Private Lives and Glancing Blows: A Philosophy of Disconnection

Abstract

The following stories, letters, and novel excerpt explore the impossibility of reconnecting to the past. They examine moments in their characters' lives when the desire for such a connection is quite strong--it means wanting to have potential, wanting to belong somewhere, and wanting not to be lonely. Questions of truth in memory and perception also emerge. I explore this desire by situating characters at different points in their lives, so they are looking back across varying distances: for the narrator in "Reasons I Got Up This Morning, going back means a return to the day before, and in "Gustav Has Glancing Blow" it means a return to childhood. The boy in "My Collector" wants entire histories preserved so that they are alive forever and he can be part of them.