The Montrose Rashomon

A series of three short stories by Martin Marks

It is the 31^st of May, 1993. Exactly nine years before the events of And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth begin, its three main characters are about to part ways: Eliot Paulsen is about to graduate. In a year, his closest friends, Nicola Tesla Buchenlieber and Caitlin Bryce, will do the same. Eliot will head to law school in his native Pittsburgh. Caitlin, called Tlin, is destined to vanish after graduation. Nic will spend several years after his graduation traveling from Bangkok to Bern to Belgrade, and when he gets home will have completely lost track of his friends. It will be a long time before the three stand in the same room again.

This, then, is the story—or rather, these, then, are the stories—of the three years in which they were all at Montrose College together, before they became separated. The authors are speaking candidly, more candidly than they would have with any other human, including (especially?) each other. Perhaps it is best to imagine these stories being written down in longhand—Nic's handwriting is tight but sloppy, Eliot's bold but overproduced, and Tlin's effortless but neat—with every intention of throwing them in the fire before anyone can see them, and sifting the ashes throughly. They are catharsis, not communication, like letters addressed to the dead.

Though this series is named for Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, it is, at best, loosely inspired by the film. Rashomon was the retelling of the same events through the stories of several unreliable narrators who all witnessed the events, leaving the viewer to wonder which was the real truth, or if indeed the truth had been revealed at all. These three stories, however, are different—they are a retelling of the same period in time by three mostly-reliable narrators who were not all privy to the same information. By the end, having seen all three perspectives, the reader will come to an more or less complete understanding of the truth, which none of the writers had—as such, this is more an example of dramatic irony than of the Rashomon effect. (But it's a good name.)

It is worth mentioning that these stories, specifically Eliot's and Tlin's, contain spoilers for And the Geek Shall Inherit. In a perfect world, I would tell you to read Nic's story before the novel, Eliot's story about halfway through, and Tlin's at the end. Unfortunately, the novel isn't available in most bookstores, which is understandable given that the first draft isn't even half-done as of this writing. I therefore leave it to your discretion.

A bit of discussion of the three characters would probably be useful here. All three are obviously very overeducated and, in different ways, desperate to prove it. However, it would be a mistake to write off the occasional floridity of their prose and obscurity of their literary references as just being a demonstration of their insecurity in their intelligence. It is in part their desperate love of language that leads all three (but especially Eliot) to assert their dominion over it, which may seem like a contradiction, or may perhaps seem more like human nature.

Finally, a word on voices. I've already mentioned handwriting in passing, but I personally find it very helpful to know what a writer's voice sounds like when I read. For something as personal as the "Rashomon" series, it seems almost necessary. So:

Nic is somewhat stout, but his voice sounds like it's coming from someone much skinnier (which, paradoxically, makes him seem heavier than he actually is). There's a slight, but audible, nasal edge to his voice, which some people like, more find annoying, and most don't even notice. His accent is, typically, quite bland, and very hard to place: he speaks such standard Standard American English that he doesn't quite sound American. When he gets to discussing minute details of pragmatic manners, he picks up the faintest suggestion of a Germanic accent, and when he gets into a good passionate diatribe (which he doesn't do in public very much) his words burn with a very, very slight Slavic tinge to the flames. (He was raised by a phlegmatic Swiss engineer and a choleric Serbian poet, so this is perhaps not surprising.) His writing style is generally crisp, communicative, and narrative-driven, but he's as prone to overextending a literary conceit as anyone.

Eliot likes to think he has trained his voice over the years to the point where he commands it like a well-tuned piano, but it might be more fair that he's trained everyone to think his voice sounds like what he himself thinks it does. He is a tenor who people think is a bass; his speaking voice seems deeper and more resonant than it really is, because of the persona he disguises himself with. He has taught both himself and those around him to believe he is an irrestiable sex machine, which has in fact made him one to some extent. A necessary byproduct of this transformation is sleaze, which sometimes seems to be dripping off every word, especially when he is trying to be sincere. His accent has, for those who listen carefully, faux-British overtones to it. He likes words and loves puns, and likes arranging sounds in ways that he personally finds euphonic, which makes his more extravagant writings seem slightly silly to everyone but him.

Tlin has a low, soft voice that makes her seem docile or even servile, especially when she's feeling anxious and introverted. She can make quite a weapon of her voice when she wants to, not so much with volume as with tone. Her accent has been watered down over the years (quite intentionally), but is still very obviously Appalachian. Tlin switches easily between styles and registers when writing, but perhaps her most natural style is simple and conversational narrative, detached from emotion to the greatest extent possible. In 1993, she was just beginning a torrid love affair with the semicolon. Nine years later, she is still recovering.