Immature parents and adult children
Powder, a short story by Tobias Wolff
Click on the photo to read the complete story.
This one is a killer by one of the masters of the short story. Its narrator is a boy who’s gone skiing with his estranged father. You know immediately why his parents have split up—the father is the fun, irresponsible sort who’s always screwing up. The father is the child, the boy the adult who worries about stuff like getting home on time. You know, too, that the boy thinks his father is cool but also suspects he’s a loser. The short sentences are as stark as the landscape they find themselves marooned in, and Wolff’s prose so accurate it’s like open-heart surgery. Powder is sad but also strangely happy. The whole time I was copying it I kept thinking how tough it is to be a man.
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February 20th, 2010 at 12:30
“The whole time I was copying it I kept thinking how tough it is to be a man.”
Well said. Especially in this era of political correctness. E.g. , Men are being accused of all sorts of sexual harassment when all we want to do is the old fashioned way of courtship (letters, “paramdam, tingin-tingin”).
I think when a woman doesn’t like a man, she’d hurl the expletive “sexual harassment.” Ouch!
February 22nd, 2010 at 14:50
In this age of political correctness, I think men still have the upperhand in the field of courtship. After all, they still have the choice of who to court. A great majority of women of this generation still don’t have the guts to initiate the act. If nobody courts them, they will be the one questioned. As if it’s a fault on their part. If they try and court a guy, they’ll easily be labelled as floozy. Culture is so hard to go against. Btw, I’m male.