Critique #119 — Adam B. Shaeffer #2
Kevin Andrew Murphy March 7th, 2007
“I must sail to the Island of the Setting Sun,” the father’s child said earnestly. “I don’t know how, I don’t know why, I only know I must.”
Startled, the father found no words to reply. He simply sat, shocked.
“I know what you’re going to say,” the father’s child said again, “and I know that none have ever returned from the journey, but that doesn’t mean they never made it. What if they all arrived and found it to be a place beyond imagining, a place so beautiful they couldn’t bring themselves to leave?”
Still stunned, the father sat, looking at his only son, knowing he must let him go.
“I know I’m barely old enough to be called a man,” his son said, “but this is just something I must do. Can you understand that?”
Of course he could understand; hadn’t he been a young man himself once? Hadn’t his heart been on fire for adventure beyond the borders of his homeland?
From this sentence, I’m imagining a young child, maybe five years old, telling his father that he feels compelled to go to a fairytale land or something. I think it would help if you gave the ‘child’ and ‘father’ names straight off. For example, “‘I must sail…,’ Mick told his father.”
This conversation is happening in a vacuum. It would be nice to have a hint if it was set in the past, present, or future and if they’re at home, at the dock, etc.
It would be nice to have a hint about why or how he knew he must let him child go. Or perhaps you could change that to ‘understood’ why he wanted to go and put the last paragraph here as explanation. That reasoning would make sense to me.
Personally, I’d prefer that you just tell me how old the kid is. What you have right now seems rather formal. Also, I don’t know how old a boy has to be to qualify as a man in this culture. Is the kid 12 or 21?
I’m mildly interested in the story, at this point, but I don’t know how much further I’d continue reading.
I like the impersonal, non-specific style of the opening: it basically tells me, “turn off the realism-seeking part of your brain, we’re dealing with symbols and archetypes directly here.”
A few quibbles:
[quote]“I know what you’re going to say,†the father’s child said again[/quote]
Did the son say this before?
[quote]but this is just something I must do[/quote]
The word “just” is ambiguous here and makes the sentence less strong. After all, it’s not that the son doesn’t have reasons for wanting to do this.
I didn’t fully explain an point that I made which might be confusing if I don’t. So: This story fragment appears to be in the father’s POV since we get his thoughts, not the son’s. So why do you refer to the boy as “the father’s child”? That confused me, since it would be more natural for the father to think of his son as “his son” instead. That’s one of the reasons I suggested just using both their names from the start.
This is quite sparse. I would continue to see where this led because it clearly has taken a mythic folktale tone, but might want more specifics and details later on.
I would keep reading only to find out why the father “has” to let the boy go, but if he didn’t give me a reason soon, I think I’d lose interest, because everything else seems to generic–no images, so smells, no personalities, no sense of place, even.
Also I tripped over “the father’s child” in the beginning. Why not just “the son”?