Awful New Yorker Short Story

[SeattleUte]

Every once in a great while, but at least once a year, I come across something in the New Yorker magazine that is truly great and unforgettable. The linked short story is one of those pieces; it's awful in the sense of being awe inspiring and frightful. I read this, and I'm afraid for a world without religion, but wonder how can there be a God given what humans are capable of doing to one another.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/con...0612fi_fiction

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Every once in a great while, but at least once a year, I come across something in the New Yorker magazine that is truly great and unforgettable. The linked short story is one of those pieces; it's awful in the sense of being awe inspiring and frightful. I read this, and I'm afraid for a world without religion, but wonder how can there be a God given what humans are capable of doing to one another.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/con...0612fi_fiction

When I arrived at church this morning I saw a familiar face seated in a pew that I had not seen for some time …since we moved from Toronto out into the suburbs.

The face belongs to a young woman who came to Canada several years ago with her family, refugees from Congo. She is now in her early twenties; stunningly beautiful, confident, and not nearly as timid and silent as she was when I first met her.

When I first met her, both her and her family were all very timid and silent. Perhaps due mostly to the fact they spoke little English. In French however they shared a frightful story with me only once, and once it was shared there was little else one could say. It was eerily similar to the one I just read at the link to the New Yorker.

The trauma the young woman suffered produced a baby boy … I don’t know how old she was; the math isn’t difficult; she must have been 12 -13 years old. The little boy was adopted by her parents, and is now her sibling.

I have long marveled at this families’ resiliency, hope, and faith … in God and also the kindness of other human beings, despite the horrors they personally lived through … I find it wonderfully interesting that you posted the link to that story today. It’s so very sad that it’s not fiction, or even an exaggeration.

She is not the young woman in the story and yet she is the same young woman

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by tooblue

When I arrived at church this morning I saw a familiar face seated in a pew that I had not seen for some time …since we moved from Toronto out into the suburbs.

The face belongs to a young woman who came to Canada several years ago with her family, refugees from Congo. She is now in her early twenties; stunningly beautiful, confident, and not nearly as timid and silent as she was when I first met her.

When I first met her, both her and her family were all very timid and silent. Perhaps due mostly to the fact they spoke little English. In French however they shared a frightful story with me only once, and once it was shared there was little else one could say. It was eerily similar to the one I just read at the link to the New Yorker.

The trauma the young woman suffered produced a baby boy … I don’t know how old she was; the math isn’t difficult; she must have been 12 -13 years old. The little boy was adopted by her parents, and is now her sibling.

I have long marveled at this families’ resiliency, hope, and faith … in God and also the kindness of other human beings, despite the horrors they personally lived through … I find it wonderfully interesting that you posted the link to that story today. It’s so very sad that it’s not fiction, or even an exaggeration.

She is not the young woman in the story and yet she is the same young woman

Thanks for your story, Tooblue. Interesting.

To me the real horror lies in the fact that the leading oppressors are intellegent, educated, and, as depicted in the New Yorker story through flash backs, previously spouting enlightened, egalitarian views. What turned them into beasts? Abject fear of their neighbors kiling them? Latent racism and allied hatreds felt even for their spouses, etc.? That we really are at the extreme end of a continuum with other animals and not sharply differentiated from them? Satan? All of the above? This would be easier to take if we could just dismiss them as savages. But we can't. Of course, our own kin have been there; nothing has happened in Rwanda or Congo that has not happened in Europe and the United States.


Yes, this is not "fiction." This is a good example of how well executed literary "fiction" can reveal truth in a way that flat narrative history cannot.