Executors Of Important Energies by Wells Tower
For everyone out there who was a little confused when they finish reading this essay it is okay. “Executors of Important Energies,” is not a conventional essay and Wells Tower is far from a conventional writer. There may not see like there isn’t any messages in the essay but you must look a little deeper and we promise you guys will find something that speaks to you.
This essay comes from the book Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned which was written entirely by Wells Tower.
The beginning of “Executors of important Energies” starts off with a conversation between Burt and his stepmother Lucy. Lucy proposes that she come with Roger (Burt’s father) to come and visit New York. Burt clearly didn’t want him to come but Lucy kept insisting that he should.
Roger developed a disease that was like Alzheimers. He started to forget things like where he put his car or where his wallet was and it even got so bad that he forget whom his son and wife were. This caused a lot of tension within the house. It made things worse between Roger and Burt who didn’t have a close relationship to begin with and also with his wife Lucy.
Roger and Burt never had a close relationship. Burt lived most of his life in ambivalence over Lucy. When Burt was ten his father, Roger, married Lucy. Lucy was only twenty years old while Roger was forty-six. Burt always had this false hope that his father would turn over Lucy to him some day.
“I was sure that my father was only with her temporarily, that he planned to turn her over to me someday. I has a hunch that somewhere around my sixteenth birthday, he was going to take me out to a desert overlook where the sun was going down and announce that he was giving Lucy to me, along with his Mustang fastback, along with some Schlitz, and maybe a cassette tape that was nothing but “Night Moves” by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.”
Roger didn’t agree with Burt’s career choice, thought that being inventor was a waste of time in a way. He felt that Burt should be a lawyer, just like him. “Go to law school make a difference.”
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2009_04_014302.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/books/review/White-t.html
http://www.observer.com/2009/books/wells-tower-fiction-writer-looking-joy
Wells Tower is known for writing about “emotional turmoil” and about hard times. This is something that really struck us. In all families there are issues and problems and there is no avoiding it. Wells Tower has a goal and that goal is to portray the crazy and sad emotions that we face as human beings. He likes to go down the path of sadness because it allows deepness. You could easily read one of his stories and just think that its just some story but it runs a lot deeper than that. The whole point is to express high emotion through fiction stories. He does an excellent job of doing this in Executors of Important Energies.
Sadness can be a domino effect. Look how Lucy’s life went down the drain in a sense. Her dreams and wishes amounted to nothing. She eventually got to a point where she felt undesirable. Look at how the minute Dwayne gives a compliment she gets interested and her eyes light up. This is sad but it is true. When people get to a point in like where they feel so undesirable and worthless any type of attention will get them intrigued.
“Though I’d always sense something cheap and spiteful in my father’s righteousness- an easy way for him to put himself above the rest of us- he did win a lot of money for people who needed it. It’s probable true that my father did more good for people who needed it. The merry bigot before me now depressed me as deeply as anything I’d seen in his decline.”
Roger wasn’t a very noble man who cared about his family. It is obvious that even when Roger had his memory he was still arrogant and cared more about himself and pride that anyone else His actions were done solely for his personal satisfaction. He preaches about being a lawyer and “making a difference,” but he did it because it was a challenge and winning cases made him believe he was better than everyone else. Why do you think Roger smacks his Burt when he is close to beating him in chess? This was because he couldn’t stand for that feeling of defeat. This is the reason that Burt snaps back at his father when he tells him, “Go to Law School. Make a difference. Burt responds back preaching about how he does make a difference by creating goods to give mankind more convenience. Burt states, “ Dad, we’re the executors of important energies, the same stuff that builds nations….”
He did this as a sign as of resentment and hate of his dad’s self absorbed attitude. The next part that is sad yet true and this is the feeling that Burt feels toward his father Even though his father has this self righteous attitude and only cares about himself it still kills Burt to see his dad the way he is. We all know this feeling when it comes to family.
Another part of the essay that really reflects on real human behavior is when Lucy leaves Roger for another man. Roger suddenly warms up to his son. It took Roger this to feel vulnerable and heart broken to put some effort into his relationship with his son. Ever has a friend that disappeared of the face of the earth when he or she got a bf or gf? How bout when that same bf or gf leaves them how they suddenly appear and want to talk and be your best friend again? The best is when they find a new Bf or GF and forget you again. When people get sad and vulnerable sadly they become more human. A big ego can be very unhealthy to a person.
Another subject to touch on is the beautiful sport of chess. For anyone who has every played chess knows that it is addicting and difficult. It is not an easy game of checkers. Some people apply the game of chess to life. It is a game that requires strategy and patience.
“You cannot play at Chess if you are kind-hearted”
(French Proverb)
This quote reminds me of Roger. Roger only seems to care about himself and the feeling he gets from winning and feeling better than people.
Roger likes chess because it gives him a challenge. Just like when he practiced law, he took on the harder cases. Dwayne (the man who Roger plays in chess) compares himself to a musician. It is also important to note that Roger remembers chess moves yet he forgets his wife and son.
“Its better than life. In the world, there’s no such thing as a clean escape, if you follow me.”
Life is tough and everyone has their escapes from reality. Some people have a passion for writing and while their writing their troubles seem to go away. Some people love working out or playing a sport so that is their escape. If you pass by the players at Washington Square Park you will notice that there are a lot of men like Dwayne. You can tell that most of them don’t have a lot of money and that some are very poor. One thing we know for sure is that when these men are playing chess they are in the zone and it is the only thing on their mind. When you see them get a win and you see the pride on their face you can tell they feel on top of the world for that moment.
All in all, Wells Tower does a good job at portraying “emotional turmoil” and sadness through his work.
The New York Times Book Review - Edmund White
Every one of the stories in Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is polished and distinctive. Though he's intrigued by the painful experiences of men much older than he is, Tower can write with equal power about young women and boys; about hell-raising, skull-bashing ancient Vikings and an observant housebound old man of the 21st century, even about a cheerful, insouciant pedophile. His range is wide and his language impeccable, never strained or fussy. His grasp of human psychology is fresh and un-Freudianizing.
Wells Tower understands feelings of sadness and his “grasp of human psychology” is amazing. This was not the easiest reading in terms of analyzing and a clear message but I strongly believe that everyone takes something different from this essay. This essay may require a certain lens and reading of a couple times but it is a fine piece of literature. There are many strong emotions embedded in this essay.
The ending had me a little confused when I first read it but for some reason we felt a sense of peace after reading it. It kinds of reminds of when things are crazy and everything is going wrong and that one little thing happens and it gives you a little peace and happiness and you have no idea why.
Questions:
1. How do you feel about Burt’s relationship with his father?
2. Do you think that Burt was jealous of his father at all?
3. What struck your attention about this reading? Which emotion in this essay caught your attention?
4. What were you instant reaction when reading this essay?
5. Personally we got a sense of peace at the end with “Land of Charm,” did you guys feel the same way?
6. Does anyone see a connection between Roger playing chess and him being a lawyer?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJohn and Jasmine,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. Hopefully the discussion will not suffer too much from the impending rough draft assignment; although, I'm sure most of us will be, at least, a little drained.
In any case, I'm particularly fond of this story. Some of the reasons for this fondness are personal (I particularly connect to the setting of Washington Square Park, a place that is so readily envisioned in my mind’s eye) while others manifest in -- to take a word used in the post -- the turmoil of the story or, rephrased, the dynamic tension between various characterizations.
One such instance of dynamic tension that I’d like to point out is between Roger and Dwayne. First, both have a similar conflict between their occupation and their vocation: Dwayne makes money through chess but identifies as a musician while Roger is (was) a lawyer yet identifies intimately with the vocation of a chess player and all of the romantic maxims that come with that interest. Also, they seem to be, individually, put at odds in the mind of the reader and the perceptions of other characters by some sort of debilitating factor. For Dwayne, it’s entirely superficial. He’s assumedly a homeless chess-shark cum freeloader with questionable hygiene and a penchant for crassness; thereby, he’s a questionable person (though he ends up being the most honest to a certain degree). For Roger, on the other hand, appearances are not the issue. Although his condition surfaces some ugly proclivities, his character is in question prior to the actualization of any of his more defamatory actions. So there is, at the start, a general feeling of sympathy toward Roger felt by the reader (and Burt, I think) that is not necessarily felt -- or is felt differently -- at the end.
What is most interesting about this characterization is the there is no real turning point for either of these characters. As in, there is no point in the plot that causes a shift in the tension of their character. They already are dynamic and realized in their tension, and the unearthing of the full character doesn’t necessarily happen through points of plot but with conscious perceptual shifts in the story, changing how the reader perceives these characters. In other words, the story doesn’t change these characters. The reader is changed by the story, even if it is only within a context unique to the story itself.
This story seemed to me realistic, the father having a young wife, and the son thinking that one day his fathers wife will be his, all made sense to me. Which is what kept me interested to keep reading. When I was reading about the son wanting to be with his father's wife, I was expecting, the wife to cheat on he husband to be with the son.
ReplyDeleteI was wrong the father getting this disease turned the story around. It seemed like his wife was now a servant. When the father, Lucy and the son finally met again after years, Lucy was described so different now, and I thought that being with an older person can really suck the youth out of one person. Before she was described as being beautiful and now she seems to be someone who's life had been sucked out of them. I do admire her for putting up with her obnoxious husband for years.
I really didn't appreciate the way she was treated by her husband, I understand he was sick. But she was too verbally abused by him. I don't see myself putting up with that ever, i respect myself too much. That is where i think Lucy went wrong, she didn't let her husband respect her. I was happy that she left the restaurant that day.
In a way i feel bad for the son, because his father never appreciated him as much. Then when he finally meets with his father, he barely remembers him and treats him like nothing. Not only that he had to pay his bills and put up with his friends.
I feel empathy toward Burt. When he was younger, before his father was sick, his father did not treat him in the way he should have been treated. Burt gave a lot of himself by spending time every weekend with him, doing what his father wanted to do, when his father was depressed after Lucy left him. When his father came to repay him he slapped him across the face. Roger realized how it would reflect on himself when he hit Burt and made Burt sign a contract to promise his secrecy. When Burt finally spoke up about it to his mother, Roger did not even feel remorse in what he had done. He was interested in getting even and sent Burt a bill.
ReplyDeleteLucy is a selfish woman. While she did stay with Roger when he fell ill, she did not do anything to help the situation to improve. She allowed him to be as he was and took whatever she could from him. Lucy relied on Burt when she knew Burt could not handle the situation.
Overall I felt as though Burt was mistreated by both Lucy and Roger. He was the only one with feelings while his father and stepmother were cold and unfeeling.
This blog is a response to the question: How do you feel about Burt’s relationship with his father?
ReplyDeleteI believe that it is unfortunately for any child to not have a close relationship with his or her parent, especially for a father and son. There are so many things that a father is better at teaching his son such as learning how to be the man of the household, how to treat women, and so on. In many cases, the son may feel more comfortable with speaking to his father about personal topics that his mother cannot relate to. Burt lacks the ability to do these things since his father appears to be misunderstanding towards Burt which is what causes him to become frustrated. However, due to the fact that Roger has a disorder that causes him to lose his memory, he should not be at fault for being this way towards Burt. Burt should be able to understand that his father’s illness is the stem to his negative reactions toward things. Therefore, I feel that Burt’s relationship with his dad is unfavorable and no child should have to experience what Burt has, but I also believe that Burt’s father should not be held accountable for his actions due to his disease.
What struck your attention about this reading? Which emotion in this essay caught your attention?
ReplyDeletethe fact that this essay displays a real life family, with real life troubles, caught my attention the most. Because we unfourtunetly live in a world where the pleasurable is always being pushed, and noone seems to like to admit their downfalls, it was nice to read a story about real people with real flaws and real problems. It is easily relatable and shows that everyone's life isnt easy, just like your own life isnt easy.
How do you feel about Burt’s relationship with his father?
ReplyDeleteI feel like there is a lot of misunderstanding sitiuations that is between Burt and his father. Roger never seem like a father-like because of his illness but Burt was not aware of that in the beginning. Roger should not be blamed for this "bad" father and son relationsip. No one should be taking the blame because it's not one's fault. Illness are unpredictable and know could have discovered Roger being ill when there were no symptoms.
I think this is the first time I’ll pursue more works from the author. Not only because I enjoyed it quite a bit, but also because it explored a few facets of human psychology that isn’t really shown anywhere else in the literature I’ve read. As per my initial reaction to this essay, I was stricken with sadness and grief, and mostly empathy with the characters, as I read along what seemed to be a “day in the life” of this family. The grief of the work didn’t only come from the father’s struggle with the “Alzheimers-esque disease,” but rather with the aftermath that stemmed from it. Instead of seeing the first account right after Roger was going through the illness, we see the aftermath long afterward, after Roger has had some time to spiral downward and after the personalities of the people were slightly morphed. This isn’t to say that the characters weren’t the way they were before Roger was diagnosed, but the disease exemplifies and restricts various aspects of their personalities and resultant behaviors.
ReplyDeleteI do feel that Burt is a bit jealous of his father, but I feel that the stronger emotion was that Burt feels he was let down by his father and that he expected more out of him as a fatherly figure. All of the examples we are given portray his father in a negative light. He seemed to be jealous of his father when it came to having Lucy as a lover, and a bit of jealousy that Roger was always able to beat him at chess. But the underlying emotion that reared its head was that these expectations and jealousy lead Burt to dislike his father. During the narrative, there are even more times when Burt is so fed up and addressed Roger crassly. But, the dual side of Burt’s personality is also shown in later events, where he sees his father as literally a father, both as his predecessor and as an elderly man he knows he should love and embrace.
The chess aspect played a big role in this piece. I especially liked how the author was able to use some chess jargon to reflect different moods and character traits. In the one piece, where the author writes, “From that distance, you couldn’t tell there was anything wrong with him, though his position was a losing one, his king on the back rank, pinned down by two bishops and a knight.” To add on to the wealth of possible explanations of this quote given in class, I feel that this quote reflects the totality of Roger’s situation. In chess, when you have a king, and its being gunned down by two bishops and a knight, you’re usually not doing well in the game. I imagined constantly being in “check” and having to move my king hopelessly around wherever it could survive, and staying alive just to stay alive. While this is counterintuitive, for Roger does win the game, the feeling is all the same: the helplessness displayed in that type of situation reflects the helplessness Roger has towards his disease (that he doesn’t know he has.)
From the reader’s perspective, this passage, Executors of Important Energies, is a test of accepting people for who they are and who they will always be. At least for me it was. I was drawn first to the character of the stepmother, Lucy. The writing of this story let my imagination go wild within the first few paragraphs. The initial vagueness regarding the stepmother allowed me to create a very clear vision of her in my head. I created a beautiful but worn woman uncomfortable in her own skin resembling Tara Reid’s character as a young wife in The Big Lebowski. When the author describes Burt’s career path, I was distracted from my curiosity about Lucy and coerced to relate to Burt’s character. Like Burt, I chose a career path that is almost impossible to receive approval from my parents or elders. Yes I do something that matters, that I work very hard at that supports positivism, creativeness, community that help children and adults alike. But I am not a lawyer nor am I doctor or by any means have taken a traditional route with my life. For that, I always feel like my boyfriend’s parents will never fully approve of me as being good enough for their son. I relate to the dynamic between Burt and his father because Burt will never be good enough to his father because of his life choices and that sucks. Yes, Roger is a negative man filled with his own problems that I’m sure he had well before his son was born but the fact that his son didn’t follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer fueled that fire of negativity. Urggh, I feel it in every exchange Burt and Roger have. It’s painful. I was oblivious in the fact that Dwayne was the only true character until it was discussed in the group. I would’ve said that he wasn’t coming back either. –And rightfully so! Faith in this world is a difficult thing when your survival skills are necessary. I loved this passage. It was uncomfortable, real, and not a happy ending. Just a down to earth this could be happening now story.
ReplyDeleteThe emotion that I got from the reading was that of empathy but to whom is hard to say. Lucy had been treated badly my Burt since she left him and returned again. He punished her in a way that showed that he will never see her as his wife again. Lucy had to go through all this because she knew what was out there and that she was better off with Burt. Burt is an old man who is mentally ill and mostly says things that hurt other people which is mostly Lucy. Burt is unable to control his actions and is not fully responsible for what he does. Burt son is also affected by this because he never had a father who showed him real emotion and kindness.
ReplyDeleteAt the end we end up knowing that the most trust worthy character was Dwayne even though he didn’t appear to be. Bart also ends up saying “Land of Charm” and feels some sort of comfort from this because he knows that he doesn’t have “charm” and that’s what he’s been missing all this time. Even though the end gives you a few answers it actually brings up many more. For example what happened to Lucy will she come back this time or not and will Burt and his son work out there relationship?