GLENN GOULD by Lydia Davis

The writer reveals how the protagonist leads her life: she likes to watch "Mary Tyer Moore Show," which both her friend, Mitich, and a musician Glenn Gould happen to like. She loves to enter another city in the show. She wants to “watch another half hour, and another and another” probably to escaping from the reality, where she and her husband have nothing particular to talk about together.

The story has given me a new perspective in writing fictions. This story does not have a plot but gives the reader the same feelings he or she gets after reading a good short story. It is a surprising discovery that a good fiction does not necessarily need a plot.

SYMBOLS AND SIGNS by Vladimir Nabokov

I was amazed at the excellent foreshadowing. An old couple visit a sanitarium where their son is hospitalized. The nurse says, “He has again attempted to take his life.” Not being able to meet their son, they return home disappointed. The writer reveals then how their son became mentally deranged.

At the end of the story, a telephone rings at night, “at an unusual hour for it to ring.” The wife replies, “You have a wrong number.” The telephone rings the second time. It is again a wrong number. But, just when the husband was about to eat fruit jellies, a birthday present for their son, the telephone rings. And the story ends.

The reader has to guess whether the nurse called them to inform them of their son’s suicide. The story abruptly ends by giving an impact to the reader.