There's a lot of greatness to be found in any of Barthelme's books. "The Balloon" (from Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts), which is probably Barthelme's most famous story, might come off at first as little more than an exercise until you get to the end, which explains why the titular balloon was built and which suddenly, gut-punchingly, makes the whole thing personal. "The School" (from Amateurs), which George Saunders has written about as an exemplar of "rising action," is, to me, an exemplar of hilarity. It details a series of deaths as experienced by a grammar school class: plants, goldfish, etc., but it reaches the level of laugh-out-loud funny when it gets to the Korean orphan that the class has chipped in to adopt. My favorite story by the man, though, is "Critique de la Vie Quotidienne" (from Sadness). And what really makes that story work for me is its use of person (as in first, second, third).
[Tangent: They Might Be Giants's first video single was for a song called "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head":
It's an okay song from a band that would go on to do much better things. But what I like most about it now is its use of person. I'm not sure if it was an intentional structural device or not, but the verses of the song move from second ("As your body floats down third street...", to third ("Ads up in the subway are the work of someone trying to please their boss..."), to first ("Quit my job down at the car wash, didn't have to write no one a goodbye note..."), and the overall effect reinforces the message of the song. The narrator moves from a projectional "you" to an empathetic "he" to an empowered "I" taking control of his life: "putting his hand inside the puppet head." But I digress.]
Back to what really makes the Barthelme story work for me, though: it's not what comes at the end (as with "The Balloon"), but what comes at the beginning. The story is (basically) about the dissolution of a marriage, narrated by an alcoholic husband/father. But early on, we get this:
'Our evenings lacked promise. The world in the evening seems fraught with the absence of promise, if you are a married man. There is nothing to do but go home and drink your nine drinks and forget about it.
Slumped there in your favorite chair, with your nine drinks lined up on the side table in soldierly array, and your hand never far from them, and your other hand holding on to the plump belly of the overfed child, and perhaps rocking a bit, if the chair is a rocking chair as mine was in those days, then it is true that a tiny tendril of contempt - strike that, content - might curl up from the storehouse where the world's content is kept, and reach into your softened brain and take hold there, persuading you that this, at last, is the fruit of all your labors, which you'd been wondering about in some such terms as, "Where is the fruit?"'
And it goes on. There's a lot to like here. For one thing, it's funny ("Where is the fruit?")! But what I love is how it starts out with that general "you" (that's just what one does when one is in this situation), and it slips occasionally back into the first person ("if the chair is a rocking chair as mine was in those days"), but as it goes on (and it goes on), the "you" becomes more and more specific, reading almost like the "you" of a Twist-a-Plot or an Infocom game, which you start to find a little disorienting:
And then at some point (again, pretty early on), it becomes clear to you that the "you," no longer abandoning the second person, is actually a mask for the "I" that started this whole thing to begin with. But shifting the person is a way of reaching out, perhaps, seeking a connection, trying to force another person to identify with him (or me, or you?), if only for a second, despite the clinical tone that generally characterizes the story. It's fitting that this comes from a collection called Sadness.
Also, I try at one point to rip off this sort of effect in Bad Teeth, which came out yesterday. Obligatory plug.
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