What do you make of this flash fiction piece?

[standing_alone]

This is a work of fiction called Subtotals, by Gregory Burnham.


Gregory Burnham

S U B T O T A L S ​

Number of refrigerators I've lived with: 18. Number of rotten eggs I've thrown: 1. Number of finger rings I've owned: 3. Number of broken bones: 0. Number of Purple Hearts: 0. Number of times unfaithful to wife: 2. Number of holes in one, big golf: 0; miniature golf:3. Number of consecutive push-ups, maximum: 25. Number of waist size: 32. Number of gray hairs: 4. Number of children: 4. Number of suits, business: 2; swimming: 22. Number of cigarettes smoked: 83. Number of times I've kicked the dog: 6. Number of times caught in the act, any act: 64. Number of postcards sent: 831; received: 416. Number of spider plants that died while under my care: 34. Number of blind dates: 2. Number of jumping jacks: 982,316. Number of headaches: 184. Number of kisses, given: 21,602, received: 20,041. Number of belts: 21. Number of f***kups, bad: 6; not so bad: 1,500. Number of times swore under breath at parents: 838. Number of weeks at church camp: 1. Number of houses owned: 0. Number of houses rented: 12. Number of hunches played: 1,091. Number of compliments, given: 4,051; accepted: 2,249. Number of embarrassing moments: 2,258. Number of states visited: 38. Number of traffic tickets: 3. Number of girlfriends: 4. Number of times fallen off playground equipment, swings: 3; monkey bars: 2; teeter-totter: 1. Number of times flown in dreams: 28. Number of times fallen down stairs: 9. Number of dogs: 1. Number of cats: 7. Number of miracles witnessed: 0. Number of insults, given: 10,038; received: 8,963. Number of wrong telephone numbers dialed: 73. Number of times speechless: 33. Number of times stuck key into electrical socket: 1. Number of birds killed with rocks: 1. Number of times had the wind knocked out of me: 12. Number of times patted on the back: 181. Number of times wished I was dead: 2. Number of times unsure of footing: 458. Number of times fallen asleep reading a book: 513. Number of times born again: 0. Number of times seen double: 28. Number of deja vu experiences: 43. Number of emotional breakdowns: 1; Number of times choked on ones, chicken: 4; fish: 6; other: 3. Number f times didn't believe parents: 23,978. Number of lawn-mowing miles: 3,575. Number of light bulbs changed: 273. Number of childhood home telephone: 384-621-5844. Number of brothers: 3 2. Number of passes at women: 5. Number of stairs walked, up: 745-821; down: 743,609. Number of hats lost: 9. Number of magazine subscriptions: 41. Number of times seasick: 1. Number of bloody noses: 16. Number of times had sexual intercourse: 4,013. Number of fish caught: 1. Number of time heard "The Star Spangled Banner": 2,410. Number of babies held in arms: 9. Number of times I forgot what I was going say: 631.



I have to write a short critical response essay on this piece of fiction. I am interested in getting different views on what people make of this story. Is there anything we can really know about the narrator? What assumptions can we make about the narrator? Is the dropping of the "I" pronoun significant? Why reduce one's life to numbers? I'd be interested in any points of view on this.

(As I get responses - that's assuming that I do - I'll bring in some of my own ideas - maybe this story can make for some interesting discussion, it certainly did in class)

 

[CaptainXeroid]

...Is there anything we can really know about the narrator? What assumptions can we make about the narrator? Is the dropping of the "I" pronoun significant? Why reduce one's life to numbers? I'd be interested in any points of view on this. ...

The first thing we can assume is that he had a lot of free time to add up all those things.
He is reveling in the excitement of everyday activities by adding them up
He drops the "I" from each sentence to 'step out of the spotlight' so people can focus on how many times they have done some of these things.
It's not as much reducing life to numbers as it is sharing the universality of human experiences.

Anyway, hope this helps.

 

[standing_alone]

Thank you for your input, CX.

The first thing we can assume is that he had a lot of free time to add up all those things.

Definately.

He drops the "I" from each sentence to 'step out of the spotlight' so people can focus on how many times they have done some of these things.

Hmmm... Never looked at it exactly that way - except for tying it to your next point:

It's not as much reducing life to numbers as it is sharing the universality of human experiences.

I think one of the reasons the "I" pronoun drops out is to show the universality of human experiences. I also wonder if the "I" pronoun was dropped to show the narrator sort of "stepping away" from his identity (for a lack of a better way to phrase it at the moment). The reason I wonder about this is one could view this as a sort of suicide note or reflection back on life at the end of it. Certain things in the text hint at this, in my opinion. Things such as the number of bad f***ups (6), number of times wishing to be dead (2), and the number of emotional breakdowns (1). If one were to look at this as a sort of suicide note, it could be argued that this lone emotional breakdown is what caused this reflection by the narrator.

Also, certain totals in this piece can be linked together - such as the number of finger rings owned (3) and the number of times unfaithful to wife (2). This unfaithfulness may have caused the end of the marriage and then in the future the narrator was unmarried.

Also, one could be lead to believe that the narrator was in the military. Certain totals that support this idea are the number of purple hearts (0), number of houses owned (0) and rented (12), the number of jumping jacks (982,316), the number of times hearing the "Star Spangled Banner" (2,410), etc.

Whoah! I'd love to go into more detail, but I've got to get to class.

Thanks again for your input.

 

[evearael]

Let's see...
He values food, material wealth, danger & other women more than his wife.
He's twice as likely to insult, than to compliment.
He joined the military to get away from his parents.

 

[Ormiston]

No miracles and never born again...25 pushups and no broken bones. I don't think he was in the military even with the purple heart comment. He doesn't like church. 100K of jumping jacks is just wierd. He seems like a middle-aged father that never grew up but did go through some trying times in his adolescense and then again with the failed marriages.

Number of times unsure of footing: 458. <---this is the strangest remark IMO. Might be an important clue.

 

[Buttercup]

I think there's quite a bit you can know about the author from this piece even though it's basically a list of numbers.

He's clumsy
He's got a good sense of humor and takes insults almost as well as he gives them
He's cheated on his wife :tsk:
He must give quite a few compliments to even mention the word and the high number....
He's a prankster ( I can relate to that trait)
He's patriotic and probably a sports fan
Likes to read

I could go on.... but is that what you want?

 

[Bishka]

I might say, he likes to count things, maybe a OCD person or some similar thing. My sister makes lists like that ALL the time and she has OCD.

 

[Feathers in Hair]

I like it! (Though I'm amazed at anyone who's only forgotten what they were going to say 631 times. I rack that up in a day, at least!)

 

[standing_alone]

Another thing about this story is narrator reliability - how do we know if the narrator is reliable? We often just assume that the narrator is honest, but do we know?

Also, with all the ways we are interpreting this story - which will be the thesis for my essay - is that we don't really know much about this narrator, just the numbers that he gives us. Anything we assume about him is our own interpretation, we don't really know anything specific about the narrator.

Also (since I may use a structuralist and maybe even incorporate poststructuaralist theory - even though they are at odds with eachother), one has to keep in mind that words only have the meaning we give to them. With structuralist theory, it is assumed that people come to a general consensus on what a words means. Like take this passage from the story for example: "Number of belts: 21" What does this actually refer to? It could be any number of thing - perhaps it refers to a belt as in the clothing item - but could it possibly mean the number of times he's been belted (punched)? How do we really know? This entire story only has the meaning we give to it.

It's interesting to see everyone's different interpretations and I think it just proves that we try to make meaning out of the words we are given (which is what structuralist theory intends to do - postsructuralism intends to "unmake" the meanings of words and critique structuralist theory - but I don't feel like going into both of these theories in detail for they are both complex). So, when we are trying to make meaning out of this piece, we are practicing structuralism.

He must give quite a few compliments to even mention the word and the high number....

Another thing that is interesting is that he give more compliments than he received, sent more post cards than he received, and gave more kisses than he received. Of course, he also gave more insults than he received.

 

[standing_alone]

With structuralist theory, it is assumed that people come to a general consensus on what a words means. Like take this passage from the story for example: "Number of belts: 21" What does this actually refer to? It could be any number of thing - perhaps it refers to a belt as in the clothing item - but could it possibly mean the number of times he's been belted (punched)? How do we really know? This entire story only has the meaning we give to it.

To add to this - this is where poststructulism would criticize structuralist theory.

 

[standing_alone]

Number of times unsure of footing: 458. <---this is the strangest remark IMO. Might be an important clue.

Yeah, that was one that definately stuck out to me and I've been thinking about.

Another thing is the last one - "Number of times I forgot what I was going to say: 631" - I think it is significant that this piece ended with this. Not only does it bring closure to the piece, but it suggests that the narrator has run out of things to say about his life (I'm doing a terrible job at trying to explain what I mean). This total just seems like it fits there and nowhere else.

Another thing is that there is no apparant chronological order to these totals. They appear to be random. And we can try to relate certain ones with other ones, as I could tie certain totals together to argue he was in the military or that he was married three times. Like I've already said, this piece has no meaning other than what we give to it.