Whew. No mas abandono. Those keys in the narrator’s hands are a perfect metaphor for him taking back something he never wanted to give. The ultimate abandonment was of his own self, the one that hurts and shames like no other. What an emotionally gritty piece Adam. Feels like his request for “um” “one” in the end wasn’t really about a final encounter with his wife but a lasting relationship with himself.
Wow. What an emotional horror show. I felt awful for you, or the character, going through all that bs subterfuge. And in Iceland, yet. I guess a 'chilly' place to feel the chill was appropriate.
A good term "emotional horror show." Writing it, I thought about the idea of "moral horror." The three are a horrible bunch, but I'm interested in how people see themselves as victims, enroll others, and become blind to their own actions. A lot of the stories I have here, particularly the ones told in first person (but not me!) are about the disconnect of what we say/believe about ourselves and what our actions are clearly saying. I wanted to put readers inside the head of someone like Philip and see if his psychological wiring reveals anything about him or ourselves, by extension. But a nasty, manipulative bunch, definitely. Having said that, there's only one criminal among them.
You completely annihilated any latent fantasies I might have had about polyamory. At least Paolo had a tiny penis. On a serious note, you did a masterful job of portraying the micro aggressions in a relationship.
I've probably destroyed Iceland for a lot of people, too. Which is terribly unfair, because researching it, it seems like an incredible place to go with a single loved one (max.) Next month, there's another bubble, but a very different kind and much, much nicer people.
“You know, Philip, your body is the only part of you that doesn’t tell itself lies.” Ahhhh, I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.
When we’re lying to ourselves, everyone is the perpetrator, everyone is “making” us feel something or be something we don’t want to be. It’s the worst, most suffocating kind of lie and the narrator is so stubbornly unwilling to feel his own accountability in it.
How did I not see this on the first read? What a fun revelation to revisit something and see it in an entirely new light.
Interestingly, the notion of "unfixed" as I understand it goes after this from its own vector. Own where you are, just *be* there, is most definitely *not* a victim's perspective.
Sort of related: I've been turning over the idea in my mind of living in a mental space of "I will never get better at anything." I don't mean I won't, because I will, but I mean the idea of living mentally from a space of, "What if everything I want to achieve stops right here?"
If you could make your home in that idea, you would be a content soul, indeed. By you, I mean I.
I don't know about you but my noodle sighs big time when I allow for that possibility. Like you said, it's not a negation of improvement or achievement, that's a given as long as we're breathing, at least for those of us already wired that way. It's more of a leaning back into that inevitability and letting time be in the driver's seat instead of our will. We can push and push so much but maybe those moments of "arrival" are never really tied to all that pushing but some kind of predestined coding. Did I just admit to believing in destiny? Erp. I really don't think I do... but maybe?
It's a better second read, but I'm generally happy to get someone all the way to the finish line of the first. Haha, not kidding.
Your comment nails it. I just take it to the darkest act of "righteousness."
I've always been very distrustful of people with indulgent stories of how they are victims. I both fear they are loose cannons and squandering their lives. It's a nothing perspective.
But, as I wrote in one of the comments in the response letter, I can see where I do this, too.
I’ve read this story several times. I love this story. It's compelling in a way that I’ve had trouble compartmentalizing. Like a wound I want to pick at. I suppose it’s the universality of it. It’s the mirror you’re holding up that I can’t escape. I can sense you put quite a bit into this, and I’d like to respond with my reading experience. Forgive the length.
First, on the craftsmanship—your characters are wonderfully contemptible. The lot of them. The location and situation provide a great canvas to explore. . .whatever it is you’re exploring. (As you note in your afterwords, once you put it out there, the response is as much about the reader as the author, so what you’re exploring and what I’m exploring may not be concentric circles). It certainly could be mistaken as autobiographical for no other reason than the picture you paint of Iceland and of the relationships has an authenticity that is difficult to fake. Well done.
Here's my read:
Worse than self-pity is self-contempt, and the former is often a convenient tool to avoid the latter. Philip is no victim and you have a nuanced touch with your telling of his story. Isabella has not made him petty so much as given him pretext to indulge his passive aggressiveness and pettiness. They’re dance partners, not Lord and serf. Philip consents to his ongoing exploitation, ignores his culpability, resents his cowardice, and seeks refuge in victimhood and self-delusion.
There’s great seduction in victimhood. To be a victim is to be denied agency. To lack agency is to be faultless. “I’ve been wronged” is easier to swallow than, “I fucked up.” “Oh look, Isabella is doing yoga,” is easier to swallow than. . .well, you know. . .
I’ve known men like Philip. I suppose I see his reflection in the mirror on occasion. Not that I’ve experienced the slow and then sudden dissolution of a marriage on a polyamorous tryst in Iceland, but that I’ve consented to my own exploitation—if not explicitly then in subtler ways. Small ways. Everyone has. Our light and our darkness are strange bedfellows.
That’s what grips me about this story. You use the crucible of sex and sexuality wonderfully to lay bare (no pun intended) core realities of the human experience and human relationships. We can’t escape the mirror we’re looking into here. We cheat, we coerce and cajole, we manipulate, we ignore painful truths and tell convenient lies. We do all those things to those we love and to ourselves. We volunteer ourselves at the altar of sacrifice so that we may enjoy the power of righteous indignation. We stand on the mantle of courage and integrity only to reveal (with the right recipe) our cowardice.
That each of the characters is contemptible in their own way is obvious but incomplete. I also find them each sympathetic. Walking, talking, living, breathing contradictions just like all of us. There are no good guys (or girls). There are neither heroes nor villains. Life isn’t that clean. We’re just people trying to navigate love, loss, fear, desire, guilt, shame, etc.
It’s not a hopeful story and it makes me sad. I don’t like the characters, and I feel a bit gross observing them so intimately. But it’s as real as it gets. It’s an author tapping into something true and enduring and crafting a story in a way that forces me to sit and stew and revisit and rethink.
Hey, I think I'm going to use this note as the basis for a post to talk about Iceland, because you got it, the whole thing, and articulated it perfectly. And you confronted what it is trying to make you confront. Let me know here or offline if you're not okay with me posting and responding to this in a stand-alone. I've written the response, but would want to sit on it a bit. Probably post 2-3 weeks from now after Bucket List (XXII) runs its course.
The Paolo characterisation: accuracy, restraint and humour lensed through Philip's own restraint. Delicious. Nearly triaged out of my inbox as jammed with post-hol admin. SO glad I didn't.
Brilliant, Adam. I read this under a pile of plush sofa throws and still I’m freezing. Iceland is the perfect setting for their emotional and moral vacuity. Philip seems to be pleading a case to us readers, Look at me, I’m the victim here. Hmmmm. 🤔
Is he so closed off to what Isabella needs from him that he agrees to the threesomes despite his jealousy, or does he have such a lack of self-esteem that he’s willing to suffer if it’s what she wants? Is he a nihilist or incapable of compassion?
Plus, what is *he* doing to help their marriage, apart from going along with what his wife wants? The more I think about how passive this guy is, the more annoyed I get. A therapist once told us there are three parts to a marriage that need tending - each of the partners and the marriage itself. That makes sense to me. Interesting that this is a threesome, but it’s just making everything worse because nobody is tending the marriage.
The hand sndwich, the reindeer horns, the socks thrown across the room. Deeply discomfiting in the best way, a thorny nest of deceptions, self-deception being the most insidious. I was running low on attention when you first published this. Glad I waited and took my time with the details.
Whew. No mas abandono. Those keys in the narrator’s hands are a perfect metaphor for him taking back something he never wanted to give. The ultimate abandonment was of his own self, the one that hurts and shames like no other. What an emotionally gritty piece Adam. Feels like his request for “um” “one” in the end wasn’t really about a final encounter with his wife but a lasting relationship with himself.
I have a much grimmer take on these characters, but more on Sunday about the difference between the stories we tell about ourselves and who we are.
Wow. What an emotional horror show. I felt awful for you, or the character, going through all that bs subterfuge. And in Iceland, yet. I guess a 'chilly' place to feel the chill was appropriate.
A good term "emotional horror show." Writing it, I thought about the idea of "moral horror." The three are a horrible bunch, but I'm interested in how people see themselves as victims, enroll others, and become blind to their own actions. A lot of the stories I have here, particularly the ones told in first person (but not me!) are about the disconnect of what we say/believe about ourselves and what our actions are clearly saying. I wanted to put readers inside the head of someone like Philip and see if his psychological wiring reveals anything about him or ourselves, by extension. But a nasty, manipulative bunch, definitely. Having said that, there's only one criminal among them.
Enroll others. Yes, suppose that’s so very true. We humans are quite a manipulative horrid bunch. It totally drew me in.
You completely annihilated any latent fantasies I might have had about polyamory. At least Paolo had a tiny penis. On a serious note, you did a masterful job of portraying the micro aggressions in a relationship.
I've probably destroyed Iceland for a lot of people, too. Which is terribly unfair, because researching it, it seems like an incredible place to go with a single loved one (max.) Next month, there's another bubble, but a very different kind and much, much nicer people.
“You know, Philip, your body is the only part of you that doesn’t tell itself lies.” Ahhhh, I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.
When we’re lying to ourselves, everyone is the perpetrator, everyone is “making” us feel something or be something we don’t want to be. It’s the worst, most suffocating kind of lie and the narrator is so stubbornly unwilling to feel his own accountability in it.
How did I not see this on the first read? What a fun revelation to revisit something and see it in an entirely new light.
Interestingly, the notion of "unfixed" as I understand it goes after this from its own vector. Own where you are, just *be* there, is most definitely *not* a victim's perspective.
Sort of related: I've been turning over the idea in my mind of living in a mental space of "I will never get better at anything." I don't mean I won't, because I will, but I mean the idea of living mentally from a space of, "What if everything I want to achieve stops right here?"
If you could make your home in that idea, you would be a content soul, indeed. By you, I mean I.
I don't know about you but my noodle sighs big time when I allow for that possibility. Like you said, it's not a negation of improvement or achievement, that's a given as long as we're breathing, at least for those of us already wired that way. It's more of a leaning back into that inevitability and letting time be in the driver's seat instead of our will. We can push and push so much but maybe those moments of "arrival" are never really tied to all that pushing but some kind of predestined coding. Did I just admit to believing in destiny? Erp. I really don't think I do... but maybe?
It's a better second read, but I'm generally happy to get someone all the way to the finish line of the first. Haha, not kidding.
Your comment nails it. I just take it to the darkest act of "righteousness."
I've always been very distrustful of people with indulgent stories of how they are victims. I both fear they are loose cannons and squandering their lives. It's a nothing perspective.
But, as I wrote in one of the comments in the response letter, I can see where I do this, too.
Adam,
I’ve read this story several times. I love this story. It's compelling in a way that I’ve had trouble compartmentalizing. Like a wound I want to pick at. I suppose it’s the universality of it. It’s the mirror you’re holding up that I can’t escape. I can sense you put quite a bit into this, and I’d like to respond with my reading experience. Forgive the length.
First, on the craftsmanship—your characters are wonderfully contemptible. The lot of them. The location and situation provide a great canvas to explore. . .whatever it is you’re exploring. (As you note in your afterwords, once you put it out there, the response is as much about the reader as the author, so what you’re exploring and what I’m exploring may not be concentric circles). It certainly could be mistaken as autobiographical for no other reason than the picture you paint of Iceland and of the relationships has an authenticity that is difficult to fake. Well done.
Here's my read:
Worse than self-pity is self-contempt, and the former is often a convenient tool to avoid the latter. Philip is no victim and you have a nuanced touch with your telling of his story. Isabella has not made him petty so much as given him pretext to indulge his passive aggressiveness and pettiness. They’re dance partners, not Lord and serf. Philip consents to his ongoing exploitation, ignores his culpability, resents his cowardice, and seeks refuge in victimhood and self-delusion.
There’s great seduction in victimhood. To be a victim is to be denied agency. To lack agency is to be faultless. “I’ve been wronged” is easier to swallow than, “I fucked up.” “Oh look, Isabella is doing yoga,” is easier to swallow than. . .well, you know. . .
I’ve known men like Philip. I suppose I see his reflection in the mirror on occasion. Not that I’ve experienced the slow and then sudden dissolution of a marriage on a polyamorous tryst in Iceland, but that I’ve consented to my own exploitation—if not explicitly then in subtler ways. Small ways. Everyone has. Our light and our darkness are strange bedfellows.
That’s what grips me about this story. You use the crucible of sex and sexuality wonderfully to lay bare (no pun intended) core realities of the human experience and human relationships. We can’t escape the mirror we’re looking into here. We cheat, we coerce and cajole, we manipulate, we ignore painful truths and tell convenient lies. We do all those things to those we love and to ourselves. We volunteer ourselves at the altar of sacrifice so that we may enjoy the power of righteous indignation. We stand on the mantle of courage and integrity only to reveal (with the right recipe) our cowardice.
That each of the characters is contemptible in their own way is obvious but incomplete. I also find them each sympathetic. Walking, talking, living, breathing contradictions just like all of us. There are no good guys (or girls). There are neither heroes nor villains. Life isn’t that clean. We’re just people trying to navigate love, loss, fear, desire, guilt, shame, etc.
It’s not a hopeful story and it makes me sad. I don’t like the characters, and I feel a bit gross observing them so intimately. But it’s as real as it gets. It’s an author tapping into something true and enduring and crafting a story in a way that forces me to sit and stew and revisit and rethink.
And that’s what I love about it.
Thank you for writing it and sharing.
Hey, I think I'm going to use this note as the basis for a post to talk about Iceland, because you got it, the whole thing, and articulated it perfectly. And you confronted what it is trying to make you confront. Let me know here or offline if you're not okay with me posting and responding to this in a stand-alone. I've written the response, but would want to sit on it a bit. Probably post 2-3 weeks from now after Bucket List (XXII) runs its course.
I'm certainly okay with you posting/responding. Thanks Adam.
The Paolo characterisation: accuracy, restraint and humour lensed through Philip's own restraint. Delicious. Nearly triaged out of my inbox as jammed with post-hol admin. SO glad I didn't.
Thanks, Ana. You're very generous here. Like every writer, yourself included, to be rescued from the inbox is a blessing. Happy New Year.
Brilliant, Adam. I read this under a pile of plush sofa throws and still I’m freezing. Iceland is the perfect setting for their emotional and moral vacuity. Philip seems to be pleading a case to us readers, Look at me, I’m the victim here. Hmmmm. 🤔
Is he so closed off to what Isabella needs from him that he agrees to the threesomes despite his jealousy, or does he have such a lack of self-esteem that he’s willing to suffer if it’s what she wants? Is he a nihilist or incapable of compassion?
I think those both work. what we definitely know is that the people in his life are opaque (as he is to himself.)
Plus, what is *he* doing to help their marriage, apart from going along with what his wife wants? The more I think about how passive this guy is, the more annoyed I get. A therapist once told us there are three parts to a marriage that need tending - each of the partners and the marriage itself. That makes sense to me. Interesting that this is a threesome, but it’s just making everything worse because nobody is tending the marriage.
The hand sndwich, the reindeer horns, the socks thrown across the room. Deeply discomfiting in the best way, a thorny nest of deceptions, self-deception being the most insidious. I was running low on attention when you first published this. Glad I waited and took my time with the details.