I’m find that stories with a sort of stream-of-consciousness style interiority (Ferris, Galchen) are often ones I like and you don’t. Coincidence?

Hopefully over the course of several stories we’ll figure out where our differences lie. I don’t think it’s here, though. I admire stream-of-consciousness writing a great deal. In my thesis I devoted a chapter to Mrs. Dalloway, one of my favorite novels, then and now. (Incidentally, my thesis is hardly a scholarly work. I’m not particularly proud of it or even of the time I spent writing it, but I mention it here just to show that I admired a book and style enough to think I should spend my time with it.) Another all-time favorite is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I revisit far more than any other book. These were written nearly 100 years ago, though. (wow) I think my problem with the contemporary stuff I read is that I don’t see the stream-of-consciousness as a technique to reveal character or theme but rather as a quick way to insert voice into a story and to feign intimacy. I’m a big fan of voice, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed by it in contemporary fiction (at the same time I’m underwhelmed by the effect) and often don’t think there’s much under the technique. In fact, I am often upset that the style choice seems to be an evasive maneuver, so it seems a technique the author develops to write a lot while saying little.

I don’t think I have a bias against it though. Maybe. But for a contemporary take on the style, and one that remains incredibly direct, I loved Maile Meloy’s short story “Paint” from her first collection Half in Love.

My problems with “The Erlking” were not stylistic. I actually really liked the writing and the two voices we come to know. I read it three times, and one of the main reasons for that was because I thought the writing was excellent. I really wanted there to be more to the story than that, though, and the other reason I read this one three times is that I didn’t see much behind the writing of the two characters’ consciousness. I appreciate that we get two diverging viewpoints, both with the distractions of the fair, and what this reveals about the mother-child relationship both in the story and in society in general. I wanted more than that, though, in a story so intricately written and one based on such a fascinating tale.

I do really like how you phrase it, though: “two different desiring-machines.” With just that little bit of insight and shift in perspective, I am reminded of what I enjoyed in this story.

As sad as it is to miss your child’s childhood because you’re not paying attention, as common an occurrence as that is, this story doesn’t do that common theme justice because it feels very imbalanced — at least, it doesn’t do it justice from my perspective yet, anyway, though I’ll probably read it again because it’s still bothering me.

In any case, I took the story to be a sort of exploration of how we ultimately lose our children despite our best efforts to keep them close to us and to guide them through life. Like any parent (especially modern ones), Kate frets over every decision for her child. Meanwhile, Ondine has a very active and very different life going on inside her (on an outward level, she even refuses to use her given name). So I guess I took the Erlking/straw man to represent the outside forces that inevitably pull children in directions that their parents cannot fathom or even recognize.

Well, that’s my interpretation of the whole thing. Unless, of course, I’ve completely missed the point and the story is actually an extended metaphor for the human digestive system.