Challenge 145

Questions about:

Jörn Grote, “Left Behind”
Michael Naber, “Mr. Sheffield’s Day”
Beth Wodzinski, “The Lemon Handlers”
Tala Bar, Sacrifice, chapter 2: “The Strangers”

Talking to Strangers

Jörn Grote’s “Left Behind” depicts technology as progressing at an exponential rate and transforming humanity, much of which moves beyond the pale of existence as we know it. The story concludes with a question: What to do about those who, of their own accord or not, are left out. Can “Left Behind” be read as an allegory of technological, philosophical and cultural disparities in today’s world? If so, what does it imply?

Michael Naber’s Mr. Sheffield puts up with the raven on his windowsill for a time, but then he gets just a little too testy and tries to catch the bird. Is Sheffield’s action due to a tragic flaw of some sort? Or is his end a freak accident?

About Beth Wodzinski’s “The Lemon Handlers”:

As the story opens we infer that Charlie, the consultant, is lonely. Do you think the story would gain by the addition of a standard opening describing and accounting for his state of mind? Or do his first two visions supply it?
One might object that all the lemons had to be handled by somebody since being picked and crated. Since Gwen presumably put them in the bag to bring to Charlie, would her psychic impressions not have overridden any previous ones attached to the lemons? Or may we just assume that she had been wearing gloves at the time and not worry about it?

About Tala Bar’s Sacrifice, chapter 2, “The Strangers”:

The desert nomads and Tamar’s agricultural tribe obviously speak related, even mutually intelligible dialects. From internal evidence we might guess they’re proto-Semitic. What would happen to the story if the two tribes spoke the same language? Or if they needed an interpreter to make themselves understood to each other?
Re’ut has observed the intial communication between the two tribes; what potential misunderstandings are foreshadowed?
Tamar could have been included in the embassy and given us a first-hand account of the meeting between the two tribes. What dramatic effects are achieved by Re’ut’s giving us a second-hand report?
What does the wisdom lore of Tamar’s people tell us about their culture?
In chapter 1, “Encounter,” Tamar chases away a stranger for defiling the sacred spring. How had the stranger desecrated the place? What opportunities and conflict might the meeting foreshadow?
Is Tamar’s and Re’ut’s fascination with the strangers implausible or understandable?