Here’s my response to last week’s Meta Exercise. Since Julio Cortázar used a narrative piece of art, a novel, to construct his excellent short short. I thought I’d give myself a challenge and try to do the same thing with a less experiential sort of art, in this case, sculpture. Points to anyone who can identify the sculptor.

Daphne

Inside the museum, she allowed herself to be politely interested in the art, the pale statues he loved so much, David twisting back his arm, a grim set to his mouth, Poseidon’s hand against Persephone’s thigh, hands sunk into the cool marble as if it were a marshmallow. He had arranged for this private trip to the museum; he had paid for their first class plane tickets to Rome, but that was to be expected.

At first, she’d found his attentions in the bar where she worked flattering but overwhelming. His lavish words and gifts masked a paucity of spirit, a blindness, an inability to admire things for anything more than the surface.

At his request, their guide left them in a small room at one corner of the museum. He had wanted to look at a particular sculpture, by themselves, in the quiet. Her... more »

Last week I neglected the blog due to a family emergency, but this week I’m back with a short-short exercise based on Julio Cortázar’s “A Continuity of Parks,” found on p. 137 of the book Flash Fiction, edited by James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka.

The Meta Exercise

Analysis:

“A Continuity of Parks,” begins with a rich man who is allowing himself to become engrossed in a book. As the narrative progresses, the vivid dream of the novel becomes literal for the man, and he thinks himself into the story, circling the narrative back on itself. Cortázar’s protagonist imagines that he is sneaking into a mansion to kill his lover’s husband, when he arrives in the mansion, knife in hand, he sees himself in an armchair reading a book. Cortázar is essentially exploring literature’s power to literally take the reader outside of him- or herself, and the divisions between real life and fantasy life. Furthermore, the narrative suggests that the story inside the book is relevant to the protagonist’s life, that perhaps, he has a wife who is cheating on him, who wishes him dead.

Exercise:

Write a story in which the protagonist becomes engrossed in a film, painting, book or other piece of art... more »