On To After That

To After That was very interesting in terms the ideas it contained and in between my noddings-off. I don't really know how I feel about it. I was hoping as a short story it would have more substance, more action, more of a topic that I was actually interested in. Gladman was "writing about the writing about the writing" of After That which would have been a story I'd more like to read had it ever existed (64). I had a hard time grasping some of the concepts, many of which were very complex and drawn out. Gladman acheives moving and "going nowhere" in this book (her intention, I believe). Nothing really happens, except when she recalls actual scenes from After That. The speaker (Gladman?) just writes and rewrites this book in various locations. The time spent between drafts and the locations where they were written affect the outcome/plot/writing of each draft. It's interesting how Gladman wants to be direct and to get the point across in few words to an extent as influenced by Herve Guibert, like when she refers to characters with single letters; S, M, R, etc., or even to refer to her book; AT, and later AF. She does this, this almost impatient writing, and yet she drags on the story with long, deep thoughts and considerations about words, sentences, novels, characters, places, and especially time (51).
Reading "excerpts" from the actual story of After That, a very strange, almost dreamlike world is revealed. Who comes over to borrow sugar and than lingers to cook waffles and proceed to scream at their boyfriend (?) over their cell phone in someone else's apartment? The main character has this irrational fear of cell phones, and her girlfriend, Frog, is fascinated by the contraption, runs away with it and shuts herself in the bathroom! Not only that, but the main character just randomly falls asleep, is pushed down a manhole by some guy named Fred and they both fall asleep together watching water leak from a pipe(51). Strange.
Gladman brings up some interesting points and ideas that I'd like to mention. Gladman explains how the telling of lies is much more invigorating than the telling of fiction. Does she mean the telling of lies that pertains to her own life? And isn't lying essentially that same thing as fiction? I found a few interesting quotes that I'd like to share as well. "The fury we feel at the neglect of the present works itself out in our projections. We Create Fiction." (62) That's how I've always felt about fiction, and specifically the writing of it. If I find my world to fall short of what I really want, I always have the option of creating a new reality through fiction. Gladman also focuses a lot on the idea of time. "I had written nearly one hundred pages of a day in the life of four years of me." Gladman explained that her constant disapproval and rewriting of After That was due to the fact that time had elapsed between drafts and within that time she had changed and the current writing about herself in the novel was no longer her.
A couple other interesting elements inluded the excessive blank space throughout the book. There were varying font sizes. The story is set up so that it could retell itself infinately. The last paragraph of the book is the same, word for word, as the first.