Sadly some drastic changes in my schedule knocked me off course right after reading this story and suddenly I've been away for seven months, but thankfully I've been taking good notes. The story didn't resonate very strongly with me on that first read, and I think in part that had to do with it coming right after "The Stone Boy" (which I found incredibly moving and my favorite story so far), though I am curious if my feelings will change after this break.
You brought up two details I overlooked. The first is the comparison of Savitsky's legs not to girls' legs but to entire girls, and how oddly this feminine description stands with his otherwise overtly masculine character. The second is how the gleeful way he whips the air will contrast later with the narrator's attitude toward his own violence.
I also find your perception of the narrator interesting. I saw him as not dissimilar to the first of the less interesting alternatives you brought up i.e. the nerd who wishes he wasn’t one. To me he came across, though maybe not as self-loathing as that, as eager to prove that his intellectual status did not make his temperament more sensitive and or lessen his ability to perform his war duties. In my reading, I saw him not so much unfazed by Savitsky as in denial that he might be different.
So here are the questions I have now:
When the narrator asserts himself as capable, does he know this to be true, or does he want and hope this to be true without actually knowing?
Why is he eager to continue with his assignment despite the anti-intellectual prejudice? Is he unfazed, or is he motivated out of spite?
With the first pulse, the narrator is in the presence of a Divisional Commander (or Nachdev), who is both rakish, note the jaunty aspect of his cap, along with the jackboots (over the knee), and also, if the narrator is Babel's counterpart, roughly the same age (Semyon Timoshenko and Isaac Babel had a difference in age of five months between them). The divisional commander is gigantic, also, his every act implies the potential to cleave anything, even air. There is something of a virility challenge going on, which for the narrator, to survive, escalates to threatening the half-blind old women (who wants to hang herself) and murder - crushing its skull with his boot (talk about cross-talking/cross-painting). The threat is always there - note the note to Chesnokov - and such threats were not idle, the joy in the eyes of Savitsky, rings of the music of power that revels in the seduction of its violent potential, all of which marks out the narrator as an almost unwitting but quick on the uptake tight-rope walker.
I am lost in this first pulse - the narrator gets an assignment from his cruel commander. There is no fear in the writing. Instead there are some form of admiration, a hint of homoeroticism and sarcasm. Yet at the same time, there is a treat to our narrator. It's mind-boggling.
Playing catch, as I caught a bit of luck in a new job after being unemployed for almost a year -- yada yada yada. Anyhoo.
Thanks George, for unpacking so much, which, I'm grateful, corresponded mostly with my own instincts and impulses regarding the story. A relief, to feel on the right tracks.
Not to dawdle, I just wanted to comment on this notion early on in your Pulse 1 post, in addressing "why and how" of scene, something Im going to write down on a post it and attache above my computer, that the narrator is given an assignement -- it is important who and why athe assignement is given. This is addressed in footnote. But -- and here's what interested me most -- the writer doesn't get any points for merely describing the character accurately. The writer needs to use attributes, focuse and exaggerate certain ones in order to "make the character" live on the page.
Early in my writing career, I got a lot of compliments on my "description" and "interest detail" even "lyrical prose" and because of that I think I used it as a crutch -- if I just described well enough it would somehow "work". This was not the case. It took a comment former teacher on a well-detailed/described story to beging to shake this out of my head: "A story is more than just a collection of detail." And even then it took more time for me to finally make the leap from the safety of the rooftop of description across the alley way to the rooftop of meaningful detail, if that make sense.
Also, I was struck by noting of how particular details in the beginning of the story are taken up ore alluded to later. It was something that Stu Dybek would say gives the story "an inner life". He stumbled onto this in his own story, The Long Thoughts, when he had to resolved a character leaving his glovdes in the dryer at a laundry mat earlier in the story, and did so by haveing the character say "The hell with them." It really stood out to others. It made me think of how a comedian will make a joke and then later on the act reference or allude to it -- the delight of the audience is always remarkable, on a different leve, which often makes it good way to wrap a routine.
Okay. Sorry for being windy. Appreciate all the great insights and guidance.
was it William Faulkner that said that each scene either had to reveal character or move the story forward (and in some cases both I think?)
Interesting to read others thoughts here about what defines a pulse - and just what it's purpose is.
In scene structure for filmmaking, writers and directors (and actors obviously) understand and analyze a scene in terms of "beats". A scene could have any number of them, but by the end of the scene things have changed and are now pointing in a new direction
I'm trying to be careful not to assume that works the same way with short stories, but it feels similar, in a way, to the notion of George's "pulses". Here maybe the pulse is the entire thrust of the scene, and not the individual beats of story within a scene.
Both terms call to mind a heartbeat, one leading and propelling us to the next thing, keeping it flowing, keeping us interested. Also, a pulse for me not only propels the story forward, introducing question and answer pattern that happens on a subconscious level about character, story (George's bowling pins) but the main thing for me is the feeling it instills (he says at the end of this pulse that he'll get along with the cossacks, but will he? anxiety, fear) For it to effectively "pulse," you have to feel something, if the entire story is going to resonate. We may not know why exactly on an intellectual level, but we've felt it.
Apparently, Babel is not the first person to think of a woman in connection with a man's lower leg: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/4011087160010227/ -- a pair of Thracian greaves (armor for the lower leg) with women's faces on the knee cap. You can find more examples though I do warn you that it is something of a rabbit hole.
As usual I got distracted by something silly in the post. This is why I never did well in school. That goose picture is hilarious. The longer I looked at it the harder I laughed. That diva goose was in the middle of stuffing his face when the stage manager was like, it's your cue! and with food still dangling from his beak he steamrolls over the innocent actor, wings wide, ready to shine!
I have not been very active in the comments, as I usually confine my thoughts and exercises to a notebook, but I just wanted to respond to the very last bit of this post. Thank you for doing this, George. This is a very good thing in my life as well. I feel enriched and improved after every single post. My writing is nothing but a fun hobby, so I am not here expecting to be published anytime soon, but this still gives me joy and helps me along with that hobby. Not to mention how it has improved my experience reading stories.
I like the “character+action” as driving the plot, as was discussed by GS previously—so, here’s my go at it. But, I’m thinking the “character+act(s) driving the plot” becomes the “pulse” as the story fills in with details, is that a way to look at it?
Such a good story — my simple plot. A story of humanity vs. inhumanity, and the quest for survival within such a paradox.
Survival = disarm the power/fear
A (Russian/Jewish) lawyer is conscripted/enlisted into a war/conflict in early 1900s Russia. An educated man, unlike the band of men that he is assigned to, he moves to position himself in mind and body to survive the life of a soldier among soldiers, and that of the wider war/conflict.
1. Jackboots = cruelty, authoritarian symbol (Cruelty sets the story/plot.)
2. Chesnokov/narrator - makes a mockery of the symbol and the power it is intended to have over him by “feminizing” Savitsky, the commander—referring to the legs with the boots as girls, weakens the symbol, weakens the power over him. Chesnokov needs this to “psych-himself-out,” if you will; to elevate his psyche to survive what he is about to endure—disarm the power/fear. (Disarm the power/fear — drives the plot.) (How can one not chuckle at the description of his welcoming by the men? I chuckled and cringed at the same time — disarming fear of the newcomer.)
3. My First Goose, refers to his first “kill-murder.” (Proves he is one of the men-disarm them - drives the plot.)
4. The characters have agency, even under such dire circumstances. One example, the quartermaster is empathetic and indifferent to Chesnokov, at his choosing. (The action of each character drives the story/plot.)
5. The woman wants to hang herself before his aggression toward her, and after — she tells him so — he did not change her with his violence — she was in control. (Disarm the power/fear — drives the plot)
6. I love the language and how the reader feels what the character feels. One example, “evening laid its motherly palms on my blazing forehead.”
7. The conflicted reverence felt by the reference to the “truth among the lies” of Lenin’s speech as Chesnokov and the men experience it. (Conflict within them all—lands the plot)
8. In my view, this says it all “— and only my heart, crimson with murder, creaked and bled.”
Wow George thank you. What a teaching post. I haven't had lot time to be active on community comments but following ur posts has been instructive, energising about stories workings, and is a 'very good thing in my life' too!
I've been thinking about this story and the Lu Hsun story 'An Incident', and I'm struck by the similarities - a first person account of a 'small' incident that reveals so much about the character and creates for them an intense moment of introspection. But in Lu's piece, the moment of introspection is brought more heavily into focus (so much so, that the entire story is framed around it), whereas in Babel, we get a leaving and returning to the courtyard and an admission of 'languishing' and that is all (on the surface level). And that got me thinking about this key difference - Lu's as a framed story vs Babel's as an unframed story. How would 'My First Goose' work as a framed story? Would it work? How does the presence/absence of the frame change the escalation of the story and the reader's 'take-away'?
I'm still struggling with the answers to these questions, but part of me recalls our earlier conversations around 'An Incident' and how the frame acts as a legal argument of sorts - 'this is the truth of the matter, and this is how I can prove that to you'. So, without a frame, we're left uncertain about the fate of our narrator and can not answer our questions about whether this new division/duality in him will prevail, will succeed, will tear him asunder. Will he adapt or will the division eventually pull him one way and into the consequences that necessarily follow?
And what does that mean for the story? In Lu's story, we're left to judge our own actions by the conclusions of the rickshaw passenger (when, in our lives, have we been shamed by our inaction in the face of someone else's honour/courage/decency?), but in Babel's, we're less reflective and more immediately in the story - instead of retrospectively applying the narrator's moral conclusion to our own lives (as we do in 'An Incident'), we're proactively applying our moral judgement and hopes onto our Lenin-reading, goose-killing, pork-eating, languishing, entangled narrator. In this way, Babel reminds me more of Chekhov (hot young Chekhov or stately elder Chekhov, take your pick) - there is no moral judgement; questions of "is it good or bad? forgivable or reproachable? reasonable or cowardly?" are merely answered with "yes" (or perhaps, "you decide, if you dare judge")
Not to distract - rather to complement the work that's going on in response to the hop (MFG #1), . . . the skip (MFG #2) . . . the jump (MFG #3) and successive thumps of Newsletters relating to 'My First Goose' arriving in our Inboxes - I thought I'd signpost you to an article that has been published in today's edition of The Guardian:
I've found it intrinsically interesting but also helpful in reflecting on just why, generally, I'm here in the rabbit hole that is Story Club and also on why, in particular, my first encounter with Isaac Babel is proving so richly rewarding. Maybe you might also, in some way, find reading Jo Nesbo's words helpful?
A final thought, just for now: it has occurred to me that , in a sense, what we are doing in working on 'My First Goose' is a form of joint enterprise in which we are seeking to honour Isaac Babel's contribution to the craft of writing by picking up and building from his last words which were, I've learned, "I am asking for only one thing-let me finish my work.”
The more I engage with 'My First Goose' - and in trying, but repeatedly failing, to stay just now within the textual confines of what, possibly for want of better words, I'll label 'The Bounded Pale of Pulse 1' - the more I am finding myself drawn into this short story, the cycle of stories in which it is a sequenced item, the arc of life of its author and fast flowing, ever eddying river of rising sparkling romance and ebbing darkling tragedy that is - so it seems to me, who most assuredly knows little but yet, somehow, enough to know - Russia.
I'm relishing the close reading of the text marked up by Pulse but realising that, for me at the moment, making sense of the authorial choices that Isaac Babel makes in arriving at his original published version of 'My First Goose' goes beyond working the limitations of working just on text alone: context is required, I'm finding, to really get to best grips with not just the one but the more than one, and perhaps several, ways of reading and reacting to 'My First Goose' that suggest themselves to me.
Do the words above strike a chord with you, dear peer reader. passing an eye over this post of mine? Or do they resonate not one jot? Sense or nonsense? Either way, thanks in anticipation should you care to say.
Is there any cultural resonance that the narrator's kill was a goose? I found that there are staged goose fights in Russia. These are organized entertainments. Is the narrator depicted in a mocking way because his 'first' is combat with a goose? I had also wondered about narrator stabbing goose with a saber after neck broken. The use of 'first' echoes Savitsky in pulse 1 when his dispatch order to a military officer states not their 'first' (also geese probably not the foe at front.)
I wish you would talk a little bit more about what defines a pulse.
Everything that you have listed as a pulse is external action, but you also define a pulse as a "unit of meaning." To me, meaning is about internal action or at least the meaning that's inferred by the reader.
If you'd asked me to identify the first "unit of meaning" of the story, I would've said, "Narrator becomes afraid of rejection," or something along those lines, because I feel like the plot hinges on his fear of rejection.
I know that you said that this is just one way to look at story, so maybe this is a ridiculous question or maybe everyone's pulses are equally valid, but I'd like to hear more about how you see it.
I asked this in the previous post, and I didn't get a response, so could some of you like this to make it more visible?
Sadly some drastic changes in my schedule knocked me off course right after reading this story and suddenly I've been away for seven months, but thankfully I've been taking good notes. The story didn't resonate very strongly with me on that first read, and I think in part that had to do with it coming right after "The Stone Boy" (which I found incredibly moving and my favorite story so far), though I am curious if my feelings will change after this break.
You brought up two details I overlooked. The first is the comparison of Savitsky's legs not to girls' legs but to entire girls, and how oddly this feminine description stands with his otherwise overtly masculine character. The second is how the gleeful way he whips the air will contrast later with the narrator's attitude toward his own violence.
I also find your perception of the narrator interesting. I saw him as not dissimilar to the first of the less interesting alternatives you brought up i.e. the nerd who wishes he wasn’t one. To me he came across, though maybe not as self-loathing as that, as eager to prove that his intellectual status did not make his temperament more sensitive and or lessen his ability to perform his war duties. In my reading, I saw him not so much unfazed by Savitsky as in denial that he might be different.
So here are the questions I have now:
When the narrator asserts himself as capable, does he know this to be true, or does he want and hope this to be true without actually knowing?
Why is he eager to continue with his assignment despite the anti-intellectual prejudice? Is he unfazed, or is he motivated out of spite?
Hi Everyone,
With the first pulse, the narrator is in the presence of a Divisional Commander (or Nachdev), who is both rakish, note the jaunty aspect of his cap, along with the jackboots (over the knee), and also, if the narrator is Babel's counterpart, roughly the same age (Semyon Timoshenko and Isaac Babel had a difference in age of five months between them). The divisional commander is gigantic, also, his every act implies the potential to cleave anything, even air. There is something of a virility challenge going on, which for the narrator, to survive, escalates to threatening the half-blind old women (who wants to hang herself) and murder - crushing its skull with his boot (talk about cross-talking/cross-painting). The threat is always there - note the note to Chesnokov - and such threats were not idle, the joy in the eyes of Savitsky, rings of the music of power that revels in the seduction of its violent potential, all of which marks out the narrator as an almost unwitting but quick on the uptake tight-rope walker.
All the best,
Darryl Cooper
I am lost in this first pulse - the narrator gets an assignment from his cruel commander. There is no fear in the writing. Instead there are some form of admiration, a hint of homoeroticism and sarcasm. Yet at the same time, there is a treat to our narrator. It's mind-boggling.
Playing catch, as I caught a bit of luck in a new job after being unemployed for almost a year -- yada yada yada. Anyhoo.
Thanks George, for unpacking so much, which, I'm grateful, corresponded mostly with my own instincts and impulses regarding the story. A relief, to feel on the right tracks.
Not to dawdle, I just wanted to comment on this notion early on in your Pulse 1 post, in addressing "why and how" of scene, something Im going to write down on a post it and attache above my computer, that the narrator is given an assignement -- it is important who and why athe assignement is given. This is addressed in footnote. But -- and here's what interested me most -- the writer doesn't get any points for merely describing the character accurately. The writer needs to use attributes, focuse and exaggerate certain ones in order to "make the character" live on the page.
Early in my writing career, I got a lot of compliments on my "description" and "interest detail" even "lyrical prose" and because of that I think I used it as a crutch -- if I just described well enough it would somehow "work". This was not the case. It took a comment former teacher on a well-detailed/described story to beging to shake this out of my head: "A story is more than just a collection of detail." And even then it took more time for me to finally make the leap from the safety of the rooftop of description across the alley way to the rooftop of meaningful detail, if that make sense.
Also, I was struck by noting of how particular details in the beginning of the story are taken up ore alluded to later. It was something that Stu Dybek would say gives the story "an inner life". He stumbled onto this in his own story, The Long Thoughts, when he had to resolved a character leaving his glovdes in the dryer at a laundry mat earlier in the story, and did so by haveing the character say "The hell with them." It really stood out to others. It made me think of how a comedian will make a joke and then later on the act reference or allude to it -- the delight of the audience is always remarkable, on a different leve, which often makes it good way to wrap a routine.
Okay. Sorry for being windy. Appreciate all the great insights and guidance.
was it William Faulkner that said that each scene either had to reveal character or move the story forward (and in some cases both I think?)
Interesting to read others thoughts here about what defines a pulse - and just what it's purpose is.
In scene structure for filmmaking, writers and directors (and actors obviously) understand and analyze a scene in terms of "beats". A scene could have any number of them, but by the end of the scene things have changed and are now pointing in a new direction
I'm trying to be careful not to assume that works the same way with short stories, but it feels similar, in a way, to the notion of George's "pulses". Here maybe the pulse is the entire thrust of the scene, and not the individual beats of story within a scene.
Both terms call to mind a heartbeat, one leading and propelling us to the next thing, keeping it flowing, keeping us interested. Also, a pulse for me not only propels the story forward, introducing question and answer pattern that happens on a subconscious level about character, story (George's bowling pins) but the main thing for me is the feeling it instills (he says at the end of this pulse that he'll get along with the cossacks, but will he? anxiety, fear) For it to effectively "pulse," you have to feel something, if the entire story is going to resonate. We may not know why exactly on an intellectual level, but we've felt it.
Apparently, Babel is not the first person to think of a woman in connection with a man's lower leg: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/4011087160010227/ -- a pair of Thracian greaves (armor for the lower leg) with women's faces on the knee cap. You can find more examples though I do warn you that it is something of a rabbit hole.
As usual I got distracted by something silly in the post. This is why I never did well in school. That goose picture is hilarious. The longer I looked at it the harder I laughed. That diva goose was in the middle of stuffing his face when the stage manager was like, it's your cue! and with food still dangling from his beak he steamrolls over the innocent actor, wings wide, ready to shine!
I have not been very active in the comments, as I usually confine my thoughts and exercises to a notebook, but I just wanted to respond to the very last bit of this post. Thank you for doing this, George. This is a very good thing in my life as well. I feel enriched and improved after every single post. My writing is nothing but a fun hobby, so I am not here expecting to be published anytime soon, but this still gives me joy and helps me along with that hobby. Not to mention how it has improved my experience reading stories.
I like the “character+action” as driving the plot, as was discussed by GS previously—so, here’s my go at it. But, I’m thinking the “character+act(s) driving the plot” becomes the “pulse” as the story fills in with details, is that a way to look at it?
Such a good story — my simple plot. A story of humanity vs. inhumanity, and the quest for survival within such a paradox.
Survival = disarm the power/fear
A (Russian/Jewish) lawyer is conscripted/enlisted into a war/conflict in early 1900s Russia. An educated man, unlike the band of men that he is assigned to, he moves to position himself in mind and body to survive the life of a soldier among soldiers, and that of the wider war/conflict.
1. Jackboots = cruelty, authoritarian symbol (Cruelty sets the story/plot.)
2. Chesnokov/narrator - makes a mockery of the symbol and the power it is intended to have over him by “feminizing” Savitsky, the commander—referring to the legs with the boots as girls, weakens the symbol, weakens the power over him. Chesnokov needs this to “psych-himself-out,” if you will; to elevate his psyche to survive what he is about to endure—disarm the power/fear. (Disarm the power/fear — drives the plot.) (How can one not chuckle at the description of his welcoming by the men? I chuckled and cringed at the same time — disarming fear of the newcomer.)
3. My First Goose, refers to his first “kill-murder.” (Proves he is one of the men-disarm them - drives the plot.)
4. The characters have agency, even under such dire circumstances. One example, the quartermaster is empathetic and indifferent to Chesnokov, at his choosing. (The action of each character drives the story/plot.)
5. The woman wants to hang herself before his aggression toward her, and after — she tells him so — he did not change her with his violence — she was in control. (Disarm the power/fear — drives the plot)
6. I love the language and how the reader feels what the character feels. One example, “evening laid its motherly palms on my blazing forehead.”
7. The conflicted reverence felt by the reference to the “truth among the lies” of Lenin’s speech as Chesnokov and the men experience it. (Conflict within them all—lands the plot)
8. In my view, this says it all “— and only my heart, crimson with murder, creaked and bled.”
Wow George thank you. What a teaching post. I haven't had lot time to be active on community comments but following ur posts has been instructive, energising about stories workings, and is a 'very good thing in my life' too!
Learning so much, from your tone.
I've been thinking about this story and the Lu Hsun story 'An Incident', and I'm struck by the similarities - a first person account of a 'small' incident that reveals so much about the character and creates for them an intense moment of introspection. But in Lu's piece, the moment of introspection is brought more heavily into focus (so much so, that the entire story is framed around it), whereas in Babel, we get a leaving and returning to the courtyard and an admission of 'languishing' and that is all (on the surface level). And that got me thinking about this key difference - Lu's as a framed story vs Babel's as an unframed story. How would 'My First Goose' work as a framed story? Would it work? How does the presence/absence of the frame change the escalation of the story and the reader's 'take-away'?
I'm still struggling with the answers to these questions, but part of me recalls our earlier conversations around 'An Incident' and how the frame acts as a legal argument of sorts - 'this is the truth of the matter, and this is how I can prove that to you'. So, without a frame, we're left uncertain about the fate of our narrator and can not answer our questions about whether this new division/duality in him will prevail, will succeed, will tear him asunder. Will he adapt or will the division eventually pull him one way and into the consequences that necessarily follow?
And what does that mean for the story? In Lu's story, we're left to judge our own actions by the conclusions of the rickshaw passenger (when, in our lives, have we been shamed by our inaction in the face of someone else's honour/courage/decency?), but in Babel's, we're less reflective and more immediately in the story - instead of retrospectively applying the narrator's moral conclusion to our own lives (as we do in 'An Incident'), we're proactively applying our moral judgement and hopes onto our Lenin-reading, goose-killing, pork-eating, languishing, entangled narrator. In this way, Babel reminds me more of Chekhov (hot young Chekhov or stately elder Chekhov, take your pick) - there is no moral judgement; questions of "is it good or bad? forgivable or reproachable? reasonable or cowardly?" are merely answered with "yes" (or perhaps, "you decide, if you dare judge")
Not to distract - rather to complement the work that's going on in response to the hop (MFG #1), . . . the skip (MFG #2) . . . the jump (MFG #3) and successive thumps of Newsletters relating to 'My First Goose' arriving in our Inboxes - I thought I'd signpost you to an article that has been published in today's edition of The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/17/vladimir-putin-power-stories-occupied-jo-nesbo#comments
I've found it intrinsically interesting but also helpful in reflecting on just why, generally, I'm here in the rabbit hole that is Story Club and also on why, in particular, my first encounter with Isaac Babel is proving so richly rewarding. Maybe you might also, in some way, find reading Jo Nesbo's words helpful?
A final thought, just for now: it has occurred to me that , in a sense, what we are doing in working on 'My First Goose' is a form of joint enterprise in which we are seeking to honour Isaac Babel's contribution to the craft of writing by picking up and building from his last words which were, I've learned, "I am asking for only one thing-let me finish my work.”
The more I engage with 'My First Goose' - and in trying, but repeatedly failing, to stay just now within the textual confines of what, possibly for want of better words, I'll label 'The Bounded Pale of Pulse 1' - the more I am finding myself drawn into this short story, the cycle of stories in which it is a sequenced item, the arc of life of its author and fast flowing, ever eddying river of rising sparkling romance and ebbing darkling tragedy that is - so it seems to me, who most assuredly knows little but yet, somehow, enough to know - Russia.
I'm relishing the close reading of the text marked up by Pulse but realising that, for me at the moment, making sense of the authorial choices that Isaac Babel makes in arriving at his original published version of 'My First Goose' goes beyond working the limitations of working just on text alone: context is required, I'm finding, to really get to best grips with not just the one but the more than one, and perhaps several, ways of reading and reacting to 'My First Goose' that suggest themselves to me.
Do the words above strike a chord with you, dear peer reader. passing an eye over this post of mine? Or do they resonate not one jot? Sense or nonsense? Either way, thanks in anticipation should you care to say.
Is there any cultural resonance that the narrator's kill was a goose? I found that there are staged goose fights in Russia. These are organized entertainments. Is the narrator depicted in a mocking way because his 'first' is combat with a goose? I had also wondered about narrator stabbing goose with a saber after neck broken. The use of 'first' echoes Savitsky in pulse 1 when his dispatch order to a military officer states not their 'first' (also geese probably not the foe at front.)
George,
I wish you would talk a little bit more about what defines a pulse.
Everything that you have listed as a pulse is external action, but you also define a pulse as a "unit of meaning." To me, meaning is about internal action or at least the meaning that's inferred by the reader.
If you'd asked me to identify the first "unit of meaning" of the story, I would've said, "Narrator becomes afraid of rejection," or something along those lines, because I feel like the plot hinges on his fear of rejection.
I know that you said that this is just one way to look at story, so maybe this is a ridiculous question or maybe everyone's pulses are equally valid, but I'd like to hear more about how you see it.
I asked this in the previous post, and I didn't get a response, so could some of you like this to make it more visible?
Thanks so much.
I re-read the story in Russian, and, the language thrills me more in the original. I will send a recording of the Russian version (parts of it).