Page 64, The New Yorker for January 16, '06 begins a short story titled Three Days, by Samantha Hunt (a nom de plume?).
What three days?
What does the horse, dead or alive, represent? Is the weed-smoking of the brother merely local, Midwest color, or does that work to drive the story?
Do you happen to know that writer under another name? Jane Hamilton for example? The setting of urban sprawl impinging on Midwest farm land hints at such, and so does the name of the horse, 'Humbletonian' a play on a breed of horse. Hamilton echo, also.
Does ice represent death? (In the story)
Does the heroine want to die too? Or is she merely mourning. I've almost forgotten what mourning really is, or supposed to be. (Is anger mourning?)
Ever wanted to remember the dead through writing about them?
Barry
2 comments:
The Hambiltonian Stakes is the most prestigious race for trotters (harness racing)on the east coast, run every summer at East Rutherford, NJ, at the Meadowlands Race Track. The race is named after the horse named Hambiltonian, foaled in 1849. Although Hambiltonian himself never raced in harness, his descendants inherited a conformation that led to success in racing, and he is considered the foundation of the Standardbred line - the breed most used in harness racing. (Some of the best harness racing horses come from Hanover Farms, in Hanover, Pennsylvania. They all have "Hanover" as a part of their name.)
I suspect Humbletonian is merely a humble Hambiltonian.
~~Silk
Thanks Silk. I reread the short
story and I'm sure full of admiration
for the fiction writers drowning in
grief. I sure must have let MY mother
down. And I'm old too. Better get
busier and mourn louder. Let's see,
who can wail the loudest? Shoot,
it's no contest. The wailing wall crowd
stampeding, they take the cake.
Barry
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