William and Clare- Your Borders, Your Rivers, Your Tiny Villages

I decided to go back and look at one of the earlier stories of Clare and William to see how their relationship was before they actually got together as a couple. I was curious to see if their fate in ending up together was obvious from the start, or if it was unexpected to their ex-spouses and to the readers who read the stories.
This first story in the collection about William and Clare takes place when William is still married to Isabel and Clare is still married to Charles. The two couples are staying together for the night, something that isn't out of the ordinary, given their close relationships. Isabel and Charles are sleeping, and William and Clare are watching television on the couch. Bloom discusses the relations that these characters have with each other and how these relations are much better than those they share with their own spouses. The story, as most of the stories in the collection, ends abruptly without a real conclusion.
I was interested to read that Bloom does not try to hide the affair between William and Clare. She explains exactly what happens between them and doesn't express any guilt between the two characters. I think something that could have been interesting in this story would be if Bloom tried to conceal the affair a bit more and have the true details about it come out later in the story. That would leave the reader hanging on more and not leave them frustrated, like I have been. I'm not sure exactly what about this story makes me so frustrated; maybe it's the simplicity and I'm waiting for something big to happen. Affairs, divorce, and remarriage are big and important things in a person's life and the way Bloom describes them seems to simple, too anticlimactic than it should. Since I have read most of the stories in this collection, I don't think the plot will ever reach a climax, but this though disappoints me.

William and Clare- Compassion and Mercy

This story is also about William and Clare and comes right after The Old Impossible. When the story begins, you learn that some time has passed since the end of The Old Impossible, approximately 5 years. Since then, William and Clare divorced their previous spouses and married each other and were living very happily and comfortably together. One day, Clare has to go away for business and while traveling, she and William speak every hour. One hour passes and William does not call, so Clare worries. She calls him over and over again, but he does not pick up his phone. She knows that she can't call his children because she doesn't want to worry them, so all she can do is wait. When she got home from her trip, she found her husband, dead in the bedroom that they shared. The story goes on to talk about the funeral; Clare see's Isabel there, but does not talk to her, despite the urge. In the weeks following the funeral, Clare even calls Isabel's house and when she hears her voice on the other line, she hangs up the phone. One day, Clare musters up the bravery to say hello into the receiver. After Clare tries to tell Isabel that she misses her, Isabel hangs up the phone, showing Clare that their friendship is not reparable. The story ends strangely with Clare finding a raccoon in her kitchen and instead of doing the normal thing and trying to get rid of it, she feeds it and talks to it.
These stories really confuse me in what Bloom is trying to accomplish. I think a lot of the things she includes are completely random, but in some cases, as I think about them more, I realize that there is some symbolism behind some of her choices. Like the boy in The Old Impossible, for instance. In Compassion and Mercy, the raccoon is a symbol for how lonely Clare has become. The fact that she does not try to get rid of the animal in her kitchen and talks to it shows that she is extremely lonely and feels that the only thing she can hold on to is the raccoon. Another symbol is the phone call between her and Isabel. It is not surprising that Isabel is unwilling to maintain a friendship with Clare after everything that happened between them, but Clare finally speaking to Isabel during one of these phone calls signifies the final end of their relationship. This closure is symbolic because as Isabel hangs up the phone while Clare is trying to repair what's broken, it is like hanging up the receiver, cutting off all ties of the two women. Although these are not the best stories I have read, and as cliché as it might sound, they are challenging. I might not enjoy them as much as I might if they were written differently or by another offer, I really need to think about why Bloom is writing the stories in the way she chose to write them. She must have had a reason behind it, and I'm determined to figure it out (at least a little bit) by the end of the project.

William and Clare- The Old Impossible

Under the chapter titled William and Clare, there is a story called The Old Impossible. If you choose to read this story by itself, you might have a hard time following and understanding the relationship between William and Clare, but the stories before this one explain that they are both married, but have an intimate relationship behind the backs' of their spouses. This stories talks about a day shortly after Clare has an ankle injury and William and his wife, Isabel, come over to visit her. Isabel leaves for an hour, and the lovers are alone. During this hour, Clare's housekeeper's son, Nelson, comes to visit and play checkers, and at the end of the game, Nelson becomes injured after tripping and cutting his forehead on a coffee table. Clare and William clean Nelson up and send him on his way. The story ends with Clare and WIlliam splitting a Percocet and falling a sleep together on the couch.


The way this story, and the rest of the stories in the collection, is written is very unique. Although written in first person, it also gets inside the minds of the characters, without directly explaining which character each time. This was interesting, but also became confusing at times, especially in the earlier parts of the story when you don't know much about the characters. Bloom also seems to use a subtle technique of repetition; she mentions that the variations of friendships of Will, Clare, and their spouses all have nicknames for each other. Instead of mentioning these nicknames all at one time, she describes each character separately and includes the characters that have nicknames for them. These techniques all give the story a different tone than most of the short stories I have read before, but I also noticed some mistakes in how the story was written. There are sometimes errors in the tenses in which Bloom is inconsistent. When this was an issue, the reader has to go back and look it over again to try and make sense of it. Another huge problem in the story is that Bloom uses the wrong character's name for a section, then changes it back soon after. "William very gently puts Clare's feet aside, picks up the boy, and carries him into the kitchen...She runs cold water and hands an icy dish towel to Charles...Charles says, 'A couple of Band-Aids, Clare?'...."Clare wants to stay, but Nelson is nestled on the kitchen counter, resting so comfortably against William..." (pages 35-36). Earlier in the story, it is mentioned that Charles leaves the house to run errands and his return is never announced.

These quotes also present a symbol within the story. Nelson, the injured child, can be a symbol to represent the cracks in Clare's relationship with her husband, William's relationship with his wife, and Clare and William's relationship. The fact that Clare and William work together to help the child can be foreshadowing for them fixing their own problems and relationships in the future.