"You're Not Eating Your Olive"
James Tate, Lydia Davis, and Kafka have entered the chat
For this week’s essay, I’m curating three short texts (by James Tate, Lydia Davis, and Kafka) with questions for reflection (see below).
Snake-Charming Secrets of the Indian Subcontinent
by James Tate
I was seated at the bar having my usual
five o’clock cocktail, a martini. It had been
a hellish day at the office and I was trying to
shake off some of the tension. “Can I have your
olive?” the stranger sitting next to me asked.
“Hell, no,” I answered testily. “Well, then, can
I have a sip, I’ve never tasted a martini.”
“Get your own,” I said. That shut him up. I
went back to my thoughts. The boss was driving
me too hard, maybe looking for an excuse to
let me go. I wouldn’t be the first. I stared
into the mirror behind the bar. The man next
to me looked truly wretched. “What’s your
problem, pal?” I said to him. “You’re not
eating your olive,” he said.
The Mice by Lydia Davis
Mice live in our walls but do not trouble our kitchen. We are pleased but cannot understand why they do not come into our kitchen where we have traps set, as they come into the kitchens of our neighbors. Although we are pleased, we are also upset, because the mice behave as though there were something wrong with our kitchen. What makes this even more puzzling is that our house is much less tidy than the houses of our neighbors. There is more food lying about in our kitchen, more crumbs on the counters and filthy scraps of onion kicked against the base of the cabinets. In fact, there is so much loose food in the kitchen I can only think the mice themselves are defeated by it. In a tidy kitchen, it is a challenge for them to find enough food night after night to survive until spring. They patiently hunt and nibble hour after hour until they are satisfied. In our kitchen, however, they are faced with something so out of proportion to their experience that they cannot deal with it. They might venture out a few steps, but soon the overwhelming sights and smells drive them back into their holes, uncomfortable and embarrassed at not being able to scavenge as they should.
The Cares of a Family Man
By Kafka
Some say the word Odradek is of Slavonic origin, and try to account for it on that basis. Others again believe it to be of German origin, only influenced by Slavonic. The uncertainty of both interpretations allows one to assume with justice that neither is accurate, especially as neither of them provides an intelligent meaning of the word. No one, of course, would occupy himself with such studies if there were not a creature called Odradek. At first glance it looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread, and indeed it does seem to have thread wound upon it; to be sure, they are only old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together, of the most varied sorts and colors. But it is not only a spool, for a small wooden crossbar sticks out of the middle of the star, and another small rod is joined to that at a right angle. By means of this latter rod on one side and one of the points of the star on the other, the whole thing can stand upright as if on two legs. One is tempted to believe that the creature once had some sort of intelligible shape and is now only a broken-down remnant. Yet this does not seem to be the case; at least there is no sign of it; nowhere is there an unfinished or unbroken surface to suggest anything of the kind; the whole thing looks senseless enough, but in its own way perfectly finished. In any case, closer scrutiny is impossible, since Odradek is extraordinarily nimble and can never be laid hold of. He lurks by turns in the garret, the stairway, the lobbies, the entrance hall. Often for months on end he is not to be seen; then he has presumably moved into other houses; but he always comes faithfully back to our house again. Many a time when you go out of the door and he happens just to be leaning directly beneath you against the banisters you feel inclined to speak to him. Of course, you put no difficult questions to him, you treat him--he is so diminutive that you cannot help it--rather like a child. "Well, what's your name?" you ask him. "Odradek," he says. "And where do you live?" "No fixed abode," he says and laughs; but it is only the kind of laughter that has no lungs behind it. It sounds rather like the rustling of fallen leaves. And that is usually the end of the conversation. Even these answers are not always forthcoming; often he stays mute for a long time, as wooden as his appearance. I ask myself, to no purpose, what is likely to happen to him? Can he possibly die? Anything that dies has had some kind of aim in life, some kind of activity, which has worn out; but that does not apply to Odradek. Am I to suppose, then, that he will always be rolling down the stairs, with ends of thread trailing after him, right before the feet of my children, and my children's children? He does no harm to anyone that one can see; but the idea that he is likely to survive me I find almost painful.
What do these stories have in common?
What do we learn about the narrators’ personalities from their reactions to a stranger at the bar, mice, and a makeshift junk-toy, respectively?
When and why is the misery of others enviable? How do the desires of others shape our own?
Why does society need beings who fail to register or obey standard social norms?
What is the cure for solipsism?
Are we—the readers—somehow like the man at the bar, mice, Odradek?
P.S.—Here’s my podcast conversation with Rabbi Ari Lamm on theology, self-deception, and the philosophy of interpretation.