#the fun conversation that kept me preoccupied ended and now I’m just so super sad

[deityofhearts]

I think my end goal is to up and disappear, I don’t know where I’ll end up but I want people to wonder where I went and never get the answers they seek

[tnystrk-exe]

Home 6

Tony Stark X Reader

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 End

Early enrollment had gone well enough. Ro had fun meeting a bunch of new kids, while you talked to teachers about the school. Your daughter was all set to start Pre-K in August, much to her excitement. Tony was absent from the event, but that blame fell more on your shoulders than his.

Tony hadn’t gotten in contact for a couple of weeks, much to your disappointment. Ro started asking for him a few days into his silence. Her new friend helped distract her enough.

“Dominic!” She squealed running after the slightly taller boy.

“Can’t catch me!”

Ro pressed her hand against his back and ran off in another direction.

“No!” He complained, starting to chase after her, “Come here!”

You smiled at the small pair. His mom was a bit judgmental, but left him in your care easily enough after a couple of outings together. Suffering a tiring mother was worth it when you saw how happy Ro was. You were glad she’d start school soon, she’d get to be more social with others her age.

Dominic ran over to you after a couple more minutes, cheeks reddened from the game. “Ro’s mommy, can I please have some juice?”

“Sure,” you ruffled the dark haired boys hair, “How about the two of you watch tv a bit and have a snack?”

He nodded, “I’m going to get Ro.” Dominic ran off to get Ro from the play set, while you walked in to grab them a snack.

The pair walked in hand in hand as you set their apple slices and juice on the living room table.

“We watch tv mommy?” Ro asked.

“Why don’t we let Dominic pick?”

He thought for a while, chewing on an apple slice, “Are there race cars?”

“We can check,” you shrugged, turning on the tv and flipping through the channels. “There you go, the Monaco Grand Prix.”

“Race cars cool?” Ro asked, looking at the boy.

“Super cool! Fast cars are fun,” Dominic answered enthusiastically.

You took a seat and picked up a nearby book. Their conversation droning in the background as racers were interviewed. That was until...

“Well what’s the use of having and owning a race car, if you don’t drive it?” Tony asked on tv, the cheers from the crowd spurring on his ego.

Ro stood, jumping up and down excitedly, “Look Dominic, it’s daddy!”

“No way! Your daddy has a race car?” He said, jumping up and down with her, “Can we use it?”

“Yeah!”

You watched Tony wave off a frustrated man as Stark replaces Defilipo from the board. Tony slyly looked towards the camera and pointed, it’s how he slyly acknowledged Ro when he knew she was watching.

“Hi daddy!” Ro waved her small hand, giggling. “Say hi to my daddy!”

“Hi Ro’s daddy!” Dominic looked at her, “Your daddy’s cool.”

The kids cheered as the racers and Tony sped off. You couldn’t match their excitement. God this man just loved making you anxious. Never had you met anyone that tested you so much. All you could hope was that the race would end soon. When this man came back home he was in for it. He was going to sit down and talk weather he wanted to or not.

A man walking on to the track slowly pulled you out of your thoughts. That could only end one way. There was no way a racer would be able to stop soon enough. “Ro, Dominic, go to the room and play with toys,” you said, wanting to avoid them getting potentially scared.

“No,” they complained in unison.

Ro pouted, “I wanna see daddy!”

You gave them a stern look, “Go!”

Ro stomped away, Dominic following close behind.

When you looked back at the tv the man was still walking on the track, what looked like electric whips trailing at his sides. A car turned the corner, heading toward him. Bringing a hand forward, he sliced through the front of the car, making it somersault into the air. The next car came speeding though, of course it was Tony.

You watched his car tumble, barrel rolling onto the ground. Speechless, you kept watching. Tony wasn’t going to run away. You could only hope his suit was nearby. Three cars crashed into one another, causing a explosion. The man stalked towards Tony’s car.

“Come on, Tones,” you sighed helplessly.

People in the crowd were screaming and running, trying to get to safety.

“Honey, please...” Your heart was pounding painfully in your chest.

Studying the man, you saw he had something like an arc reactor on his chest. He brought an electrified whip down on Tony’s car. Your breath caught in your throat. Tony came out of nowhere and hit him before getting floored. He narrowly dodged lashes, scooting away from the man.

“Daddy!” Ro cried, her and Dominic still watching, hidden behind the wall. She ran over into your arms, crying loudly.

You grabbed the remote and turned the tv down so she couldn’t hear. “Shh,” You hushed her, keeping her face hidden against your shoulder so that she couldn’t see, “He’ll be okay, your daddy’s always okay.”

“Bad man gonna hurt daddy,” she sniffed.

“It’s okay. Pepper and Happy are coming to help.” You winced as Happy rammed the car into the man. Tony seemingly arguing with Pepper. Giving Dominic a quick glance you were happy to see that he was more preoccupied with Ro than watching Tv.

He patted her back, looking over her worriedly, “‘Sokay, my little sister is ‘fraid of the tv too. My daddy says it’s all fake.”

Tony finally got the suit case he needed, after the car got torn to shreds. Stepping on it, he suited up. He had a better chance now. Using the repulsers he took shots at the man. It wasn’t long until he was tangled up in the whips and thrown around like a rag doll.

“Sweetheart, come on do something,” you begged quietly, watching him kneel on the ground.

“Want daddy home, mommy,” Ro whimpered.

Tony seemingly got an idea from being tangled up in the whips earlier. Slowly he got himself more and more tangled until he was close enough to flip the man onto the ground. Walking towards him, he grabbed the arc reactor and crushed it in his palm.

“The two of you can look now, he’s safe.” You watched guards pull the man away. A small glint in his eyes told you he was shaken, but he had his usual mask on.

Dominic looked at the tv wide eyed, “Your daddy is Iron Man?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, looking over at you, “Can we call daddy?”

“He’s gonna be busy,” you replied, “But we’ll try it out later.”

Ro pouted, “You promise?”

“Of course.”

“Not like all the other laters?”

“Not like all the other laters,” you agreed, wiping away the stray tears on her cheeks, “He just needs to get some things settled down right now. I’m sorry you had to see all of that.”

Dominic smiled at her, “See? It’s okay. Your daddy is safe and you can talk to him later.” He grabbed his backpack that had a couple of toys. “You can have my Iron Man today!”

Ro smiled at the little figure, “He looks like daddy.”

“You can keep him!” Dominic hugged her, “He’ll make you feel safe!”

She returned the hug happily, “Can have my Captain America!” Ro pulled him by the hand, running to her room.

You were grateful for Dominic distracting Ro, because you weren’t sure you’d be any good for her. The shock of the situation hadn’t faded yet. Someone had his tech and felt as if he could take down Tony on a whim. Would there be more people crawling out of the woodworks? Now that they saw it was possible to recreate the arc reactor. He may have failed in his endgame and other’s weren’t so close, but who knew what else could pop up out of the blue. It was a lot to think about. You worried about Tony, sure, but you never saw what happened.

A couple of hours later, the kids play date turned into a sleepover. Dominic’s father was nice enough compared to his mother. He got his son set up for the night and even brought Ro a gift and a small enough cake for the pair to split between themselves.

Dominic was playing with a couple of toys while you got Ro ready for the night. Your phone started going off. When you didn’t come Dominic decided that it would be nice of himself to answer.

“Hello,” he greeted, holding the phone a bit too close to his face.

Tony looked at the phone a second, staring at the small brunette, “I know I hit my head, but did I hit it that hard?”

“I saw,” Dominic nodded looking at the bruised man, “Did it hurt a lot?”

“It did.”

Dominic frowned, “I scraped my knee yesterday, that hurt a lot too. You’re really Iron Man? Not just tv?”

Tony tapped the light on his arc reactor. “Real as can be.”

“That’s so cool! I can’t believe you’re Ro’s daddy!”

That made Tony smile. Ro’s daddy sounded better than Howard’s son by leagues. “So, short stack, what’s up? Where’s everyone else?”

“Mommy’s home with Rosie. Daddy’s at the fire station. Ro and Ro’s mommy getting cleaned up.”

The meal Tony was cooking started to smell like it was burning. Too many things were running through his head lately. He needed to slow down and catch his breath. “Actually, Ro’s friend, I’ve got a bit of business to do right now. Tell her mom to call me in an hour or two, if not I get it.”

“Okay, bye bye,” Dominic hung up before Tony got to say anything else.

Tony’s message slipped his mind quickly once Ro came back to play. The two had fun chasing one another around before settling down on their makeshift bed in front of the tv to watch a movie.

-

The following morning Dominic was picked up much to Ro’s disappointment. “When’s daddy coming for my birthday?”

“I don’t know sweetheart, but I’m sure he’ll be around soon. What do you say about going to watch a movie and get some ice cream for your birthday?”

“No,” she shook her head, “Daddy gonna come. He’s gonna be sad if we’re bye bye.”

You helped her sit on your lap, rubbing her back soothingly. “He’ll know. Come on sweetheart, let’s go out.”

“Don’t wanna,” she pouted in your lap, “Not without daddy.”

Sighing, you shrugged and accepted her choice. If you forced her to go out, she’d be bound for tantrums and a bad time. “Rhodey should be here soon.” Speaking of the devil, Rhodey’s familiar knock rapped on the door. “Why don’t you go open the door and see who it is?”

“Okay...” she slid off your lap and walked over to the door. “Hi uncle Rhodey,” she greeted, looking around him expectantly.

“Hey, birthday girl!” He picked her up, “How’s my favorite four year old?”

“Not happy.”

He scoffed, “Not happy?”

She nodded, “Daddy’s not here for our birthday.”

“He’s not?” Rhodey looked over at you questioningly, Tony always made it before him. “Well, that’s okay! We both know you have the most fun with me, your dad’s all old and boring.”

“I miss him.”

“You didn’t miss me?” Rhodey feigned hurt. “I see how it is little bit.”

Ro was pulled out of her funk. The idea of hurting her uncle’s feelings was upsetting to her. “I missed you lots and lots!” She hugged his leg tightly, “I love you uncle Rhodey.”

“I love you too, sweetie.” He returned her hug, “How about you make it up to me? I hear there’s a carnival in town and there’s two girls I’d love to take.”

She agreed quickly, “Yeah! Carnival date!”

“Go get what you need then. Grab some toys for the car ride,” he urged her off. Once she was out of ear shot he went straight for you. “What’s up with you and Tony? Where is he?”

You shrugged, “He’s where he wants to be, I don’t keep track of him. He was starting to do his usual pulling away and snapping before he explodes. I told him I wanted him to fix it and talk to me when he was ready. Then he took something I said as me taking away Ro..”

Rhodey grabbed you in a hug, noticing how stressed you were getting just talking about the situation. “I’m sure it was just something said in the heat of the moment.”

“But I wouldn’t,” you held on to Rhodey, the stress lifting slightly, “How could I split them up? Why would he accuse me of that? I just want to protect her, like all of us do. And when he tailspins...”

“He fucks up,” Rhodey finished.

“Why do I have to love the most stressful man put on this planet?”

“So she finally admits it,” he teased.

You rolled your eyes, “As if you didn’t know.”

“That’s true, the only idiots in this story is the two of you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Rhodes?”

“I’m just a frustrated onlooker.” Rhodey pulled away to catch Ro, who came barreling at him. “All ready?”

“Ready Freddie!”

“Then let’s get this show on the road! There are games to win and rides to get on!” Rhodey lifted her onto his shoulders, leading the way out to a well celebrated birthday.

Bright lights, fun games, and loud music we’re all in store the second the three of you stepped onto the fair grounds. All enough to distract a certain kid from her missing father. She coaxed you to get on a number of rides with her and begged Rhodey to win her a couple of new toys. There wasn’t a place that held a candle to the fair in her eyes. Too much to do and there weren’t so many no’s since it was her birthday. Sticky snacks, fallen ice cream cone, and a lost pikachu later the sun was low and it was time to head home.

Ro yawned, exhausted from her day. “It was fun day mommy.”

“I’m glad you had fun, sweetheart,” you tucked her in, “Maybe we’ll try to go again before the carnival closes.”

“Daddy coming? Daddy likes it.” She pressed a kiss to your cheek before you pulled away.

“We’ll kick him out of the lab for a month if he doesn’t come. Sound good?” You turned on her nightlight.

Nodding in agreement, already half asleep, “Good.”

You shut the door quietly, walking to the living room and meeting an unhappy looking Rhodey. “What’s up Rhodey Rhodes?” You asked, slumping down beside him.

“He should have put it on the shelf today. Look at her, she was upset the whole day.”

“What can we do? He’s a grown man, he knows what he’s doing. She had a good day and that’s what matters.”

“She looked like she expected him to pop out of every corner.” He shook his head.

“You going to his tonight?” You wondered, resting your head on his shoulder.

“I shouldn’t,” he shook his head.

“This all is just a hiccup in things. Go. Relax for the night. He doesn’t have much in the way of family either, it always means a lot to him when you’re around.”

“The same could go for you.”

“Yeah,” you smiled, “but I’m angry at him. You were an uncle all day, go be a brother.”

“I don’t have clothes,” he stated stubbornly.

“Good thing you left a suit in the guest room last time you stayed over. Go get dressed and get out.”

He stood up and headed to the guest room. “Sometimes I really don’t like you.”

You laughed, “Love you.”

It didn’t take long for Rhodey to get ready and on his way. Though he didn’t leave before promising he was going to set Tony straight. In his eyes, this fight had done enough to Ro and the two of you just needed to talk already. The rest of the night was spent with peacefully, a movie and dipping into Tony’s stash.

-

Loud metallic clanks woke you up. Drowsily, you followed the sound to the back porch. The voice sounded soured, yet familiar so you weren’t so worried, especially when the A.I. spoke up.

“Shouldn’t be here, Jar. Let’s go.”

“Sir, this is the only place you should be.”

You opened the door and leaned against the frame. The man looked like a mess. Still it wasn’t the worst state you’ve seen him in. “What happened to you, Tones?”

He turned to look at you, still stuck in his suit. “Nothing, Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“Miss LN, Colonel Rhodes and Sir fought in the suits. I managed to stabilize Sir enough so that he wouldn’t get extremely injured, but his alcohol levels are still worryingly high,” J.A.R.V.I.S. informed you.

“Snitch,” Tony scoffed, bringing a bottle of alcohol you hadn’t seen up to his lips.

Sighing, you walked over and took it from him. “I shouldn’t even take care of you tonight.”

“I know, you shouldn’t. So just let me off on my way.”

“J, let him out,” you had caught Tony just in time before he fell onto the ground, “God, you reek.”

He chuckled, “You smell great, I bet you taste better.”

“That didn’t work when you were 17 Tones, what makes you think it would work now?” You asked, walking him into the house, hoping he wouldn’t be too loud.

“I’m seducing you right now and you don’t even know it.”

“Tony, when you’re like this I’m dry as a bone.” You struggled with the man, but finally got him into your room. “You’re going to shower, I’m going to get you some food.”

He shook his head, “Uh, uh. Can’t do that buttercup.”

“What you still get stuck in your shirt?” Knowing sometimes the pain in his chest cane back ten fold, but joked it off. “Come on, let me help, you really do smell like someone left you in a sewer.” You attempted to pull up his shirt, only for your hands to be swatted away.

“I’ll shower, honest, just go do what you’re going to do,” he said defensively, pulling away from you.

You raised your hands in truce, “Just trying to help.” Turning, you left him in the room, letting him fix his own problems.

In the kitchen, you were satisfied to hear the shower start running. It didn’t take long to grab the basics for him, a couple bottle waters, a giant glass of orange juice, and a bacon sandwich. Not ideal, but it’s what he used to make for himself before so why fix something that wasn’t broken. Grabbing it all, you made your way back into your room. Deciding it would be a good idea to check up on Ro for the night you made a quick exit.

Once you returned, you found Tony downing the glass of juice, some of his sandwich long gone. He was in nothing more than a pair of sweats which left his chest open to view. “What’s all that?” You asked, looking at the maze like pattern coming from his chest.

He jumped, not expecting the sudden intrusion. “Don’t worry about it.” Tony looked down, ashamed. This wasn’t how he wanted to tell you, fresh off of disappointing your daughter and admittedly still on the drunken side of things.

Walking closer to get a better look, you traced one of the lines, coming to a stop at the arc reactor. “Is it bad?”

“I don’t know how much more time I have,” he admitted, putting a hand over the top of yours, “Every time I use the suit, it speeds up the process.”

“You have a cure, don’t fuck with me like this,” you shook your head, “There’s no way in hell you don’t know how to fix something. That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. I’ve seen you learn completely new fields in hours just because you wanted to show someone up.”

Tony pressed a kiss to your forehead, “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He moved to sit down, pulling you onto his lap. It was his turn to care for you the best he could.

The information was a lot to process. Tony was dying and you had pushed him away. Instead of keeping him close when he really needed it, you just up and left. Things didn’t feel so black and white anymore. Mostly you were angry at yourself, for not putting in more effort.

Tony was mumbling some song, his voice more alert but still slurred from his night. You found comfort in it, not really paying attention to the words. Just focused on him.

“...Because you don’t know what it means to me..” he ended off quietly, before speaking up, “Do you have any regrets, YN?”

“A handful.”

“Me too.”

There was a pause of silence as the both of you thought over the years. The ones together and apart. How every single impulse and chance you took led the both of you right to this moment.

“There’s the obvious one, my parents. I should have been better to them. Then there’s the one, I don’t know where I should place. Good? Bad? Both? It was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, that’s for sure. Still, the most beautiful outcome. Even if I made a time machine, I wouldn’t change it, she’s too precious to ever regret.”

“I’d say, that deserves to be in the good pile.”

“You’re right,” he nodded, “Thank you for my little girl, YN.”

“She is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Which is why I want to know why you didn’t come today.”

“I don’t know, YN. Got psyched out that it might be the last day birthday I see her for, then I freaked out because it might be my last... So I drank and now everyone is upset. Rhodey took my suit. Pep, Happy, hell I think I even wronged the new kid. It’s too much to process right now.”

You kissed his cheek before moving off his lap and onto the bed. “Don’t think about it then, just for a little. Sober up, get some rest, and then figure out how to fix up things. I recommend no alcohol. The two of you don’t mix well.”

“But we love each other so much.”

“No more alcohol, Tony.”

“You’re probably right.”

He ate and filled you in on Monaco. The catch up didn’t last long before the two of you fell asleep, slumped against one another. For Tony, it was the best night’s sleep he had in a while.

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[alxndre-0001]

Alex’s Literary Reads of 2019 (from the months of June to September)

Caution: Bad, unedited writing ahead. Alex is a lazy person

Being a law student is an exhausting line of self-inflicted harm. Your life becomes an onslaught of reading materials and even more reading materials to catch up to. Now, reading has been second nature to me since I was four years old, so you can just imagine the sheer amount of readings my law professors have given us for me to consider detesting reading. 

I’ve managed to keep my sobriety from purely academic books by inserting novels, short stories and some poetry along the way. In all my four years in law school, this is the only year that I read as much as I wanted to. Mostly, short stories and essays that could be finished in one sitting. I had summer classes and wasn’t able to go home at all since January or February so I kept myself preoccupied by reading leisurely ( I know, gasp! Is that even possible for Alex in this economy?).

So here they are ++ some reviews and thoughts on the books.

1. Delta of Venus by Anais Nin

I read this book at the same time as a friend of mine. It was my first time diving into erotica considered to hold literary merit, the ones I had before were utterly terrible, by the way. But we are talking of Anais Nin anyway, so there’s that. It’s actually a collection of erotic short stories involving different, unconnected characters although a few of them were referenced in other stories. As someone who’s always been fine with sex in plots, this one left me feeling visibly unsettled. I realized how truly romanticized sex can be in popular books (e.g Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy). The outpouring of feminine pleasure on those books was strictly gratuitous and self-indulgent. Delta of Venus was an uncomfortable experience because it fleshed out several discomfiting realities of sex and titillation – violence is often an element of power play in the bedroom, voyeuristic tendencies of everyone, depraved fantasies which are almost immoral in their insistence. 

Of particular impressions were ‘The Hungarian Adventurer’ and ‘Boarding School’ which explored themes of rape, incest, and even bestiality at one point.  It wasn’t the fact of preference that appalled me, it was the simple exposition of the truth – sex is all things good and bad, inexplicable and sensual. I have a problem with how media portrays sex, especially in popular culture which is partial with idealistic notions of sexual roles apparent in concepts like the male gaze and fantasy in porn. You see, these things eventually become damaging. When we glamorize something as common as sex, it either becomes fodder for taboo or fantasy, which incidentally what occurs with conversations of sex. Either it is a subject much condemned for its alleged impurity or a dirty little secret which encourages unrealistic expectations for both sexes. 

Nin’s style of writing borders on the absurd, but it is done intentionally. In one interview, she narrated how a client wanted her to write erotica which was basically porn and just skip the poetry. She refused as any self-respecting and intelligent woman would.  And well, we need to appreciate her for that. If she let the client have his way, then what we’d have is an exaggerated image of sex instead of the unnerving stories of Delta. In a sense, we can consider Delta as a commentary on sex literature which caters to a male audience. The stories were rife with feeling, of emotion, which feminized a genre so overtly masculine, pandering to the male gaze.

There were quite a number of jibes at the male gaze as well with stories like ‘Marianne’ and the ‘The Veiled Woman’. My favorite was when Marianne (Marianne) met a man who felt erotic pleasure by only being looked at, like an object of desire. It appeared to me as a reverse of the male gaze, which often portrayed women as the object of desire, effacing her human qualities to turn her into just a vessel to express lust, infatuation or even love. But here, the object of desire is a man and we are made privy into his thoughts and actions, humanizing him instead of treating him as just an object. 

Overall, Delta of Venus was a fine starter for anyone who wished to know more of Anais Nin. The prose flowed well, even lyrically so, despite sex being a subject which can easily turn stale if not carefully written. 

2. Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe

My first experience with Poe was when I was around nine or ten years old. I was a nosy child when it came to other people’s books and one day I found printed copies of short stories of my cousin’s in his room. One of them was A Tell-Tale Heart.  I still remember feeling on edge as I read the slightly blurred lines in cheap brown paper, it was utterly thrilling. The horror of the story comes less from the almost supernatural obsession of the unnamed character with the eye of the old man. It was more on his slipping attempts of overcoming the inhuman desire to kill the man for his eye. 

There’s always something that fascinates me with horror that is internally driven. More than the hostility of vampires, the looming threats of an apocalypse, the real horror for me lies in the deep recesses of the human heart, that inscrutable machine that throbs inextricably within all of us. And I feel like that’s what always impressed me with Poe. He had the excellent ability to articulate darkness that is motivated by the self and that is a feat for writers. Stephen King, for example, is great at understanding that his monsters are metaphors for his inner demons but he relates them into tangible forms be it demon dogs, telekinetic teenagers to give them an external existence. 

Poe has a clear grasp of fear and all its friends. And though some critics would lend an idea that Poe writes well with supernatural elements, I beg to disagree. He uses, for one, unreliable narrators (Berenice, William Williamson, Fall of the House of Usher). The thing with unreliable narrators is they warp the sense of reality of the stories, an indication to the reader that everything is not what it seems. And if one pays enough attention, then they could ask the all-important question: Is this the real-life or is this just fantasy? If you’re playing with those two possibilities, then you’d be less scared with the supernatural/ external world than the worldview of the narrator. You start to scrutinize him more closely, dog his steps, intimate his intentions, etc like some fixated lover. In doing so, in peering into the mind of another, you stumble into your own inner motivations, your thoughts and who knows you might mirror the darkness the narrator is struggling with? 

And there is the true gift of Poe – he reads everyone like how he reads himself. He doesn’t do this by getting acquainted with thousands of people with innumerable different lives. No, sir. He forces readers to examine themselves and the darkness inherent in men but constantly, through our self-delusion denied as present in others but not in ourselves. I need not belabor that this kind of writer is my favorite, the ones with a very vivid understanding of humanity, no matter how bleak the answers that arrive to them.

I went at liberties with Poe (lol) but some favorites inside the collection of stories are The Case of M. Valdemar, Black Cat, Descent into the Maelstrom and Pit of the Pendulum. My only issue is Poe’s tendency to philosophize in protracted terms that I was afraid I was going to get bored to death ( Domain of Arnheim, The Island of the Fay) with the possible exception of ‘The Colloquy of Monos and Una’ since I like the ideas presented there. 

3. Slapstick! or Lonesome No More by Kurt Vonnegut

I was supposed to start with Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions or Cat’s Cradle but the only available copy of the writer’s work in the book fair (thanks BBW!!) was this one. It seemed like a light read, a stark contrast from Poe’s grim, verbose collection, so I decided to give it a go. The last time I read a sci-fi novel was Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 ( a real shame since I planned on reading more sci-fi this year). I finished it in less than a day and I wouldn’t say it left me with any remarkable opinion as much as the other books have had on me except that Vonnegut seemed like that fun, carefree uncle in reunions who has an alcohol abuse problem, is unmarried, and eats grapefruit for breakfast.

It’s not a very long novel and Vonnegut kept ending every part with ‘Hi, ho’. There’s a deeper sadness that is thinly veiled in the book as well, yeah slapstick, which reminded me of David Wallace’s Infinite Jest except the latter presents a more serious nod to its humor. 

It tells the story of Wilbur and Eliza, twins who are considered conventionally horrendous and abnormal in physical qualities. They are tall, too tall in fact. But thank god for rich parents who secretly dislike them, that they lived a sheltered existence away from everyone else other than their servants and a doctor who checks them every day. Unbeknownst to the parents and everyone else, the twins are super smart but only if they are allowed to share their intelligence by being close to each other. 

Long story made short, it’s a light read and perhaps a good overview of Vonnegut’s style of writing. I did want to read Slaughterhouse-Five after this one, so maybe that’s a good start. 

4. Dubliners by James Joyce

I’m having a hard time deciding whether this is my favorite out of everything else in this list or not. James Joyce was actually one of the writers I wanted to read very closely and understand his style better. He had such status and influence in modernism, plus the mythic reputations of both Finnegan’s Wake and Ulysses for their wrought complexity and ingenuity in style that I felt drawn to his works.  You should have seen my face when I got a copy of this book at the BBW Fair last August – think of a kid in a candy store for an accurate depiction. 

Let’s cut right down to the chase. What do I really think of this book? To sum up my thoughts about it: If there is a master class for short story writing, Dubliners should be a required reading. I am by no means a writer or journalist but as someone who reads short stories often (more often than novels or poetry) for the last two or three years, Dubliners was a standout. 

Dubliners is actually a collection of short stories (hell I’ve only been having collections, is this a pattern? lol). They are set in Ireland mediated through the simplicity of daily life.  I admired the craftsmanship of Joyce in this one, the prose was written so concisely, dispensing with the arduous descriptions that lead nowhere.  

The characters, too, were forged from the circumstances of ordinariness – a dead priest, an abused woman, a boy about to come of age and so on. The characters themselves feel like semblances of a collective consciousness – that of Ireland during a tumultuous time in the  20th century.  In a way, the mundane, individual aspects of a character’s life was a mirror to the social conditions Joyce wanted to portray emphatically in the stories. The style was polished in a way that one is made to occupy the places mentioned in Dublin through the familiarity of an old friend, a returning local into the arms of unchanged memories. There hung in each story, a great atmosphere of nostalgia and I suspect it is because Joyce knows how to excavate sentiments for places which we haven’t even visited or seen but that somehow we recognize as phantoms of our very own lives. 

There is indeed great beauty in the most ordinary things and it takes the eye of an artist to take the uneventful and reveal its exquisiteness. Joyce made me grasp a show of that ability in the days that I pored through his collection. Whatever he intended while writing Dubliners, whether as a mirror of a conflicted Irish society or as a commentary to the social context borne through those times, it is his style that won me over. The plots were as simplistic as possible and there was no way to harness more meaning from the events of a character’s life rather than to take them at face value and coming to the understanding of just how nuanced and visceral our daily lives can be if only we looked hard enough, paid attention enough.

Dubliners reminded me of what I look for most in a book. It really is less of the plot or even it’s overarching theme and more of the style. Language as an art form has always been my standard in saying if a book has taken me in or not.  The great writer, Vladimir Nabokov is similarly convinced that language can elevate a story into an art form. There is artistic merit in a writer’s style just by itself and I would rather read a book with a weak plot but with a sound use of language than a novel plot with a severely exploited and copied style. 

5. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Perhaps the other strong contender for favorite in this list is Heart of Darkness. To be fair, it was less a book and more of an experience. An experience of what literature can do when it goes beyond style and narration to get to the bottom of the writer’s innermost motivations for writing the book. I ended Heart of Darkness, perplexed and in much quandary. There are only two possible explanations: First either the book was beyond me and my mediocre mind that try as I might, meaning of any sort would only elude me. Second, it was so condensed with significance that reading it once simply didn’t qualify as reading it at all. By the end of maybe two days, I realized it was the latter. For the lack of any other time, I’m going to try and process its entirety with the sum of my reading it only once.

I confess I looked up a video review off YouTube before getting to the book, mostly because classics have a way of being exhaustively discussed without losing their ability to sustain a reader’s interest. In my case, spoilers don’t do any damage or if there is any, of only negligible consequence since I look for other things other than the stream of events.

According to the video review, the book is an example of darkness as a location. To put context to this description, it would be good to tell a bit of the story. This is about an English man named Marlow who went to Congo to take on greener chances in the trade therein and for which the backdrop is meant to replicate the inhuman conditions of the slave trade. Amidst all this is another man named Kurtz, who was quite illustrious as a prodigious ivory trader and who was steeped in so much mystery. Upon arriving at the Congo, Marlow witnesses the cruel treatment of the ‘slaves’ under the supervision of the Europeans.