The Beholder (Six Shorts, 6/6)
The last story of the Six Shorts anthology, which I started to discuss a few days ago , is called “The Beholder,” by Ali Smith. My enthusiasm has been waning in post after post, and it won’t pick up today. It won’t drop to its lowest level, either. The main character in “The Beholder” is also its narrator: a woman who goes to the doctor because she is having trouble breathing. The doctor checks her out, and then asks about her life. Fine, she says. And after a moment’s thought: “well, my dad died and my siblings went mad and we’ve all stopped speaking to each other and my ex-partner is suing me for half the value of everything I own and I got made redundant and about a month ago my next door neighbour bought a drum kit, but other than that, just, you know, the usual.” So things aren’t peachy. She is given an antidepressant, but tosses the bottle of pills aside when she reads that one of the side effects is depression. She moves on with her...