Critique #156 — Philippa Grahame #3
Kevin Andrew Murphy July 15th, 2007
The gatherings were never organised. Without conscious planning on behalf of anyone, they simply happened – natural phenomena like hail or rains of fish. This time, they met in a karaoke bar. Anna didn’t like karaoke bars, but as neither she nor any of her party had chosen the location, there was little point in complaining.
This was not an obstacle for Anna.
As was her habit, she arrived first, muttering expertly under her breath as she slid along the ugly red vinyl of the booth. One or two waiters raised their eyebrows at the sight of her, which didn’t help her mood. Grumpily, she laid her cane out along the rest of the seat, defying any solicitous or otherwise unwanted soul to sit there.
Then she turned her eyes to the door, and waited.
After a while, a young woman came in. She, too, earned her fair share of raised eyebrows from the waiters, but this was due to the perfection of her physical age, rather than, as it had been in Anna’s case, the incongruity of it. Not for the first time, Anna marvelled at Claire’s seeming inability to wear more than three square feet of clothing at any given time.
Disentangling herself from the lustful admiration of the waiters, the young woman waved as she hurried over, giving Anna ample opportunity to first survey and then disapprove of her latest outfit.
‘Funny,’ she remarked raspily, eyeing Claire as she scooched into the opposite side of the booth. ‘Time was, when women chose to cover their legs, it was from the hips down rather than from the feet up.’
Phillipa,
I do like this.
This was not an obstacle for Anna.
‘Funny,’ she remarked raspily
I don’t know why my quotes are back to front — sorry.
It’s spelled “organized” not “organised”. If it isn’t organized, then why is there a scheduled meeting place?
“rains of fish” What’s a rain of fish? I think that means fish rain down in this world, which would make for great sushi.
I’m not sure what the make of the three feet of clothing reference. That’s enough to make a decent outfit. I just pulled a yard I had for quilting and wrapped it around myself. Assuming cap sleeves or spaghetti straps, it would make a dress that would cover me from my shoulders to the lower part of my calves.
So I’m not sure if Claire is under-dressed, Anna is quite conservative, or Claire (and by extension the other characters) are way too tall to have a square yard of clothing cover them well.
I’m curious though. Depending on my mood, I might read on.
Ivy. The spelling depends on where you are. Stop being so US-centric. People form other parts of the world read and submit here too.
The only thing I was unsure about in the piece is:
What does her physical age have to do with it as opposed to mental or spiritual age? Also I am not sure perfection is the best word in the context.
Oddly, I checked the Cambridge University online dictionary of British English and they used the spelling of “organized” as well.
From that dictionary:
“They organized a meeting between the teachers and students.
[+ to infinitive] UK She had organized a car to meet me at the airport.”
As always, final decision is with the author; I was merely pointing it out.
Looking at it again, wouldn’t it be all British or all American? We have three feet of fabric, not a metre.
We use ‘feet’ in England as well as meters…I have to say I spell ‘organised’ and ‘realised’ thus.
I see. Thank you for explaining that, Adam.
The incongruity of it? Does this mean that Anna, despite the cane and the “get off my
lawn, you lousy kids” manner, is actually very young? I’m not sure. I think it should be
clarified.
I too initially thought that three square feet of fabric should be enough to cover most
women well enough. Then on reading further it seems you’re including her hip boots in
the equation, and that you wrote ‘three square feet of clothing’, which would
presumably include the boots and leave much less square footage for the garments
on her torso. This took up too much calculation on the part of my mind. which should
have been engaged in wondering interestedly just what kind of gathering is about to
take place. I think you should just say “inability to wear more than two square feet of
see-through fabric”, which would underline Anna’s judgemental prudishness the way
you want to without any confusion.
Which is to say I do wonder what’s going to happen next.
I like this; it’s intriguing and has a fairly strong character voice.
But there were some places where it bumped me out. You say that Anna doesn’t like karaoke bars, but there’s little point in complaining–but then you go on to say “That was not an obstacle for Anna,” which not only sounds out of POV, but is a little confusing. Did you mean to say that she’ll complain even when there’s no point to it? OK, but it just seems a bit elaborate and overly dramatic (it does, after all, have its own paragraph) way to state such a simple thing.
“Muttering expertly” — once again, I’m not sure what that means. I may be overly picky, but it stood out. How does one mutter expertly? What distinguishes an expert mutter from an inexpert mutter?
“perfection of her physical age” — don’t know what you mean by this.
Finally–
Anna’s spoken comment expresses perfectly what you explained in the preceding line. You’re telling, then showing. The only thing worse is showing then telling. IOW, don’t do both. So please delete the explanation, because it really dilutes the impact of the spoken line.
Otherwise, Anna seems fun and I’d read on because I’m curious to know what the meeting’s about.
I believe that that is easily explainable. Expert muttering requires the use a curled tongue as opposed flat. Also, to be an expert mutterer, one must be able to mutter in at least one other language.
Otherwise, I still like it, it’s got a nice voice — opinionated but not offensive.
Adam,
Heh heh heh.
Thanks for the feedback, people!
Firstly, just to clear things up - I’m actually Australian, and Ivy is correct; I have misspelled ‘organized,’ because it’s one of those words where, even though I know it has a ‘z,’ for some reason I always type - not handwrite, but type - ’s.’
Secondly, about the three square feet of clothing - as has also been observed, we use the metric system in Oz; however, ‘feet’ in this context has a much nicer ring than ‘metres.’ However, I’m not sure exactly what kind of square foot quantity constites a skimpy outfit, hence the error - how about one?
I put in the line about there being no point in Anna complaining, but then added that this wasn’t an obstacle for her, to demonstrate her personality, i.e. - muttering will do her no good and change nothing, but she’s the kind of person who just enjoys being critical. However, I accept that the turn of phrase is klunky, so I’ll try and edit it out.
Otherwise, thanks for the comments!
Phillipa, Organised is not spelt incorrectly. The leaning is towards “-ise” in Oz & UK(my 20 year old Oxford Concise has both). Sorry Ivy if I sounded terse, chalk it up against years of having to change Word spell-checkers from US English even though in the installation of the program you say you are from somewhere else.
On the measurement issue, I have the same problem as you Phillippa. I still measure people in feet & inches(even though I was born after metric was introduced) and “meterage” sounds silly, while “yardage” sounds fine.
I enjoyed the story, the only qualms were those already mentioned. But not as harshly. The clothes bit didn’t phase me, I wasn’t interested in the actual amount she used, your meaning was clear that she’s a slutty dresser.
I like the character of Anne and think that with one or two extra words it would be an excellent beginning. I would read on.
I was wondering whether people were getting confused between three square feet of cloth (3X1) and three feet squared (3×3).
Three square feet of cloth doesn’t seem like much, after all an adult medium (men’s) T shirt would have to be about 3 square feet.
Adam