April 3th, 2023 - Alisa
Dear TNY,
It’s the last Monday in March and I’m assaulted with the banality of “Alisa”.
And a big ol’ who fucking cares to this story.
I couldn’t be bothered to keep reading (I did scan, though) after the daughters were introduced because the story nosedived (nosedove?) into the realm of “too many characters with nothing interesting happening”. I haven’t read very much Russian lit, but this style of storytelling feels very similar to the Russian lit I’ve read (which is cool if you like that, but I think it’s not my speed). Like, it’s a bunch of blasé bullshit and the moral of the story is that life keeps on keeping on, with some good but mostly drudgery. The main character had no reason to be upset other than she had no one who cared about her (but this aloneness was her choice all along, and she was happy with it until she fell down). And after falling, instead of resolving to make friends, meet people, be part of a community, etc (or even trying to, and failing), she settled for wanting to kill herself before she got too sick to die beautifully. Big whoop. Then she couldn’t pull that off because the doc wouldn’t agree to give her sleeping pills, which was actually somewhat interesting. They coupled up, her and the doc. And guess what? She had what she wanted, someone to take care of her, and instead of relishing that (and the self-admitted happy life she was now living), she spent her days telling him and herself that it would one day end and all the happiness would be gone. Yep. Go ahead. Just throw the happiness in the trash. Ruin everything. Debbie Downer.
I don’t have much more to say. It’s not a good story. The characters have no life. The story is drab. The “plot” isn’t there. And there’s nothing unique or fresh anywhere in this.
It’s just another huge waste of time for your readers. Which sucks after the last two weeks of decent stories that you published.
And, as the man once said, happiness is its own reward (I live in HI now, as I explained, and I rent half a house from an older Chinese couple that host a medium sized tortoise who has his own little section of the yard, replete with shelters from the rain and natural shrubbery to interact with, and the Chinese couple also have a son who is a grown up and speaks excellent English, and I asked him, once, what the tortoise’s name was, and he looked at me, and smiled, and said, “Ha-penis”, and then laughed, so I laughed and repeated it exactly as he said it but with a question mark at the end, “Ha-penis?”, and I looked at him knowingly, to which he responded by smiling really big, laughing, and saying it again, exactly as before; what I’m trying to say here, TNY, is that the tortoise (pronounced “tor-tois” like a Brit, not “tor-tis” like an American) is named Happiness). So, in the spirit of happiness being its own reward, I have nothing to report about my life.
Okay, maybe one thing. I met a man at the lumber yard named Elmer and he gave me a bunch of very expensive wood. The cost? He said, “Show me what you do with it.” I feel like some kind of artist now, or rather, the imposter of some kind of artist. The guy wants to see what I make and then we’ll go from there on wood, work, woodwork, and other cool shit (weirdly, he asked if I could help with a podcast; yessir, I can). Like Kanye and all of his insanity once said (before he was an antisemite), “My life is dope, and I do dope shit.”
Until next time.
Nick
