I’ve always loved the word “ziggurat“. A Mesopotamian temple…sort of zig-zagged…where those strange Middle Eastern agricultural gods, obsessed with sex and human sacrifice, were worshiped.
Stephen O’Connor’s New Yorker story begins with a girl in a bar playing a computer game about the tower of Babel called Ziggurat. You’re supposed to build the tower before this blueish guy, representing the creator, knocks it down. Now throw in a minotaur; hanging out in the bar between bouts of human consumption. The bar is really part of the minotaur’s labyrinth.
You know this labyrinth. You walk through it everyday. It consists of half-noticed rooms, maybe even your own, the endless corridors of parking garages, dive bars and pool halls, your local 7/11 ( I don’t know, maybe) and every other anonymous space that you can think of. SO lists cathedrals, bus stations, diners, bowling alleys, subway tunnels….
It’s an endless maze, the home of the half-bull, half-man minotaur and his food is you. O’Connor is so sly…his minotaur doesn’t have horns…he’s just a big lug of a guy with an insatiable appetite for eating people.
Girl and minotaur spend some quality time together. It’s like one of those reality shows where a woman goes on a nightmare date. Here’s a cool bit: whenever the girl and the minotaur enter a diner, there are always two cups of coffee waiting for them on the counter. Divine providence has a great sense a humor thanks to Mr. O’Connor.
Here are some touchstones that I thought Stephen O’Connor was hitting: Picasso, Becket, Herman Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, Milton, the Bible, Thomas Mann. I could have included King Kong. Is it all just me being kick-started into mythic overdrive because of SO’s story?
But the tale’s compass is a relationship…how turning to someone else can change you…and what a dangerous opportunity it is when you let that happen.
Stephen O’Connor’s wonderful “Ziggurat’ is a ziggurat…a tower of Babel and a labyrinth in itself. Can you find your way out of it? In the June 29th issue of the New Yorker.
-DH
Thanks for the heads up about this story. Fantastic. Is it about Bob Dylan?
Thanks very much for your comment. I think O'Connor is covering a lot of bases. But I can't answer your question about Dylan. Maybe some Dylan fans among our readers have an opinion?
I enjoyed this review. I wrote one on my own blog (click on my handle if you're interested.) I've been surfing around reading reviews of the story, and it's interesting to see what details different bloggers pick up on. You're the first I've seen to mention the coffee!
O'Connor really packed a lot into a very short tale.
Thanks very much, Timothy. Yes, there is a lot packed into this story…makes me think that there is a novel waiting around the corner somewhere.
Actually, I hope not… not that i hope O'Connor doesn't come out with a novel – that would be great – but I always feel a little let down when a short story in the New Yorker turns out to be part of a novel in the works. The message seems to be that the story format really can't stand on its own. That's too bad, because it marginalizes the power of good short fiction. Wells Tower published some of his short fiction in the New Yorker, and has gone on to publish (as I'm sure you know) a wildly successful book of short stories. I'd like to see more of that kind of thing.
Of course there's always room for the excerpt short… the latest NY Review of Books has an atmospheric piece by Coatzee that's supposed to be part of his upcoming novel, and it just makes me want to read the new novel; but the Review was upfront about it. (I realize the New Yorker often is too) I just feel a little let down sometimes when I find out later the story I read was actually just an excerpt. The whole approach I took to reading it initially has to be re-evaluated (and as stated before, I think it devalues the short story).
Wow, Timothy…I didn't expect such a vehement reaction to my idle speculation about a possible novel out of O'Connor. I don't agree with you but I did find your comment very interesting.
I think of a story story as being related to a novel the way that a drawing is related to a painting. They are both valid forms in their own right…but the drawing can be more intimate and off-the-cuff. Paintings have to be more formal.
Actually, I prefer drawings. Do I prefer short stories to novels? I'm not sure. But as a bookseller I know that it's harder to sell short story collections than novels. I wish that wasn't true.
Sorry to sound vehement; I didn't mean it to come off that way.
I'd love to see a novel out of O'Connor. And of course it would be interesting if he worked this story into that novel…
I also like your painting/drawing analogy; but I think a story sometimes moves at a different, usually faster, pace than a novel – and is concerned with different elements of storytelling: less on character, more on plot; etc… which is why I was questioning the general practice of publishing short stories that are just parts of novels. It changes the form of short stories I guess, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.
I actually prefer novels to short stories. I definitely read more novels than short fiction, and it sounds like that's the trend.
Anyway, you've got a great blog here. I look forward to reading more of it.
"Ziggurat" seems strained and less than a parable, and even less than a love story. It has more ambition than meaning. Starts with a promise which the author cannot deliver. One wonders what the New Yorker editors were thinking. Maybe the author is someone's friend at the magazine.
i totally disagree with mr Hershiser's comments. I didn't find the story/parable to be straining at all; in fact i found it poetic with dense-packed, seemingly effortless desciptions and imagery. the strain may have been for the reader to bear the emptiness, sadness, and desolation of the labryrinth.
i also disagree with the drawing/painting analogy. a short story, is (or can be) a fully formed and fully realized form, with as much formalistic structure as a novel. it may have shorter arcs in the development of plot and character, but it can make us feel as deeply and contain the same amount of gravity – pound for pound – as a novel. To me a good short story can actually be more effective in its economy – no room or time for fluff or superfluity.
not sure about the minotaur being dylan. he may devour people, but only as source material, and at a much more distant and careful remove.
This story comes off as new-age fluff. We are supposed to "get it" and if we don't we are un-hip clods. I agree–don't know what the fiction editor at The New Yorker was thinking.
In this case, the emperor has no clothes.
the ziggurat is connected with sun worship not to mention human sacrifice. but just to imagine the people especially the victim climbing the steps as he was being led to his doom. oooh makes one just want to scream in horror and shudder in fright. the minotaur is a half bull half man mythical creature that is known to be a bloodthirsty monster. in other words to be stayed away from.
I couldn't agree more with Hershiser. This story started out with such promise — I was so excited and interested. But it seems as though O'Connor totally lost control of the story about half way through. Maybe he was trying to make the prose match the theme. In my experience, that's usually a mistake.
To you guys who had problems with this story…you're entitled…but I just didn't feel that way. The narrative arc had a dreamlike quality (for me) that I thought was really daring since when you take chances like that you risk chasing the audience away. I loved the ending, it reminded me of the end of Paradise Lost where Adam & Eve wander off into their new world.
But I am gratified that this New Yorker story has generated so much comment. There must be something biting about it for it to generate so much heat and that's a good thing. I'd love to ask Stephen O'Connor about Ziggurat but I don't know the guy and he didn't answer my email. If you are listening SO; let's discuss Z on the blog.
I found this story to be very touching. I do not critique or write about stuff often but, there was something I really liked about it. Thats all.
I found this story to be very touching. I identify with the Minotaur character in the story and I guess it struck a chord. That is all.
My Father just started college and was assined this story for review. My Dad is 52 and has not bin to school in quit some time. I my self have just started college and am studieing to be an animaitor. I love english and love writing poetry so my Dad turned to me when he coldnt understand this story. In some ways I think your anallis is to simple, though i will admit that your views have helped me understand this story to some degree. I think this story touches the element of faith in God that we all strugle with, we surch for the Lord to answer our prairs and somtimes it seems like he just to bisy for us. I think the minotaur reprisents all people and how we feel knowone can understand our little quarks. Most people see them selves as ugly and difrent in one way or the other. Then you have the new girl which is the world we do not understand, but despritly want to understand. In other words our sins and dirty deeds rapped in to a scared women body. And then we have the game Ziggurat which is about building a path to heaven and this seems to represent how a majority of people view the surch for faith as a pointless boring game. I agree with you on the trusting of others part that you touched in your review but I think the girl represnts more than a person. all in all I think this story is about fiending and loosing your faith in God and the dangers in not trieing to seek him at all. If you give up you can be reduced to nouthing just like the minotaur. Sorry for the bad spelling by the way.