24 to 41 - "I Love to Dance at Weddings"
"I Love to Dance at Weddings"
Alix Ohlin
3rd person - Present, I noticed this time
From Babylon
orig. published in XConnect
story for 4/13
I just love Ohlin's first lines: Leda calls on a Saturday afternoon to announce she's getting married the following Thursday night. "Can you come?" She asks, her voice as innocent as milk."
I mean that's just fabulous: who's Leda, what's the rush? is this normal? So many things I want to know right away! I find that preferable to "So and So stood X and pondered about Y and she did Z action..."
This is the story of the wedding of Martin and Leda, told to us by her daughter-in-law Nathalie, who has to force her husband Nick, to even deal with his mother or her fourth wedding. We go through all the hasty, and some silly arrangements and to the ceremony itself, to contrast the young couple, who's supposed to be "romantic" and the sort of foolish older couple, who really is. (well, you know, at least for now).
Great passage on 126 that sums up marriage in an action:
Nathalie holds the phone out to Nick, who shakes his head. They pantomime this back and forth - her holding, him shaking - until she hears Leda sigh pointedly on the other end. The she drops the phone into Nicks's dust-covered lap and goes back into the house.
I think there are one too many shots at older people from a 30-something perspective, Martin and Leda smooch at their rehearsal dinner and pinch each other's sagging cheeks. Leda in her frou frou wedding dress looks "like a princess who's fallen victim to an evil ageing spell," etc...but I guess I could attribute those to the character, who's dissatisfied with her own marriage in the face of all this elderly bliss.
The ending leaves me wondering what happened to them all, in a good way. Do Martin and Leda stick it out for their second attempt at marriage (their first was a quickie on a cruise ship), does Nick get a job, and do he and Nathalie make it? Only people that seem real can make you wonder like that.
Alix Ohlin
3rd person - Present, I noticed this time
From Babylon
orig. published in XConnect
story for 4/13
I just love Ohlin's first lines: Leda calls on a Saturday afternoon to announce she's getting married the following Thursday night. "Can you come?" She asks, her voice as innocent as milk."
I mean that's just fabulous: who's Leda, what's the rush? is this normal? So many things I want to know right away! I find that preferable to "So and So stood X and pondered about Y and she did Z action..."
This is the story of the wedding of Martin and Leda, told to us by her daughter-in-law Nathalie, who has to force her husband Nick, to even deal with his mother or her fourth wedding. We go through all the hasty, and some silly arrangements and to the ceremony itself, to contrast the young couple, who's supposed to be "romantic" and the sort of foolish older couple, who really is. (well, you know, at least for now).
Great passage on 126 that sums up marriage in an action:
Nathalie holds the phone out to Nick, who shakes his head. They pantomime this back and forth - her holding, him shaking - until she hears Leda sigh pointedly on the other end. The she drops the phone into Nicks's dust-covered lap and goes back into the house.
I think there are one too many shots at older people from a 30-something perspective, Martin and Leda smooch at their rehearsal dinner and pinch each other's sagging cheeks. Leda in her frou frou wedding dress looks "like a princess who's fallen victim to an evil ageing spell," etc...but I guess I could attribute those to the character, who's dissatisfied with her own marriage in the face of all this elderly bliss.
The ending leaves me wondering what happened to them all, in a good way. Do Martin and Leda stick it out for their second attempt at marriage (their first was a quickie on a cruise ship), does Nick get a job, and do he and Nathalie make it? Only people that seem real can make you wonder like that.