NEW YORKER FICTION 2014

A WRITER'S WIT
Praise
the invisible sun burning beyond
the white cold sky, giving us
light and the chimney's shadow.
Denise Levertov
from "Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus"
Born October 24, 1923

BEAN & HANKS

Daniel Hertzberg

October 27, 2014, Tom Hanks, “Alan Bean Plus Four”. A nameless  narrator tells how he and three others—two men and a woman—launch themselves so that they can circle the moon in a vessel they call the Alan Bean (NASA astronaut who landed on the moon in 1969). ¶ Imagine that the character played by Tom Hanks in the film Big wrote a short story about four people rocketing to the moon . . . and this story is what you might get. It is told in the fashion of a fairy tale or perhaps a child’s picture book—yes, it's fantasy! Facile moves that make it possible for the fearless four suddenly to make their launch as the moon comes into view! The writer’s logic is all in the narrator’s youthful head. ¶ And I’m not sure why this voyage is made. Do these participants hope for fame for themselves and the iPhone photos? Or is it for the smell of it (they reek upon splashdown)—miraculously enough—as they land near Oahu? To have gone to the far side of the moon . . . I'm not sure there is enough awe. ¶ Mr. Hanks’s story is successful enough—enjoyable for what it is—but does its writer have the skills to write a story that stands up to other New Yorker stories? The likes of Alice Munro? T. C. Boyle? I repeat a question I’ve posed before: Is it fair for the magazine to provide space here for a famous actor with a powerful agent, when there are hundreds of English-speaking writers who could turn in a story (on the same subject) far more sophisticated than this one? I guess the fiction editor will never be able to admit the following. A big old kid—sentimental and nostalgic—wrote this story so that the youngsters of today may never forget the heroes of our once great and honorable space program! Is that enough of a reason?
Daniel Hertzberg, Illustrator

NEXT TIME: MY BOOK WORLD

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