Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 11/14/13

** List the personality characteristics of the main character (feelings, interests,

behaviors, etc.)

Pages read: 538-563  (Short stories: "Adrift  Just Off The Islets Of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13 " W")

 

The character of the short story "Adrift" is Lawrence Talbot, a man who cannot die. For some reason not explained, Ellison refers to Talbot as Moby Dick in the first few pages into the story, but then switches to Talbot suddenly. The first sentence happens to be, "When Moby Dick awoke one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed of kelp into a monstrous Ahab."  A few pages later, Moby Dick becomes Lawrence Talbot and we move onto the rest of the story about a man looking for a way to die. In the beginning, I got the picture that Talbot was a very sad and miserable man because of the way he and his actions are described. Somehow, every action Talbot is described as making just comes off as horribly painful and not worth it, but that changed later on in the story.

 

A bit further in, Talbot makes a deal with a man that promises to give Talbot a way to die. Or rather, a map with the coordinates to Talbot's soul on it. With that, Talbot figures he could find his soul and maybe die a peaceful death from there. The reader of this story can tell that Talbot was pretty desperate to get his soul because he contacts an old scientist friend of his to hopefully help him out. It turns out, they don't really talk anymore and the scientist, Victor, kind of hates Talbot. When I read the part featuring Victor's and Talbot's conversation, I didn't really understand why Talbot was trying so hard to convince Victor to help him since you're not provided with a lot of information on why Talbot can't die or how long he's been alive, so his actions aren't as clear as I wish they were at times.

 

Victor actually agrees to help Talbot finally rest, so a large portion of the story takes place in Victor's high-tech lab in Serbia. While in the lab, the reader is introduced to another rather mysterious character called Nadja. As soon as Talbot sees her, a bunch of memories come crashing down on him and he is filled with pain. He calls the now frightened woman mother, so she asks for Victor's permission to leave, as she is one of his staff. Talbot is now in tears because he's pretty sure it's his mom, but he doesn't understand how it could be her. This makes Nadja kind of mysterious because the reader (again) isn't provided with information about Talbot's mother and his history with her. She appears later in the story and is part of a plot twist, so I won't bring up her second appearance! When you're sort introduced to Nadja, Victor is already pretty far into solving Talbot's problem-- meaning he knows how to get to the coordinates provided to Talbot. Another way the reader knows that Talbot is eager to die is the fact that he decides to carry on even when he finds out where the coordinates lead to.

 

Since Victor is a high-tech scientist, he assures Talbot that he will be able to get him to the coordinates and that Talbot can definitely end his life if he still decides to. It just so happens that the coordinates lead to Talbot's pancreas, and Victor has the perfect way to get Talbot there. Since this was a longer story and since it was a really good read, I'm not going to reveal any of the ending, but Talbot does end up in his pancreas. After that, there's a lot of describing of his inner body (which is described as a dry cave) and then the pretty cool plot twist with Nadja and another new character. Other than that, I thought it was pretty interesting to notice how Talbot changed from a depressing person at the beginning of the story to a pretty eager and actually kind of happy person at the end. Even though I think this is the longest story in this book so far, it was really worth it and I might even read it again!

 

                                              The story ended up winning a Hugo award

                                                     and getting published in this book.