karma

the best part of the story is the karma he gets from his final wife. he keeps eating all of his wives in the beginning and then when he decides to go to the river he meets his final match. she is this beautiful lizard and he confesses his love for her. they celebrate and when they go to bed he is finally comfortable and safe and falls fast asleep and as he does his true love eats him. priceless. i liked this story because it was very comical and entertaining. this story is translated from another language but i could see the ending being interpreted many different ways than the one that it did end in here in the book.

Midnight and I'm not Famous Yet

I liked the sentence, "I thought this picture was worthy of a statue." It's a great description of the picture and of the narrator's love for it. I liked the sentence, " I had never had time to be but two things, a giggler and a killer." It's a creepy and seemingly accurate description of joining the army as a young man. I liked a couple sentences for the humor. "Why can't we be fighting for some place like England?" and, "I got a print from the Pentagon when the war was over and it didn't matter." And the last line was my favorite part of the whole story. It's such a great point, and it ties the whole story together well. " Nobody was killed. We saw victory and defeat, and they were both wonderful." I thought it was weird how much the author used 'etc.' My guess is it might have been characterization to make the narrator out to not be so articulate. Any other ideas?

The Story of the Lizard

I really liked the first sentence because it gave me a clear picture in my head of the setting and some freedom to make that scene of my own imagination. "At the edge of the river, hidden by the tall grass, a woman is reading." I liked the unique words chosen to describe 'everything,' "the dry and the wet, the tamed and the wild, all that had memory, all that had oblivion." And I liked the idea of God being fed up with the prayers for a son. It shows at early on that this is going to be no normal tale. I liked the way the author transitions from the tale right into the next part of the story, and with another strong sentence. "His scaly belly lapped by river water, Dulcidio is taking his siesta." I like how the author gave him a name without specifying who it was because he didn't need to. A lot happens in these two pages, I think the author is good at telling the story without fluff. I liked the description of living with unrequited love as spending "nights and days sighing and listening to melodies long out of fashion." The end was very strange. I thought it would have been believable that the girl turns on him. But setting him on fire was such a weird thing to do out of her character and without motive as far as the reader knows. But it does go along with what I thought initially about the author giving the reader's imagination a certain freedom. I liked the line at the end about how Dulcidio dreams for the first time in his life. I think it could have ended there. I wasn't a fan of the last small stanza all that much. Anyone agree or disagree?

Ysrael

I thought this sentence was funny and good characterization. "Rafa, who was older and expected more woke up every morning pissy and dissatisfied." The narrator's thoughts in response to his tia saying looking at Ysrael's face would make someone sad forever were sweet. "I had never been sad more than a few hours and the thought of that sensation lasting a lifetime scared the hell out of me." And I liked this sentence for the characterization and the clear image it gave me. "Rafa shook his head with that not-a-chance grin of his." I thought it was weird that the author didn't use quotations for dialogue. It was a little confusing sometimes probably because I'm not used to it, but it kind of worked. It went along with the other thing that takes you off guard, which is the Spanish words that sometimes you can tell from context and sometimes you can't. I thought the numbering of the parts was strange. I'm not sure why the author decided to do that. Any ideas?

The Story of the Lizard Who Had the Habit of Dining on His Wives

This story must have been over my head because I didn't get it. I got the whole girl reading a story, puts herself in the story thing (or the sort of infinite circle bit) but I didn't understand why, or what the fucking point is. I got nothing out of it and I've heard better versions of the same story told a thousand different ways. Blue Beard for example. Anyway, if you're going to rewrite a classic, do a better job, the blue print is already there. It was the chicken and the fox, or the wolf in sheeps clothing, but with emphasis placed on the how rather than the why. The whole point of a fable is the moral, not the bad dialogue and the characters who are so poorly strung together. Bad job, thumbs down.

Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet

I liked the story itself, I liked the end as well. I didn't like the style because it made the story kind of hard to follow, as others have said, it didn't flow so well. I really liked the ending with his little rant about victory/defeat. Because of the flow of the story, there were certain parts which were not as powerful as they could have been, like the death of tubby. I didn't really care, and I don't think that was the author's goal, this wasn't a Catch 22-esque story where you're supposed to be apathetic because the author is trying to make a point. I had to reread it to catch some of the finer details, and I don't like rereading stories unless they are a real work of art, this was not a real work of art. But all in all it was good.

the prince and the lizard...

I liked this story. It's a funny image of the pursuit of women. Man/lizard/prince who desires to devour women. He finally meets a woman he can't claim outright, the "girl of his dreams", and is forced to approach her in a different manner than he would the rest. She denies his advances, then breaks his spirit, then accepts him, then gives him the night of his life, then she eats him in his sleep. Classic material, I'm a fan.

The story of the lizard who had the habit of dining on his wives

I thought this story was really strange. I didn't really like it a whole lot because I thought it was just too brief and there wasn't a whole of description; not that I really would want a description of a lizard man eating his wife just saying it was brief. I also disliked it because I didn't find the plot to be interesting, it was just kind of odd. Sometimes I like odd things but this was just I don't know, a different kind of odd. Though I didn't like it that much I have to give it credit that it was pretty original, I had never read a story like that before and it was pretty unique.

Midnight and i'm not famous yet

This story was a little hard to get in to. I think it was because the writer really jumped around a whole lot and didn't really have a flowing story. It just seemed like to me that he wasn't transiting very well. He would talk about one thing and then bam jump right into another without really connecting them together. The story really reminded me of another Vietnam story i have read called The Things They Carried by Tim O'brien. Like that sotry the author jumps around a lot, but is able to connect random thoughts with the story. In the Things They Carried the author also states that I'm not able to tell a story very well because I'm basically writing this as I remember it so there is no flow and the story will jump all over the place. And in both stories the authors can't get an image out of their head, which I thought was rather intresting. It made me wonder if they were both trying to distract themselves with these images of "beauty" from the images of horror in Vietnam.

YSRAEL

I really enjoyed reading this story. The story reminded me a lot of the movie Slumdog Millionare. Cause like the narrative in Ysrael, the main character of the movie is sympathetic and like the brother in slumdog millionare the brother is more ruthless and willing to do certain things that the younger brother isn't. I don't know I just got a vibe from reading it that made me think of that movie as well as the movie City of God. I really like the story of Ysrael though. I thought it was kind of sad and I felt very sympathetic towards Ysrael. I also think the story is better told in first person than it would've been in third.

The Story of the Lizard Who Had the Habit of Dining on His Wives

Who really had the power, Dulcidio or the woman he was madly in love with? The woman in my opinion had a master plan and wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine. This story was very enjoyable and I can see how it has somewhat of a message depends how you take it. For example the way I took it was that in life many men hurt women (or the other way around) and when either men or women find that one person they wont hurt that person hurts them. So don't ever do what you would never like to be done to you....Karma is real.

Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet by Barry Hannah

This story was very interesting. I did have a hard time following the story the first time, but when I read it for a second time I did realize a lot of things I really enjoyed reading about. I will definite like to read more from Barry and understand his unique style of literature.

The story of the lizard who had the habit

I thought the story was strange. It reminded me of a Grimm's fairy tale. I didn't like the lizard character because he kept eating his wives and I wanted someone to get him back for this so I kind of guessed the ending. I thought the girl he fell in love with was very mysterious. why did the she keep disappearing?

Vague title that grabs your eye and makes you smile.

The Story of the Lizard Who Had the Habit of Dining on His Wives is a very well written. The romantic nature of the language highlighted the highs and lows of the main character. Also, the dialogue gave depth to the characters. The lizard was, at the beginning, proud and self assured. He hits on the woman with glasses with a level of almost overwhelming confidence. Yet, the woman, for the very start, is unimpressed and dismissive. He words were terse. With a combination of both the romantic language used and the dialogue, the story jumps from the pages. It is a very strong example of good writing.

The Story ofthe Lizard Who Had the Habit...

I really like this story. I really liked how it opened with a girl reading a book called Legends about the Lizard prince who ate his wives and then it turns out this girl reading about him is his dreamgirl.

I feel like this story began with a girl reading about the legend of this beguiling Lizard prince, and the rest of the story is her imagining what would happen if he wanted to marry her. She forms this elaborate revenge plan where she leads him on and makes him love her, only to eat him on their wedding night, in the name of all the other girls he tricked into marrying him.

I also loved the language. Most of it is romantic, like"I give my heart for you to tread on". Then, at the end, the dream girl says, "Don't be an asshole, knock off the bullshit", which I found very refreshing.