Mouthful of Birds - Samantha Schweblin

#reading
parents:: short story writing class

Reading notes

(pages based on the actual page numbering, at least the version in the short story writing class course reader)
30

Breakup?
Interesting... commenting that his daughter looks like in a porno??
- Although this made me at first think that the issue was going to be with Sara and boys and the usual stuff
  31
Jesus christ... she ate the bird??
32
Wow... the whole setup is like an experiment; like watching Sara in a zoo
33
But I guess... is that really the worst thing? At least she eats.
- and... isn't it cause Silvia doesn't feed her?
[?] Are the birds supposed to represent something? Something about parenting?
34
I like this peas line. Exaggerated but relatable

Goddamn this is dark
"Or could she? Or would she?"

I like the indirect way of saying she ate the birds!
- It would've been boring/unnecessary to show the act of eating them again
No answer to the question of if her eyes were glued to yard?
- But my guess is yes
  38
What's in the yard? Flashbacks? Trauma?

Oof, they're out of birds? That's rough...

Thoughts

First read through

This is one of those stories where, things are confusing, and you keep waiting for some explanation to make it all make sense... but it never does.
- Maybe this is related to the purpose of poetry and other writing is to create language: here, because it leaves things super open ended, it's up to the reader to interpret; to try and reconcile it with our worldview. That leads to new concepts in the brain--an expansion of what we consider to be allowed kinds of writing.
I wonder if there's some kind of a metaphor going on here.
- Sara is a girl who's clearly not had very good parenting. The narrator and his ex Silvia clearly have had trouble;
[?] Was this only a recent development?
- It seems like so... given that the narrator seemed surprised.
- But, we don't get an explanation for how it happened...
- Or how recent it was.
- [?] When was the last time the narrator had seen Silvia and Sara?
  - At least has to be relatively recently if Dad recognizes Sylvia's car
[?] Is this supposed to be some kind of role reversal/karma thing?
- Goes from Dad ignoring Silvia and Sara, to Sylvia ignoring Dad and Sara
[?] Why/how does eating birds make Silvia "radiant"? Keep her healthy?
- Birds symbolize freedom. Maybe by eating birds, Silvia is somehow capturing some of that freedom.
- In some sense, maybe she's like a bird that's become so used to a cage--has learned that she's helpless to leave--that even when the cage is open, even when she's allowed to go into the yard, she now refuses to do so
[?] Why had Dad eat only canned stuff?
- Represents his lack of care. Sort of fitting the stereotype of a lazy man who just watches TV.
[?] Why the yard??

More thoughts

On the family relatiosn:
- 33 - "your daughter"- clearly a bad dad
Like the flip take on the usual "I want our kid"
what makes a good story?
- ambiguity

Other people's reads

on biological defects: maybe it's about coming to terms with biological defects
on normalizing things that should be normalized
- vegetarianness
comment: contrast between dad's diet and Sara's

Other thoughts

What I would've done diferently