The Tartan

Spoiler Warnings for “Story of Your Life” and “Arrival!”

Sofia Johnson: Hi everyone!

Jimmy Baracia: We’re back for another Book Buddies!

SJ: We’re in the classroom where Jimmy and I became friends, so this is a very special edition. Folks, we’re getting closer and closer to reading an actual book. This week, we read a famous short story called “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. It was the basis for the movie “Arrival,” which is a great movie.

JB: I haven’t seen it. Is the film accurate to the story?

SJ: It’s a little different. In the film, the daughter dies differently. Honestly, I prefer how the relationship between Gary and Louise is built up in the short story. They don’t focus on that as much in the movie; it’s primarily focused on the linguistics and the “memories” with the daughter. But the bones are there.

JB: I enjoyed the short story. I was a little intimidated when you said, “It’s 60 pages,” but then I started reading it. And at first, I didn’t know how I felt about all the linguistics. Those portions were a little dense — especially with the physics and the light refraction. I thought, “I couldn’t care less,” but I loved the moments with the daughter. They kept me engaged and reading. But then, the further I got, the more I realized how intertwined it all is. And I started appreciating the linguistics and the physics sides of it, as well as the emotional story with the daughter.

SJ: I do like how the author explains everything so thoroughly, because it really feels like you’re in the protagonist’s head, and you have an understanding of what they’re doing. And the author sort of builds the vocabulary from the bottom up, so every term that’s introduced is explained and important. Sometimes it almost felt like reading a lab report.

JB: I so appreciated and valued it. Oftentimes when you read sci-fi or fantasy, the logic is pushed to the side, and you’re like, “Okay, well, that just doesn’t seem feasible.” But here, I was not questioning any of it. I suppose a linguist or a physicist might question it, but as a layperson, it makes sense. 

SJ: Now that you say that, it makes sense that it’s so dense with linguistic terms and science, because this is a first-person narration, so the protagonist thinks in those terms. We’re just along for the ride, but the author does it in a way where it still makes sense to us if we want it to. 

JB: All the characters were very fleshed out in this, even the more minor characters. They all had very clearly defined roles within the story, which is difficult to do in a short story. I even loved Raspberry and Flapper.

[Jimmy is then incredibly disappointed to learn that, in the movie, the aliens’ names are Abbott and Costello.]

JB: I’m not going to watch the movie. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that we know that the daughter is dead, and we can go back and reflect on that throughout the story. It’s so powerful and emotional.

SJ: I agree. The moments with the daughter are some of the most engaging parts of the story. She has such a great personality, even though, on paper, she’s not there a lot. We can feel the protagonist’s love for her.

JB: When you lose someone that means so much to you, you see them in everything. Louise is working on a project with aliens that seems so distant from her daughter, but in all of these conversations that she’s having with them, and in all of her work, she can’t seem to escape from the memories of her.

SJ: And it hasn’t even happened yet; her daughter isn’t even born yet.

[Silence from Jimmy.]

JB: WAIT, WHAT?

[Sofia and Jimmy have a silly little laugh and catch up on the plot of the story for a bit.]

JB: It makes so much sense now!

SJ: So the emotional thing is that she chose to live that life with Gary and to live that life with her daughter, even though she knew she would lose both of them.

[Jimmy is distraught from this news.]

JB: I wish that the readers could hear my voice. That’s awful. I feel like I just got stabbed. 

SJ: I cried so hard when I saw the movie.

JB: That question of “Would I have rather had the joy that I felt for those years, or not know it at all, because it’s too painful to reflect on?” is so brilliant! I can’t believe I missed that. But I do think it’s meant to be subtle.

SJ: It is! And I love what the author is doing with tense throughout the story, especially in the “memories” with her daughter. There’s a lot of mixing of past, present, and future tense, which is representative of how, for Louise, everything is sort of occurring at the same time.

[Jimmy and Sofia go on a very existential tangent. They yap about coming to terms with the past, linguistic determinism, various things that they think are social constructs, whether or not math is real, the concept of time, and the butterfly effect. The days of the Book Buddies being locked in are long gone, and the classic Jimmy and Sofia tangents are back!]

SJ: The story is so good. It makes you think about whether or not you would make the same choice she made.

JB: Would you?

[Sofia is weirdly caught off guard by this. She and Jimmy try to make sense of it all.]

SJ: Well, something people bring up is that Louise is involving Gary in this. He has to go through that pain, too, and he doesn’t get to choose it. He thinks everything is normal, but his wife — the love of his life, who he’s supposed to trust more than anyone — has chosen to put him through a torturous situation. I don’t know if I could make that choice or do that to someone I love. It’s a hard question. What would you do?

JB: Oh, great, I’m on the chopping block. It’s impossible to know because I’m not Louise. It involves asking yourself so many heavy questions.

SJ: Also, if she’s experiencing everything at the same time, then can she even choose? Because her daughter already exists. But then that gets into predestination, and that’s a whole thing.

JB: On that note… I highly recommend reading this one.

SJ: Book Buddies out! Mic: dropped.