I don’t know what I think about “Communist.” On one hand, I can see how it’s the story about the fragility of love and how easily it can be erased over a simple course of events because that part is obvious, but I get the feeling that there is something deeper under the surface. I can’t say that it’s necessarily a coming of age story because I don’t feel like Les went through something too terribly traumatic that it changed him forever. It can’t be the tale of how our narrator lost his innocence by killing something because he says clearly in the story that he’s been hunting for rabbits and pheasants before. It could be about how Glen is slowly losing his mind because he thinks everyone’s trying to kill him because he’s a Communist and how the only way he can cope with it is to hunt and kill for sport. On page 232, there’s a moment of clarity when he offers the gun to Les and says he’s ready to die which gives me the impression that he’s messed up and not coping well with it. There’s also strong undertones, that later become not so under tones, of how Les’ mother is starting to feel inadequate and desperate for love after her first husband passes. Les says that he says that he thinks that his mother may have thought that what she was doing was wrong given that Glen was younger than her, but then we see that she’s only worrying about the future and how she may believe that she may never find love again. And there has to be something symbolic about the month of November because this is the second story I’ve read by him that’s been set in that month.
All and all, this story has a lot going on and I can’t latch down on one thing to write about and I’m confused and having revelations all at the same time and I don’t know how to put anything into words properly.