The Penthouse
The spiral effect in this very short story in The New Yorker is excellent. A winning exemple of a successful “one page fiction” 1. The Penthouse is the retelling of a comical, real-life moment, exemplified. We whirl around a central spine which, as subtext, is never made explicit. Great picture of “showing not telling”. The author set up a brilliant vantage point, a gaze, and really we are lured into self-derision effortlessly. The successive predicaments are amusing, and she captures impressions very well. Each line, a launch pad into the next, no distractions, and the narrative remains extremely focussed throughout. It’s very nimble. Shrewd distanciation. Also, brilliant title with the motif of the penthouse, which contains the whole idea: it is a physical location and curbs the whole experience. Ego-inflation is a funny thing, which we often tend to figure in retrospect, because in real time we’re earnestly unaware, caught up. Acting gauche. We think we’re failing. But really we’re being initiated. What’d be freeing would be being true to self, not grasping.
