The story itself is relatively simple: A school teacher, Ms. Duffy, returns from Sabbatical knocked up, married, and blissfully happy. No one is more intrigued by that than Ms. Hempel, our narrator, who spends the short story attempting to figure out how Ms. Duffy and all the other teachers at the school lead such “interesting” lives. On the surface, these lives seem pretty bland, boring, and normal. The more exciting stories are of teachers sharing stolen kisses, going out to bars, etc, Similarly, Ms. Duffy did not have the adventure that Ms. Hempel believes she did. Instead, her trip was cut short by illness and Ms. Duffy returned to her mother’s condominium in New York – where she met her current husband.
What is so interesting about this seemingly uninteresting story is Ms. Hempel’s reactions to it all. She is truly, sincerely, and completed fascinated by the very process of action and decision making taking place. Moreover, every elicit detail perplexes, wonders, and sometimes even seems to arouse Hempel, as she attempts to figure out how these things happen – things that seem quite matter-of-fact to the reader. Hempel’s own inability to make decisions or take actions is exactly what makes her see everyone else around her as so bold.
The character of Hempel is really the most genius part of this story, a story of discovery. Hempel seems like she crossed over to the other side of childhood but can’t quite grasp adulthood. This perpetual, childlike uncertainty carries the story. You feel like she’s constantly on the verge of discovery. Like with one more turn of the page she will realize the secret to living an ordinary life, the type of life she so admires in her co-workers. But it’s an expectation that just builds perpetually, never quite released. Towards the last few lines of the story you almost get that release you were searching for, as Hempel attempts to retrace “the moment in which someone had made a decision…to remember how it felt.” She seems on the verge of a long-needed breakthrough, but the author ends the story before it could every come.
The story is so simply and clearly written that it takes a second read to be sure of its inner lessons (seizing the moment and what not), the genius of the character, and how well structured the sentences are. But that the story can seems so plain and simple on the first read is a testament to the author’s story telling ability.
* Yurt was published in the New Yorker in 2008. It has been included in the “Best American Short Stories of 2009” by Alice Sebold.
MariaAlexandra 