Challenge 368

“Memories may be beautiful and yet...”

1. In Bertil Falk’s “When Memories Dawn”:

   1. How does the story effectively illustrate the use of multiple points of view?
   2. The old woman is never named. Why is her anonymity an effective narrative device in this story?
   3. What role do colors play in the story? What is the nature of the interplay of reality and of symbolism in general?
   4. Not all the catastrophes that have befallen the old woman are political in nature. Why does the conclusion mingle the personal and political?

2. The title of Mary B. McArdle’s “Collateral Damage” explicitly refers to civilian casualities in armed conflict. Disregard the title. Is the poem itself necessarily limited to war? Might it not also be memento mori on a large scale and apply to natural disasters or even to the succession of generations?

3. In A. Frank Bower’s “Waiting for the Sun”:

   1. The name Ron Mosimi, Jr. is an anagram of what?
   2. To what extent must the reader be a devotee of the music and career of Jim Morrison and The Doors in order to understand the story?

4. In Robert L. Steele’s “Big Rock Road”:

   1. The story is narrated partly in the past tense, partly in the present. Does the variation of verb tenses help or hinder the reader in following the sequence of events?
   2. At what ages does Mike Sweeney enter the haunted house?
   3. At the end, what do you think Mike Sweeney plans to do when he goes back into the haunted house?

5. What is the plot of K. J. Hays’ “Coffeeand”?

6. In Gaius Coffey’s “The Anti-Zombification Properties of Pâté de foie gras,” are there any clues that the story might be an in-joke?

7. Is Nick Allen’s “Into the Rainbow” a story or a vignette? If it’s a story, what conclusion is implied?

8. What are the next two verses in the song from which the Challenge title is taken?

Responses welcome!

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