Monday, July 10, 2006
Sculpture I
I had a romantic notion of Uzbekistan as being the most remote place on earth – the absolute farthest corner of the earth to run away to.
I’d only heard of the place just a few months before I left – it was referred to in a short story called “Sculpture I” by Angela Patrinou that I’d read in The New Yorker.
If I remember correctly, it was about a girl who runs away first from her dull midwestern life, where she takes tickets at the zoo, to track down some guy she had a one night stand with from New York. Of course, he doesn’t take her in or anything, so she makes a living modeling for an art class, where the students barely acknowledge her existence, save for one older, untalented Pakistani student, who has used his family’s life savings so that he could come to America to develop his craft. I think at one point, out of pity for him, she sleeps with him.
At the end, there’s this strange jump in the narrative. In the last three paragraphs we find her in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, teaching English after having stumbled on some ad in the paper to teach English abroad. She says that when she walks down the street, everyone stares at her and tells her that she looks like Julia Roberts.
I loved the story, I loved the way a person can change their life with no seeming logic to the change and leap into the unknown.
When I actually did it myself, I shocked everyone. My friends, at a farewell party hedged bets that I wouldn’t board the plane, that I wouldn’t survive out there, and would be back soon. I even surprised myself by loving being out there and staying on for years beyond my original commitment.
You can find Angela Patrinos’ story that inspired it all in this anthology:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375751505/ref=cm_aya_asin.title/104-7802614-1551933?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155 ¶ 9:13 AM
I had a romantic notion of Uzbekistan as being the most remote place on earth – the absolute farthest corner of the earth to run away to.
I’d only heard of the place just a few months before I left – it was referred to in a short story called “Sculpture I” by Angela Patrinou that I’d read in The New Yorker.
If I remember correctly, it was about a girl who runs away first from her dull midwestern life, where she takes tickets at the zoo, to track down some guy she had a one night stand with from New York. Of course, he doesn’t take her in or anything, so she makes a living modeling for an art class, where the students barely acknowledge her existence, save for one older, untalented Pakistani student, who has used his family’s life savings so that he could come to America to develop his craft. I think at one point, out of pity for him, she sleeps with him.
At the end, there’s this strange jump in the narrative. In the last three paragraphs we find her in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, teaching English after having stumbled on some ad in the paper to teach English abroad. She says that when she walks down the street, everyone stares at her and tells her that she looks like Julia Roberts.
I loved the story, I loved the way a person can change their life with no seeming logic to the change and leap into the unknown.
When I actually did it myself, I shocked everyone. My friends, at a farewell party hedged bets that I wouldn’t board the plane, that I wouldn’t survive out there, and would be back soon. I even surprised myself by loving being out there and staying on for years beyond my original commitment.
You can find Angela Patrinos’ story that inspired it all in this anthology:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375751505/ref=cm_aya_asin.title/104-7802614-1551933?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155 ¶ 9:13 AM
