Short Stories: The Nothingness Forest and The Gifts of War

For class the other day we read two short stories that had to do with coming of age. While I enjoyed reading the stories, I did noticed that they were very different from the other stories and novels we have read in the class this semester. Out of the two stories, I think I enjoyed reading The Nothingness Forest the most because it was so different. I loved that the author took on the task of writing from the perspective of a young child (or actually an infant) and then a dog. I thought that this was very interesting and definitely different from anything I have ever read or heard of before. I also enjoyed reading this story more because I understood it better. I loved the "moral" or "lesson" that came from the story and the writing was just very beautiful.

I did not like the story The Gifts of War very much because I was confused by it. Until we talked about what was going on in the story during our class time, I was unsure of some aspects of the story. I got confused when they started referring to "she" in the scenes in the store and found myself unsure of what exactly was going on with the woman and other characters. I think now that we have talked about what actually happened and about the main character (the mother and wife), if I were to go back and re-read the story, I would understand it a lot more and get more out of it.

Overall, I thought the two short stories were a good way to end the semester. They both took on a interesting view of coming of age and left us (the class) with a broader view of what coming of age is.