Review: I Know I Didn't Like This Story
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 07 14, 2014
It's pretty easy to say what Brendan Verville's short story "Paint What You Know" isn't about. It's not about painting, that's for sure. It's a lot tougher to figure out what the story is actually about. For most of the story, readers will probably be completely baffled trying to figure out what the story's about, until they finally realize ... it's not really about anything at all.The story is based on a familiar fictional plot device. A young man named Jeff is house sitting for his brother, a well known painter. Since he's got a lot of leisure time, Jeff tries to write a book. For a long time, he struggles, as he tries to apply his brother's advice to ... paint what you know. Unfortunately, Jeff doesn't seem to know much of anything that he can write about, so he remains cooped up in the house, trying to write a tale about a young man's adventures at sea in the 18th century, a story that sounds like an idea Herman Melville rejected. However, the Jeff's book never seems to go anywhere.Much like Jeff's book, "Paint What You Know" never goes anywhere either. It's hard to tell whether Verville meant this to be a serious story or a very dry comic tale, but it never succeeds at either. Instead, Jeff merely putters around for most of the story's 25 pages. Eventually, he meets a homeless man with whom he has a lengthy philosophical discussion about free will, the evolution of consciousness, and the necessity for change in the world. The discussion is reminiscent of those engaged in by drunken graduate students at the local pub; namely, it sounds quite profound to the two participants but extremely pretentious and downright ridiculous to anyone sober who is listening in. Eventually, there's a point to the homeless man's philosophizing, one that most readers probably guessed much earlier in the story.It's certainly possible to write a good story about a person with writer's block, but "Paint" reads more like a story written by Verville (a talented, fairly prolific writer) in bits and pieces as a cure for his own occasional bouts of writer's block. Jeff meets different people besides the homeless man: a neighbor, the neighbor's teenage daughter, and, eventually, the painter brother. However, the encounters go nowhere and do nothing but extend the story a couple more pages apiece, until, I'm guessing, Verville decided he had enough material to publish as a completed story.My original intention was to rate this story at two stars based on Verville's writing talent, which is apparent throughout the story. However, I then realized that Verville charges three bucks for this story (I received it for free as a promotion, but the regular price is $2.99). I can't think offhand of any 25-page story that is worth $2.99, and, even if there are such stories, "Paint What You Know," with its pointless meanderings and pretentious philosophizing, isn't one of them. So, I'm rating it at 1.5 stars, rounded down to one based on the ridiculously high price tag for the story."Paint What You Know" did leave a mental image in my mind. When I finished the story, I pictured Jeff hunched over his typewriter like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining," typing page after page containing endless repetitions of the phrase "paint what you know." That might be a story worth reading. The actual "Paint What You Know" certainly isn't.