By: tothesound

tothesound — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:30:30 +0000

This is the exact same thing that happened to me, owning of “Forty Stories” to reading it in an anthology in class to finding this excerpt online. I feel maybe with this post we can begin to rectify any confusion caused by what is I’m sure the millions of people googling “The Balloon” and not having the chance to experience the entire thing. There’s more!

By: h

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 05:59:07 +0000

i had a very similar experience about the end of “the balloon”! i only had a copy of ‘forty stories’ for awhile and not ‘sixty stories’ but i had read “the balloon” in an anthology for class or something and loved it and then i would read it on that website and i would think it wasn’t as good as i remembered it and then time would pass and i still had this submerged memory of it being really lovely so i would try to read it on the website again to get what i had forgotten but couldn’t, which was really frustrating. then i got a paperback of “sixty stories” and realized the difference and how crucial that ending it is. i think it’s the reintroduction of the first person narrator who has been hidden for the whole story as he describes this exterior phenomenon — carver also did it well in some story but it’s something that barthelme is so good at (if i am not overremembering, he did it a bunch – one place i can think of the end of “robert kennedy saved from drowning”)

Comments on: Simon is amazed by what he doesn’t care about.

By: tothesound

By: h