Reading "A Private Landscape" by Melissa Pritchard

Wow. I just finished reading this piece of short fiction ("A Private Landscape" by Melissa Pritchard) and all I want to do is talk to someone about it--which, for me, is a sign that this is an excellent piece of literature. I guess this blog will have to do.

It felt like every single line worked tirelessly to give the reader an understanding of the protagonist and her surroundings. God, it's fabulous. This writing is fabulous. I want more than anything to be able to produce this type of writing someday. Okay, so the plot is that basically this woman feels totally old, useless, and unneeded by her husband and only daughter. Her daughter is starting to "come of age" (as we say in the literary world) and her husband is confused by seeing his wife diminish while his daughter blossoms in her sexuality. For her daughter's fourteenth birthday, the narrator picks out a white horse with a gray underbelly (like the moon) to give to her. Through the descriptions of the horse, how it is treated, and what it means, we get a better understanding of the protagonist's inner thoughts. She narrates "The horse, sapped by domesticity, confined by fences, has disillusioned me. I expected more from it" (131). Clearly (and this is the author's amazing ability shining through) the narrator is "talking" about the horse, but she is thinking about her own life. She is disillusioned by the ideas of marriage and family. The text is flawless in its use of different layers of meaning. Pritchard does this so fluidly that while reading this piece, I was aware of my jaw dropping--staring open mouthed--at the pages. God, I want to do that. This is seriously, like, the best thing I've read in a long time.