Click Beetles etc

I too think beswetherick <http://www.abctales.com/members/d.beswetherick> deserves a clap for that... I am hooked on reading many of the writers at ABCTales, cherried and uncherried ones!

That's very poetic writing, and very flowing. The other thing I like about her writing is that she puts you right there, it's like the reader is observing the events like a ghost or an invisible entity.

Blimey i thought Bes was a bloke.

I am.

Thanks to anyone who bothers to read my stuff. It means a lot to me.

I'm sorry for referring to you as a "she." I sincerely apologize. I love your simile, "smiling like a satisfied scientist." That was a very satisfying line especially when the insects are performing gymnastic feats.

Liana, what was it about the story that made you want to cry. For me, the story built up a sense of optimism, even buoyant happiness. I could see these marvelous animals and insects doing such amazing things, and the little children were being so smug with each other except for Daniel.

Click Beetles to me is a triumph of innocence and purity over despair... the part where the small child is enchanted with the creatures under the stone really gets to me. Maybe I am just a big softy after all?

Bes' writings can be very tender, very funny, very weird, occasionally very crude and the fact that it's not obvious he's a guy is a big plus point. "Click Beetles" should surely find a place in, say, the women's magazine market on account of its feelgood factor - hope that doesn't sound condescending, I'm just thinking of outlets and they often print good stuff though they tend to play safe with established names. [%sig%]

Some of d.bes's stories would work well on Radio 4, especially Click Beetles I think. Not only is it a good story, with hope, but it's got lashings of landscape too. [%sig%]

I think this made a few old crusties shed a few tears, if i remember correctly.

Neil, I agree, and if I may even go a bit further, just because d. beswetherick is the author, it does not mean that he is the narrator. He could be assuming the persona of a reflective and enchanted, although somewhat annoyed, eavesdropper in telling his tale. I don't think I have to assume that d. beswetherick is the person whose voice I hear in the story, just as in a Sylvia Plath poem, you don't have to assume that the poem is about Sylvia Plath... As in Catcher in the Rye also, it's Holden Caulfield who is writing the Catcher in the Rye, not J.D. Salinger.

To continue, some of the lines in the story suggested to me that it may be a nanny who may have been the narrator. The detail about a blanket being able to cover a part of the garden. That was a very nice line, and I thought it may have been a line a nanny may have written as she made the bed after the kids go off to play. The attention to details also seemed to be too perceptive to be a male voice at times, but I am getting off track. Of course, in America, a male voice is usually "WHAT THE **** IS THAT?" so that I may be prejudiced in this regard...

There are many different theories of story. The one I like the best is probably that of the structural narratologist Gérard Genette. He identified all the following in a narrative: real author, implied author, narrator, character, narratee, implied reader, reader. Levels of a fiction: 1. Story: what really happened, abstracted from the text. 2. Text: how what happened is told to the reader (the words on the page). 3. Narration: the process concerning who is speaking and who is looking. 4. Textuality: the interactive process of the text's production by an author and its reception by a reader: the interaction between what really hapopened, how what really happened is told, and who does the telling. d.beswetherick. [%sig%]

Textuality: In the virtual wordsmith world genders or genres are harder to guess. Even locations. I am based in Sydney yet someone in London assumed I lived in his neighbourhood. My interest in tales spun by Blair not just CB might have something to do with it (smile) if you are a beetles type of blogger consider: A hastily convened Blogger Booze Up has been called by Gavin Sheridan and Dan Gillmor When: Friday at 6:30 pm. Where: Red Lion, Westminster, 48 Parliament St. Who: Whoever wants to show up. Why: You have to ask?

I love those definitions: they are very precise and clear. I was, I believe, trying to justify my earlier mistake in saying that you may have imagined a nanny as narrator or implied author of the story. It's a great story, and what I really liked about it was the fact that the narrator actually sounded like someone eavesdropping in on the situations of the story. As a foreigner in America, I often felt like I was simply observing things around me, as Alice may observe things through a lookingglass. The voice of the story sounded very much like an adopted son or a foreigner looking in and observing things just as a scientist may observe the curious things that insects do. The way that even the otter appears in the story, as this strange and exotic thing, something that people were not used to and did not know how to behave in the presence of also reminded me as how I may have been perceived by others especially since I spoke no English when I came to America. It's a beautiful, very poetic, resonant story.