"Chieko and the Sea of Trees" Response

        The unnamed narrator is a depressed, withdrawn loner from Georgia who travels to a “Suicide Forest” in Japan with the intent of committing suicide. After making preparations, just as he is about to commit the act, he is stopped by a young woman named Chieko. The narrator learns, from her conversation, that his suicidal aims were selfish and misguided, and he resolves to live his life with intention from then on. 

I enjoyed how the sentence structure of the first person narration reflects the mindset of the character. Just as the sentences begin and end similarly, creating a monotonous tone (Ex. “I have a dead end job… I have no kids… I am 27.”), so do the narrator’s days proceed monotonously, which provides some of the motivation for his desire to end his own life. 

However, there were some significant flaws I found within this story. Some of the passage of narration seemed to be telling exactly what the reader needed to hear, not showing through setting, description, or action, which would be more interesting. For example, whereas in the story’s current state the narrator says “It is 11 PM on this rain-washed Friday,” a revision could include sensory detail or images about the rain, the jet lag of the narrator, which could include a description of time and day. I also had an issue with setting the story in present tense. I think it would be more interesting to set it as a memoir in past tense, or maybe reorganize it as a diary, if present tense is necessary. With present tense, I didn’t feel a cohesive sense of time passing, so when Chieko says it has been 30 minutes since the narrator had the noose around his neck, I was taken aback. In addition, some of the dialogue between the narrator and Chieko seemed a little formal or forced. For example, it is difficult to imagine one stranger saying to another, “So, you’ve never ventured outside your small existence…” The reader has some very factual information about the character (age, hometown, job, family) but this is stated so bluntly and without emotion that the reader feels little sympathy for the narrator, and his self-pity feels excessive rather than invoking of genuine sympathy. Like I want to know more about the narrator, I also want to know more about Chieko. Besides the death of her father, the reader knows absolutely nothing about her, not even age, ethnicity, appearance, etc. I suggest giving her character much more depth, so the reader will feel a connection to her persuasion.