I liked the visual images I got from reading this story, especially when the couple goes to a local covered-bridges festival. It's during the fall, and she mentions all these colors, fall colors obviously, but also the purple and blue of his wife's clothing and her eyes. I love talking about colors when describing a place or a time, or really anything, so this scene is my favorite. It's peaceful, and it's before they babysit a small child, or Lena almost dies of an allergic reastion to a bee sting.
Lena strikes me as an odd character. She has weird hair, that apparently gets passed down through her mother's side of the family, is deathly allergic to bees, and works at a poison control hotline, which is also how she met her husband; he called the hotline after getting some sort of insecticide in his eye, and then called her back and invited her to his house.
I'm sorry, but that's just weird.
It's just so absurdly strange that I'm just going to go off on a rant. Why would the thought of dating this woman even cross your mind? You have a dangerous substance floating around in your eyeballs! Then, why would you act on that strange idea? You've never met her, you have no idea what she looks like, her personality, or anything other than her name and the fact that she spends her days answering a phone and talking about poisons.
And then why would she accept such an offer? That guy could be some sort of murderer, or creepy stalker man. Ugh, people.
Anyways, I thought it was interesting how the near-death experience totally reversed their perspective of having a baby. At first, Lena wanted to, but then she changed her mind, saying that it makes you "twice as mortal", because now you have a child that can get hurt and not just yourself.
Then, her husband, who was reluctant when she first mentioned a child, describes this after his wife says that she is now certain they aren't going to have a kid.
"I felt a strangeness in my chest, as though the muscels of my heart had suffered a thousand tiny lacerations and were leaking out pain."
The second short story is, of the two, my favorite. It is Nessa Rapoport's "The Woman Who Lost Her Names". I found it easier to understand than the first story I read.
Both stories feature a married couple and their relationship, and a new child is an important part of it. Rapoprt's story, however, also has a very strong cultural theme, and an identity theme. 'Sarah' changes her name so that she an marry her lover, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal at first. But the trend of losing names affects her newborn daughter, whose name isn't ever revealed.
I got the feeling, when the naming ceremony was being described that women like 'Sarah' have been dealing with this for centuries - it seems like a tradition, or part of the culture, for women to have this burden.
But it's not only 'Sarah' who has lost a name - two, arguably, because of her daughter. Yakov also, is called by a different last name. This time, it wasn't an old tradition that took it away from him, it was his publisher. I'm not sure what this means, but it's there, and I think it's cool how the idea of being named is continued throughout the whole thing. It gives it, well, continuity.
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