LITERATURE: 2nd Reading

Reading #1:

a) The story was okay to good.
b) The story was great
c) The story really sucked

Because of time restrictions, if (a) is the initial reaction, move along. If (b) or (c) is reached, proceed to Reading #2 to find out why.

I’ve been putting a very small dent in my reading load, and I find the easiest way to do even that is by going first through some of the anthologies of contemporary short stories and poetry. Obviously, the above formula for reading cannot be followed entirely with novels, but in that case, reading must be done with both purposes in mind, keeping the analytical mind open and picking away simultaneously with the section of the brain that reads strictly for pleasure or information.

This story in the Fall/Winter No. 84/85 issue of Confrontation intrigued me, and I instantly knew why after the first reading. Without regard for other elements of writing or story arc, etc., except to say that it was well written and interesting, the aspect that struck me while and after reading was the amazing interweaving of time and space, worlds of place in past, present and future, not in actual timeline sequencing, but their value and meaning to both the story and the characters involved. The story is “Good Guys, Bad Guys,” by William D. Schaefer (p. 217).

In “Good Guys, Bad Guys,” Margaret and Charles are a couple comfortably married for thirty-five years, now planning their vacations which will for the first time be taken separately this year. Thus, we have already been exposed to their past, present, and future. Another interplay of time is the difference in their ages, she seeking adventure at 57, he “an increasingly cranky 67.” Here we get the first indication of eras in time as well as one character moving toward the future, one towards the past in their vacation choices (she, Peru, he, Germany) which will be set, of course, in their simultaneous future. Agreeably, they embark from the central point of JFK airport, and from there they travel in separate spaces of time and place.

While Margaret’s traveling the Amazon is seen as an adventure, it is also for her a visit into history, an interest in the Incan culture and the interference by the Spanish conquistadors (good guys, bad guys), an interest which is frustrated by the inadequate recitations of their Peruvian guide, Rosita, who is also obviously biased in her presentations of the past.

Meanwhile, Charles is anxious to visit the war sites in Germany, the death camps, the places of history brought to prominence by World War II. There is an intricate weaving of old places, Charles’ presence in them, and the other tourists and locals particularly a couple of teenagers whose behavior amid the relics seems curiously out of time and place. Time once again commands the scenarios as tourism is tied automatically in with schedules for viewings. (Likewise, Margaret’s trip is guided by a planned tourist trip schedule.)

We as readers are tossed between the two main arenas of action, Germany with Charles, and Peru with Margaret, just as we follow them through their days of vacation.

The “good guy, bad guy” theme is just as readily used as a prop in being tossed around between time lines, and generations long dead interact with the living as well as with other spaces in time. Charles notes the photos of the dead in concentration camps is similar to those taken in Dresden of Germans killed in a Cathedral in Dresden—even as he is viewing these scenes in the present.

Margaret’s own facing up to the theme is in her belief of who historically was seen as the bad guy—Spain—being thrown back at her by a fellow tourist who points out that the Incans were indeed even more cruel and barbaric prior to any invasions by conquistadores or the pressures of religious conversion that followed. Centuries of history in the two places that Margaret and Charles are separately experiencing collide, burst forward, and retreat but ultimately not only affect each other, but continue on a global plane eternally.

When Charles and Margaret return from their trips, they arrive back at JFK airport within a few hours of each other. They trade stories, souvenirs and experiences that even through time and place have touched each other in similarities, even as a rabbit running wild in Berlin is matched with a “large gray rabbit with a bushy tail that turned out to be a chinchilla” in the Amazon.

The trips were educational, the couple agrees, but the reader is left to wonder; in planning their next year’s vacation, they choose to consider Disney World.