"Ike and Nina" refers to the affair between President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) and Russian Premiersha Nina Khrushcheva. The narrator, Mr. Padarewski, is a Russian/English bilingual staff member of Ike's organization. Though he has only seen the President rarely and briefly through this point of his career, he is one day summoned to the Oval Office. There, President Dwight D. Eisenhower informs Padarewski, as a fluent Russian speaker, that he will be his aid for the upcoming visit of the Russian Premier Nikita Khrushcheva and his wife (Nina). Of course, Ike tells him, anything and everything that occurs during the visit is top secret. Padarewski recalls events stemming back ten years earlier to when Ike was first swept off of his feet by Nina. The first time he ever looked at her started a covert, continuous series of sensual encounters between the two at political events. They two lovers would find ways to get alone with each other for whichever amount of time was possible. During the visit in which Padarewski is in charge, a plan is devised for him to escort Nina from a dinner at the White House and deliver a note from Ike, which tells her where to meet him at 3 A.M. Once this hour of the night is reached, Padarewski sneaks Nina out of her room and into a Limousine with Ike, which Padarewski would drive around for a few hours, allowing them to get their business done. When dropping Nina off, a foreign car drives by and slows down as it passes the limousine. At the time, it doesn't seem like a big deal. Nina and Nikita leave Washington, D.C. to finish their visit across America. In Los Angeles, Nikita throws a tantrum, insulting the American people on their etiquette. Ike, who is with Padarewski at the time, claims that the Premier knows about the affair between Ike and Nina. Ike understands that this means the foreign car reported the news and that he can never make contact with Nina again. This saddens him tremendously; Padarewski refers to Ike and Nina as "star-crossed lovers" to wrap up the story.
T.C. Boyle has a lot of good literary things going on in "Ike and Nina." To start off, Padarewski's mesmerism with Ike is evident throughout the story. When describing Ike's nemesis (Nikita) of the love triangle with Nina, Padarewski refers to Nikita as a "torpedo-headed bully boy," something said to get on the good side of the President. He also comments throughout the story on how passionate the love is between Ike and Nina, actually stating that Ike is a more passionate lover than Romeo from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (he later calls the President and Primersha 'star-crossed lovers'). Ironically, Padarewski sees Ike's cries for Nina as a manly, mature, profound act.
Boyle's use of asyndeton throughout "Ike and Nina" helps the story to be read smoothly, allowing each individual phrase of the asyndeton to be read and appreciated as an independent clause and an important idea. The asyndeton's go well with the romanticism of the story.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Greasy Lake
Summary: "Greasy Lake" centers around three characters; Digby, Jeff, and the narrator whose name is not revealed in the story. The framework is the narattor retelling the story of a night that happened at the beginning of the boys' summer vacation.
The boys pull up to a car by Greasy Lake and they believe it belongs to their other friend, Tony. Naturally, they assume that he's having sex with his girlfriend in the car and to make fun out of a boring night in a boring town, they start honking and flashing their headlights at the car. It is then revealed that the car belongs not to Tony, but to one of the town's hoodlums. He exits has car and insitgates a fight with the boys. The skirmish results in the narattor hitting the hoodlum in the head with a tire iron; he appears to be dead.
Grotesquely, the alleged murder satisfies the boys. They decide to continue the path of crime by raping the hoodlum's girlfriend, but this plan is halted when another car pulls up by the lake, thus forcing the boys to run away and hide. While in hiding, more hoodlums exit the new car and the original person that the narrator had thought he killed regained conciousness. They destroyed the car that the boys came in. Once the scene was seemingly clear, another car with two girls pulled up. The girls were extremely high on unknown drugs. Seeing the boys as the "badasses" that they always wanted to be, the girls offered them some of their drugs. The narattor declined the offer and got back into his beaten up vehicle to drive home.
Analysis: "Greasy Lake" is a commentary on typical teenage boys striving to be seen as something that they really are not. In this case, T.C. Boyle weaves the concept of comitting crimes into the evening of four boys that were truly innocent at heart.
Boyle uses murder to exemplify the extremes that people will go to for recognition, whether that might be as a scholar or as a rebel. Near the end of the story, two girls experiencing extreme euphoria recognize the boys as the fellon-like humans they strived to be viewed as. Boyle uses girls on drugs as the people to respect the boys as a symbol that going beyond all innocent norms leads to respect that is not even desirable.
Another interesting point is to consider whether the boys would have raped the hoodlum's girlfriend if they had had the chance to. The narrator "kills" him by accident. Are the boys really prepared to intentionally rape an innocent girl?
The boys pull up to a car by Greasy Lake and they believe it belongs to their other friend, Tony. Naturally, they assume that he's having sex with his girlfriend in the car and to make fun out of a boring night in a boring town, they start honking and flashing their headlights at the car. It is then revealed that the car belongs not to Tony, but to one of the town's hoodlums. He exits has car and insitgates a fight with the boys. The skirmish results in the narattor hitting the hoodlum in the head with a tire iron; he appears to be dead.
Grotesquely, the alleged murder satisfies the boys. They decide to continue the path of crime by raping the hoodlum's girlfriend, but this plan is halted when another car pulls up by the lake, thus forcing the boys to run away and hide. While in hiding, more hoodlums exit the new car and the original person that the narrator had thought he killed regained conciousness. They destroyed the car that the boys came in. Once the scene was seemingly clear, another car with two girls pulled up. The girls were extremely high on unknown drugs. Seeing the boys as the "badasses" that they always wanted to be, the girls offered them some of their drugs. The narattor declined the offer and got back into his beaten up vehicle to drive home.
Analysis: "Greasy Lake" is a commentary on typical teenage boys striving to be seen as something that they really are not. In this case, T.C. Boyle weaves the concept of comitting crimes into the evening of four boys that were truly innocent at heart.
Boyle uses murder to exemplify the extremes that people will go to for recognition, whether that might be as a scholar or as a rebel. Near the end of the story, two girls experiencing extreme euphoria recognize the boys as the fellon-like humans they strived to be viewed as. Boyle uses girls on drugs as the people to respect the boys as a symbol that going beyond all innocent norms leads to respect that is not even desirable.
Another interesting point is to consider whether the boys would have raped the hoodlum's girlfriend if they had had the chance to. The narrator "kills" him by accident. Are the boys really prepared to intentionally rape an innocent girl?
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Caviar
Summary: "Caviar" is the story of Mr. Trimpie and his wife, Marie. They have been married for several years and Marie decides that she wants to have a baby. Upon trying and failing to conceive, they visit Dr. Ziss, who tells them that Marie's ovaries are dysfunctional and she would not be able to produce a baby, even artificially.
As upset as this makes Mr. Trimpie and Marie, the problem is somewhat solved when a Medical School student, Wendy, volunteers to artificially give birth to the baby and then hand it over to the couple. Wendy becomes very close with the married couple throughout her pregnancy.
Wendy and Mr. Trimpie engage in a sexual relationship; Marie knows nothing of it. One day, after the birth, Mr. Trimpie goes to see Wendy and finds that Dr. Ziss is at her house. Furious, Mr. Trimpie assaults him and gets arrested. Marie doesn't let Mr. Trimpie back into the house after the arrest.
Analysis: "Caviar" is fueled by the irony that not only will Mr. Trimpie sexually engage with the "mother of his child," but Dr. Ziss will also become involved with the woman he has impregnated. In this eccentric case, the mother of Mr. Trimpie's child is not his wife, and the woman who has been impregnated by Dr. Ziss is not his wife.
As upset as this makes Mr. Trimpie and Marie, the problem is somewhat solved when a Medical School student, Wendy, volunteers to artificially give birth to the baby and then hand it over to the couple. Wendy becomes very close with the married couple throughout her pregnancy.
Wendy and Mr. Trimpie engage in a sexual relationship; Marie knows nothing of it. One day, after the birth, Mr. Trimpie goes to see Wendy and finds that Dr. Ziss is at her house. Furious, Mr. Trimpie assaults him and gets arrested. Marie doesn't let Mr. Trimpie back into the house after the arrest.
Analysis: "Caviar" is fueled by the irony that not only will Mr. Trimpie sexually engage with the "mother of his child," but Dr. Ziss will also become involved with the woman he has impregnated. In this eccentric case, the mother of Mr. Trimpie's child is not his wife, and the woman who has been impregnated by Dr. Ziss is not his wife.
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