Maps To Anywhere Blog Post 1

Maps To Anywhere Blog Post 1

Brandon Lazovic

                For Creative Writing this week we had to read the first half of Maps To Anywhere by Bernard Cooper, which is a compilation of essays. The first essay is “Beacon’s Burning Down.” This essay details the perspective of a person that I feel is looking through a scrap book regarding their life. It details the name Bernard being uncommon as the narrator recants tales of his childhood looking at the complexity of names, trying to find underlying meaning in them and possibly his through extension. It moves on as he looks into his fathers scrapbook regarding various court cases that he had as a lawyer. It keeps some characterization to his father, detailing his sexual exploits while married to his mother. The essay goes into some religious context regarding Lazarus the chicken as well as religion being fake in his eyes in the sense of a TV show he used to watch as a kid, the host being a charlatan. The end of the essay focuses on his attempts to write a story. The line “Your eyes are like beacons burning down!” Might be regarding the guilt he feels about pushing off the story.

                Another essay, Capiche, is short, but interesting. It describes a setting in Italy and draws the reader in, believing every word written on the page. It turns out, however, that it was all a modulated lie and the narrator never actually went to Italy. I found it interesting that they would tell us this and makes the reader think/have some skepticism beyond that point. It destroyed the immersion of the story purposely and for that I find that direction that was taken to be interesting. On the Air is interesting as the past should be left behind and a pure, unadulterated future without limitations should be embraced.

                How to Draw follows a narrator and his path in art. I consider it interesting as he goes into detail regarding simplistic art as opposed to its complex counterpart. The essay, despite having a focus on simplicity, paints a picture in the mind of the reader regarding the setting and the drawings that the narrator creates or has seen. Maps to Anywhere is interesting as well (the essay, that is) as it follows Mr. Stone and Mrs. Mazel as they meet (Mr. Stone buying a globe from her). Regarding Mrs. Mazel she’s lost in her own world, with her own geography set in her mind while Mr. Stone watches on as she doesn’t notice him. Her view seems expanded and broad, while Mr. Stone describes the world shrinking around him when he loses his keys. They take two opposite approaches, Mrs. Mazel taken solace and excitement in the world being so large, while Mr. Stone feels alone because of the depth and size of the world, or that’s how I portray it.

                Lastly, The Wind Did It follows a father and son. It gives a good amount of character description, giving the characters essence and some connection. The narrator’s father seems as though he’s trying to escape his past, possibly as a stage of life (not wanting to look back on his mistakes or memories that burden him) but as the narrator and him are driving he keeps recanting tales and memories of the past. He might possibly be coming to terms with his age or that you can’t escape from your past. The story might actually be a continuation of “Beacon’s Burning Down” considering the narrator is Bernard, his father is divorced, is eighty years old, their relationship was tepid, and the father is rich (possibly from an attorney position, he was put in the newspaper as well). He’s also overweight and the doctor is ordering him to lose weight, which might have connection to the heart issues of the father in Beacon’s Burning Down. I enjoyed the story though as it portrays a growing connection between father and son. It also hints at familial problems between father and mother as they both wanted to move away and the father would go away on ‘business’ several times. Something must have happened in the past to separate father and son and it wasn’t until Bernard turned 35 that he got the chance to rekindle their relationship (as he states several times that he doesn’t want to do anything to put a dent in their newfound relationship). I also just realized that the author’s name is Bernard Cooper, so the Bernard in the essay might actually be him recanting events that he had witnessed/lived through.