“The Loop”
by J. Robert Lennon
from the August 26, 2019 issue of The New Yorker
My knowledge of J. Robert Lennon’s work is slim, mostly coming from a few reviews of Castle and Familiar that John Self posted on his blog, oh goodness, some years ago (see here and here). It’s strange: I remember these reviews quite well, but a few moments ago I would have told you I have never read anything by Lennon, and that, it turns out, is not true. I simply did not remember that I have read one of his stories, “Breadman,” which appeared in The New Yorker in 2015. Looking back at the post (here), I do remember reading the story and I remember the conversation around it, but that’s about it. Fittingly, one of my comment there ends with “I remain a fan if not a stalwart supporter, and I too doubt this will remain in my memory long.” His work appeared in the magazine two time prior, as well, in 1999 and 2000, and I’m pretty sure in 2000 I was reading everything in the magazine, so I may have read “No Life,” but, no, if I did, I don’t remember that either.
Will “The Loop” stick with me better? I’m hoping so! I definitely feel I owe it to Lennon to give it a shot.
Here is the first paragraph:
Divorced, fired from adjunct teaching after a botched attempt to unionize, and her only child lost to college, Bev had, for the first time in decades, more freedom than she knew what to do with. The empty house, hers alone, disgusted her: she sold it, against her daughter’s wishes, and moved to a two-bedroom apartment in a new building downtown. Between the house money and the monthly support payments from her ex—he was fucking his assistant and had signed these things away with the heedless joy of a rabbit sprung from a trap—she’d been given the opportunity to think carefully about what to do with the rest of her life. This quickly came to seem like torture. So she volunteered for Movin’ On Up.
What did you think? Please comment below and share your thoughts.
The only Lennon I have read previously was “Breadman”. I found that story to be fun and smart and generally well done. As I started to read “The Loop”, it too seemed like it would be light and fun. The first few paragraphs are a nice start, but then … then it goes off the rails. First, the story seems to have far too much explanation of the situation and how the furniture exchange works and I started to feel bogged down with all the scaffolding work he was doing. But ok, once that was done surely things would pick up. They do, at first, but again the story starts to drag as we seem to be just getting a string of “and here’s another slightly interesting person they met on their rounds.” I only read the author interview after reading the story, but when he said that he started with the idea of describing the rounds because he does that sort of volunteer work and thought it would make a good story I understood the trap he fell into. It may have seemed like it would be interesting and it could have been fun, but it just came off as dull.
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Then we get to the disappearing bed frame. Well that’s a bit odder than the ordinary sort of odd. But it comes late in the story, out of nowhere, and does not really lead to anything at all. We get a magically appearing table, too, but again it’s hard to see the point. As I read it I thought that maybe this was something like you get in a sci-fi story where a person finds out their “experiences” are not really happening and the disappearing / appearing furniture is an indication of a glitch in the program. (I thought of the Phillip K. Dick novel Time Out of Joint and the film Vanilla Sky as examples.) But that’s not what is going on here. Again, from the author interview it seems Lennon does not really know what it is doing, but hopes it somehow foreshadows the loop. For me it doesn’t as that is a very different phenomenon. The dis/appearing furniture really just read to me as Lennon being desperate for something to happen.
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And finally we get to the loop. It only comes in at the very end, is very quickly described, and then we are told it is an infinite loop that goes around so many times Bev can no longer remember time before it. That just seems oddly cruel to her. In this story the loop seems to me to function as a deus ex huh???.
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I came away from the story wanting to have a writing conference with Lennon to suggest a bunch of ways to make this better. (1) Thin out the early exposition. (2) Instead of dis/appearing furniture, have it be that they move a piece out to the van, they go back into the house, and oddly the piece is back there and they have to move it again. Doing it this way makes what they do more loop-like and so does foreshadow the ending. (3) And have the weird stuff start happening sooner and more times. (4) And have the full loop of the ending happen earlier too. Spend a bit of time on some of the early loops and how she reacts to them. (5) And for the love of God! Let the loops eventually end with there having been a point to them. She does not deserve this interminable hell. (I am here reminded of a great, but very short lived TV series called Day Break, starring Taye Diggs. He plays a cop caught in a loop of a repeating day and it only ends when he is able to solve a crime, but it does end.)
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That’s a major rewrite I am suggesting, but for the story to be good it would need it. Lastly, I want to leave you all a link to a better, funnier story about someone getting rid of furniture and someone else coming around to pick it up. It’s 21 minutes long and part of a stand-up DVD. Oh yeah, and the comedian is a puppet. Enjoy! — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq_wZE93ZAY — (PS – If you like that video, search for Randy’s monologue about Ernest Hemingway. It’s pretty great too.)
I thought this story was subtler than the previous comment suggested. To me, the story takes a Borgesian riff to cleverly meditate on ideas of quotidian repetition, the dangers of monotony in post-retirement life, and the thankless drudgery of volunteer work. The suburban malaise of the rounds, those serially lonely, half-abandoned spaces, already suggest the deadened infinity that the story pushes into motion. And the minutiae are necessary to build up a sense of the daily, brute facts that an older person can find herself contending with without much more hope than another day of the same.
If only the writer had thought to consult David for his services (perhaps for a fee?), then this story might be salvaged. The hubris of these writers!
Not as perceptive or detailed a comment as the others, but this story definitely doesn’t work, in my opinion. Fine portrayal of an interesting scene and lifestyles with the movers, clients and donors well-depicted. But the loop theme is not at all blended-in or motivated, and nor is it an original idea anyway. The rewrite I would suggest is to make the moving interesting (as it is, anyway), develop the family relationships a bit more, particularly with the ex, and then put a massive red cross through the pretentious “loop” nonsense.
Paul Epstein
“Groundhog Day” with no resolution. And no humor. Deadly.
Came here looking to see what interpretations others might have for the story. Found instead a preening jerk who thinks he writes better than the pros.
Lennon has had a longer career than these dabbling readers seem to realize. But why tell them? They know everything already.
Re Alby, I’m not sure who he is referring to. I have been totally unable to write a successful short story, and in fact have had zero success in any type of creative writing. I don’t do creative writing any more. I’m sure the author has got a great reputation. It’s a massive achievement to get published in the New Yorker after all, and I had heard of him before. If I’m bad at creative writing, does that mean that I can’t be critical of a story I didn’t like?
Paul, I’m pretty sure Alby is referring to me. It seems Alby subscribes to the view that published authors must always be praised and any criticism is just rudeness. But if “I thought this wasn’t good because…” is something readers are not allowed to express because we are not qualified to do so then surely “I thought this was good because…” is something we are equally unqualified to say, nor are we qualified to give alternative “interpretations” that Alby came here seeking. It’s a silly view and even sillier to get angry because someone criticizes something you like.
Also silly to come and try to disparage but then refuse to offer any reason the story is good. Ah well!
Just because you have reasons for why you think the story isn’t good doesn’t mean they’re good or interesting reasons. Saying that a story called “The Loop” doesn’t work because the loop doesn’t end (and that it’s “cruel” to the character, in addition) seems like the height of inanity to me.
It’s fine to disagree with the quality of the story, even if you’re a bad writer yourself, but there’s a certain arrogance to the original comment that seems unearned.
“there’s a certain arrogance to the original comment that seems unearned.”
And you “earned” your criticism of my comment how, exactly? You liked the story. I didn’t. You said why you liked it. I said why I didn’t. For you to be angry about my comments and talk about “earning” the right to express an opinion on stories is childish nonsense and does not advance anyone’s understanding of the story.
Well, if you read a little more carefully, I didn’t say you didn’t have the right to express it. Fire away! This is the wilderness of the internet, after all. I’m just expressing my opinion that it’s a bad opinion, delivered in a ridiculous way (in which you “school” the writer in question). But you seem fairly confident in your views—I think you can take it.
In my opinion, this whole line of discussion is a waste of time. Let’s stick to the stories.
Hear hear!
Just jumped into this conversation because I just recently read the story. I have nothing constructive to add to comments on the story (although I enjoyed Roman’s take) but the fast-paced critiquer-critiquing-critiquer (pardon the expression) was kind of fun. Vaguely remindful of an after-school rumble in the parking lot of old Central High circa 1965, the participants all with horned-rim glasses and vinyl pen holders, carrying books.
I enjoyed the exchange ultimately but I also am disturbed by the attitude of posters who feel that you shouldn’t criticize a story unless you’re an equally famous and published author and by the result to name-calling. Roman’s sarcasm at least was accompanied by some thoughtful comments on the story and made me chuckle. For the record, I pretty much agree with what David wrote although I liked the opening parts of the story more than him. I do think, though, that the shift at the end if completely unearned.