Jesus' Son

In comparison to our other short story cycles, Jesus' Son features the same narrator throughout the stories as a unifying character, and an interesting contradiction exists because the narrator, who slips through an altered state, does not seem to be concerned with the importance of time and memory - while he can place when in time things happen to him, he doesn't necessarily recall all the details in the sharpest - he often punctuates his dates with the phrase "I don't remember," which we can ascribe both to his altered state and read as a reflection of the fluid nature of human consciousness and/or the unimportance of the linearity of time (a prided Enlightenment principle).

Many of the stories deal with misunderstandings and misconnections, such as in "Emergency," where Fuckhead arrives at the fundamental difference between him and Georgie - while Fuckhead, for the most part, simply observes his surroundings, Georgie is a proactive character in an absurd setting. There are also many disconnects been men and women in relationships, due to a lack of communication. In "Dirty Wedding," Michelle, the protagonist's girlfriend, leaves him shortly afterwards and the narrator spends much of the narrative speculating the reasons for her absence.

In terms of how this text coheres as a short story cycle in comparison to the other works we've read, and whether or not I'd use this as a model in my own short story cycle, I don't know how I feel about the recurring character as the unifying principle. In texts such as Winesburg, Ohio, Anderson could either center a story around George Wilard or simply mention him in passing. I feel the points of connection in that story were thematic as well as geographical. In Jesus' Son, we also have those points of connection, yet we're following the character, also. I'm beginning to think that "style," or the manner in which the story is written, matters a great deal in whether or not a cycle "coheres" or not. This may seem obvious (as well as something that could apply to all fiction), but I feel like a cycle is different from just a collection of stories written by the same author because it may have to sound the same, throughout. In these most recent collections, the voice sounds similar throughout the stories. While I'm not sure this unity of voice is needed to make a short story cycle (I must admit, I'm confused as to what it is, I think it's harder to pinpoint than the prose/short story division discussed in Intro to Creative Writing), it may be something I'll keep track of as I read more collections.