The Looking-Glass

            I read the story "The Looking-Glass" by Anton Chekov. It was about a landowner's daughter who desperately wanted to be married. She looks in the mirror and after a while, she falls asleep. She dreams that she has a husband, but that her husband is sick with typhus. She goes to the doctor and begs him to come over and treat her husband, but the doctor himself is sick and lethargic. Although he goes over to her house to treat her husband, the doctor is unable to save him. In the end, the daughter realizes that she won't be able to live forever with her husband, and that she must face the pain of his death at some point.
          This was a simple story, but it was good nonetheless. I thought it was very ironic that the girl was so focused on and obsessed with getting a husband; but when she finally dreamed of her ideal husband, she dreamed of his death. This story was written by a Russian author, so he may have been trying to impart the message that the Russian culture is overly focused on marrying girls off instead of encouraging them to form their own personalities and identities. The major symbolism in the story was the looking glass or the mirror. It stood for the reflection that the girl saw, in a figurative sense. When she saw herself, she simultaneously saw her desire to be married.
          The story was interesting to me, but it wasn't necessarily a mind-blowing concept. I wouldn't really recommend this story to anyone in particular.

The Madman's Time Machine

             I read a clever little short story called "The Madman's Time Machine" by Adam Ehrlich Sachs. This story is quite short, but packs a powerful "punch". In this story, a hobo is taken into the hospital for frostbite. When he is assigned a psychiatrist to speak to, the hobo explains that he used to be the smartest man on the planet, even smarter than Einstein and Newton. He solved all the pressing problems of his time and then built a time machine so that he could travel in time and meet other geniuses. Despite his intense experiences, the genius/hobo man got bored and decided that he wanted to commit suicide, by travelling back in time and killing his grandfather. So, he travels to Berlin in 1932, and kills his grandfather, but realizes that his grandmother was already pregnant at the time. The genius/hobo's father grew up without a father and became an underemployed roofer and was unable to provide funds for his son, who became a hobo and went insane.
            This story has somewhat of an ambiguity. The narrator, himself, is not reliable because he is crazy. It could be that nothing in the story actually happened and that it was just the hobo's imagination, or it could be that the events in the story provide an actual rationale for the hobo's state. I kept trying to look in the text to see if one meaning was favored over the other, but both explanations were corroborated in the story. For example, the writer kept bringing up the fact that the hobo was found in a cardboard box, but then the narrator explains that the box is only a replica he built in order to reminisce in his past. The actual time machine, he explains, was metallic and more complicated.
           I really like the absurdist tone that this story has. Multiple times, I stared at the story and thought "What...? Why is this even in the story? This is so wierd..." But the little wierd details made it an interesting read. Plus, this story is super short, so I would definitely recommend it.

Total Solar

               "Total Solar" by Luke Mogelson is a story about cultural tensions in Afghanistan. The story is about a journalist who has a very pessimistic outlook on the world. He is interviewing an ornithology researcher, when an unfortunate event occurs. A few gunmen arrive and kill many people, including a "fat American" and a woman named Sue Kwan. During this time, the journalists lies on the grass, pretends to be dead, and ultimately survives. The police and press arrive, but the journalist avoids them and walks away from the scene. He comes to an old man's home and the old man lets him rest in his house. When the journalist wakes up, he is hauled away by military agents who check him thoroughly before letting him go.
               There are some very nuanced elements of this piece that make it a compelling piece. At the end of the piece, the journalist is walking barefoot when a cobbler notices and offers him some shoes. The journalist pulls out his pockets to show that he doesn't have money, but the cobbler gives them to him anyway. At this moment, the journalist's eyes well up with tears. Despite all the betrayal and negativity that he has experienced in Afghanistan, the journalist is still able to find some hope through this random act of kindness. It is this small action that ultimately causes the journalist to lose his pessimism.
              Another interesting part of the story is when the protagonist recalls the time when his documentarian friend visited Afghanistan. This friend wanted to document the happiness of Afghanistan, so she filmed the happy street vendors, ate mangoes and bought textiles. The journalist thinks to himself that the friend hasn't seen the real Afghanistan and that everyone who avoids the reality of war is disillusioned.
              Honestly, violence and wars are not topics that appeal to me. I think it may be because they make me feel so depressed and hopeless that I prefer to not think extensively about the topic. If you are like me in this sense, you probably won't enjoy the story much. If war is a topic that you like reading and learning about, I definitely suggest this story.