Response to Richard Bausch "1-900"

Once again, a trend I am beginning to find defines well written literature, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into when I began Richard Bausch’s short story “1-900” this week. The title gives nothing away as to what the story is about, and that is one of the main lessons I seem have being drilled in my brain this semester. My poetry teacher says, “Let the time capture the imagination not define what needs to be imagined.” In my opinion, Bausch succeeds in doing so.

So, what was the story about? Phone sex. Surprise! The characters again, like the past two weeks, describe themselves in their conversation. I am beginning to see another theme this semester that is telling me to allow my characters to define themselves without my help. That’s what makes a character real. That is what happens the whole time John is talking to Sharon.

We learn from the awkward pauses, their responses to the different verbal stimuli the other offers, and even in the end from John’s somewhat forceful request and Sharon’s hesitation and denial exactly what type of people they are. This is powerful, but can also be problematic. I think it works in this situation because of the genre the story is, but if this had been a longer work the way the characters were developed would have almost seemed forced. Dialogue is important and a powerful definer for the characters in this piece because of what they were doing, but if Harry Potter was only written in dialogue the first time Hermonie said, “lumos!” I would have been stupefied.

I think the subject and syntax coincided exceedingly well, further proving that Bausch is a very talented author. Dialogue is not an area of writing in which I boast, but reading stories such as this offer me encouragement and motivation to continue to grow and learn. A link to his own personal blog can be found here: Richard Bausch's Blog