I know that I just don’t shut up about your diction, but it really underlies everything you’ve posted. Another stylistic point in your favor: you’re pretty good at varying your sentence structure without seeming overt about it.
Paragraph 1A few suggestions: your writing is so carefully spartan that conspicuous exposition becomes even more conspicuous. Since the narrator and his Dad both likely know that Henderson Harbor is north, to write “we travel
north to Henderson Harbor” isn’t really necessary, especially since it doesn’t really affect the story other than to slow down the pace of the text. You can omit "north," I think. The same is true of “Quaker,” unless being a Quaker made the grandfather object to the narrator’s military service; otherwise, the word should be removed because it adds little. Also, you could remove the sentence “If only, I think,” because the lone phrase “if only” is more powerful on its own.
Paragraph 2By this point “travel” has appeared three times in two paragraphs—watch the repetition! Elsewhere I think you’ve established that it’s 1953, so the narrator would likely say “fresh home from Korea,” rather than “from the Korean war.” I like “neat uniforms” as a descriptor. You can probably omit “Virginia,” and consider using “town” instead of “village,” which seems somehow European to me in this context.
Paragraph 3Heck, if you ask me, she seems pretty interested in you! Unless her provocative dance is a business proposal and you’re unwilling to front the capital! This is a really nice paragraph in any case; “we are taken by a pretty young girl” rather than “we follow a pretty young girl” or “we go with a pretty young girl.” Very nice! I’d advise against using “Robert is a heavy drinker” and “There we are all three a bit drunk” so close together because they have an odd resonance with each other. You can use them both, but separate them a little bit.
Paragraph 4If you and Robert both catch (or try to catch) rides back to your village, how did you get to the other town in the first place? I had assumed that you’d driven, but maybe you could clarify this with a quick phrase a few paragraphs earlier? Otherwise this is a great paragraph with a really funny image, in powerful contrast with the paragraph to follow.
Paragraph 5This paragraph is so abrupt and unexpected that it hits the reader with violent force—very effective in communicating the action of the scene. See my comment below about the poetic interlude, but you might consider rewording this paragraph somewhat, since so much of it is echoed directly in the poem (thereby lessening the verse). I think that you could preserve the horror by maintaining the matter-of-fact tone you’ve used here, but the echo-words undermine the power.
Paragraph 6 (poem)This is a strong piece, but I’d get rid of “It hurts her,” which only lessens the power of the line that follows. Also, the verse doesn’t quite fit here; in other excerpts your poems seem to mesh with the text more smoothly, but here it seems almost forced into place. I think it would work better if it came after the final paragraph below.
Paragraph 7This paragraph very effectively touches on an underlying ghastliness of war without quite stating it outright. Robert raped a young girl during wartime, and the narrator identifies this not as an action-during-extremity but rather as a symptom of the fundamental change in Robert’s character. It’s interesting that Robert confides in the narrator, because it implies a reaching-out for help or understanding even as it underscores the brutal, laughing creature that Robert has become.
Omit the second sentence, because the reader can infer it. “Some things never change” is both a cliché and a line from Bruce Hornsby; you can remove it, too, and probably the sentence that follows it (which sounds a little melodramatic). I’m dying to know what “Robert-Snake-Robert-Snake” means—is it a pun on his name? A nickname derived from a childhood incident? I’m intrigued!
The closing question is good because I sense that the narrator knows the answer but wishes that he didn’t. I also like that we don’t see the narrator’s reaction to Robert’s newly revealed brutality. The closest most of us get to this kind of situation is when some friend makes an idiotically insensitive comment, and we’re all left in awkward silence around the table. Here, we can’t tell for sure if the narrator can allow himself even that much!
As before, these writings are powerfully evocative and compact. Reading this excerpt opposite
Kazuko gives a stirring contrast between the tenderness of that scene and this one. Nicely done—keep ‘em coming!
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