Reading Response for "Currents" by Hannah Voskuil

I chose to do my 1st fiction reader's response on "Currents" by Hannah Voskuil because it made an immediate impact on me the first time I read it. Therefore, I want to write this response to analyze how she is able to be so engaging, and also how she condenses her story without sacrificing the piece. I have a lot of respect for an author that can do this.

The most obvious technique that Voskuil uses is the plot structure, in which it is reversed and events unfold farther and farther back in time. In the hands of the wrong author this technique might come off as a novelty and not serve any particular purpose in strengthning the work other than perhaps as a corny plot device used for thrills. Voskuil does not do this. She made the reversed form essential to the piece; it is employed to enhance the piece. She uses the reversed form in combination with short concise moment flashes that remind the reader (at least this one) of waves and "currents". The short sections seem to "pull" the reader along, fitting contextually, but also engaging the reader. For instance, the repetition of "before" naturally draws the reader. Also, by revealing the story backward, the narrator's tone is enriched. It is almost as if the narrator is desensitized at the senseless death of the boy, like everyone else, and is slowly working his/her way back to before this traumatic event, when it was still "a simple summer day". This unique tone (discussed more below) naturally works to engage the reader.
Other than the reversed form structure, Voskuil is engaging and able to be so brief without hurting the work because of her short concise style. By this I mean she does a brilliant job of mixing extremely telling and enriched images with a blunt, factual, unemotional and deliberately simplistic tone. This allows her to get necessary information across in an interesting and emotional way. The juxtaposition of the imagery and the blunt tone is very effective in emphasizing this emotional pull, making it bold and attention-grabbing. For example, "Gary drank single malt in the night...he did not protest the dark," tells us underneath that Gary is distressed and apathetic after such a desensitizing event, without describing his emotions. There are many other examples of these simple images that say so much. The dead accuracy and total lack of embellishment in what the little girl saw, "...the drowned boy's hand...and it bounced and dragged and bounced," is vivid and effective because it is easy to imagine and relate with. The insertion of realistic, undramatic details like, "at first he mistook it for seaweed," into such a tragic context makes them heartrending simply because they are so real. The simplicity in "My brother, he said," is much more powerful and concise then an elaborate description would have been because the rest of the piece has already laid out the emotional tension to that one point; almost as if this phrase had to be the most underplayed of all because it was the culmination of all the aftereffects into one point (the reverse climax). It would be unnecessary for him to describe the hysterics of the boy, and would even disturb the tone, but the simple statement is instantly east to relate with and acts as a perfect reverse climax. This unique style commands the attention and emotion of the reader.
Therefore, I think Voskuil succeeded with "Currents" by manipulating a unique story structure form with her style and tone to create an engaging "story snapshot" that exploded with meaning.