{"id":13017,"date":"2014-06-02T14:36:53","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T18:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=13017"},"modified":"2014-06-09T13:53:51","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T17:53:51","slug":"ramona-ausubel-you-can-find-love-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2014\/06\/02\/ramona-ausubel-you-can-find-love-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramona Ausubel: “You Can Find Love Now”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here<\/a> to read the abstract of the story on The New Yorker<\/em> webpage (this week’s story is available only for subscribers). Ramona Ausubel’s “You Can Find Love Now” was originally published in the Jun 9 & 16, 2014 issue of The New Yorker<\/em>. This is the Summer Fiction edition, so you can click here<\/a> to see the other stories in this issue.<\/p>\n

\"Click
Click for a larger image.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The shortest of the four stories in this year’s New Yorker<\/em> fiction issue, I chose to read it first. Finished it a week ago, in fact, and since then have simply confirmed that I have little to say.<\/p>\n

“You Can Find Love Now” is a concept story, featuring the (or, at least, a) Cyclops. He’s filling out some kind of online profile for a dating website: “You are lonely, but you don’t have to be. You have so many great qualities!<\/em>” Having to settle for “cyclops15” because 1-14 were taken, the eight-foot-tall giant who lives at the heart of a volcano proceeds to answer the typical, lively questions with atypical answers:<\/p>\n

Tell the ladies a little more about yourself! What’s your own unique story?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

[. . . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

I teach online English classes, not to get paid but because I like to feel smarter than someone else. I teach all the classic books, except the Odyssey.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, this Cyclops is a lonely man, self-conscious, branching out just a bit in this contemporary society. And that’s about all I got from the story.<\/p>\n

It’s not that it isn’t worth reading (well, maybe it isn’t), it’s just that it felt slight\u00a0to me, a lark. Stylistically there’s some interesting stuff — I really like the humor that comes when he talks about his father: “The upside: my father is the god of the sea, so we can guarantee good weather on our honeymoon cruise.” Also, I was impressed by some of the descriptions, like that the god of the sea “smells like an overcleaned wound.”<\/p>\n

Did anyone else get more?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s New Yorker<\/em> fiction is Ramona Ausubel’s “You Can Find Love Now,” one of the four selected for the summer fiction issue. Trevor shares his thoughts. Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94,246],"tags":[560],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-13017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-yorker-fiction","category-ramona-ausubel","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Ramona-Ausubel-You-Can-Find-Love-Now.png?fit=290%2C290&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-3nX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13017"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13186,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13017\/revisions\/13186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13017"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}