Juice by Renee Gladman

These stories are interesting in its narrative direction, in that you must decide what is occurring in each story.  Each instance seems to follow a different person entirely, and they are seemingly unrelated.  They seem to follow a direct "stream of consciousness" style of narrative, and the events seem to attempt to sum up the underlying feelings and actions relating to the loneliness of the narrator.  There is no real rhyme or reason to the narrator's method of storytelling, however it all seems to flow together within each instance in an archaic and stylized manner.  The stories are intentionally vague, and in that the story becomes more mysterious and subtle, making it more interesting to the reader.

Apart from the loneliness described at the beginning, another theme I happened upon was not being able to fit in.  "People tend to have faith that the juice they drink in the morning is the same juice they have always drunk.  And the apples take their shape naturally.  The guy, whose name escapes me now, taught me to look  upon others' concerns as mine to make at home [...] When my friends came by- they liked to suddenly show up with all kinds of breads in their hands, thinking they knew what I needed and planned to force in on me - I had to tell them I was busy with my juice"(Gladman 22).  This might mean that the narrator was comfortable with his/her own ways (her juice) and did not want to adopt other people's ideals, thus making her lonely though they are surrounded by others.  In the beginning of the story, the narrator outlines being lonely because no one else is around.  The narrator states that the town "... is still vibrant though I have not seen anyone in years.  I am not in jail - they have just gone"(Gladman 10).  The narrator appears to be in denial about the town even returning, saying that the narrator is not imprisoned, yet she is all alone in this desolate town that the narrator considers "vibrant".  However, he seems to see the desolation as positive and he might be making the best out of a bad situation.

I enjoyed this novella for its style and method of story progression; it acts more as a collection of short stories than a cohesive story altogether because of the different instances that each chapter presents.  The author leaves many details up to the reader, such as the gender of the protagonist as well as the situation they are in.  This makes the reader wish to keep going, as if they are hungry for more details about the story, though they will be usually be meager and vague intentionally.  The author goes off of her own thoughts in a non-linear fashion, as if the book were inside the protagonist's direct thoughts.  At first, the story does not even make it clear whether the each division is together, or whether they are separate stories of their own.  Once one continues, however, the divisions imply that there is no correlation between the novels, thus demonstrating the slow feeding of information that this novella follows.