made one of those good "teaser chapters" that they put at the end of a finished novel, but not so much as a short story.
I just have to view this one as like watching a tiny clip of a movie that you have never seen before but intuitively know what is going to happen because it is a basic plot. Not bad, just like turning the screen on and then off again really quickly. With stories like this I can only imagine the author's aim: was he trying to get us to create plot to fill in the blanks he left? did he want us to be baffled? or did he just get tired of writing/ran out of ideas? We will never know.. lol
It reminded me a lot of the Chronicles of Narnia books. They were even mentioned in the introduction to the story. If you remember the end of the first book the kids are kings and queens on a hunt. They follow an unicorn into the forest where they find themselves back to their childhood selves. I guess this story is playing on the same sort of idea.
Susan's comment about the seriousness of children's games reminds me of Paul Di Filippo's "Femaville 29," to which "Lionflower Hedge" makes an interesting companion piece.
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