WHY DON’T YOU DANCE? by Raymond Carver

○A middle-aged man sells his furniture in his yard. A girl and a boy, probably newly married, come to the yard, sample it, and buy some including an old record player and records. Later she talks about the man to her friends. 　　○At the end of the story, Cover writes: “She kept talking. She told everyone. There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out. After a time, she quit trying.” 　　○At first, I did not understand the meaning of the ending. After studying Carver’s minimalism, I interpret that she realizes the man’s feeling, his sorrow, and his life. She empathizes with him. That’s why “she quit trying.” While she was talking about him making fun of him, sympathy for him overwhelms her. 　　○The story goes:　“I hope you like your bed, he said.” 　　○The bed symbolizes a lot of things shared with his (probably divorced) wife. The girl realizes his lonely life. That’s why “she closed her eyes and opened her eyes. She pushed her face into the man’s shoulder. She pulled the man closer. “You must be desperate or something,” she said.” 　　 ○She uses “desperate” (actuated by a feeling of hopelessness—Random House Dictionary) twice. When she said it first time, it meant something superficial, but when she said it the second time, she knew the real meaning of his “desperate” feeling.

COLETTE by Vladimir Nabokov

1. The description of the wire movement seen from the compartment of Nord Express is excellent: 　　“The door of the compartment was open and I could see the corridor window, where the wires—six thin black wires—were doing their best to slant up, to ascend skyward, despite the lightning blows dealt them by one telegraph pole after another; but just as all six, in a triumphant swoop of pathetic elation, were about to reach the top of the window, a particularly vicious blow would bring them down, as low as they had ever been, and they would have to start all over again.” How vivid, minute, precise, elaborate, and humorous the description. 2. The scene near the end is poetic: 　　“I try again to recall the name of Colette’s dog—and, sure enough, along those remote beaches, over the glossy evening sands of the past, where each footprint slowly fills up with sunset water, here it comes, here it comes, echoing and vibrating: Floss, Floss, Floss!” 3.　　“I had a gold coin that I assumed would pay for our elopement. Where did I want to take her? Spain? America?” 　　How skillfully the writer describes what a ten-year-old boy thinks! He makes the reader go back to his childhood days. He succeeds in writing “Collette” from a little boy’s viewpoint. Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899-1977) was a multilingual Russian novelist, poet and short story writer.