Mouthful of Birds - Samantha Schweblin

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

36

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

37

• 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?

39

• 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