Dogs, Rabbit Holes, Cats and Crows (oh my!)
Here are three stories (non-fiction and fiction) that I loved this week -- and I break down why they are good.
For the record, I like dogs a lot. Maybe too much, according to my significant other. (To prove it, here is a snapshot of one of my dogs.) Still, I am a sucker for a controversial perspective and this one doesn’t disappoint: “I Don’t Like Dogs,” by Olga Khazan for The Atlantic. (You might need a subscription, or try this gift link.)
On an intellectual level, I know some people don’t like dogs and can find it irritating, even frightening, when they approach to sniff, but on an emotional level, I don’t get it. I love a story that makes me question my own biases. Khazan does this in a humorous and non-threatening way, which makes self-reflection easier to swallow.
For example:
I’ve long kept this feeling to myself, because in America, saying you don’t like dogs is like saying you think the Taliban has some good ideas.
Funny, ha, yes, but also sadly true. Liking dogs (and having dogs like you) is seen as a quality of your character. There’s a whole trope in writing that illustrates a character’s inner value based on how they interact with animals.
Another reason I love this piece is its novelty. She’s chosen a subject that touches so many of us (dogs), pointing out something we can immediately recognize (some people don’t like them), but using an angle many of us have never considered. (Remember the lesson from two weeks ago? Readers like learning things? Here is something we know already but never stopped to think about. You get it. )
Then again, I did learn something new in this piece: a term called negativity friendships. It means exactly what you think it does — it’s the connecting tissue between people who are united in things they don’t like, in this case dogs.
Khazan’s piece offers a perfect segue to another hot button topic: anger and rage. There’s so much of it to go around right now. In Julie Jargon’s Rescuing Men from Rage Rabbit Holes in the Wall Street Journal, a topic (anti-female rage) that pre-occupies almost every woman I know gets a new treatment. Jargon couches the incel behaviour most of us come across regularly online as rooted in loneliness and sadness. And while that may be cold comfort to its victims, they may take solace in the fact that it’s slowly being viewed as “domestic terrorism” and there are groups out there trying to combat it. Also, the article was worth it just to read the term “Irritable Female Syndrome.” (Language gives me such joy.)
“Are women giving up on men?” asks one YouTube ad. It directed viewers to a Man Enough podcast about women choosing not to date and having less sex. The group hopes that by listening to the podcast, men will understand the reasons women feel disenchanted with dating and that it isn’t because women hate men.
“Irritable Female Syndrome—Learn the symptoms and remedies” reads a post that Diverting Hate plans to place on X. While crafted to appeal to a man’s angry side, it will link to an article explaining the reasons women might be irritated and how to respond with compassion.
Since this summer, Diverting Hate and its partners—men-focused support and suicide-prevention groups including Visible Man, MenAlive and the Man Enough podcast—have been running ads and posts to provide camaraderie over rants.
While this article is more of a service piece, I really haven’t seen the content elsewhere and as I mentioned before, I like learning things. You will need a subscription to read or try my unlocked gift copy.
Cat or Crow? is a new work of short fiction, published on Esoterica this week. At around 500 words, it’s a work of flash fiction. We haven’t published a lot of flash fiction but the genre is winning me over. This one, by Jordan Nishkian, an Armenian-Portuguese writer based in California, immediately invites us into to a kitchen and a complicated relationship between two women. We assume they are roommates or friends, not lovers. We can all relate to the experience of desiring quiet when others won’t oblige. In a few short words, though, Nishkian hints at something more sinister.
It’s a fine balance when a writer leaves us satisfied but wanting more. Esoterica receives many submissions in which a story does not have an ending, and when we question authors about this, they almost always says they want to keep the reader hanging. We hate to be left hanging. However, Nishkian shows that you don’t need to wrap everything up to leave readers satisfied. In fiction, we like to dream what comes next, and not feel like we were having a conversation with someone who just walked out of the room mid-sentence.
Have an article or story you want to discuss? Send it in the comments and we will tackle it in a note. Stay tuned for more developments, like writing circles. TBD!