Oral tradition and dialogue in “Oddball” and “They Talk” Michaela Drouillard
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asily Shukshin’s “Oddball” and Linor Goralik’s “They Talk” are both short stories in which events are fundamentally dependent on communication. Oral tradition in storytelling is therefore central to both stories. The miscommunication in or fragmentation of dialogue is a leading motif in both stories that obliquely builds character and genre. Reader response is necessary to complete these portraits: idiosyncrasies in speech develop characters in a way only visible to the omniscient reader, idiosyncrasies interact with structure and placement of dialogue within the text to make a critique of genre, and self-reflective endings further develop characters. In “They Talk”, speech is the only determinant in whether a character exists, gesturing to the role of oral tradition in storytelling. The voice of each anecdote is the only provided setting. The readers are responsible for creating any other context, such as links between stories, should they choose to. Nadine Forimer argues that “[in novels] contact is more like the flash of fireflies, in and out, now here, now there, in darkness. Short-story writers see by the light of their flash; theirs is the art of the only thing one can be sure of - the present moment” (264). In “They Talk”, Goralik offers no consistency to the readers. As soon as a story reaches its climax, the scene cuts to another unrelated anecdote and each begins mid-speech and focuses on a single, intense topic, delivering a series of concentrated “flashes”. While the narrator provides a series of Gordimer’s “flashes”, the onus to make sense of the work as a whole is on the reader. However, the stories are explicitly disconnected, making interpretation difficult. There is no identifiable recipient of the dialogue, and the speaker is only identifiable through the fact that they are speaking and their pattern of speech. For instance, the second pas-
sage’s speaker uses “like” several times: “like, for example” and “with this, like, mink boa” (21). Then, the third passage begins with “still, like, shaking all over” prior to evolving into an aggressive voice “she fucking throws these kinds of tantrums” and “she’s fucking nuts” (21, 22). There is a fleeting illusion of connection through the “like” of the second passage which dissolves once it becomes clear that it is two different speakers. The limits of interpretation therefore leave the reader with speech patterns that act as new settings following each shift. Thus, the act of storytelling governs the shape, context, and characters of “They Talk”. In “Oddball”, Oddball’s inner monologue is consistent with his speech, but other characters perceive his speech as disconnected and random because they do not have access to his inner world. The reader is omniscient and sees the process of dialogue, thus making empathy necessary on the part of the reader to develop a full picture of Oddball. For instance, on the plane, Oddball thinks “Why aren’t I amazed? After all, there’s almost five kilometers below me”, and continues his train of thought out loud “That’s man for you! The things he thinks up” (275). The other man is hostile towards this random outburst and ignores him (275). However, readers are more understanding because they see his thought process. This call for empathy applies to the scene with Oddball’s joke about the rouble bill (82). In this case, the narrator makes Oddball’s good-hearted intentions clear, “even trembling with joy, his eyes lit up. Quickly, so nobody could forestall him, he tried to come up with the most amusing and witty way to tell the folks in line about the bill” (82), but his joke proceeds to make those around him uncomfortable “at that, everybody got a little nervous” (82). In this case, he puts human connection before material goods, seeing that
