Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Bump

Sorry it's been a while -- hopefully you'll still remember this story!

What did you think of this story? Is this the ending you might have envisioned for Ms. Hempel?

And what's the deal with Jonathan Hamish again? There seemed to be an almost romantic interest going on, didn't there?
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18 comments:

kc said...

I think there was definitely a romantic interest in Jonathan, even when he was a kid. Not a realistic sexual interest. But romance in the old, high sense — like something sort of chivalric and heroic and full of adventure. He was the kind of person who'd throw pebbles at your window, Romeo-like, and perform strange feats and phrase questions in lyrical ways about "lovers" she had known. They were kindred spirits.

I liked this story a lot. I think it really captured the feeling of meeting someone from your past and being forced into that weird self-awareness when you feel that person mentally sizing you up. And this is all the more poignant when there was a student-teacher relationship, someone you had authority and influence over — someone who remembers (and uses!) words you taught them. And you're standing there thinking, "Didn't they ever find out that I'm full of shit?"

I don't know what ending I envisioned for Ms. Hempel, but I think this is a plausible one. I didn't expect her to be a junior high teacher her whole life. She's too romantic for that — but also too dreamy to really apply herself to a focused pursuit like grad school. She wanted to read a bunch of literature, not a bunch of literary theory. She said something like the world didn't need another dissertation on Shakespeare, which must have been the epiphany that let her become a grad school dropout.

What about her pregnancy?

9:23 PM, April 13, 2009
Ben said...

This story was emotionally fulfilling, but a little intellectually disappointing -- that's too harsh an observation, but I don't know how else to say it -- my brain didn't want a coda on this collection of stories, but it felt really good to have one. (Hollywoodesque?)

12:36 PM, April 14, 2009
Ben said...

She was perfect for that job, which made it a terrible job for her -- in other words, she was perfect for those kids, which made the job take a harsh toll on her. She felt things so deeply that it just plumb wore her out. How could she not be depleted when she came home, having been exposed for hours, without protection, to all of those thrumming, radiant selves?

12:36 PM, April 14, 2009
Erin said...

I didn't see her being a teacher forever either. I liked this story a lot. It reminded me somewhat of running into my seventh-grade science teacher. She was a little more effusive in her reaction, though. She ran up and hugged me right away. I was certainly sizing her up, but I hope she didn't detect my rather harsh judgment.

And yeah, what about her pregnancy? Why do you think Bynum made her pregnant?

1:17 PM, April 14, 2009
kc said...

NEW RULE: If someone asks a question, you cannot, by way of an answer, simply repeat the question!

You have to provide a thoroughly detailed and philosophically exhaustive, not to mention persuasive and publishable, answer. Thus I look forward to your explanation of Ms. Hempel's pregnancy.

1:32 PM, April 14, 2009
Ben said...

Or you could just be like me and pretend the question wasn't asked!

1:38 PM, April 14, 2009
Erin said...

You guys are a pain! OK, I'll take a stab at it.

Having a child provides another opportunity to be a kind of teacher, to relate to kids, where she seems so comfortable.

(Do you buy that?)

1:48 PM, April 14, 2009
kc said...

Possibly, yeah. I can see that.

I don't remember the story in great detail at this point, but I don't recall that much was said about the pregnancy other than it existed. I find that kind of curious. Who's the dad? How did it come about? Did she even mention to the student that she was expecting?

The more I think about it, the more it feels like her grad-school venture, like maybe something she embarked upon to give her life a kind of ready-made direction and identity. If you have a well-defined role like "student" or "mom," your life kind of falls into place, at least for awhile, because there are all these expectations of you and how you will behave. You don't have to think about yourself as much. You've severely limited your choices, and that might simplify life. Plus, it's kind of a way to seem less like an outsider and more like someone who's just doing what everybody else does. And she had that whole thing about being able to escape from one life to another only through major events, like being hurt in an accident or getting pregnant like that teacher in "Yurt."

And, yeah, she relates well to kids, as you said, and this will be a kid who won't just get a year older and be out of her life. She can watch it really grow up and have it forever.

But I found the lack of talk about the pregnancy or its background very curious.

2:11 PM, April 14, 2009
Erin said...

Yes, it was curious. It says in the story that after the student leaves she realizes she didn't mention the pregnancy and figures the girl probably just thought she'd gotten fat. But yeah, we know nothing about the father of this baby, what their relationship is, nothing. It's like the baby is an afterthought -- but then why is the title "Bump"?

You may have a point about how she wants to fall into ready-made identities. In "Yurt" she acts like the other teacher's pregnancy is little more than a convenient, fool-proof ticket out of teaching. Maybe she thought it would be a more acceptable way out of grad school, too.

2:26 PM, April 14, 2009
Ben said...

I thought she was married and the father was her husband. Was that way too much to assume from the fact that her last name had changed?

2:52 PM, April 14, 2009
kc said...

What was her new last name?

I remember something about how she didn't think of herself as "Ms. Hempel" anymore and she told the former student she didn't need to call her that, but I thought that conversation was about how she just wasn't a teacher anymore and that a courtesy title wasn't necessary. But maybe I missed something.

I am dumb. I never even thought that "bump" referred to her pregnancy! Hehe. I thought it was because she had bumped into a former student.

3:08 PM, April 14, 2009
Ben said...

It was just briefly in passing, but it said that she had a new name, and that not even phone solicitors called her Ms. Hempel. I took that to mean that she was Ms. something else when telemarketers called. I'll have to look at the book to be sure how it was worded.

And weren't there a few uses of "we" that sounded like they referred to her and a partner?

3:11 PM, April 14, 2009
Erin said...

Ha! Maybe it's both. "Bump" stood out to me as relating to the baby because it's probably my least favorite term for pregnant bellies.

I don't remember the new name thing, but it's been a long time since I read it.

3:14 PM, April 14, 2009
kc said...

Maybe we should find someone who has read the story recently. Hehe

She may well be married with a new name. It's sort of immaterial, though, because, either way, the narrator chose to say virtually nothing about the dad or the circumstances. It's a deliberate omission.

3:20 PM, April 14, 2009
Erin said...

Ben just read it over lunch! But yeah, the dad and the relationship obviously weren't considered very important to the story.

3:22 PM, April 14, 2009
kc said...

There's a trend in the book, though, to reveal kind of important information casually, like that she's engaged, like that they broke up, like that she's half Chinese. So maybe there's supposed to be a feeling that the "next story" will explain this. Only that story hasn't been written yet.

It's kind of a cool narrative technique, that there are unwritten gaps between stories, if that's what she's doing ... that the words for the conventionally important stuff, like relationships, don't get their own story but take place, largely unarticulated, in between.

3:25 PM, April 14, 2009
Erin said...

Oh yes, excellent point. The pregnancy was sort of casually slipped in there, too. It's an interesting style.

3:35 PM, April 14, 2009
Ben said...

Here's the passage I referred to:

And she didn't remember to mention that she had a new name. No one, not even the solicitors who bothered her on the phone, called her Ms. Hempel anymore. And other new names were likely to come, among them Mama, most strangely.

5:22 PM, April 14, 2009

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