LITERATURE: Ploughshares

BTW, I’m actually an issue prior to the one I noted previously, since I found the earlier one unread and am weird about keeping things chronologically organized in my catching up of the lit journals.

One of the stories in the issue of Ploughshares that I’m reading is about a gay man who happens to have troubles with his mother and his lover, and he’s discovered paid spanking.  We don’t really find out why he suddenly comes upon this need, and I’m taking his explanation that he needs to "feel something" as emotional solitude learned as protective barrier from a mother who didn’t really react to his announcement of sexual preference, and a pretty-boy lover who we’re shown often is more involved in what’s on tv than in couple interaction.  (This story is from a well-published author, not a newbie; most of the writers in this issue have quite good publishing credentials.)  And the ending is a letdown. 

We really haven’t a feel for the character, and the only saving grace to me was in just having read Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude to help understand the character’s motive, but Marquez wove a book around this human reaction to life.  A short story without real resolution doesn’t cut it.  This character is forced to dump his mother in a nursing home when she develops Alzheimers.  He goes through his mother’s house and things, but no real sensitivity or recall is given that would add depth and value to his character.  He cries for twenty minutes in a men’s room stall of the nursing facility as he leaves his mother behind and so I would think he’s feeling normal emotion, and maybe we can even stretch our understanding to cover their relationship and her muddle-minded acceptance of his gayness, but there never really was any conflict revealed anyway.  Then he dumps his lover because he hasn’t noticed the welts on his ass and he happily continues his relationship with his sadistic liaison.  That’s resolution?

I’m getting the feeling that contemporary literature is sort of the first-year CW student tendency posted prior, and that some of the the lit journals perpetuate the misconception of value by introducing new words or concepts for mere shock value, testing the controversial limits of good taste just as each new television season is flooded with the latest word to slide by the censors.  Last year it was "ass."  I’m afraid I haven’t watched enough tv in the past month to note the latest addition.  The above story discussed includes gay sex, Alzheimers, sadomasochism and Disneyland.  Yet it still doesn’t seem to have a story.