2 (121 words)

In response to why Araby is great writing.

I had a difficult time getting through Araby, but not because I couldn't understand the words employed, nor because I wasn't engaged with the prose. While my eyes were eager to carry on working over the text, my brain preferred to pause and render each image he provided in a mental plasma-screen-detail. It was dense, but it was equally economical with it's word choice and despite the snail-like pace at which I took it in, I was entirely engrossed. My childhood on the streets of Dublin felt like an experience I'd fondly recalled thousands of times, both to friends and litters of nonexistent ginger-haired grandchildren. Joyce had a talent for describing anything relatable in the sharpest, and most intimate of fashions.

1 (100 Words)

In response to this.

Reading through the Eggers' story, I recalled love in it's sunniest form. Seeing her glide past in halls, or exercising the high privilege of conversation; her tolerating my dorky stutters and squeaky cadence. How could such a perfect creature talk to me? Or even acknowledge me? Eventually she began to answer my self-doubt with alternating blasts of indifference and malice. Her girlish laugh, like her phone calls or mischievous glances, became infrequent reminders of school days not so tensely solemn. Anything could trigger an outburst. A poorly formed comment, a glancing touch, a joke. I was too fond of jokes.