I see the rickshaw driver and Nikita as similar characters, whereas the narrator is more akin to Vasili. In these stories, we have characters that are one-dimensional and polarizing on the surface: the narrator and Vasili are initially portrayed as cold and driven by their own self-interest, no matter what the cost. And both end up having a kind of epiphany -- one far more extreme than the other, but still!😊
That’s so funny - I was totally expecting that George’s commentary on this story would heavily reference Master and Man. I couldn’t stop comparing/contrasting the two, and my mind had convinced itself that it was all part of the Saunders Story Club Grand Plan.
Yeah me too. But I read Swimming in the rain recently so it being still fresh maybe helped. Three things are similar: the classist commentary, the fact that I don’t trust the narrator and his hypocrisy.
Also, in both stories the rising action follows a pattern of giving Vasili Andreevich/the narrator a chance to change their ways, but both double down on their world views until a moment of nearly psychedelic transformation. The aftermath of that transformation shows both of them changed, but only within the realm of who they really are. Is the narrator in An Incident changed? Yes. Is he still an ill tempered misanthrope? Yes, but maybe a tiny bit less than before.
Love that story (translated as “Misery” in my old Portable Chekhov edition). That closing description of horse breathing on grieving father’s hands is great lesson in power of simple sensory detail at just the right time. First read it 30+ years ago and it still gives me chills.
Same for me Tim. In my second-read analysis, I noted that the roles of servant and master are used to set up our expectations of an event and how one would likely to respond to the event. In "An Incident," we see through the lens of the "master" how our assumptions and beliefs about people are wrapped up in our own self-centered view of the world.
Very interesting. When I saw the title of this short story, I immediately thought of Countee Cullen's poem "Incident". Moments can define us or change us as we get older. Experiences and incidents can define us or send us on a completely different trajectory that we may have ever thought possible. Merriam-Webster defines this word as an occurrence of an action or situation that is a separate unit of experience : happening. A legal definition separates an incident from any other occurrences. When I think of the poem "Incident", I think of the moment I realized there was hatred in the world and some things can separate us more than they can bring us together. When I read this short story, my first thought was how the person that was supposed to have honor and status had no compassion for someone less fortunate much less another person. I'd like to think the narrator learned from the rickshaw driver this experience, much like the speaker in "Incident". Does he include himself in his distrust in humanity? Does he just not trust the old woman who he thinks is not as injured as she wants others to think? Or are the injuries the passenger suffered more long-lasting than the old woman because he wanted to escape as there were no witnesses to the accident? To me, this incident stayed with him longer than most experiences in his youth. I just wonder what the real impact of this incident (not an accident). Did anyone else wonder if the policeman gave the coppers to the rickshaw driver or why the passenger could not give him the coppers himself?
Yes, Kemba, I was wondering this, too -- this giving of the coppers to the policeman. Does the passenger do this to pay the rickshaw driver for services rendered, even though he hasn't gotten to this final destination (or maybe he has, right?) -- or does he give the coppers as a kind of apology (assuaging his guilt) for being less than sensitive in wanting to stop for the old woman when the incident occurs?
I take it as help for the driver because the narrator tells us he was upset with the driver for getting out to help the woman even though this could lead to trouble for the driver.
Hi George, thanks much! Wanted to quickly mention that when I read 'An Incident' for the time, two things [teachings from A swim in a pond ...] came to mind. One, that a short story can't stay static for long. The trajectory of An Incident certainly doesn't. And second, that you enter a scene or a story in one state of mind and come out with an altered one. Again, An Incident did that very quickly, in a matter of a single page. Brilliant ... // On both those counts, shukran to you again. /// Now, I will go and be a novice detective to sniff out those 'coaching phrases'. :)
Your comparison of the story itself to the one sentence version made me think of comparing Chaucer's version of "The Miller's Tale" with "The Three Guests of Heile of Bersele" and trying to pin down exactly what makes Chaucer's version so much better.
As ever, thanks for this stream of storyfood for thought.
The spin is what stood out to me on first reading (while none of the structure you pointed out did, except maybe the epilogue). Probably because I spend my days editing news and trying my best to remove the coaching.
Yet — how purely factual *can* any sentence be? Perhaps in a court of law, after several sustained objections by attorneys, we can read purely factual statements by witnesses. Do people normally speak this way? We all add our personal salt and pepper to the facts, if only to make the story tastier. We unconsciously add “coaching” or “spin” to facts; I feel context is too important to exclude when analyzing a story. Also: in your thoughts, part one, Prof. Saunders, you boil down the story to its essence three successive times using the verb “hit” — a rickshaw driver hits a woman, a driver hits a woman, a driver hit a woman. But there is no description of a collision in the story. Is it coaching? Perhaps it’s a twist to provoke more thinking and comments. Its effect on me, however, reinforces the notion that the rickshaw driver was more responsible than he might have been. His rickshaw hit a woman. He hit a woman. He hit her, no question about it.
I am still rather fresh in this seminar but read your comment “we are all exactly as qualified as we need to be” just now and felt, sure, shoot. Must add, this brought to memory a 1947 book by French writer and editor Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style, a collection of 99 retellings of the same (short) story, each in a different style.
Maybe saying the rickshaw man “hit” the woman is an American colloquialism. That would be a common way to phrase that here, no matter who was at fault. If a bicyclist rode out in front of my car in the street I would later say “I hit a bicyclist today!” even if I was not at fault.
I've been here for a couple of weeks and (very, very quietly) I've been pottering around and eavesdropping through the posts to see what's going on.
I kept quiet, didn't even introduce myself, because I don't have many (formal) qualifications and everyone here seems to be so... how shall I put this?... literati and academic.
Very pleased to say that my reading and enjoyment of reading is as good as any here.
Yay! Welcome! I am a fellow not-many-qualifications member of this club, although I am a lover of books and words, so I think that counts as at least ONE qualification. (Maybe even two?)
I’m finding the more I participate the more “qualified” I feel, and it’s been really nice. I have also found this to be a warm and welcoming place. I hope you find it likewise.
Hi Ribas. Here's another YAY! and Welcome! I was intimidated when I read the introductions. I thought, What the heck am I doing in this group? But George's approach touched me. I felt he was invoking a space where I could feel safe in expressing my true authentic self.
I also find I am learning, not only from George, but also from everyone else who posts their comments. I love reading the variety of ideas and perspectives.
Thank you - I love taking these stories apart. Kind of unrelated, but - this is a great example of why I love literature. This takes place in a different country, a different culture, different era, and the narrator is a different gender from me, but I can still recognize myself in it. The older I get, the more amazed I am to realize human nature never changes. It’s why we still like to read Shakespeare. The only fluid thing is character, and we see in this how experiences can change character. But that’s it! Nature is unchanging! I was running late to pick my dog up from daycare the other day. At a stoplight - me headed north, car across stopped headed south - when a fellow going east, maybe afraid his light would turn red, made a quick left and hit the car opposite me. There I am thinking My God, I’m gonna be late, it doesn’t look like anyone’s hurt, can I just keep going - and THEN - realized I’m the guy in the rickshaw ; )
I was recently in LA, driving down Ventura, when a large black SUV just ahead of me collided with a homeless man who had recklessly stepped into traffic despite the light being green. The homeless man was dirty, wearing rags, without shoes. I saw him fall to the ground, I saw that the collision with him had broken the side view mirror on the suv. The suv stopped, i stopped, i held my breath to see what was going to happen. The homeless man jumped up from the ground and quickly limped across the street, looking over his shoulder, afraid and with the intent of leaving the scene as quickly as his two dirty bare feet could take him. The SUV continued. We continued and as we drove away we passed the homeless man, whose eyes were wild and looking all around. Because his face was dark with grime the whites of his eyes were very bright and I can still see them now. As I read The Incident I also thought- I might as well have been the guy in the rickshaw….
Jan 24, 2022·edited Jan 24, 2022Liked by George Saunders
Some of the "coaching" I noticed had to do with the rickshaw driver's gentleness, the way he slowly helped the old woman, went at her pace. Noticing this, I felt the way it contrasted with the ungentle affairs of state, the military, war. And the story seemed to be saying: real power is in this gentleness. It is, after all, the one incident which can threaten to "overpower" the narrator's small comfortable self.
I notice several comments about the use of passive, blame-avoiding terms. The "was entangled" is an interesting choice by the translator. The original text reads "剛近S門，忽而車把上帶著一個人", which charts a course between active and passive: something like "just near S Gate, suddenly there's a person on the handlebar." (Chinese doesn't require a sentence to be either active or passive.) I think it's a fine translation here, but it does highlight how the translator is active in creating meaning. If they'd chosen "the handlebar caught and picked someone up", that would be quite different, for example.
Michael, thank you so much for your translations and reflections. They lend such interesting perspectives to the story and prompted me to seek out other translations. I'm so happy to have found one that sat better for me. There were some temporal jumps that stuck in my craw in this version that were ironed out in other versions (especially where the narrator is seeking a rickshaw, and in the next sentence they're seated in the rickshaw and the rickshaw man is slowing his pace).
The power of translation. Had this once reading a translation of Onegin and couldn't work out why I disliked the book so much when I'd remembered loving it on first read years before. Ahhh yes...shitty translation...
Hahaha yes, indeed! Everything the translator brings to the story can’t be discounted. Searching out a few different versions of this story was a nice exercise. It brought some levels of nuance to the interpretations of key words/phrases.
Michael, I have been obsessed with the idea of the translator's role in conveying meaning from the outset. A soap bubble of a story like this could be marred by either over emphasis or under emphasis or just missing the point. Translation is an art in and of itself. I love the thought of a voice midway between active and passive. So, to my question: The handing of the coppers to the policeman has lived in my brain all day. As an American, I only read this as pennies. But that word gives me pause. Are coppers pennies...a coin of almost no value or is it more like a quarter, a dollar coin, something larger?
Great question. The phrase he uses is "a handful of copper yuan", which in 1917 would be among the smaller denominations, between a hundredth and a tenth of a silver yuan. You can see some pictures of these copper coins here: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%93%9C%E5%85%83
So yes, maybe something like a quarter? Street-level coins of the kind you'd expect anyone but the very poorest to have in their pocket. Not silver, which would be a different matter. My impression is that he's not giving a pittance, but it's not tremendous largesse either. Enough to pay some admin fees or a small fine, perhaps, but not a month's rent or anything like that.
Thank you so much! I think I like that paragraph so much because it is the first question he asks of himself. He does not ask, "Why didn't I help the woman," or "Why did I tell the driver to keep going?" Rather, his first moment of self-reflections is, "what had I meant by that handful of coppers?" To go back to Freytag's pyramid, I think that moment becomes the climax. The question itself. This is why the value of the coins matter, and your explanation of not a pittance but not a largesse provides a great insight. As Saunders points out, there is much coaching going on, but the self-delusion breaks with this question. It is the first interrogative statement since he cites the driver asking, "Are you alright?" Once again, I feel so limited in only reading the translation as I just don't know if the moods work the same way in Chinese. I learned so much by Michael stating there is a voice other than simple active and simple passive. It makes me wonder if there are other moods...an interrogative-subjunctive where we can conditionally question our own motives and imagine a less shameful response? Who of us have not looked at our former actions in horror...what had I meant by those coins because even I don't know. This reaches beyond the coaching and is the only honest thought, "What was I thinking when I did that?"
Interesting. Went back and read it with "Suddenly there's a person on the handlebar." Feels different. It makes the paragraph after a reconstruction. He seems to search his memory for what happened and develops evidence that she would fake a fall.
Thanks for the translation! I was also wondering about "officiousness," because it seems like a lot is riding on that word, it being the narrator's present tense representation of the past-tense self's perception of an altruistic act. If "officiousness" is an accurate translation of the Chinese, that's really interesting. A self-criticism: my old self was so deluded that I mistook altruism for officiousness, mistook the acts of good people in ordinary situations for the officious affairs of state that made me so jaded.
Yes, that clause has quite a few ways it could be translated. "Resent" could also be "wonder at" or "feel exasperated by" -- the overall meaning is that he thinks "What is this guy *doing*?" For "officiousness", the original is 多事, literally "many things/matters", so you might also call it nosiness or being meddlesome -- a busybody.
Story Club community, I am moved to share here a link to the latest Radiolab podcast. It's a story about someone who is suffering deeply, who finds comfort from his grief in a work of art, and then is comforted by the artist, a mensch we all admire. I was overwhelmed with emotion.The letter from George part starts about 9 minutes before the end of the episode. http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/11th-letter-george/
I also heard it and was also brought to tears -- so grateful to George for spreading kindness and compassion here and elsewhere. Like in our story, an example of kindness and compassion can have more impact than we might possibly imagine. Let's do that!
Oh Sima, you made me laugh! The question is, isn't good literature truly therapeutic? No, let me strike the word, good. Any literature that moves us in some way is what I mean.
Actually, I once posted that this class was part personal growth for me. That's what got me laughing. YAY! Another one like me!
For me it goes beyond the literature and into how supportive the group is. While I enjoy learning from George and of course his writing, reading everyone else's work is just as grounding and fulfilling. I'm busy subscribing to newsletters and writing my own to stay in touch.
Yes, Sima. Reading everyone else's work seems to expand, and sometimes question, my own understanding of what George is presenting. That's another reason I value this course.
Just joined Story Club and catching up, so only heard this today. Thanks so much for sharing, Susanna. I was thinking about my dead brothers this morning and really feeling the grief, then I listened to this podcast and George's reflections on grief and love, and how we go on, helped me a lot - they really did! Thanks again.
What makes the coaching more interesting is that it's not happening in the moment - i.e. this is not his immediate reaction to the event - but is him coaching on *recollection*. This is something that happened in his past, that he feels guilty/ashamed of (or at the very least moved/haunted by). Time has passed, and these are either the details that stood out to him and remained stuck in his memories, or he's still trying to defend himself in a way (I was unfeeling, but she was careless you see. She fell slow, no way she could have been hurt; but, still, there was a kindness in the rickshaw driver that was not in me). It reminds me of people who apologise and then say 'but' - 'I'm sorry I broke your watch, but you shouldn't have left it there'. It's an *almost* moment of accountability - there's some acceptance of responsibility, but no desire to take on the full amount, because without some blame-shifting the shame and guilt upon self-reflection is too heavy to bear. Blame shared is guilt halved. And he's still trying to protect himself all these years after (as he recounts the incident), even as he tries to atone.
So interesting! Is the present-tense narrator protecting his ego, or is his past self doing so - or both to varying degrees?
I read two different perspectives here – the opening and ending as the “now” perspective (present tense), and the past-tense action of the story as largely re-entering the “then” perspective. The opening, in my reading, had a distancing effect; I came into the “then” perspective feeling cautious, then skeptical. His callousness and defensiveness during the incident came across as an unflinching depiction of the man he used to be (this earned my trust in the narrator, willing to depict this unflattering side of himself). By the end, it seems the man he once was (that “small self under my fur-lined gown”) is still part of him, but a part he’s now aware of and trying to reform, with courage and hope that might be possible.
I’m inclined to believe the present-tense narrator. I think you’re right he’s inclined to protect himself, but he’s working against that inclination by telling this story – however distressing it is to face what he’s done, he faces it here. And perhaps that’s why those last lines land for me, “giving me fresh courage and hope” that his transformation (and our own) is possible.
I read it a little differently to you, I think. For me, it is all a recollection. The middle part has the fiction of being in the present-tense because the narrator focuses on what happened and what he did/said/thought then (without directly clarifying what he thinks now), but in reality it is all a recollection - all seen through the lens of time passed.
I think all first person narrators are inherently biased and unreliable - it is the human condition to see what we want to see, what we are drawn to, and to interpret it in our own unique way - but I think the recollection aspect of this story applied another layer of unreliability. Not only are we seeing it from someone's unique and subjective perspective, we are seeing it long after the actual incident took place - and for me it feels as though a revision of history is taking place (consciously in parts, perhaps unconsciously in others).
And so, for me, the interesting questions are around how does he revise this history? What does he concede? (The rickshaw man gently helped the old woman, and did not hesitate for a minute - things that would be difficult to remember (since they are not concrete details, but more feelings or a sense of things) but that also put the contrast with his own actions and thoughts in a shameful light) What does he maintain? (I had seen how slowly she fell, she had left without warning, was sure she could not be hurt - the key facts of the case, your honour - he does not entertain the idea that he could have been wrong in these matters that seem to absolve him a little of his shame, if only because the blame for the incident lies elsewhere, and because the overall consequence was not that big).
Thanks so much for sharing and expanding on your reading! Hearing each other’s perspectives like this can be so helpful – my ideas are getting clarified in our dialogue, so thank you Mikhaeyla!
I totally agree with the unreliability of recollection; the driving force of felt truth rather than factual truth comes home for me with that surreal moment – the rickshaw driver becoming larger than himself, the narrator small and insulated within his furs – which felt like it could be a distortion of memory, akin to the metaphor of dreams. This line, too, describing the memory as “often more vivid than in actual life” signals that there’s a space between what happened and his recounting of it.
But I find myself willing to go along with the narrator’s felt truth. I started off annoyed with the narrator – the moralistic feeling in the prelude put me on guard – but by the very end, I felt something had happened. I felt the “fresh courage and hope” as a sense of release and expansion. I didn’t doubt it, as I had doubted what came before. I believed he was truly grappling with that small/protective ego part of himself, and there was hope. From being “afraid” to turn his thoughts on himself, he “tries” to do so – and we see him trying through the act of telling this story. This seems significant to me.
But you’re right there’s a lot unsaid. He doesn’t tell us what he has learned from the incident; we have to infer it through how he frames the incident (prelude and ending), and how he tells the story. I read intentionality in small gestures like saying, “I did not think the old woman was hurt” (rather than “the old woman wasn’t hurt”); it seems the present narrator may not agree with his past perspective, and is signalling to his audience to treat it as a perspective, not the truth. I also don’t think the present-tense narrator now believes this: “She must be pretending, which was disgusting…” or “the rickshaw man had asked for trouble” – his view of these other characters seems to change (he now seems to see something admirable in the rickshaw man’s actions, which also suggests a kinder view of the woman). These are just a few places where there seems to be a gap between the “I” of the narrator and the “I” of the past.
The space between these two I’s is what’s interesting for me. That’s where the story happens, where the transformation is (or isn’t).
I love the connection you make between that surreal moment and 'distortion of memory' - that rings very true to me. And I agree, his thoughts in the present tense at the end ('even now') seem a more truthful and honest account than perhaps what went before (in the same way that "I feel this now" seems more accurate and honest, than "I felt that way so many years ago" (which would (rightly) be regarded with some skepticism given the distortion of memory and revision of history).
I like how you picked up on the narrator's insertion of himself into the story at times that signals his own acceptance of unreliable narration ('I did not think the old woman was hurt') - I'd missed that on my read-through - the difference between what is presented as fact, and what he admits is conjecture. It's a nice lens to use when re-reading.
(And I agree - conversations like this help to clarify and deepen our own understanding and reaction to the text - so, thanks to you also!)
Very much this! The narrator even admits as much: "Even now, this incident keeps coming back to me. It keeps distressing me and *makes me try to think about myself*". They're still blame-shifting, still resistant to the idea of examining their own behaviours and complicity (I'm using 'their' because I have been playing a game of 'what if' with this story and casting the narrator as alternately a white man and/or a woman to see how that changes how I see the dynamics of the story).
Rather than spin, I would say perspective. When we tell our stories, I think we tell them thinking of them as factual when we are actually just telling how we experienced them. Someone might say someone was "yelling" at them, and if I saw the incident, I would not hear yelling, but I might hear a critical remark. The person who tells their story isn't lying in my opinion. They are trying to tell their experience. I think the narrator in this story is speaking his experience throughout -- just as we all do. I don't think the facts are as important in understanding each other as how we experience the facts. A great example is how we all are having our experiences of this story.
I really like your take, Bryn. This disposition seems to be there from even the first paragraph, when the narrator refers to himself as "ill tempered" and "misanthropic." This encourages me to read what follows as rooted in his "spin." I teach filmmakers. Just this week we were looking at work and plucking from it evidence of character traits and then traits driving story events --- hadn't occurred to me to see "The Incident" through this lens until I read your post --- traits are there from the get-go --- and this character is, among other things, judgmental -- of himself and others -- which seems to be both his curse and blessing.
Thanks for engaging on this. I have never taken a writing course and I now realize that the "spin" that is referred to by George and others is different than my experience with the use of that word. I have heard "spin" mean a purposely biased take on the facts, i.e. political spin. I see here that "spin" in this context is more like perspective and "coaching" is just noticing that. At least I think that's what's happening.
The first two thirds of the story are full of coaching - facts of this time and place, these little details are given this moral weight by the narrator - so we see this commonplace world where his (and by extension, our) petty judgement, small mindedness and self importance, overshadow everything.
Then the paragraph that starts "Suddenly..." does a lot of work. It upends his reality with a kind of divine experience. Something shifts “suddenly” - in an “instant”. The imagery becomes totally surreal: as the driver moves toward doing the right thing, the better thing, he becomes literally bigger, more powerful - he “looms” over the shrinking narrator. The narrator feels at the same time a claustrophobic, stifling “pressure” - he is overwhelmed, almost “overpowered” by what he is experiencing.
The sudden use of surreal imagery in this paragraph morphs the everyday into an almost supernatural/spiritual experience. A great stillness that descends: the narrator’s “vitality is sapped”, he sits “motionless”. Time seems to stop: the action slows right down. There is this abrupt shift - literally mid sentence - back to reality: “My vitality seemed sapped as I sat there motionless, my mind a blank, ...→ until a policeman came out. Then I got down from the rickshaw.” …this shift keeps us unsettled, unsteady. The language works to pull us back into that still place - “the wind had dropped”... it was “still quiet”.
We are left to feel the moral/emotional shockwaves reverberating. Someone else also pointed out that from here on, the story is light on coaching - there’s just this rattled guy, looping back over it, trying and not quite succeeding to make sense of what he experienced. There’s a feeling that there’s some divine message he is missing: this event is intentionally “teaching” him, “urging” him, “giving” him a sense of something larger.
Thanks for this exercise! Enjoyed letting my initial reading percolate, coming back and rereading - paying close attention to the deliberate phrasing and structure.
I didn't notice this! Thanks for sharing. That is a powerful way of seeing the story, and yes, it does seem there is a lot of space given for "moral/emotional shockwaves reverberating." I'm enriched by how you noticed and articulated that.
For my first reading of this story, I printed a copy, underlined passages, and made tons of scribbles and notes in the margins. This culminated with me writing “unreliable narrator” in big letter across the top, right above the title.
I agree that on first read, you don’t question it too much. You are taking in the story at face value. Once you sit with it a while and visit again (and again) you start thinking, “Wait a minute…”
I even think the narrator is doing this sort of “coaching” in the introduction. He claims the “so-called affairs of state” are the cause of his ill temper and misanthropy. He’s definitely not responsible for acting that way! It’s not his fault! (At least according to him.)
In my opinion he seems reliable because he lets us see his unreliability, if that makes sense. He seems to be presenting the incident as he experienced it (with his selfish biases) but then, in the end, disclosing that he has changed, that he is inspired by the driver.
I see what you are saying, but to me his biases weren’t obvious when I began this exercise. The first couple times I read it I took the story at face value - “there was an incident and here is how it happened.” It wasn’t until I spent more time thinking about it that I realized the perspective we were getting was somewhat misleading.
And I don’t think he is an unreliable narrator in the extreme sense of things, where you find out at the end it’s all a big, dramatic deception. I think for me it helped to think of him as an unreliable narrator in the sense that I cannot trust his perspective entirely and he is putting a clear spin on things - as many of us do in many situations all the time!
Hmm. I’d say both, but mostly the narrator, because I do believe his version of the truth is just that - his version, and there are clues all along letting us know that.
I think the writer, in adding them has created a more believable character, because none of us are one dimensional, and none of us are all truth or all lies… there is always a little of one diluting the other.
This story would be cloying and a moralistic slog if there wasn’t some of that tension.
"This story would be cloying and a moralistic slog if there wasn't some of that tention." I agree. This point alone is enough to prod us to find and explore the other layers.
Yes: a great example of a writer introducing an element and then tending to it (changing it) to produce a feeling of motion & development. Same idea as with the laundry on the line in “Master and Man.”
Oh, interesting. I saw the wind as a metaphor - when it's blowing/blustering there's a moral corruptness(? or at least ambiguity) in the narrator, but when there's no wind and it's still, there's greater moral clarity. I could be well off the track here, but that's what struck me.
Yes! For me, the wind whips up when the action is unfolding, and drops into stillness when it's time for a reckoning. The narrator feels the stillness, and it makes him uneasy. What is being expected of him? In those moments, he comes close to realising something but ultimately fails to see what the moment is asking of him. And that haunts him...
I'm glad you raised this -- I was struck by the wind and its effect on the road and the characters -- how odd that the wind blew away all "the loose dust," "leaving the roadway clean" (why clean? wasn't there also dust upwind?) -- and yet the retreating figure of the rickshaw man is "dusty," suggesting whatever the wind was blowing away still stuck to him. Similarly, the wind is cold but the woman's jacket is open. It's as if the action of the wind doesn't affect them, only the narrator.
Living in an area (the High Plains of Texas) where wind can be punishing, I took the focus on wind as a difficulty that stands as a metaphor in how difficult the drive is to change by being empathetic like the driver.
I feel like we're both circling the same concept here. Would you mind expanding on your point a little? Do you mean that when the wind is high, the narrator has difficulty with empathy, but when the wind dies down they're more open to the idea of change?
Asha, what I meant is that the miserable weather conditions made the narrator more determined to get to where he needed to go that day for his physical comfort. He is more concerned about getting to his tasks than doing anything else.
Good experience rereading the story to find the places where the narrator is shaping or coaching the reader to experience the work in a particular way. In addition, I compared two translations to see how these phrases may be worded differently as a few other Story Club members mentioned. Below are some of the more notable differences I found between the translation by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1960, 1972 that George gave us for this exercise vs Julia Lovell, Penguin Classics, London 2009.
Title: An Incident (Yang & Yang) vs A Minor Incident (Lovell)
so-called affairs of state vs matters of national importance
one incident vs one minor incident: a tiny thing
winter of 1917 vs winter of 1917-the sixth year of our new Republic
entangled in our rickshaw vs someone caught on the handlebar of the rickshaw
a bad fall and seriously injured vs somersaulted over the bar and cracked her head open
resented the officiousness vs irritation…getting needlessly involved
she must be pretending which was disgusting vs You phoney…no one ever came to harm going down as slowly as that
exerting pressure on me…overpower the small self under my fur-lined gown vs pressing out the petty selfishness concealed beneath my fur coat
military and political affairs of those years vs recent political or military achievements
the classics I read in my childhood vs Confucian primers that tormented my boyhood
It’s so interesting to see the ways in which some of the “coaching” phrases George highlights change in Lovell’s translation, and then notice how such minor differences can, in aggregate, almost subconsciously alter the mental image we create of a character.
When you read Lovell’s translation, did you find the narrator any more or less reliable?
Yes, seemed more content regarding character development. Tried to find a translation by William Lyell but no luck for a pdf version. Will update if I get one.
I like and value your observations in this post Nan. As much as the Narrator in the story each of the English language Translators of the story are in my opinion, based on the kind of forensic word selections and word string comparisons that you offer for our consideration, also endeavouring to shape or coach we readers to experience the work in a particular way.
I'm with everyone else and George on this - I didn't notice the coaching phrases on the first read through. On the second, much closer read I did begin to see them and begin to doubt the narrator's account. One example that stands out to me is this line:
"He paid no attention, however - perhaps he had not heard - for he set down the shafts, and gently helped the old woman to get up."
That little justification - "perhaps he had not heard" - is fascinating. I would argue it shows his self-importance. Obviously the rickshaw man not hearing the narrator's direction is the only reason he continues to help the woman. The narrator has trouble conceiving of a person who would do the right thing even at the personal cost of losing a paying customer and potentially getting in trouble with the police. The narrator is the center of his own universe. It's no wonder such a small - even mundane - act of kindness cracks open his worldview.
For me, this was the crux of the story. Somehow it encapsulates the class issues, narrator presumptions, and the path dividing between the rickshaw driver’s compassion and the narrators ambivalence in one phrase. It is the one statement in the story that really stood out to me. It’s the moral crossroads as well. The driver, in my mind, not only heard but ignored this more important man to attend to what his compass required of him. I loved this.
This was my reaction too. Its a version of shouting, "Somebody do something," when they could be doing something. The narrator can't see himself in the story.
Yes! The same line stuck out for me too. In fact, my notes read: 'This reads to me as "he couldn't possibly be ignoring me. Perhaps he didn't hear."' It's such a striking use of an aside.
Another take on this… could “perhaps he had not heard” be a turning point for the narrator? If he were still the ill-tempered misanthrope, wouldn’t he raise his voice to be heard (and obeyed)? Continuing with “gently helped” feels an important shift to me.
Things I noticed that I want to ruminate on: the lack of impression the past six years have left compared to the deep impression of this one moment.
All of his descriptions are bleak - the weather for one “bitter cold.” His view of his work - that it’s simply “to make a living.” His description of the woman are bleak in a sense too, white streaks, ragged clothes. But he also assigns a morality to his view of her and her assumed motivations.
His mention that there are no witnesses… but he forgets that he, himself, is a witness. And he continues to witness this event in his memory in to the future.
That he doesn’t want to be held up from getting to a job he is tired of - one that gives him an “ill temper”
His view of the driver getting larger in the distance and the growing pressure he felt the further the driver was into the act of kindness. As the driver becomes larger, the narrator describes himself as small.
After the encounter with the policeman, and the copper coins, he is afraid to self-evaluate… to face himself as he is.
And, of course, his thoughts in the conclusion, this is where I overlooked a lot in my harsher judgment of him. This incident continues to make him look inward. He wants to be a better man. I think he remains tethered to this story because it’s become his moral compass. A vivid reminder to acknowledge shame and attempt reform. He tells us, himself, that he is hopeful. But I judged him as hopeless, initially. My initial thoughts were about the capacity for good and harm. But I made the driver and the narrator to represent those choices (one to do good and one to, well, not do good. But what I didn’t notice was that battle of choice within the narrator, himself. He’s shamed by an act of kindness, but the existence of the shame gives him hope and courage for reform. In the end, it is both honest and optimistic.
"The Incident" strongly reminded me in particular of Chekhov's short story "The Seizure" about three students out on the town. Again I recognise, I raise the Lu Hsün and Chekhov link because within the short stories and the plays Chekhov uses this device in a way which does not look unduly patronising or didactic! Lu Hsün was a later special discovery for me some years ago, ( You'll also find his name under an alternate romanisation of Lu Xun. Might I commend to your attention his collection of prose poems "Wild Grass (Yecao, Weeds)") Those coaching words, are used by both writers, to subtly open the individual experience of the reader and extend across the barriers of culture and time. Reminds me, at the other end of short story reading, of a lovely quote from Proust in "Le temps retrouvé" - "en réalité chaque lecteur est, quand il lit, le propre lecteur de soi même" - "in reality, each reader is, when they read, the reader of themselves", ( my english rendering). He seeks to do something similar for/to the reader. It certainly helps that the skill of the author, in revealing the hidden to the reader by techniques such as these coaching words is deeply relevant in this "trajectory altering" outcome. Thank you George for this wonderful Story Club sub stack.
Btw - this is the first of three posts to come on "An Incident."
Hi George! Just curious: did this story remind you of "Master and Man" a little? I kept thinking about it....
Never occurred to me until now, but yes!
I see the rickshaw driver and Nikita as similar characters, whereas the narrator is more akin to Vasili. In these stories, we have characters that are one-dimensional and polarizing on the surface: the narrator and Vasili are initially portrayed as cold and driven by their own self-interest, no matter what the cost. And both end up having a kind of epiphany -- one far more extreme than the other, but still!😊
That’s so funny - I was totally expecting that George’s commentary on this story would heavily reference Master and Man. I couldn’t stop comparing/contrasting the two, and my mind had convinced itself that it was all part of the Saunders Story Club Grand Plan.
Trust me, there is no Grand Plan. It’s an elaborate & hopefully responsive improv.
Yeah me too. But I read Swimming in the rain recently so it being still fresh maybe helped. Three things are similar: the classist commentary, the fact that I don’t trust the narrator and his hypocrisy.
Also, in both stories the rising action follows a pattern of giving Vasili Andreevich/the narrator a chance to change their ways, but both double down on their world views until a moment of nearly psychedelic transformation. The aftermath of that transformation shows both of them changed, but only within the realm of who they really are. Is the narrator in An Incident changed? Yes. Is he still an ill tempered misanthrope? Yes, but maybe a tiny bit less than before.
reminded me of "Grief" by Chekhov--and also, "Accident," by Dave Eggers
yeah, thinking of Chekhov's "Grief" made me wonder how the story would appear if told from the rickshaw man's perspective.
Love that story (translated as “Misery” in my old Portable Chekhov edition). That closing description of horse breathing on grieving father’s hands is great lesson in power of simple sensory detail at just the right time. First read it 30+ years ago and it still gives me chills.
Love “Misery”. I taught that story for years. Love how the ending image compares with the opening image.
Same for me Tim. In my second-read analysis, I noted that the roles of servant and master are used to set up our expectations of an event and how one would likely to respond to the event. In "An Incident," we see through the lens of the "master" how our assumptions and beliefs about people are wrapped up in our own self-centered view of the world.
Very interesting. When I saw the title of this short story, I immediately thought of Countee Cullen's poem "Incident". Moments can define us or change us as we get older. Experiences and incidents can define us or send us on a completely different trajectory that we may have ever thought possible. Merriam-Webster defines this word as an occurrence of an action or situation that is a separate unit of experience : happening. A legal definition separates an incident from any other occurrences. When I think of the poem "Incident", I think of the moment I realized there was hatred in the world and some things can separate us more than they can bring us together. When I read this short story, my first thought was how the person that was supposed to have honor and status had no compassion for someone less fortunate much less another person. I'd like to think the narrator learned from the rickshaw driver this experience, much like the speaker in "Incident". Does he include himself in his distrust in humanity? Does he just not trust the old woman who he thinks is not as injured as she wants others to think? Or are the injuries the passenger suffered more long-lasting than the old woman because he wanted to escape as there were no witnesses to the accident? To me, this incident stayed with him longer than most experiences in his youth. I just wonder what the real impact of this incident (not an accident). Did anyone else wonder if the policeman gave the coppers to the rickshaw driver or why the passenger could not give him the coppers himself?
Yes, Kemba, I was wondering this, too -- this giving of the coppers to the policeman. Does the passenger do this to pay the rickshaw driver for services rendered, even though he hasn't gotten to this final destination (or maybe he has, right?) -- or does he give the coppers as a kind of apology (assuaging his guilt) for being less than sensitive in wanting to stop for the old woman when the incident occurs?
I take it as help for the driver because the narrator tells us he was upset with the driver for getting out to help the woman even though this could lead to trouble for the driver.
I just re-read this! I would be curious to hear your thoughts.
yes, it did me a little!
Hi George, thanks much! Wanted to quickly mention that when I read 'An Incident' for the time, two things [teachings from A swim in a pond ...] came to mind. One, that a short story can't stay static for long. The trajectory of An Incident certainly doesn't. And second, that you enter a scene or a story in one state of mind and come out with an altered one. Again, An Incident did that very quickly, in a matter of a single page. Brilliant ... // On both those counts, shukran to you again. /// Now, I will go and be a novice detective to sniff out those 'coaching phrases'. :)
Cherries, ripening
Red, such succulence, bitten
Best in nibbling bites
Your comparison of the story itself to the one sentence version made me think of comparing Chaucer's version of "The Miller's Tale" with "The Three Guests of Heile of Bersele" and trying to pin down exactly what makes Chaucer's version so much better.
As ever, thanks for this stream of storyfood for thought.
Another way to think about this idea of “coaching” - how purely factual is a sentence? Is there “spin” being added?
The spin is what stood out to me on first reading (while none of the structure you pointed out did, except maybe the epilogue). Probably because I spend my days editing news and trying my best to remove the coaching.
Yet — how purely factual *can* any sentence be? Perhaps in a court of law, after several sustained objections by attorneys, we can read purely factual statements by witnesses. Do people normally speak this way? We all add our personal salt and pepper to the facts, if only to make the story tastier. We unconsciously add “coaching” or “spin” to facts; I feel context is too important to exclude when analyzing a story. Also: in your thoughts, part one, Prof. Saunders, you boil down the story to its essence three successive times using the verb “hit” — a rickshaw driver hits a woman, a driver hits a woman, a driver hit a woman. But there is no description of a collision in the story. Is it coaching? Perhaps it’s a twist to provoke more thinking and comments. Its effect on me, however, reinforces the notion that the rickshaw driver was more responsible than he might have been. His rickshaw hit a woman. He hit a woman. He hit her, no question about it.
I am still rather fresh in this seminar but read your comment “we are all exactly as qualified as we need to be” just now and felt, sure, shoot. Must add, this brought to memory a 1947 book by French writer and editor Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style, a collection of 99 retellings of the same (short) story, each in a different style.
Maybe saying the rickshaw man “hit” the woman is an American colloquialism. That would be a common way to phrase that here, no matter who was at fault. If a bicyclist rode out in front of my car in the street I would later say “I hit a bicyclist today!” even if I was not at fault.
Good connection, Konstantin. Prompts me to pull my Q. off the shelf. Haven’t nibbled him in a long time.
He coached me into being freaking cold as I use this glorious snow day in Decatur Illinois to start catching up on my homework for George.
This has spun my head about storytelling! Thanks, George. Isn't there always a spin, somewhere?
Hi Prof. Saunders! Hi Everyone!
I've been here for a couple of weeks and (very, very quietly) I've been pottering around and eavesdropping through the posts to see what's going on.
I kept quiet, didn't even introduce myself, because I don't have many (formal) qualifications and everyone here seems to be so... how shall I put this?... literati and academic.
Very pleased to say that my reading and enjoyment of reading is as good as any here.
Thank you so much!
This is a great place!
Welcome!
We are all exactly as qualified as we need to be. While, at the same time, trying to become more qualified. Myself included. 100 percent. ❤️
Yay! Welcome! I am a fellow not-many-qualifications member of this club, although I am a lover of books and words, so I think that counts as at least ONE qualification. (Maybe even two?)
I’m finding the more I participate the more “qualified” I feel, and it’s been really nice. I have also found this to be a warm and welcoming place. I hope you find it likewise.
Hi Ribas. Here's another YAY! and Welcome! I was intimidated when I read the introductions. I thought, What the heck am I doing in this group? But George's approach touched me. I felt he was invoking a space where I could feel safe in expressing my true authentic self.
I also find I am learning, not only from George, but also from everyone else who posts their comments. I love reading the variety of ideas and perspectives.
Yes, this is a great place!
Qualifications schmalifications
Welcome! I am neither literati nor academic & I love it here.
Hear, hear. :)
Me too! First post right here! :)
Oh, thank goodness. I thought I was the only "don't have many qualifications" here.
Welcome aboard!
I'm here for the community, though I have learned a lot about what makes a better reader and writer in just several weeks :)
Thank you - I love taking these stories apart. Kind of unrelated, but - this is a great example of why I love literature. This takes place in a different country, a different culture, different era, and the narrator is a different gender from me, but I can still recognize myself in it. The older I get, the more amazed I am to realize human nature never changes. It’s why we still like to read Shakespeare. The only fluid thing is character, and we see in this how experiences can change character. But that’s it! Nature is unchanging! I was running late to pick my dog up from daycare the other day. At a stoplight - me headed north, car across stopped headed south - when a fellow going east, maybe afraid his light would turn red, made a quick left and hit the car opposite me. There I am thinking My God, I’m gonna be late, it doesn’t look like anyone’s hurt, can I just keep going - and THEN - realized I’m the guy in the rickshaw ; )
I was recently in LA, driving down Ventura, when a large black SUV just ahead of me collided with a homeless man who had recklessly stepped into traffic despite the light being green. The homeless man was dirty, wearing rags, without shoes. I saw him fall to the ground, I saw that the collision with him had broken the side view mirror on the suv. The suv stopped, i stopped, i held my breath to see what was going to happen. The homeless man jumped up from the ground and quickly limped across the street, looking over his shoulder, afraid and with the intent of leaving the scene as quickly as his two dirty bare feet could take him. The SUV continued. We continued and as we drove away we passed the homeless man, whose eyes were wild and looking all around. Because his face was dark with grime the whites of his eyes were very bright and I can still see them now. As I read The Incident I also thought- I might as well have been the guy in the rickshaw….
It’s crazy how a great story has all these parallels a hundred and two years on. Thank you for this, Sadie.
Good job, Pam! We're all gonna call you "Pam Rickshaw Guy," now.
Zounds, that was YOU?
hahaha
Wow!
Most of us are.
Some of the "coaching" I noticed had to do with the rickshaw driver's gentleness, the way he slowly helped the old woman, went at her pace. Noticing this, I felt the way it contrasted with the ungentle affairs of state, the military, war. And the story seemed to be saying: real power is in this gentleness. It is, after all, the one incident which can threaten to "overpower" the narrator's small comfortable self.
Thank you, Bryce. If the world needs one thing right now, it’s gentleness. All these power plays just make everyone more miserable.
I notice several comments about the use of passive, blame-avoiding terms. The "was entangled" is an interesting choice by the translator. The original text reads "剛近S門，忽而車把上帶著一個人", which charts a course between active and passive: something like "just near S Gate, suddenly there's a person on the handlebar." (Chinese doesn't require a sentence to be either active or passive.) I think it's a fine translation here, but it does highlight how the translator is active in creating meaning. If they'd chosen "the handlebar caught and picked someone up", that would be quite different, for example.
So interesting- thank you, Michael.
Michael, thank you so much for your translations and reflections. They lend such interesting perspectives to the story and prompted me to seek out other translations. I'm so happy to have found one that sat better for me. There were some temporal jumps that stuck in my craw in this version that were ironed out in other versions (especially where the narrator is seeking a rickshaw, and in the next sentence they're seated in the rickshaw and the rickshaw man is slowing his pace).
The power of translation. Had this once reading a translation of Onegin and couldn't work out why I disliked the book so much when I'd remembered loving it on first read years before. Ahhh yes...shitty translation...
Hahaha yes, indeed! Everything the translator brings to the story can’t be discounted. Searching out a few different versions of this story was a nice exercise. It brought some levels of nuance to the interpretations of key words/phrases.
Michael, I have been obsessed with the idea of the translator's role in conveying meaning from the outset. A soap bubble of a story like this could be marred by either over emphasis or under emphasis or just missing the point. Translation is an art in and of itself. I love the thought of a voice midway between active and passive. So, to my question: The handing of the coppers to the policeman has lived in my brain all day. As an American, I only read this as pennies. But that word gives me pause. Are coppers pennies...a coin of almost no value or is it more like a quarter, a dollar coin, something larger?
Great question. The phrase he uses is "a handful of copper yuan", which in 1917 would be among the smaller denominations, between a hundredth and a tenth of a silver yuan. You can see some pictures of these copper coins here: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%93%9C%E5%85%83
So yes, maybe something like a quarter? Street-level coins of the kind you'd expect anyone but the very poorest to have in their pocket. Not silver, which would be a different matter. My impression is that he's not giving a pittance, but it's not tremendous largesse either. Enough to pay some admin fees or a small fine, perhaps, but not a month's rent or anything like that.
Thank you so much! I think I like that paragraph so much because it is the first question he asks of himself. He does not ask, "Why didn't I help the woman," or "Why did I tell the driver to keep going?" Rather, his first moment of self-reflections is, "what had I meant by that handful of coppers?" To go back to Freytag's pyramid, I think that moment becomes the climax. The question itself. This is why the value of the coins matter, and your explanation of not a pittance but not a largesse provides a great insight. As Saunders points out, there is much coaching going on, but the self-delusion breaks with this question. It is the first interrogative statement since he cites the driver asking, "Are you alright?" Once again, I feel so limited in only reading the translation as I just don't know if the moods work the same way in Chinese. I learned so much by Michael stating there is a voice other than simple active and simple passive. It makes me wonder if there are other moods...an interrogative-subjunctive where we can conditionally question our own motives and imagine a less shameful response? Who of us have not looked at our former actions in horror...what had I meant by those coins because even I don't know. This reaches beyond the coaching and is the only honest thought, "What was I thinking when I did that?"
Love this attention to the translation!
Interesting. Went back and read it with "Suddenly there's a person on the handlebar." Feels different. It makes the paragraph after a reconstruction. He seems to search his memory for what happened and develops evidence that she would fake a fall.
Thanks for the translation! I was also wondering about "officiousness," because it seems like a lot is riding on that word, it being the narrator's present tense representation of the past-tense self's perception of an altruistic act. If "officiousness" is an accurate translation of the Chinese, that's really interesting. A self-criticism: my old self was so deluded that I mistook altruism for officiousness, mistook the acts of good people in ordinary situations for the officious affairs of state that made me so jaded.
Yes, that clause has quite a few ways it could be translated. "Resent" could also be "wonder at" or "feel exasperated by" -- the overall meaning is that he thinks "What is this guy *doing*?" For "officiousness", the original is 多事, literally "many things/matters", so you might also call it nosiness or being meddlesome -- a busybody.
Thanks so much! Very illuminating.
Story Club community, I am moved to share here a link to the latest Radiolab podcast. It's a story about someone who is suffering deeply, who finds comfort from his grief in a work of art, and then is comforted by the artist, a mensch we all admire. I was overwhelmed with emotion.The letter from George part starts about 9 minutes before the end of the episode. http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/11th-letter-george/
I also heard it and was also brought to tears -- so grateful to George for spreading kindness and compassion here and elsewhere. Like in our story, an example of kindness and compassion can have more impact than we might possibly imagine. Let's do that!
Thanks so much for sharing that, Susanna. Just incredibly moving.
Thank you, Susanna. Incredible. I have no words... just a stuffy nose now... And oh yes, brimming with gratitude for what George is offering us here.
Thank you so much for sharing :) Being here has been the best therapy in the disguise of a literature class!
Oh Sima, you made me laugh! The question is, isn't good literature truly therapeutic? No, let me strike the word, good. Any literature that moves us in some way is what I mean.
Actually, I once posted that this class was part personal growth for me. That's what got me laughing. YAY! Another one like me!
For me it goes beyond the literature and into how supportive the group is. While I enjoy learning from George and of course his writing, reading everyone else's work is just as grounding and fulfilling. I'm busy subscribing to newsletters and writing my own to stay in touch.
Yes, Sima. Reading everyone else's work seems to expand, and sometimes question, my own understanding of what George is presenting. That's another reason I value this course.
Just joined Story Club and catching up, so only heard this today. Thanks so much for sharing, Susanna. I was thinking about my dead brothers this morning and really feeling the grief, then I listened to this podcast and George's reflections on grief and love, and how we go on, helped me a lot - they really did! Thanks again.
What makes the coaching more interesting is that it's not happening in the moment - i.e. this is not his immediate reaction to the event - but is him coaching on *recollection*. This is something that happened in his past, that he feels guilty/ashamed of (or at the very least moved/haunted by). Time has passed, and these are either the details that stood out to him and remained stuck in his memories, or he's still trying to defend himself in a way (I was unfeeling, but she was careless you see. She fell slow, no way she could have been hurt; but, still, there was a kindness in the rickshaw driver that was not in me). It reminds me of people who apologise and then say 'but' - 'I'm sorry I broke your watch, but you shouldn't have left it there'. It's an *almost* moment of accountability - there's some acceptance of responsibility, but no desire to take on the full amount, because without some blame-shifting the shame and guilt upon self-reflection is too heavy to bear. Blame shared is guilt halved. And he's still trying to protect himself all these years after (as he recounts the incident), even as he tries to atone.
So interesting! Is the present-tense narrator protecting his ego, or is his past self doing so - or both to varying degrees?
I read two different perspectives here – the opening and ending as the “now” perspective (present tense), and the past-tense action of the story as largely re-entering the “then” perspective. The opening, in my reading, had a distancing effect; I came into the “then” perspective feeling cautious, then skeptical. His callousness and defensiveness during the incident came across as an unflinching depiction of the man he used to be (this earned my trust in the narrator, willing to depict this unflattering side of himself). By the end, it seems the man he once was (that “small self under my fur-lined gown”) is still part of him, but a part he’s now aware of and trying to reform, with courage and hope that might be possible.
I’m inclined to believe the present-tense narrator. I think you’re right he’s inclined to protect himself, but he’s working against that inclination by telling this story – however distressing it is to face what he’s done, he faces it here. And perhaps that’s why those last lines land for me, “giving me fresh courage and hope” that his transformation (and our own) is possible.
I read it a little differently to you, I think. For me, it is all a recollection. The middle part has the fiction of being in the present-tense because the narrator focuses on what happened and what he did/said/thought then (without directly clarifying what he thinks now), but in reality it is all a recollection - all seen through the lens of time passed.
I think all first person narrators are inherently biased and unreliable - it is the human condition to see what we want to see, what we are drawn to, and to interpret it in our own unique way - but I think the recollection aspect of this story applied another layer of unreliability. Not only are we seeing it from someone's unique and subjective perspective, we are seeing it long after the actual incident took place - and for me it feels as though a revision of history is taking place (consciously in parts, perhaps unconsciously in others).
And so, for me, the interesting questions are around how does he revise this history? What does he concede? (The rickshaw man gently helped the old woman, and did not hesitate for a minute - things that would be difficult to remember (since they are not concrete details, but more feelings or a sense of things) but that also put the contrast with his own actions and thoughts in a shameful light) What does he maintain? (I had seen how slowly she fell, she had left without warning, was sure she could not be hurt - the key facts of the case, your honour - he does not entertain the idea that he could have been wrong in these matters that seem to absolve him a little of his shame, if only because the blame for the incident lies elsewhere, and because the overall consequence was not that big).
Thanks so much for sharing and expanding on your reading! Hearing each other’s perspectives like this can be so helpful – my ideas are getting clarified in our dialogue, so thank you Mikhaeyla!
I totally agree with the unreliability of recollection; the driving force of felt truth rather than factual truth comes home for me with that surreal moment – the rickshaw driver becoming larger than himself, the narrator small and insulated within his furs – which felt like it could be a distortion of memory, akin to the metaphor of dreams. This line, too, describing the memory as “often more vivid than in actual life” signals that there’s a space between what happened and his recounting of it.
But I find myself willing to go along with the narrator’s felt truth. I started off annoyed with the narrator – the moralistic feeling in the prelude put me on guard – but by the very end, I felt something had happened. I felt the “fresh courage and hope” as a sense of release and expansion. I didn’t doubt it, as I had doubted what came before. I believed he was truly grappling with that small/protective ego part of himself, and there was hope. From being “afraid” to turn his thoughts on himself, he “tries” to do so – and we see him trying through the act of telling this story. This seems significant to me.
But you’re right there’s a lot unsaid. He doesn’t tell us what he has learned from the incident; we have to infer it through how he frames the incident (prelude and ending), and how he tells the story. I read intentionality in small gestures like saying, “I did not think the old woman was hurt” (rather than “the old woman wasn’t hurt”); it seems the present narrator may not agree with his past perspective, and is signalling to his audience to treat it as a perspective, not the truth. I also don’t think the present-tense narrator now believes this: “She must be pretending, which was disgusting…” or “the rickshaw man had asked for trouble” – his view of these other characters seems to change (he now seems to see something admirable in the rickshaw man’s actions, which also suggests a kinder view of the woman). These are just a few places where there seems to be a gap between the “I” of the narrator and the “I” of the past.
The space between these two I’s is what’s interesting for me. That’s where the story happens, where the transformation is (or isn’t).
I love the connection you make between that surreal moment and 'distortion of memory' - that rings very true to me. And I agree, his thoughts in the present tense at the end ('even now') seem a more truthful and honest account than perhaps what went before (in the same way that "I feel this now" seems more accurate and honest, than "I felt that way so many years ago" (which would (rightly) be regarded with some skepticism given the distortion of memory and revision of history).
I like how you picked up on the narrator's insertion of himself into the story at times that signals his own acceptance of unreliable narration ('I did not think the old woman was hurt') - I'd missed that on my read-through - the difference between what is presented as fact, and what he admits is conjecture. It's a nice lens to use when re-reading.
(And I agree - conversations like this help to clarify and deepen our own understanding and reaction to the text - so, thanks to you also!)
Very much this! The narrator even admits as much: "Even now, this incident keeps coming back to me. It keeps distressing me and *makes me try to think about myself*". They're still blame-shifting, still resistant to the idea of examining their own behaviours and complicity (I'm using 'their' because I have been playing a game of 'what if' with this story and casting the narrator as alternately a white man and/or a woman to see how that changes how I see the dynamics of the story).
Yes!
Rather than spin, I would say perspective. When we tell our stories, I think we tell them thinking of them as factual when we are actually just telling how we experienced them. Someone might say someone was "yelling" at them, and if I saw the incident, I would not hear yelling, but I might hear a critical remark. The person who tells their story isn't lying in my opinion. They are trying to tell their experience. I think the narrator in this story is speaking his experience throughout -- just as we all do. I don't think the facts are as important in understanding each other as how we experience the facts. A great example is how we all are having our experiences of this story.
Yes - “perspective” is perfect. Inadvertent or innate spin.
Yes, our emotional truth of an experience.
I really like your take, Bryn. This disposition seems to be there from even the first paragraph, when the narrator refers to himself as "ill tempered" and "misanthropic." This encourages me to read what follows as rooted in his "spin." I teach filmmakers. Just this week we were looking at work and plucking from it evidence of character traits and then traits driving story events --- hadn't occurred to me to see "The Incident" through this lens until I read your post --- traits are there from the get-go --- and this character is, among other things, judgmental -- of himself and others -- which seems to be both his curse and blessing.
Bryn, Yes. That’s how I see it. To see spin, just look at the news and media. Intense coaching of the facts.
Thanks for engaging on this. I have never taken a writing course and I now realize that the "spin" that is referred to by George and others is different than my experience with the use of that word. I have heard "spin" mean a purposely biased take on the facts, i.e. political spin. I see here that "spin" in this context is more like perspective and "coaching" is just noticing that. At least I think that's what's happening.
OK here's my take! Go easy on me!
The first two thirds of the story are full of coaching - facts of this time and place, these little details are given this moral weight by the narrator - so we see this commonplace world where his (and by extension, our) petty judgement, small mindedness and self importance, overshadow everything.
Then the paragraph that starts "Suddenly..." does a lot of work. It upends his reality with a kind of divine experience. Something shifts “suddenly” - in an “instant”. The imagery becomes totally surreal: as the driver moves toward doing the right thing, the better thing, he becomes literally bigger, more powerful - he “looms” over the shrinking narrator. The narrator feels at the same time a claustrophobic, stifling “pressure” - he is overwhelmed, almost “overpowered” by what he is experiencing.
The sudden use of surreal imagery in this paragraph morphs the everyday into an almost supernatural/spiritual experience. A great stillness that descends: the narrator’s “vitality is sapped”, he sits “motionless”. Time seems to stop: the action slows right down. There is this abrupt shift - literally mid sentence - back to reality: “My vitality seemed sapped as I sat there motionless, my mind a blank, ...→ until a policeman came out. Then I got down from the rickshaw.” …this shift keeps us unsettled, unsteady. The language works to pull us back into that still place - “the wind had dropped”... it was “still quiet”.
We are left to feel the moral/emotional shockwaves reverberating. Someone else also pointed out that from here on, the story is light on coaching - there’s just this rattled guy, looping back over it, trying and not quite succeeding to make sense of what he experienced. There’s a feeling that there’s some divine message he is missing: this event is intentionally “teaching” him, “urging” him, “giving” him a sense of something larger.
Thanks for this exercise! Enjoyed letting my initial reading percolate, coming back and rereading - paying close attention to the deliberate phrasing and structure.
I didn't notice this! Thanks for sharing. That is a powerful way of seeing the story, and yes, it does seem there is a lot of space given for "moral/emotional shockwaves reverberating." I'm enriched by how you noticed and articulated that.
For my first reading of this story, I printed a copy, underlined passages, and made tons of scribbles and notes in the margins. This culminated with me writing “unreliable narrator” in big letter across the top, right above the title.
I agree that on first read, you don’t question it too much. You are taking in the story at face value. Once you sit with it a while and visit again (and again) you start thinking, “Wait a minute…”
I even think the narrator is doing this sort of “coaching” in the introduction. He claims the “so-called affairs of state” are the cause of his ill temper and misanthropy. He’s definitely not responsible for acting that way! It’s not his fault! (At least according to him.)
In my opinion he seems reliable because he lets us see his unreliability, if that makes sense. He seems to be presenting the incident as he experienced it (with his selfish biases) but then, in the end, disclosing that he has changed, that he is inspired by the driver.
I see what you are saying, but to me his biases weren’t obvious when I began this exercise. The first couple times I read it I took the story at face value - “there was an incident and here is how it happened.” It wasn’t until I spent more time thinking about it that I realized the perspective we were getting was somewhat misleading.
And I don’t think he is an unreliable narrator in the extreme sense of things, where you find out at the end it’s all a big, dramatic deception. I think for me it helped to think of him as an unreliable narrator in the sense that I cannot trust his perspective entirely and he is putting a clear spin on things - as many of us do in many situations all the time!
But is that a change in how he behaves?
Is it the 'Narrator' or the 'Writer through the Narrator' who, may be, is doing the coaching which, may be, happening?
I'm, 'frankly speaking' undecided. What do you, and others, think Sara?
Hmm. I’d say both, but mostly the narrator, because I do believe his version of the truth is just that - his version, and there are clues all along letting us know that.
I think the writer, in adding them has created a more believable character, because none of us are one dimensional, and none of us are all truth or all lies… there is always a little of one diluting the other.
This story would be cloying and a moralistic slog if there wasn’t some of that tension.
"This story would be cloying and a moralistic slog if there wasn't some of that tention." I agree. This point alone is enough to prod us to find and explore the other layers.
The wind seems to be important in the story. Adding a layer under the narrative.
"a bitter north wind was blowing"
"the wind dropped a little"
"unbuttoned and fluttering in the wind"
"because of the wind"
Yes: a great example of a writer introducing an element and then tending to it (changing it) to produce a feeling of motion & development. Same idea as with the laundry on the line in “Master and Man.”
Oh, interesting. I saw the wind as a metaphor - when it's blowing/blustering there's a moral corruptness(? or at least ambiguity) in the narrator, but when there's no wind and it's still, there's greater moral clarity. I could be well off the track here, but that's what struck me.
That's what I thought. I saw the wind as a manifestation of the narrator's "ill-temper".
Yes! For me, the wind whips up when the action is unfolding, and drops into stillness when it's time for a reckoning. The narrator feels the stillness, and it makes him uneasy. What is being expected of him? In those moments, he comes close to realising something but ultimately fails to see what the moment is asking of him. And that haunts him...
I'm glad you raised this -- I was struck by the wind and its effect on the road and the characters -- how odd that the wind blew away all "the loose dust," "leaving the roadway clean" (why clean? wasn't there also dust upwind?) -- and yet the retreating figure of the rickshaw man is "dusty," suggesting whatever the wind was blowing away still stuck to him. Similarly, the wind is cold but the woman's jacket is open. It's as if the action of the wind doesn't affect them, only the narrator.
Living in an area (the High Plains of Texas) where wind can be punishing, I took the focus on wind as a difficulty that stands as a metaphor in how difficult the drive is to change by being empathetic like the driver.
I feel like we're both circling the same concept here. Would you mind expanding on your point a little? Do you mean that when the wind is high, the narrator has difficulty with empathy, but when the wind dies down they're more open to the idea of change?
Asha, what I meant is that the miserable weather conditions made the narrator more determined to get to where he needed to go that day for his physical comfort. He is more concerned about getting to his tasks than doing anything else.
Good experience rereading the story to find the places where the narrator is shaping or coaching the reader to experience the work in a particular way. In addition, I compared two translations to see how these phrases may be worded differently as a few other Story Club members mentioned. Below are some of the more notable differences I found between the translation by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1960, 1972 that George gave us for this exercise vs Julia Lovell, Penguin Classics, London 2009.
Title: An Incident (Yang & Yang) vs A Minor Incident (Lovell)
so-called affairs of state vs matters of national importance
one incident vs one minor incident: a tiny thing
winter of 1917 vs winter of 1917-the sixth year of our new Republic
entangled in our rickshaw vs someone caught on the handlebar of the rickshaw
a bad fall and seriously injured vs somersaulted over the bar and cracked her head open
resented the officiousness vs irritation…getting needlessly involved
she must be pretending which was disgusting vs You phoney…no one ever came to harm going down as slowly as that
exerting pressure on me…overpower the small self under my fur-lined gown vs pressing out the petty selfishness concealed beneath my fur coat
military and political affairs of those years vs recent political or military achievements
the classics I read in my childhood vs Confucian primers that tormented my boyhood
teaching me shame vs shaming me
Nan, that is such a good lesson on the power of words. Thank you
Thanks, Nan!
It’s so interesting to see the ways in which some of the “coaching” phrases George highlights change in Lovell’s translation, and then notice how such minor differences can, in aggregate, almost subconsciously alter the mental image we create of a character.
When you read Lovell’s translation, did you find the narrator any more or less reliable?
Yes, seemed more content regarding character development. Tried to find a translation by William Lyell but no luck for a pdf version. Will update if I get one.
I like and value your observations in this post Nan. As much as the Narrator in the story each of the English language Translators of the story are in my opinion, based on the kind of forensic word selections and word string comparisons that you offer for our consideration, also endeavouring to shape or coach we readers to experience the work in a particular way.
Genial provocation. Thank you.
I'm with everyone else and George on this - I didn't notice the coaching phrases on the first read through. On the second, much closer read I did begin to see them and begin to doubt the narrator's account. One example that stands out to me is this line:
"He paid no attention, however - perhaps he had not heard - for he set down the shafts, and gently helped the old woman to get up."
That little justification - "perhaps he had not heard" - is fascinating. I would argue it shows his self-importance. Obviously the rickshaw man not hearing the narrator's direction is the only reason he continues to help the woman. The narrator has trouble conceiving of a person who would do the right thing even at the personal cost of losing a paying customer and potentially getting in trouble with the police. The narrator is the center of his own universe. It's no wonder such a small - even mundane - act of kindness cracks open his worldview.
I was also caught by "perhaps he had not heard." Such a casual little interjection, and it says so much about the narrator.
For me, this was the crux of the story. Somehow it encapsulates the class issues, narrator presumptions, and the path dividing between the rickshaw driver’s compassion and the narrators ambivalence in one phrase. It is the one statement in the story that really stood out to me. It’s the moral crossroads as well. The driver, in my mind, not only heard but ignored this more important man to attend to what his compass required of him. I loved this.
This was my reaction too. Its a version of shouting, "Somebody do something," when they could be doing something. The narrator can't see himself in the story.
Yes! The same line stuck out for me too. In fact, my notes read: 'This reads to me as "he couldn't possibly be ignoring me. Perhaps he didn't hear."' It's such a striking use of an aside.
Yes! So true.
Another take on this… could “perhaps he had not heard” be a turning point for the narrator? If he were still the ill-tempered misanthrope, wouldn’t he raise his voice to be heard (and obeyed)? Continuing with “gently helped” feels an important shift to me.
You're right. Noticing he was gentle was a striking shift for this narrator... Required some (surprising) humanity, for him.
Things I noticed that I want to ruminate on: the lack of impression the past six years have left compared to the deep impression of this one moment.
All of his descriptions are bleak - the weather for one “bitter cold.” His view of his work - that it’s simply “to make a living.” His description of the woman are bleak in a sense too, white streaks, ragged clothes. But he also assigns a morality to his view of her and her assumed motivations.
His mention that there are no witnesses… but he forgets that he, himself, is a witness. And he continues to witness this event in his memory in to the future.
That he doesn’t want to be held up from getting to a job he is tired of - one that gives him an “ill temper”
His view of the driver getting larger in the distance and the growing pressure he felt the further the driver was into the act of kindness. As the driver becomes larger, the narrator describes himself as small.
After the encounter with the policeman, and the copper coins, he is afraid to self-evaluate… to face himself as he is.
And, of course, his thoughts in the conclusion, this is where I overlooked a lot in my harsher judgment of him. This incident continues to make him look inward. He wants to be a better man. I think he remains tethered to this story because it’s become his moral compass. A vivid reminder to acknowledge shame and attempt reform. He tells us, himself, that he is hopeful. But I judged him as hopeless, initially. My initial thoughts were about the capacity for good and harm. But I made the driver and the narrator to represent those choices (one to do good and one to, well, not do good. But what I didn’t notice was that battle of choice within the narrator, himself. He’s shamed by an act of kindness, but the existence of the shame gives him hope and courage for reform. In the end, it is both honest and optimistic.
From bleak existence to courage and hope.
"The Incident" strongly reminded me in particular of Chekhov's short story "The Seizure" about three students out on the town. Again I recognise, I raise the Lu Hsün and Chekhov link because within the short stories and the plays Chekhov uses this device in a way which does not look unduly patronising or didactic! Lu Hsün was a later special discovery for me some years ago, ( You'll also find his name under an alternate romanisation of Lu Xun. Might I commend to your attention his collection of prose poems "Wild Grass (Yecao, Weeds)") Those coaching words, are used by both writers, to subtly open the individual experience of the reader and extend across the barriers of culture and time. Reminds me, at the other end of short story reading, of a lovely quote from Proust in "Le temps retrouvé" - "en réalité chaque lecteur est, quand il lit, le propre lecteur de soi même" - "in reality, each reader is, when they read, the reader of themselves", ( my english rendering). He seeks to do something similar for/to the reader. It certainly helps that the skill of the author, in revealing the hidden to the reader by techniques such as these coaching words is deeply relevant in this "trajectory altering" outcome. Thank you George for this wonderful Story Club sub stack.