Dissecting "Season to Taste"
March 21, 2001
6:35 a.m.
A few days back, I posted an entry about how I believe a writer should know why something works when they're done reading it. Several people commented on that piece, both on the sidebar, and in my e-mail. Among the sidebar comments was one that suggested they had enjoyed Robert Reed's "Season to Taste," (in April's issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction but hadn't been able to figure out how it worked. I read the piece shortly thereafter, and found it disturbingly delightful, if such a thing is possible. And I thought: "You know, Ron, maybe it's time you put up or shut up." So, I've undertaken to write an analysis as to why the story works for me. It's an analysis that mixes mechanical discourse with basic thoughts of imagination and slight-of-hand. You may or may not agree with all of it, and who knows whether I've got it "right" (as in who can tell if Robert Reed actually meant these things to happen--I'm always amazed to hear what people think about my own stuff, so why do I think my own thoughts would match Mr. Reeds), but it's how I see the thing hanging together. Once I was done, I figured I would post it here to both provide discussion fodder, and to let folks see how one writer's mind operates on a story. I should note that I dropped Robert a note and asked if he was comfortable with me doing this with his work, and he quite graciously said I should go ahead. I don't want anyone thinking I'm talking behind anyone's back, you know? Given all this, I must now warn you that I discuss a lot of the details of the story here, but maybe not enough to be able to understand it all if you haven't read the piece. For those of you from Lexington, this is another way of saying it might be a good idea to read the story first (insider UL/UK joke there, folks). In other words, don't read further if you don't want to know a bit about the tale. The rest of you can scroll down to see what I thought. I mean it. I'm going to talk about the story. Run away if you've not read the story and want to experience it fresh. I really mean it. Okay. Enough warning. "Season to Taste" is an interesting story--one that's fascinating on first read, but so delicately plotted and indirect that it's a bit difficult to see exactly what is going on within it. For me, the challenge in determining how things like this work is to figure out what the primary message is first, then work backward. So, what is the story's message? As soon as you start with this question, the story's complexity is immediately obvious. What is its message? Is it that we all hold secrets? Is it that we can never truly know another human being? Is it that we accept other human beings on limited information? Is it that we each discard reality when it is in our best interest? What? These all work--which is the charm of the piece, I suppose. For me, the message is that we each get to choose how to live or lives, and who to share it with. Now, let's look at how we might apply that to the story. Specifically, let's look at how Robert Reed builds it. First, here's the story boiled down to a couple sentences--which, like describing basketball as ten sweaty guys chasing a bouncing ball and trying to put it in hole, always feels terrible--but what the heck: Chester lived a busy life that included doing things he was ashamed of until he was 45 or so, then married a woman who he loved and who loved him. Their union brought him peace and confidence for the next twenty years until he found that his wife, too, had done things that she was ashamed of. These things scared him, but he decided that life with her was good, and that he didn't really understand the bad things she had done, and that she had never shown him she was a bad person. So he forgave her past and cherished the future they had remaining. And that's it. So, what makes this story work? After all, even Robert Reed wouldn't have sold the thing if he had written that single paragraph, right? So what magic did Robert Reed bring to this story that made his telling so successful? Two words: Mechanics, and Imagination. Let's look at where he started. He did not start by saying Chester was late to marry, or that he had secrets, or anywhere like that. Instead, he started when things get interesting. He started when Chester finds his wife's dark secret. Of course, Chester doesn't yet know it's his wife's secret, but it is. The first sentence also tells us something important about the story's worldview. "It was an accident, coming across that little recipe box." Just as it was an accident that the main character found his wife so late in life (we might assume), and that it was an accident that she left the box where he could find it. Or was it? Secrets, you see have a way of wriggling to the surface over time, you know? See what can be done with a first sentence? See how delicate that first sentence is? See how this first sentence says that Robert Reed knows what his story is about? You don't get this on first read. This type of revelation is why I wrote the entry I mentioned previously. Anyway, Reed then goes on to use the rest of the first page to tell us a bit about Chester and his relationship to the world (which happens to include his wife--remember, setting's purpose is to make the story real ... we need to see the story against a full canvas for it to work right, especially this story, which is one of existential proportion--characterization's purpose is to provide proper motivation to validate the character's action [he said, pompously]). In this first page we find that Chester is an open man in that he invites a stranger to his house with a "sure, come on over." We see that his house is in a chaotic order with boxes piled up and objects that surprise him as they appear, even though he once knew they were there to begin with. All of this is a finely drawn statement of what we can expect the story to go, but again, we don't know this is the case. The reader just knows they're getting something interesting. Finally, we find that Chester relies on Evelyn to give his life direction. We know this because Evelyn is going to be the one to remind him that he's already sold the camera he was originally looking for when he found the box. This last is an important thing. The fact that Chester has given Evelyn such a position in his life is proof of his love for her, and her love for him. It is proof of their relationship, and speaks to an easy communication between them that has built through years of commitment, and, since the ultimate choice that Chester is going to face in the end has to do with continuing this relationship or not, this is the place where the stakes are first set on the table. In hard story lingo, I would suggest that this is the beginning of the problem statement even though Chester doesn't see it as such (and, therefore, I would point to this as an example of how delicately Reed has scattered the lattice of this story. This is delicate plot work, and is glorious to see when you can yank it out into the light). Then, Reed shows us the secret Evelyn has been hiding in her past. We do not, of course, know that the recipe box is hers. In fact, Reed does a great job showing Evelyn lying about it. She is convincing and real, so convincing that I don't think many readers would have any real clue that the box was hers unless they were truly paranoid or sensitive. I should note that the audacity of the recipes itself performs a great service to the story at this point. The sheer content of the words, the grisly images behind the recipes themselves draw attention away from the work Reed is doing with the characters. Look at it, okay? Read that scene three times, slowly. Look what actions he's taking with Evelyn to tip off her hand. See what he's doing with Chester to make him the everyday man, feeling the horror that anyone might have over the ideas in the box and being oblivious to the idea that this ugly secret could have a place inside his own home. This is first class work, folks. There's a reason I'm rapidly becoming a Reed aficionado. After the break the story moves into the realm of Chester trying to bring sanity to the situation. He goes to look for the origin of the recipe box because he's morbidly curious. But we are tipped off that something important is going on here because Evelyn decides to come with him, despite the fact that she doesn't usually go to that part of town. Again, Reed creates a diversion for this truth in the story, though. We wonder what Evelyn is up to, but shelve that question without great pain because we see that Chester hasn't told her exactly what he's up to, either. Since he hides the fact that he's looking for the typewriter that typed the recipes, we focus on this question instead of why Evelyn is there. We want to know what Chester's got up his sleeve. We want to know what made him think he knew where the box came from, what he's going to find, and how he's going to get to the root of the situation. At this point, the reader doesn't know anything about the real goings on of the story, but all the pieces are falling into place. Chester finds a man at the place where he thinks he bought the box from, and he presses himself into a situation where he's investigating a pair of typewriters that he's hoping to find might have typed the recipes. Reed foreshadows the fact that the man doesn't know much about Chester's recipe box by the bit about Hemingway (I'll admit I'm stretching in thinking Reed did that on purpose ... it could just be a fluke of imagination that I'm running away with ... you know, one of those things that works in some kismet sort of fashion). With a simple miscommunication, Reed puts Chester in a position where Evelyn has to choose to help him, and in doing so, she reveals her terrible secret to him. This works because we've seen what their relationship is. It s reasonable to assume that Evelyn would give up such secrets at this stage of their lives. It completely clicks into place as she's talking to Chester in the car as they drive away. They've had a great twenty years. They love each other, and both have warts down deep they're afraid to reveal. This works because it's true of all of us. Human beings have regrets that we can't ever take then back. They are part of us. The dialog that Evelyn speaks is vital to this story working in the way Reed has laid it out, just as it's vital that Evelyn actually choose to save the love of her life despite what she revealed. In fact, thinking about it, the reality of the matter is that she didn't have to reveal her secret totally to Chester. She could have tried to just break things up, and continue to suppress the depths of her past life. But if she hadn't exposed herself Chester would have wondered, and it would have festered in him, and probably eventually poisoned his relationship with her. And so, she did reveal her secret totally. Maybe at some deep level, (and I'm really going on a tangent, but that's why this story works on so many levels ... readers can go off like this when it works) she actually wanted to reveal herself because she wanted her husband to know her fully, because she wanted his acceptance of who she was. Can you see the leverage that this part of the story has? Can you see how if you change Evelyn's reaction here, that the rest of the story has to change, too--and that the entire message of the thing would then be redirected? Anyway. Reed has Evelyn lay herself on the line. And Chester faces the dilemma that was planted back there in the first paragraph. He must choose to love his wife for who she is, or leave her and live on his own--accept that she's really not the same person she was, or hold her past in judgment. The bit with her getting out of the car is nice mechanical touch to make the situation concrete in the reader's mind, one a bit more blatant than the softer touches Reed's using in other areas of the story--and perhaps welcomed because of it. Chester chooses to hold onto his wife. The last two or three sentences, of course, drives the nail to the story home in that they serve to both define Chester's decision, and give us insight into the way the world works. And it is this bit--this commentary on how it is that life works--that we carry away with us as we go through the rest of our day. And that is that. My thoughts on "Season to Taste" are complete.   Now, the real question is what can we take from this type of study and apply to our own work? Is there a method I use to do this? Why, yes, there is. I plant my seat in a chair, and I stare at the monitor, and I let my brain soak into the story, and I let this lesson come up in my work naturally ... ... which is what I think I'll go do right now. Have a great day.  A Clear Case of "Those Who Can't, Talk About it," eh? Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"It's someone's insanity," Evelyn whispered. "Leave it alone." Robert Reed "Season to Taste" F&SF April 2001 |
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