As usual, George, your response to Munoz's story and to our responses to Munoz's story prompt more...responses! Well, actually, a few thoughts.
One of your responses struck me as deeply true about Munoz's technique: What you called the "cinematic" approach of showing Delfina's actions rather than narrating her internal thoughts, her inner conversation.
I think that the reason why so many of our responses to the story vary across a range of interpretations (just look at the more than 200 comments to the Sunday post!) is that Munoz encourages that with his cinematic storytelling--or maybe I would call it an action-centric storytelling, in which the character's actions and behavior tell us what we need to know, and grant a great deal of space for interpretation.
It can also be seen as a storytelling approach that's against interpretation; there is never an explanation for Delfina's actions (why, so many of us wondered, back and forth with each other, did she change her mind and go to the orchards with Lis?, or , why didn't Delfina make her son return what he shoplifted?), and Munoz deliberately denies himself the perfectly legitimate (and artistically sound and justified) option of providing us with his character's inner thought process. By not letting that into the storytelling, he strips something away, but opens up something else: A space for our own active interpretation of why a person is doing what they're doing.
I'd like to suggest something here, that ties this in with the Cinematic: As I read the story and all of our interesting and thought-provoking responses, I was thinking of the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, who is a master of many things, one of which is the art of the open interpretation.
There are scenes in almost every one of his movies in which characters do things in a scene or across a sequence that never go explained, that may feel impulsive, that we watch and then wonder about: "Now, why did she do that just now? Huh. I have to sit with that." It's precisely what you identified, George, as Munoz's wonderful insight into the way our minds work, how we're influenced/affected by things even when our minds are "quiet."
Another thing that was pretty wonderful in your response, George, that I'd like to point a light on.
Here's your quote, late into today's post, about reading Munoz's story:
"Part of the thrill was watching the way my mind worked with the evidence of the story...I was walking in Delfina’s footsteps and made the same error of judgment she did and I shared her surprise and, even, shame."
That phrase: "Watching my mind work..."
I think that little phrase may be the key to this whole Story Club Thing, and maybe also the key to A SWIM IN THE POND IN THE RAIN. It may really be the key to good creative writing, and definitely for discovery writing. You're actually helping train folks--that may sound too strict, or rigid, but it's really not--on how to watch the mind work while reading and writing. "What am I thinking at this moment?" "Oh, wait, I thought that thing on the previous page, and now, I have to contend with this new information over here, and what do I think about that?" "I had assumed that, but I thought wrong, and I got this" (There's the perfect example in the story where, George, you express surprise that Lis ended up behaving worse than you had expected or hoped for.)
The "annoying" (not really!) way of digesting a story in small pieces in Story Club, stopping, working over what this small piece was doing, and where things were going, all of this is a way of helping us watching our minds working through a story. And for me, all of this is a fantastic exercise in nudging me toward better creative/discovery fiction writing. It's something you discuss at length in your new interview on Barnes & Noble "Poured Over" about how you wrote and re-wrote the stories in LIBERATION DAY.
Some late-to-the-discussion thoughts on the story:
The more I read this story, the more I see it as a story of a marriage--a woman married to an unkind man, a woman who left her family behind because of this man. From the very beginning, she sees herself as different from the other women in the neighborhood, women who love their husbands and who are loved in return:
"When Delfina saw the first shadow rise in defeat, she thought of the private turmoil these other women felt in the absence of their men, and she knew that her own house held none of that."
She does not feel turmoil with her husband gone. She is worried, yes, about money (as the first sentence of the story attests). But: "Delfina was one of them, but her worry was a different sort." So her worry is more than a worry about money. It is worry about her husband and how she managed to get herself stuck in the situation she finds herself in, far away from her mother and sister who told her not to go.
"She was alert to her own worry, to be sure, but she felt a resolve that seemed absent in the women putting out last cigarettes and retreating behind the screen doors." Again, she is not like them. "The longer she held her place on her front steps, the stronger she felt."
So what is this resolve she feels? Why does she feel stronger the longer she sits on the steps?
I'm not certain.
And then there is this: "To have them come back would mean the lull of normalcy, of what had been and would continue to be, just when she was on the brink of doing something truly on her own." And so she is excited to defy this husband of hers, who doesn't like the idea of a wife working. There is more to this than money. There is Delfina feeling her own agency, becoming herself.
Much later, when the foreman who drives her treats her with kindness, there is this:
"she would hold private the detail of the ring on the foreman’s finger. She would hold in her mind what it felt like to be treated with a faithful kindness." So unlike her own husband! This man, who is married to someone else, is a kind man. Delfina wonders what it must be like to be married to someone like that, but she keeps such thoughts to herself.
I'm struck, also, by Delfina's reaction to the sudden knowledge that the car is stolen. She hardly reacts. She steels herself. It's as though she feels the box that she lives inside tightening around her. Here, she finally did something on her own. Until now, she has been hearing advice from her mother, her sister and her husband. But this--this is hers. And she has been defeated.
I see the ending as a defeat: "how a car had driven away slowly, slowly, and on out past the edge of his little hand and out of their lives forever." What now for Delfina? She is trapped, completely. I guess i'm hoping she'll leave her husband and go back to her mother and sister in Texas and begin again. As tough as they've been with her, they love her and send her money when she needs it.
I never made it all the way through all the comments on this story in the last post, so apologies if what I've raised here has been raised before.
Okay, time to listen to the podcast!
I hope you're having a blast George and that it's not too terribly exhausting....
The more I think about this story, the more I think Lis and Kiki have shown Delfina that something she might never have considered before--stealing a car and thereby changing her own situation--is possible. (In fact, maybe "anyone can do it"??! Even a four-year-old!) She has clearly missed the opportunity to "steal" her own car (from her husband), but maybe Kiki's pantomime at the end is an encouragement for Delfina to follow Lis's example and get herself and Kiki out while she still can...
I'm an optimist...
(And sorry if there's already a thread discussing this possibility on the previous post--it's difficult to keep up with all the comments...)
When I finished this story, I immediately started to think back to the moment that Delfina sealed her fate and I couldn't find one. I believe her decision to trust Lis is inevitable, and I think she knows that.
She's desperate for money but even more desperate for kindness. Munoz makes that clear. She was starved for kindness, and therefore, vulnerable. However, we get our happy/hopeful ending because Delfina gets kindness from the foreman (the thing she really needed).
Of course the moment with the toy car stood out to me, as well. I knew it was doing a lot of work, but I couldn't name it other than to call it foreshadowing. It's more than that, though. As I think about it, it's the obvious turning point of the entire story. It's when she goes from a passive character to an active character.
I was also very interested in the foreman's ring. I think it's the hope that Delfina needs. My interpretation is that she concludes that since the foreman is married, he's not trying to date her or get something from her sexually, he's just being kind. She doesn't want to tell her husband about the foreman's ring (and therefore altruistic behavior) because her husband might ruin it with some cynical response.
But can "Anyone" really do it? I'm thinking about this title and about Delfina trying to find her own power and agency. Her husband is not supportive, her family doesn't want to help, her son is now stealing what he wants since he's not getting enough of what he needs. No wonder it becomes appealing for Delfina to 1) bribe her child and 2) follow a stranger (Lis) who promises she can "do it" for herself - make some money, take control. Well, it turns out to be a con. Her vulnerability gets taken advantage of, yet again. The foreman is a hint of how things could be different. She could perhaps still have a different kind of life, or a life with different kindness. She gets a glimpse. Maybe this glimpse will be the beginning, the opening of a door? Or maybe Delfina can't do it and it's not really true that Anyone Can Do It, and she's stuck, and the title refers to the con.
I have to confess that this poor reader did not catch the prefiguring aspect of the stolen toy car the first read-through. However, I'm convinced that subconsciously it contributed to my certainty that, when she handed over the keys, the real car would be stolen. Love it when the mechanics of a story disappear into the narrative.
I really enjoyed your talk in Brooklyn last night, George. It was fun finally seeing you in person. I might add that I met some really wonderful George Saunders fans. We signed each other's LD books like you would a yearbook. And I did what I could to tout the gift that is Story Club. Happy trails!
After a careful second reading of this story, my feeling is that the personal change that Delfina is undergoing is the real story here, and that the events are the supporting evidence for that. This could be called a coming of age story for her.
The opening line is that her “immediate concern was money,” and, by the end, to get money, she had to overcome her husband’s refusal to allow her to work, as well as her tendencies toward complying with what other people told her to do because she was worried what they would think about her. “When Lis was pushing her toward going to the orchard to work, Delfina said “I don’t know,” and“knew she could not say that more than twice and she steeled herself to say no.”
Delfina thought of the other women in the community as defeated shadows, who believed that nothing could change until the men arrived home. Internally, she didn't agree, and although she was aware of her own worry about money, she “felt a resolve” that the other women didn't seem to have, which strengthened the longer she sat on the front steps and watched them.
Delfina experiences conflict about the changes she wants to make, which is normal. There are numerous points in the story where she worries about what people will think of her, and her actions remind her of this painful conflict. She is going to have to move past what others think if she doesn’t want to be one of the deferential “shadow women.” Her sister and her mother represent this conflict; if she isn’t going to be dependent and deferential, she is going to have to move away from her unkind family as well as her unkind husband. Hanging up the phone before her sister starts talking to her is one small, but potent action toward moving toward self-reliance. And, when she discovered the car her son had stolen and took it away from him, he "was inconsolable and the Saturday shoppers along the sidewalk stopped to look in their direction, Sssh, she told him, and...slipped it back into his pocket." Change isn't linear, and there are backslides.
The telephone conversation with her mother indicates how Delfina has been taught to feel about herself—her mother thinks she only wants money (maybe she keeps hoping for something more satisfying from her family, although she does ask for money), and has her own story about why Delfina should have stayed in Texas, which cuts down Delfina’s desire for making her own decisions and living her own life. Delfina acts in a small but potent moment of resistance when she hangs up the phone while her mother is bringing her sister to talk to her, and, unplanned, she has failed to ask for the money she wanted. She's going to have to live without it for now. And…Delfina is paying for the call with her own small change of dimes.
Lis, as unlikable as she is, is offering a roadmap for Delfina to follow (a way to work, get money, and move forward from being treated unkindly), with her remark that "It's easy but hard at the same time. Anyone can do it. It's just that no one wants to." It's unfortunate that she is planning to use Delfina to finance her own roadmap by stealing D’s car and the money she earns, but, intentionally or not, she has set up Delfina for moving forward. The car and the road map are metaphors for making life changes and feeling conflict at the same time.
At the end of the story, Delfina is moving through her own process of becoming emotionally and financially independent, and the foreman is a beacon of what’s possible, as he represents kindness and money appearing when she needs it if she works and takes action. The fact that he's wearing a ring indicates that independence isn't going to happen through a man. This is reinforcing for her change, even though she may not consciously recognize it.
I think the ladder, which is heavy and unwieldy, with Delphina hauling it around, represents Delfina’s changing situation. Lis uses the ladder, metaphorically being at the top in her position of authority. Delfina isn’t yet at that place. Delfina’s willingness to retrieve the ladder when she’s tired and to help the foreman with it, indicates her goodness and also her willingness to do the work needed to make this change. As they drive, the ladders clatter and shift and settle, a process that Delfina is undergoing internally. I doubt that she will steal and lie, though, to get what she wants as Lis does.
What an exquisitely crafted story this is! Nothing is extraneous, and not all is obvious, making it a story to get inside your mind and make it work. Thanks, George, for finding it, and Manuel Munoz, for writing it.
Jealous of everyone who gets to be at these readings.
Now, onto "Anyone Can Do It."
I touched on the "stolen toy car" scene in my comment on Session #1, so I'll try to keep this short. But After reading a few more times and going through George's take, I noticed a couple more things about it.
One: I think the shift that happens in Delfina when she finds the car in Kiki's pocket turns the story into one about love. Delfina's fraught relationship with her husband, mother, and sister are full of stress and pride. There's a sense in the marriage that Delfina is in survival-mode, and with her mother and sister, a sense of "I'll show them," a reaction to their judgment of her. But all her actions toward her son are born out of love for him and a desire to protect him. I liked what George said about Delfina thinking that their poverty drove Kiki to steal the car. I didn't pick up on that, probably because I'm not a parent and I don't know what it's like to hold that burden in my head. I think there's some truth to that. And I think it helps explain why it's the situation with Kiki—not the judgment coming from her family or the fear/anger/resentment she feels toward her husband—that convinces her to "take matters into her own hands." Once she recognizes that it's what will be best for Kiki, she doesn't need much more convincing.
Two: This is less a statement than a question. One aspect of this scene that stuck with me but ended up overshadowed by the stolen toy, was the moment where she finds Kiki in the toy aisle. Those scattered board game pieces on the floor, and how they seem to be replaced by the dimes, were like oatmeal to my soul. I'm just now giving myself the chance to reflect on that moment in context with the whole story, and it sheds a different light on Delfina and Lis, two people forced to play the same exhausting, oppressive game because of the world they live in, their financial situations, and the relationship they have to the laws/rules of that oppressive society/game. Heavy stuff!
To me, one of the most beautiful and interesting lines in the story takes place in the store. Delfina has just spent money for some ice cream and feels foolish for being so frivolous. Then, "But her boy didn't need to know those troubles. His Saturday was coming along like any other, his father sometimes not home at sundown and always gone at sunrise. There was no reason to get him wondering about things he wasn't yet wondering about." This last line gets me. It is so maternal, this wanting to protect her son from the knowledge of poverty. She is also protecting her son from the knowledge that her father might not be coming home as he always does. She does this by pretending that it is just like every other Saturday.
It is similar to the earlier exchange between Delfina and Lis in which Lis states that "children never understand the circumstance," to which Delfina replies, "No, they don't. I don't think they should ever learn that." The context here concerned loneliness, and how terrible that was (Lis) and (unstated by Delfina) 'just as hard to live in a house with kindness.' Delfina want to insure that her son doesn't have to live in a house without kindness. I get the feeling that she knows that a house with kindness in it, can deal with all the exigencies of life.
I think this story hinges most on Delfina’s decision to walk into town instead of drive, and also reveals a lot about Delfina and her situation. To me, Delfina deciding to walk instead of drive (because of Lis) and her deciding to go to the fields instead of not are one and the same.
In the story it is explained that she made the decision to walk because she only just refused Lis the night before, and driving past Lis now would’ve made her seem dishonest, more well-off, and/or inconsiderate. Being in a new place (and in a precarious financial situation) we get particularly attuned to how our decisions impact others perception.
Thus I think an underlying driver (no pun intended) of the plot is Delfina wanting to fit in: in the first scene she does what all the other wives do, her husband having been doing what all the other husbands have been doing; she has also recently left her home and her family based on the hope she can find a new, better place to belong. An underlying question she is asking herself is if she has found that place. These questions, and the little decisions she has to make (walk v. drive) add to the stress Delfina is facing, and I think eventually weaken her resolve not to go to the fields, and ultimately contribute to her letting her guard down by handing Lis the keys. She WANTS to be nice, she wants to trust people, she wants to gel in her new community and probably wants to have a friend, and for her son to maybe have a friend in Lis’ daughter. In this way the author paints a picture of being in a precarious spot (both financially and socially) masterfully.
For me, Delfina’s desire to belong is where the title “Anyone Can Do It” comes into play: to Delfina it must almost sound like “everyone does it” when Lis, the welcomer, says it to her, the newcomer.
Herein lies Delfina’s undoing: her desire to fit in gets her to walk, whereas driving would’ve made it easier to avoid Lis, though not her ire, and maybe the disaster Lis brings upon her altogether. On the walk back, again her desire to not make an enemy of Lis (also her desire to not be rude in front of her own son) sucks her into the conversation that results in her going to the fields, but I’ll save the rest of my thoughts on that sidewalk scene for the next post!
But how different a story it could’ve been if Delfina decided to drive! From there, Munoz could’ve gone any number of ways with the story. Maybe the perception of her would’ve come to dominate?
Driving, though, would’ve made it easier to avoid Lis. So driving v. walking is more than just that. It’s about how does Delfina want to portray herself and her family in this new community, and to this community member (Lis) who has welcomed her (even if she had sinister motives.) So maybe Delfina’s mistakes are less about her wanting to fit in and more about her fears: she’s already afraid of sinking further into poverty, of her mother/sister being right, of having to go back to them, of her husband not coming home and also of her husband coming home. All this multiplies because of her son. Now, with her decision to walk instead of drive, she’s demonstrating her fear of not getting off on the right foot in this new community.
TLDR: I’ve gone on a bit here, but to conclude, I think Delfina decides (or at least starts the decision making process that tells her to go to the fields) by ceding to Lis the decision to walk instead of drive. Once she surrenders that power to Lis, it gets a lot harder to say no.
One other aspect to this story which leapt out at me is something I deal with all the time in my day job (I’m a documentary TV/Film producer): the power of “what’s next?” Keeping that basic narrative question alive without recourse to lumbering and often forced ad overworked cliff-hangers is an art; and, Nunez does this so beautifully. Right off, without literally asking a question or blaring it out he has us wanting to know, what is it about Delfinia’s relationship to “her man” that makes her feel different and separate from all the other women on the block. He does these subtle moves all throughout the story; it keeps the energy moving inexorably forward. If, in TV, if the viewer isn’t in a near constant state of wanting to know what happens next, they change the channel. In many (certainly not all) short stories that’s true as well. And this story does it so, so well.
Such great insights about the coins falling on the floor. This event didn't stand out to me before seeing the comments here. It makes me think of an expression in Spanish "Se me cayó el veinte" and it's equivalent in English, "The coin dropped" both of which mean, "I suddenly understood." Could this mean that the moment of the coins falling was Delfina's moment of understanding? Probably too literal an interpretation of that image...but fun to think about.
Sorry to pop this in the middle of the discussion of "Anyone Can Do It," (oh, the irony) but is anyone else having the problem of trying to "like" a comment and can't? Sometimes I can but today, for example, I'm clicking away on the heart of so many of your great comments and nothing is happening...
"The internet has been conditioning our minds and influencing the global consciousness in ways that we are only beginning to understand." So true.
Back to the story, which I'm still chewing on. I've been re-reading, thinking about why I didn't like Lis from the beginning, looking at choices the writer made, how Lis was in the shadows, the distance between the two women, the topper was when Lis made a face when she didn't get her way. She's intrusive, this stranger next door. Delfina's choice to trust Lis, or at least take a chance on her, is because: Desperation. I've made bad choices when overworked or worried, who hasn't?
I also appreciate the way Munoz described the house and the kitchen–– it had mildew. Say no more. It's a strange place, this rental, that the "landlords" didn't bother fixing up after the old man died, and now Delfina is stuck there with her son. All the descriptions–– not too much, just the right amount, to get me in that world.
As usual, George, your response to Munoz's story and to our responses to Munoz's story prompt more...responses! Well, actually, a few thoughts.
One of your responses struck me as deeply true about Munoz's technique: What you called the "cinematic" approach of showing Delfina's actions rather than narrating her internal thoughts, her inner conversation.
I think that the reason why so many of our responses to the story vary across a range of interpretations (just look at the more than 200 comments to the Sunday post!) is that Munoz encourages that with his cinematic storytelling--or maybe I would call it an action-centric storytelling, in which the character's actions and behavior tell us what we need to know, and grant a great deal of space for interpretation.
It can also be seen as a storytelling approach that's against interpretation; there is never an explanation for Delfina's actions (why, so many of us wondered, back and forth with each other, did she change her mind and go to the orchards with Lis?, or , why didn't Delfina make her son return what he shoplifted?), and Munoz deliberately denies himself the perfectly legitimate (and artistically sound and justified) option of providing us with his character's inner thought process. By not letting that into the storytelling, he strips something away, but opens up something else: A space for our own active interpretation of why a person is doing what they're doing.
I'd like to suggest something here, that ties this in with the Cinematic: As I read the story and all of our interesting and thought-provoking responses, I was thinking of the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, who is a master of many things, one of which is the art of the open interpretation.
There are scenes in almost every one of his movies in which characters do things in a scene or across a sequence that never go explained, that may feel impulsive, that we watch and then wonder about: "Now, why did she do that just now? Huh. I have to sit with that." It's precisely what you identified, George, as Munoz's wonderful insight into the way our minds work, how we're influenced/affected by things even when our minds are "quiet."
Another thing that was pretty wonderful in your response, George, that I'd like to point a light on.
Here's your quote, late into today's post, about reading Munoz's story:
"Part of the thrill was watching the way my mind worked with the evidence of the story...I was walking in Delfina’s footsteps and made the same error of judgment she did and I shared her surprise and, even, shame."
That phrase: "Watching my mind work..."
I think that little phrase may be the key to this whole Story Club Thing, and maybe also the key to A SWIM IN THE POND IN THE RAIN. It may really be the key to good creative writing, and definitely for discovery writing. You're actually helping train folks--that may sound too strict, or rigid, but it's really not--on how to watch the mind work while reading and writing. "What am I thinking at this moment?" "Oh, wait, I thought that thing on the previous page, and now, I have to contend with this new information over here, and what do I think about that?" "I had assumed that, but I thought wrong, and I got this" (There's the perfect example in the story where, George, you express surprise that Lis ended up behaving worse than you had expected or hoped for.)
The "annoying" (not really!) way of digesting a story in small pieces in Story Club, stopping, working over what this small piece was doing, and where things were going, all of this is a way of helping us watching our minds working through a story. And for me, all of this is a fantastic exercise in nudging me toward better creative/discovery fiction writing. It's something you discuss at length in your new interview on Barnes & Noble "Poured Over" about how you wrote and re-wrote the stories in LIBERATION DAY.
Some late-to-the-discussion thoughts on the story:
The more I read this story, the more I see it as a story of a marriage--a woman married to an unkind man, a woman who left her family behind because of this man. From the very beginning, she sees herself as different from the other women in the neighborhood, women who love their husbands and who are loved in return:
"When Delfina saw the first shadow rise in defeat, she thought of the private turmoil these other women felt in the absence of their men, and she knew that her own house held none of that."
She does not feel turmoil with her husband gone. She is worried, yes, about money (as the first sentence of the story attests). But: "Delfina was one of them, but her worry was a different sort." So her worry is more than a worry about money. It is worry about her husband and how she managed to get herself stuck in the situation she finds herself in, far away from her mother and sister who told her not to go.
"She was alert to her own worry, to be sure, but she felt a resolve that seemed absent in the women putting out last cigarettes and retreating behind the screen doors." Again, she is not like them. "The longer she held her place on her front steps, the stronger she felt."
So what is this resolve she feels? Why does she feel stronger the longer she sits on the steps?
I'm not certain.
And then there is this: "To have them come back would mean the lull of normalcy, of what had been and would continue to be, just when she was on the brink of doing something truly on her own." And so she is excited to defy this husband of hers, who doesn't like the idea of a wife working. There is more to this than money. There is Delfina feeling her own agency, becoming herself.
Much later, when the foreman who drives her treats her with kindness, there is this:
"she would hold private the detail of the ring on the foreman’s finger. She would hold in her mind what it felt like to be treated with a faithful kindness." So unlike her own husband! This man, who is married to someone else, is a kind man. Delfina wonders what it must be like to be married to someone like that, but she keeps such thoughts to herself.
I'm struck, also, by Delfina's reaction to the sudden knowledge that the car is stolen. She hardly reacts. She steels herself. It's as though she feels the box that she lives inside tightening around her. Here, she finally did something on her own. Until now, she has been hearing advice from her mother, her sister and her husband. But this--this is hers. And she has been defeated.
I see the ending as a defeat: "how a car had driven away slowly, slowly, and on out past the edge of his little hand and out of their lives forever." What now for Delfina? She is trapped, completely. I guess i'm hoping she'll leave her husband and go back to her mother and sister in Texas and begin again. As tough as they've been with her, they love her and send her money when she needs it.
I never made it all the way through all the comments on this story in the last post, so apologies if what I've raised here has been raised before.
Okay, time to listen to the podcast!
I hope you're having a blast George and that it's not too terribly exhausting....
The more I think about this story, the more I think Lis and Kiki have shown Delfina that something she might never have considered before--stealing a car and thereby changing her own situation--is possible. (In fact, maybe "anyone can do it"??! Even a four-year-old!) She has clearly missed the opportunity to "steal" her own car (from her husband), but maybe Kiki's pantomime at the end is an encouragement for Delfina to follow Lis's example and get herself and Kiki out while she still can...
I'm an optimist...
(And sorry if there's already a thread discussing this possibility on the previous post--it's difficult to keep up with all the comments...)
When I finished this story, I immediately started to think back to the moment that Delfina sealed her fate and I couldn't find one. I believe her decision to trust Lis is inevitable, and I think she knows that.
She's desperate for money but even more desperate for kindness. Munoz makes that clear. She was starved for kindness, and therefore, vulnerable. However, we get our happy/hopeful ending because Delfina gets kindness from the foreman (the thing she really needed).
Of course the moment with the toy car stood out to me, as well. I knew it was doing a lot of work, but I couldn't name it other than to call it foreshadowing. It's more than that, though. As I think about it, it's the obvious turning point of the entire story. It's when she goes from a passive character to an active character.
I was also very interested in the foreman's ring. I think it's the hope that Delfina needs. My interpretation is that she concludes that since the foreman is married, he's not trying to date her or get something from her sexually, he's just being kind. She doesn't want to tell her husband about the foreman's ring (and therefore altruistic behavior) because her husband might ruin it with some cynical response.
But can "Anyone" really do it? I'm thinking about this title and about Delfina trying to find her own power and agency. Her husband is not supportive, her family doesn't want to help, her son is now stealing what he wants since he's not getting enough of what he needs. No wonder it becomes appealing for Delfina to 1) bribe her child and 2) follow a stranger (Lis) who promises she can "do it" for herself - make some money, take control. Well, it turns out to be a con. Her vulnerability gets taken advantage of, yet again. The foreman is a hint of how things could be different. She could perhaps still have a different kind of life, or a life with different kindness. She gets a glimpse. Maybe this glimpse will be the beginning, the opening of a door? Or maybe Delfina can't do it and it's not really true that Anyone Can Do It, and she's stuck, and the title refers to the con.
I have to confess that this poor reader did not catch the prefiguring aspect of the stolen toy car the first read-through. However, I'm convinced that subconsciously it contributed to my certainty that, when she handed over the keys, the real car would be stolen. Love it when the mechanics of a story disappear into the narrative.
I really enjoyed your talk in Brooklyn last night, George. It was fun finally seeing you in person. I might add that I met some really wonderful George Saunders fans. We signed each other's LD books like you would a yearbook. And I did what I could to tout the gift that is Story Club. Happy trails!
After a careful second reading of this story, my feeling is that the personal change that Delfina is undergoing is the real story here, and that the events are the supporting evidence for that. This could be called a coming of age story for her.
The opening line is that her “immediate concern was money,” and, by the end, to get money, she had to overcome her husband’s refusal to allow her to work, as well as her tendencies toward complying with what other people told her to do because she was worried what they would think about her. “When Lis was pushing her toward going to the orchard to work, Delfina said “I don’t know,” and“knew she could not say that more than twice and she steeled herself to say no.”
Delfina thought of the other women in the community as defeated shadows, who believed that nothing could change until the men arrived home. Internally, she didn't agree, and although she was aware of her own worry about money, she “felt a resolve” that the other women didn't seem to have, which strengthened the longer she sat on the front steps and watched them.
Delfina experiences conflict about the changes she wants to make, which is normal. There are numerous points in the story where she worries about what people will think of her, and her actions remind her of this painful conflict. She is going to have to move past what others think if she doesn’t want to be one of the deferential “shadow women.” Her sister and her mother represent this conflict; if she isn’t going to be dependent and deferential, she is going to have to move away from her unkind family as well as her unkind husband. Hanging up the phone before her sister starts talking to her is one small, but potent action toward moving toward self-reliance. And, when she discovered the car her son had stolen and took it away from him, he "was inconsolable and the Saturday shoppers along the sidewalk stopped to look in their direction, Sssh, she told him, and...slipped it back into his pocket." Change isn't linear, and there are backslides.
The telephone conversation with her mother indicates how Delfina has been taught to feel about herself—her mother thinks she only wants money (maybe she keeps hoping for something more satisfying from her family, although she does ask for money), and has her own story about why Delfina should have stayed in Texas, which cuts down Delfina’s desire for making her own decisions and living her own life. Delfina acts in a small but potent moment of resistance when she hangs up the phone while her mother is bringing her sister to talk to her, and, unplanned, she has failed to ask for the money she wanted. She's going to have to live without it for now. And…Delfina is paying for the call with her own small change of dimes.
Lis, as unlikable as she is, is offering a roadmap for Delfina to follow (a way to work, get money, and move forward from being treated unkindly), with her remark that "It's easy but hard at the same time. Anyone can do it. It's just that no one wants to." It's unfortunate that she is planning to use Delfina to finance her own roadmap by stealing D’s car and the money she earns, but, intentionally or not, she has set up Delfina for moving forward. The car and the road map are metaphors for making life changes and feeling conflict at the same time.
At the end of the story, Delfina is moving through her own process of becoming emotionally and financially independent, and the foreman is a beacon of what’s possible, as he represents kindness and money appearing when she needs it if she works and takes action. The fact that he's wearing a ring indicates that independence isn't going to happen through a man. This is reinforcing for her change, even though she may not consciously recognize it.
I think the ladder, which is heavy and unwieldy, with Delphina hauling it around, represents Delfina’s changing situation. Lis uses the ladder, metaphorically being at the top in her position of authority. Delfina isn’t yet at that place. Delfina’s willingness to retrieve the ladder when she’s tired and to help the foreman with it, indicates her goodness and also her willingness to do the work needed to make this change. As they drive, the ladders clatter and shift and settle, a process that Delfina is undergoing internally. I doubt that she will steal and lie, though, to get what she wants as Lis does.
What an exquisitely crafted story this is! Nothing is extraneous, and not all is obvious, making it a story to get inside your mind and make it work. Thanks, George, for finding it, and Manuel Munoz, for writing it.
Podcast interview with Hamish was great.
Jealous of everyone who gets to be at these readings.
Now, onto "Anyone Can Do It."
I touched on the "stolen toy car" scene in my comment on Session #1, so I'll try to keep this short. But After reading a few more times and going through George's take, I noticed a couple more things about it.
One: I think the shift that happens in Delfina when she finds the car in Kiki's pocket turns the story into one about love. Delfina's fraught relationship with her husband, mother, and sister are full of stress and pride. There's a sense in the marriage that Delfina is in survival-mode, and with her mother and sister, a sense of "I'll show them," a reaction to their judgment of her. But all her actions toward her son are born out of love for him and a desire to protect him. I liked what George said about Delfina thinking that their poverty drove Kiki to steal the car. I didn't pick up on that, probably because I'm not a parent and I don't know what it's like to hold that burden in my head. I think there's some truth to that. And I think it helps explain why it's the situation with Kiki—not the judgment coming from her family or the fear/anger/resentment she feels toward her husband—that convinces her to "take matters into her own hands." Once she recognizes that it's what will be best for Kiki, she doesn't need much more convincing.
Two: This is less a statement than a question. One aspect of this scene that stuck with me but ended up overshadowed by the stolen toy, was the moment where she finds Kiki in the toy aisle. Those scattered board game pieces on the floor, and how they seem to be replaced by the dimes, were like oatmeal to my soul. I'm just now giving myself the chance to reflect on that moment in context with the whole story, and it sheds a different light on Delfina and Lis, two people forced to play the same exhausting, oppressive game because of the world they live in, their financial situations, and the relationship they have to the laws/rules of that oppressive society/game. Heavy stuff!
To me, one of the most beautiful and interesting lines in the story takes place in the store. Delfina has just spent money for some ice cream and feels foolish for being so frivolous. Then, "But her boy didn't need to know those troubles. His Saturday was coming along like any other, his father sometimes not home at sundown and always gone at sunrise. There was no reason to get him wondering about things he wasn't yet wondering about." This last line gets me. It is so maternal, this wanting to protect her son from the knowledge of poverty. She is also protecting her son from the knowledge that her father might not be coming home as he always does. She does this by pretending that it is just like every other Saturday.
It is similar to the earlier exchange between Delfina and Lis in which Lis states that "children never understand the circumstance," to which Delfina replies, "No, they don't. I don't think they should ever learn that." The context here concerned loneliness, and how terrible that was (Lis) and (unstated by Delfina) 'just as hard to live in a house with kindness.' Delfina want to insure that her son doesn't have to live in a house without kindness. I get the feeling that she knows that a house with kindness in it, can deal with all the exigencies of life.
I think this story hinges most on Delfina’s decision to walk into town instead of drive, and also reveals a lot about Delfina and her situation. To me, Delfina deciding to walk instead of drive (because of Lis) and her deciding to go to the fields instead of not are one and the same.
In the story it is explained that she made the decision to walk because she only just refused Lis the night before, and driving past Lis now would’ve made her seem dishonest, more well-off, and/or inconsiderate. Being in a new place (and in a precarious financial situation) we get particularly attuned to how our decisions impact others perception.
Thus I think an underlying driver (no pun intended) of the plot is Delfina wanting to fit in: in the first scene she does what all the other wives do, her husband having been doing what all the other husbands have been doing; she has also recently left her home and her family based on the hope she can find a new, better place to belong. An underlying question she is asking herself is if she has found that place. These questions, and the little decisions she has to make (walk v. drive) add to the stress Delfina is facing, and I think eventually weaken her resolve not to go to the fields, and ultimately contribute to her letting her guard down by handing Lis the keys. She WANTS to be nice, she wants to trust people, she wants to gel in her new community and probably wants to have a friend, and for her son to maybe have a friend in Lis’ daughter. In this way the author paints a picture of being in a precarious spot (both financially and socially) masterfully.
For me, Delfina’s desire to belong is where the title “Anyone Can Do It” comes into play: to Delfina it must almost sound like “everyone does it” when Lis, the welcomer, says it to her, the newcomer.
Herein lies Delfina’s undoing: her desire to fit in gets her to walk, whereas driving would’ve made it easier to avoid Lis, though not her ire, and maybe the disaster Lis brings upon her altogether. On the walk back, again her desire to not make an enemy of Lis (also her desire to not be rude in front of her own son) sucks her into the conversation that results in her going to the fields, but I’ll save the rest of my thoughts on that sidewalk scene for the next post!
But how different a story it could’ve been if Delfina decided to drive! From there, Munoz could’ve gone any number of ways with the story. Maybe the perception of her would’ve come to dominate?
Driving, though, would’ve made it easier to avoid Lis. So driving v. walking is more than just that. It’s about how does Delfina want to portray herself and her family in this new community, and to this community member (Lis) who has welcomed her (even if she had sinister motives.) So maybe Delfina’s mistakes are less about her wanting to fit in and more about her fears: she’s already afraid of sinking further into poverty, of her mother/sister being right, of having to go back to them, of her husband not coming home and also of her husband coming home. All this multiplies because of her son. Now, with her decision to walk instead of drive, she’s demonstrating her fear of not getting off on the right foot in this new community.
TLDR: I’ve gone on a bit here, but to conclude, I think Delfina decides (or at least starts the decision making process that tells her to go to the fields) by ceding to Lis the decision to walk instead of drive. Once she surrenders that power to Lis, it gets a lot harder to say no.
One other aspect to this story which leapt out at me is something I deal with all the time in my day job (I’m a documentary TV/Film producer): the power of “what’s next?” Keeping that basic narrative question alive without recourse to lumbering and often forced ad overworked cliff-hangers is an art; and, Nunez does this so beautifully. Right off, without literally asking a question or blaring it out he has us wanting to know, what is it about Delfinia’s relationship to “her man” that makes her feel different and separate from all the other women on the block. He does these subtle moves all throughout the story; it keeps the energy moving inexorably forward. If, in TV, if the viewer isn’t in a near constant state of wanting to know what happens next, they change the channel. In many (certainly not all) short stories that’s true as well. And this story does it so, so well.
Here's an interesting article from The Guardian that talks about authors joining SubStack and references George briefly.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/21/can-joining-substack-allow-a-midlist-author-the-same-success-as-booker-prize-winners
Such great insights about the coins falling on the floor. This event didn't stand out to me before seeing the comments here. It makes me think of an expression in Spanish "Se me cayó el veinte" and it's equivalent in English, "The coin dropped" both of which mean, "I suddenly understood." Could this mean that the moment of the coins falling was Delfina's moment of understanding? Probably too literal an interpretation of that image...but fun to think about.
Sorry to pop this in the middle of the discussion of "Anyone Can Do It," (oh, the irony) but is anyone else having the problem of trying to "like" a comment and can't? Sometimes I can but today, for example, I'm clicking away on the heart of so many of your great comments and nothing is happening...
"The internet has been conditioning our minds and influencing the global consciousness in ways that we are only beginning to understand." So true.
Back to the story, which I'm still chewing on. I've been re-reading, thinking about why I didn't like Lis from the beginning, looking at choices the writer made, how Lis was in the shadows, the distance between the two women, the topper was when Lis made a face when she didn't get her way. She's intrusive, this stranger next door. Delfina's choice to trust Lis, or at least take a chance on her, is because: Desperation. I've made bad choices when overworked or worried, who hasn't?
I also appreciate the way Munoz described the house and the kitchen–– it had mildew. Say no more. It's a strange place, this rental, that the "landlords" didn't bother fixing up after the old man died, and now Delfina is stuck there with her son. All the descriptions–– not too much, just the right amount, to get me in that world.