Response to “No One’s a Mystery, Elizabeth Tallent
I enjoyed reading “No One’s a Mystery.” I liked the characters and how well they
were developed within the story. The
two characters, one a young optimist and the other an old pessimist having an illicit
affair. The characters talked in a somewhat
romantic and playful tone. It was not
hard to imagine these two characters.
The writer did a good job of telling a story with a minimum of words. She supplied a lot of detail and set the tone
for the development of the conflict.
The characters seem to be talking about what will be written
in the diary but they are really discussing the conflict in the relationship. Their
conflict is there differing views of the future. She wants more than their predictable casual
relationship and she hopes for a future that includes marriage and children. Jack on the other hand is revealing that he
would like to think there could be more but knows that the relationship must
come to an end and he considers it bittersweet.
I agree that the author does a great job of making these two characters very distinct from one another. She does this through their dialogue and after reading the first few things that each character said I was able to tell which character was speaking without looking at the modifiers. I love your description of the two as a young optimist and an old pessimist because I saw them the same way.
ReplyDeleteI also loved how the author had the characters talking about a diary but at the same time talking about their relationship. I have always struggled to do this in my own writing, to have my characters talk about one thing but actually be talking about something else.