Challenge 834

The Eyes of the Beholders

In Bryon Havranek’s The Alchemist, the details of Voltaire’s life are historically accurate until he discovers the immortality potion. How does his personality differ from the Voltaire we know by his writings and others’ historical accounts?
In Sushan Shetty’s The Off Switch:
1. The narrator’s malware turns off his artificial conscience. Does it turn off everybody else’s, as well, or does the effect seem to be spreading gradually?
2. Even if Jack had realized that the narrator had sabotaged ARCADIA, would or could he have cared? Would Jack and everybody else have become a psychopath because their natural conscience had withered from disuse?
In Michael Murry’s Unholy Meditation, the title alludes obliquely to a collection of John Donne’s poems. The poem’s “meditation” is “unholy” by being incomplete. What is missing?
In Edward Ahern’s Brotherly Bramble:
1. The narrator determines who is “deserving of sympathy.” How would you expect the narrator to treat you?
2. Are those who are “unkind to relatives” likely to be kind to anyone?
3. The bramble appears in a cautionary parable in the Biblical book of Judges 9:8-15. How useful is the bramble compared to the other trees and the vine?
4. Is the poem a satire or a manifesto?
In Boris Kokotov’s The Suckers:
1. What is the context of Dostoyevsky’s “Beauty will save the world”? Does the narrator attempt to refute the assertion by changing the subject? Or does the narrator confirm it by redefining “beauty”?
2. The poem parodies the famous “lilies of the field” parable in Luke 12:26-34. What is the point of the parody? What is the point of the parable? Are they incompatible? If not, how can they be reconciled?
3. Natural evil is, by definition, a disaster caused by something beyond human control, such as disease, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. But what is natural beauty? For example: a beautiful sunset may be caused by a calamitous volcanic eruption on the other side of the world. Who or what will smash the “smasher”?

Responses welcome!