Aysegul Savas on Individuality, Agency, and Ideas of Home
Briefly

When I'm considering whether a particular setup has the makings of a short story, I often think of these lines from Walter Benjamin: "Death is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death." Benjamin's words have guided me for years, even if I still find them quite mysterious. I interpret them to mean that a story must be told from the point of view of its ending.
The narrator might tell us that she does what is expected of her while trying to fit in a few leisurely outings as well. But it's clear that she doesn't really enjoy herself, because the time she allocates to individual members of her fractured family is always very little, and she feels that she is letting them down.
I think that Natela's presence in the grandfather's home during the narrator's visit changes the dynamic significantly. The story explores how this new addition affects the family dynamics and possibly the narrator's interactions during her visit.
Read at The New Yorker
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