Response to Juice

      This book was an absolutely wonderful read. The meanings in it are so complex for me that I loved being able to think about what the story means and have that meaning adapt and be refined throughout my reading of it. These stories have way more to say than what can be concretely said in the same few amount of words that they are all written in. These stories inspire me in what I write and make me want to add some of this style to my own writing not to change how I write but to adapt new ideas to my style.    
      I found that this book talks to me about transcending time through means of isolation. I found it weird that these stories so often used the word "loneliness" until I realized that it was because loneliness for these stories is like a hinting reminder that these stories are about isolation. I know that stories aren't supposed to be puzzles that the author has the key to and that metaphors in these stories are meant to be interpreted freely but every time I come up with an idea I see a sentence that bends that idea. For example, in the story "Proportion Surviving" I kept having feelings about what the apple juice was a metaphor for. But the more I read I started combining the ideas of the story such as his obtaining of women and his writing of poems and felt like apple juice was specifically representing the passion of the poems that may have stemmed from his passion for women. He started talking about a place he was employed at but didn't work at and that was an interesting statement but anyways he said "I would walk in and find all kinds of juice on sale. Not to buy, but to stand next to." And later: "I had gotten in the way of improvised customer service to peruse the juice aisles without being noticed." It was at that point that I was positive his juice meant his passion for women. However, as the story went on I found that he talked a lot about his friends and how the main character I guess was sick and that his friends would visit him because of that. This story in my head screams isolation and I believe apple juice is a metaphor for a human emotional connection that he feels as though he has lost.
      I also would like to talk about "Translation" because I feel as though this is such a perfect example of isolation and there was no doubt in my mind what this story meant to me. This story for me was a story about somebody living in a loving village of people that couldn't feel their connections and was lost within a sea of people. This story is literally about somebody who is alone in the mountains and later talks about spirits. What strikes me is the introduction "The fact of everybody's disappearance, a conviction of flight and return, and a loneliness so startling that people will want to paint it." I love this introduction after I have already read this because in this story he talks about other people in his community all the time but in a past tense and speaks of having been alone for six years. The introduction is saying what the story is about and the conviction of flight and return and everybody's disappearance to me means his isolation and lack of connection from other people. And when he talks about a loneliness people will want to paint it is because nobody else accepts how lonely and isolated the main character is because it is too hard for them to understand. To me this story is about someone who is going through life and not being able to connect with all the people around him and is narrating his life as if he has been alone. The spirits he later talks about are all too serious and taunting him and he finds a way to communicate them and he "teaches them two things." I would like to think that this was his way of rebuilding some sort of connection to other people even though it felt like he was talking to spirits and that maybe the two things he taught them have to do with what he has learned from his isolation.