Story the first: "The Red Convertible" by Louise Erdrich. I actually had a lot of trouble with this story...the narrator slipped between two time frames, at the time of the story and looking back on it from a distance, and for some reason I couldn't pick up the clues like I normally can; time slips ordinarily don't bother me here, but here I just sort of got a giant headache. I've tried to think of a reason that this would help the story, but I don't really see it...the whole POV is a little weird, in fact, in that this is a story just about two brothers, one of whom commits suicide after fighting in a war, but it's not told in nearly as straightforward a manner as one would expect for this kind of tale, especially because apart from the narrator's asides the storyline is very linear. The emotional notes were mostly good though; I really felt the laziness of the early travels, the intensity of the moments by the river.

I read "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" for my interpretation of literature class way back...uh...like two years ago. We discussed it so heavily then I'm not sure I have anything new here...but it is always fascinating to sit and try to decide if the ending is a dream or not. I like this story much more than I ought to, I think, given its general opinions of Those Teenagers, but it's such an odd little half-fantastic thing that I like it anyway. (I should note here that she writes a fair amount of spec fic.)

We were supposed to read "In the Penal Colony," by Franz Kafka, but I stopped a few pages in. I can't read descriptions of torture--even as far as I managed to get in this story made me nauseated. (I can't help but think what it would be like to be in that situation, and I have a very good imgination...)

The Ellison story was extremely cool. It's called "Battle Royal," and is, essentially, a story about race. The motivating quote comes from the protagonist's grandfather, who tells the protag that if he says what the white men want him to say, he can become a traitor in their midst. There's a lot of action in the story, though, focusing on a battle between blindfolded black boys done for the amusement of white businessmen, which I found...well, disturbing. (Interestingly, almost nobody in this story is labelled as black or white by the narrator; but it's extremely easy to tell from the context.) I'm a little curious about the end of the story, though, as the last paragraph is,

(It was a dream I was to remember and dream again for many years after. But at the time I had no insight into its meaning. First I had to attend college.)

...what? This sounds like there's a sequel or something, and I wonder if this is part of a set of short stories, but I really have no idea. And the rest of the story is tied up so neatly that I'm very curious.