Challenge 355

I Remember It Well

page index
Fictional History Figs & Riesling The Last Exit	Analysis Complete Com’all Ye A Temporal Feedback Forest Dweller

In Terry W. Ervin’s “Fictional History”:
1. In the title, what kind of adjective is “fictional”: limiting or descriptive?
2. Dr. Hollins wants corroboration of Anthony’s discovery, but he is curiously unreflective and fails to apply his own logic to his own assumptions. What does the professor seem to take for granted about manuscript history?
  If Debbie were a better student, might her conclusion be more pointed without being disrespectful? For example, why might her observation earn her a commendation from Mr. Ulm but only a passing grade from her father?
3. Suppose it were not obvious from the handwriting that the copyist had emended a received text. Could the forgery be challenged on grounds of internal evidence? How would “Fictional History” have to change?
4. Bonus questions:
  • John 8:1-11 is one of the best-known stories in Christendom. It appears to have been interpolated into the John manuscript from the primordial “Q gospel,” i.e. the “sayings” tradition; however, it does not occur in the synoptic gospels and, while Augustine refers to it, it is not commented by Eastern church authorities until the 12th century. Why might that story have been preserved, and why might it have been controversial?
  • The parable of Lazarus and the rich man is attested in Luke 16:19-31. What internal evidence might raise suspicion that it may have been invented by a copyist with an “agenda”?
  • What does “Fictional History” imply about actual and recorded history and, thereby, about the nature of cultural and even individual memory?
In Bertrand Cayzac’s “Figs and Riesling,” part 11:
1. Clark Kent is from the planet Krypton, which makes him Superman. Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider and becomes Spider Man. What accomplishes Fred Looseman’s transformation into “Floozman”? How does his transformation differ from that of those and other superheroes?
2. What mythological or legendary figures appear in part 11?
  What legendary scenes are recalled in the action?
3. Bonus question:
  The resurrected revolutionaries of the peasant wars, those of 1848, etc. want to bring about the Millennium. How do they differ from the fundamentalists and political extremists of today?
In Mel Waldman’s “The Last Exit,” the reader soon has little doubt what the “last exit” is or where it leads. Which is more important in the story: the incidents or their affective component? What does the story actually describe? Is it a dramatized prose poem?
At the end of Liz Haigh’s “Analysis Complete,” the artificial intelligence “JED” asks what emotions feel like. What emotions has JED already displayed in the course of its monologue?
In Oonah V. Joslin’s “Com’all Ye,” what actually happens in the story? How might the story be said to have a kind of structural humor?
Can Bertil Falk’s “A Temporal Feedback” be said to have neither a beginning nor an end? Does the story play a trick on the reader or does it make a legitimate joke with narrative structure?
In Crystalwizard’s “Forest Dweller,” why might we think there’s a dead animal in the tree?

Responses welcome!