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- [00:01]
Debra Treisman
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker Magazine. I'm Debra Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker. Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. This month we're going to hear the Size of Things by Samantha Schweblin, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, which appeared in the New Yorker in May of 2017.
- [00:49]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
In the display cases along the aisles on the shelves, a subtly shifting rainbow stretched from one end of the store to the other. I still remember that site as the beginning of disaster.
- [01:05]
Debra Treisman
The story was chosen by Sivankam Temavangsa, who is the author of four poetry collections and the short story collection how to Pronounce Knife, which was published in 2020. Hi Suvankam.
- [01:16]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Hello Deborah.
- [01:18]
Debra Treisman
So when we talked about doing this podcast, you brought up this story. You didn't remember the title of the story or who had written it, but you remembered the story itself very vividly. And I'm wondering what it was that you were remembering. Was it the way the story is written? Was it the details of the plot? Was it the approach to storytelling?
- [01:40]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I don't remember why it stood out to me, just that it did. And the thing that I remember most wasn't even the language or the sentences. It was the way in which I felt changed in terms of how I felt about a character that I would not normally feel for. And I was surprised by my own feeling for this character, right, because the.
- [02:14]
Debra Treisman
Central character is described in the beginning as the man who's wealthy, he's inherited a lot of money, he's seen around town with various women, he drives his convertible in an arrogant way and perhaps is not a sympathetic character from that description, but that changes.
- [02:33]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
And how do you take someone like that and undo them such that you end up weeping for someone like that?
- [02:44]
Debra Treisman
I suppose it shows us that we can, you know, we can feel for people, and that maybe those initial judgments are just superficial.
- [02:54]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I was definitely really struck by how certain things that I think are solid and true for myself could be so undone in such a short space and time in a story. And then it also made me wonder if I could trust my sense of the world and of the things around me, if I could be so confident, that they're so solid and cannot be moved. And that's a question that has stayed with me even though I didn't remember the title or the author or I couldn't quote back to you the exact same lines of the story. I just remember the feeling, the atmosphere, that I was left with.
- [03:46]
Debra Treisman
It takes a powerful story to change one's vision in that way. We'll talk some more after the reading. And now here's Suvankam Tamavangsa reading. The Size of Things by Samantha Schweblin Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell.
- [04:02]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
The size of Things I knew that Enrique Duval had inherited a lot of money, and also that though he was sometimes spotted with women, he still lived with his mother. On Sundays he cruised around the plaza in his convertible, self absorbed, never looking at or greeting any of his neighbors, and then he'd disappear until the following weekend. I'd kept the toy store I'd inherited from my father, and one day I caught Duvel in the street, peering dubiously in through the display window of my shop. I mentioned this to Mirta, my wife, who said that maybe I'd got him confused with someone else. But then she saw him herself. Yes, on some afternoons, Duvel stood outside the toy store for a while, looking in through the window. The first time he came inside, he seemed irresolute, as though he were ashamed and not at all sure what he was looking for. He stood by the counter and scanned the shelves. From there. I waited for him to speak. He played with his car keys for a bit, and finally he asked for a model plane kit. I asked him if he wanted me to gift wrap it, but he said no. He came back several days later. Again he looked in the window for a while. Then he came inside and asked for the next model plane in the series. I asked him if he was a collector, but he said no. On successive visits he bought model cars, ships, and trains. He came almost every week, leaving with something each time. One night I went outside to close the store's shutters, and there he was, alone in front of the window. It took me a minute to recognize him, to understand that this trembling man with a red face and weepy eyes could really be Enrique Duvel. He seemed scared. I didn't see his car, and for a moment I thought it had been stolen. Duval, are you all right? He made a confused gesture. It's best if I stay here, he said. Here? What about your mother? I instantly regretted my question, afraid I'D offended him, but he said, she locked herself in the house with all the keys. She says she doesn't want to see me again. We stood there looking at each other, not quite knowing what to say. I'd best stay here, he repeated. I knew that Mirta would never agree, but by that point I owed the man almost 20% of my monthly earnings, and I couldn't just turn him away. But you see, Tuval, there's nowhere to sleep here. I'll pay for the night, he said. He went through his pockets. I don't have any money on me, but I can work. I'm sure there's something I can do. Though I knew it wasn't a good idea, I brought him inside. It was dark when we entered. When I turned the display lights on, the reflection gleamed in his eyes. Something told me Duvel wouldn't sleep that night, and I was afraid to leave him alone with nothing to do. I saw a towering stack of boxes full of toys that I hadn't had time to sort through, and I imagined the rich and refined Duvel, the sometimes subject of Mirta's girlfriend's gossip, stocking my empty shelves overnight. Giving him the task could create problems for me, I thought, but at least it would keep him busy. Could you deal with those boxes? He nodded. I'll arrange everything tomorrow. You just have to organize the items by type. I went over to the merchandise. The puzzles. With the puzzles, for example, you can see where they go and just put everything together there on the shelves and if I understand perfectly, duval said, interrupting me. He walked away from me with his eyes fixed on the floor, making a slight movement with his index finger as if he wanted to shush me, but the humiliation held him back. I was going to tell him that there was only an old armchair in the storage room to sleep on and to give him some advice about the handle on the toilet, but I didn't want to bother him anymore. I let him be and left without saying goodbye. The next day I got to the store a few minutes early. I was relieved to see that the shop's shutters were up. Only once I was inside did I realize that leaving Duvel there alone had been a tremendous mistake. Nothing was where it belonged to. If at that moment a customer had come in and asked for a particular superhero figure, it would have taken me all morning to find it. I remember thinking about Mirta and how I would explain this to her, and also the sudden exhaustion I felt as I calculated the hours it would take me to reorganize Everything. Then I realized something else, something so strange that for a moment I couldn't take it in. Duvel had reorganized the store chromatically, modeling clay decks of cards, crawling baby dolls, pedal cars. All were mixed together and arranged by color in the display cases, along the aisles, on the shelves. A subtly shifting rainbow stretched from one end of the store to the other. I still remember that sight as the beginning of disaster. He has to go, I thought. I have to get this man out of the store right now. Duvel was looking at me. He was very serious, standing there in front of his great rainbow. I was trying to find the words to say what I wanted when his eyes lit on something behind me. I turned toward the street to see what it was. Outside the window, a woman and her two children were looking into the store. Their hands were pressed to the glass like visors as they talked excitedly about what they saw inside, as if something marvelous were moving through the aisles. It was the start of the school day, and at that hour the block was full of children and parents in a hurry. But they couldn't help stopping in front of the windows, and a crowd grew. By noon the store was full. Never had business been as good as it was that morning. It was hard to find the things that people asked for, but soon I discovered I had only to name an item, and Duvel would nod and run to get it. He located things with an efficient ease I found disconcerting Call me by my first name, he told me at the end of that long day of work, if that's all right with you. The color arrangement drew attention to items that had never stood out before. For example, the green swimming flippers followed the squeaky frogs that occupied the final ranks of turquoise, while the puzzles depicting glaciers maroon at the earthen base of the photograph brought the rainbow full circle by joining their snowy peaks with volleyballs and stuffed white lions. The store didn't close for siesta that day or any of the following days, and little by little we started pushing back our closing time. Enrique slept in the store from then on. Mirta agreed that we should set up a space for him in the storage room. At first he had to make do with a mattress on the floor, but soon we found a bed, and once or twice a week during the night Enrique reorganized the store. He set up scenes with the giant building blocks. He modified the interior light by constructing intricate walls of toys against the windows. He built castles that stretched across the aisles. It was useless to offer him a salary. He wasn't interested. It's Best if I stay here, he'd say. Better than a salary. He didn't leave the store, or at least not that I ever saw. He ate what Mirta sent him, packed meals that started out as slices of bread with cold cuts in the evenings and later became elaborate lunches and dinners. Enrique never touched the model kits anymore. They occupied the store's highest shelves, and there they stayed. Always they were the only things that remained in one spot. Now he preferred the puzzles and board games. In the mornings, if I arrived early, I'd find him sitting at the table with a glass of milk, playing with two colors of Chinese checkers or fitting the last pieces of a large fall landscape into place. He'd grown silent, but he never lost his attentiveness toward the customers. He got into the habit of making his bed in the mornings and cleaning the table and sweeping the floor after he ate. When he was done, he came over to me or to Mirta, who, because of the extra business, had started working behind the counter and said, I made my bed, or I finished sweeping, or even I finished what I had to do. And it was in that manner of his, obsequious, as Mirta called it, that made us start to worry. Somehow one morning I found that he had built a small zoo on the table using articulated dolls, farm animals, and Legos. He was drinking his glass of milk while he opened the gate for the horses and made them gallop one by one over to a dark sweater that served as a mountain. I greeted him and went to the counter to start working. When he came over to me, he seemed embarrassed. I already made the bed, he said, and I finished. What? It's okay, I said. I mean, it doesn't matter if you make the bed or not. It's your room, Enrique. I thought we were understanding each other, but he looked down at the floor, even more embarrassed, and said, sorry, it won't happen again. Thank you. After a while Enrique also stopped reorganizing the puzzles and board games. He placed the boxes on the upper shelves alongside the model kits and retrieved them only if a customer specifically asked for them. You have to talk to him, mirta said. People are going to think we don't have puzzles anymore. Just because he doesn't use them doesn't mean they're not for sale. But I didn't say anything. Things were going well with the business, and I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Over time he started to reject certain foods. He would eat only meat, mashed potatoes, and pasta with simple sauces. If we gave him anything else, he would push it away. So Mirta started cooking only the things that he liked. Every once in a while the customers would give him coins, and when he had saved enough, he bought a blue plastic cup with a convertible car in relief he picked out in the store. He used it at breakfast, and in the morning, when reporting the state of his bed and his room, he began to add, I also washed my cup. Mirtha was worried when she told me about one afternoon in particular. She'd been watching Enrique play with a boy who'd come into the store, and he suddenly grabbed a superhero figure and refused to share it. When the boy started to cry, Enrique stomped off and locked himself in the storage room. You know how much I care about Enrique, my wife said that night, but we can't let him get away with things like that. Although he still had his genius when it came to reorganizing the merchandise over time, he also stopped playing with the little articulated dolls and the Legos, and he archived them along with the board games and the model kits on the now overcrowded upper shelves. The range of toys that he still reorganized and kept within the customer's reach was so small and monotonous that it barely attracted the youngest children. Why do you put those things up so high, Enrique? I asked him. He looked disconsolately at the shelves, as if, in effect, they were too high for him as well, but he didn't answer. He was quieter all the time. Little by little, sales went back down. Enrique's rainbows, displays and castles lost the splendor of those first days when almost all the toys participated in his radical remodeling. Now everything happened at knee level and below. Enrique was almost always hunched over or kneeling in front of a new pile of toys that was ever smaller and more amorphous. The place had started to empty of customers. Soon we didn't need Mirta's help anymore, and Enrique and I were left alone. I remember the last afternoon I saw Enrique. He hadn't wanted his lunch, and he was wandering up and down the aisles. He looked sad and lonely. I felt, in spite of everything, that Mirta and I owed him a lot. I wanted to cheer him up, so I climbed the moving ladder, which I hadn't used since Enrique had started helping me in the store. To reach the highest shelves, I chose a model kit for him and imported one of an old fashioned train. The box said that it had more than a thousand pieces and if you added batteries, its lights worked. It was the best miniature I had, and it cost a fortune, but Enrique deserved it, and I wanted to give it to him. I climbed down with the gift and called to him from the counter. He was coming back from the farthest shelves, a violet stuffed animal, I think it was a rabbit, hanging from his right hand. I called to him again, but he crouched down suddenly, as though startled, and stayed there. It was a strange movement that I didn't understand. I left the train on the counter and approached him slowly to see if something was wrong. Enrique, are you all right? He was crying, hugging his knees. The rabbit had fallen to one side, face down on the floor. Enrique, I want to give you. I don't want anyone to hit me anymore, he said. I wondered if something had happened that I hadn't seen, if some customer had given him trouble, or if he'd fought with another child. But Enrique, no one. I knelt beside him. I wished I had the model train right there. It hurt me to see him so upset. Myrta would have known what to do, how to soothe him. Then the door to the street opened violently, almost slamming against the wall, and both of us froze. From the floor we saw under the shelves two high heels advancing down the next aisle. Enrique. It was a strong, authoritative voice. The high heels stopped, and Enrique looked at me in fear. He seemed to want to tell me something, and he grabbed my arm. Enrique. The heels started moving again, this time in our direction, and a woman appeared at the end of the aisle. Enrique. She stormed toward us. All this time I've been looking for you. She yelled as she stopped very close to him. Where the hell have you been? She slapped him so hard that he lost his balance. Then she grabbed his hand and yanked him up. The woman cursed me, kicked the stuffed rabbit, and practically dragged Enrique away. I followed them for a couple of steps. They passed the counter and headed for the door. When they'd almost reached it, Enrique tripped and fell to the floor on his knees. He turned to look at me, then his face crumpled. She grabbed his hand again, yelling, enrique, come on. I stayed where I was, watching and doing nothing. Just before the door closed, I saw his little fingers trying to pull away from his mother's as she, furious, leaned down to pick him up.
- [22:56]
Debra Treisman
That was Souvenkum Thammavangsa Reading the Size of Things by Samantha Schweblin, Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell. The story appeared in the New Yorker in May of 2017 and was included in Schweblin's collection Mouthful of Birds, which was published in Spanish in 2009 and in English in 2019, introducing invisible choir, a true crime podcast that explores the most heinous murders through investigative storytelling, Primary source audio and exclusive interviews. He walked to his car, he pulled out the sword, and then he followed her. They found chunks of her hair in the grass because he was swinging at her. New episodes air every other Sunday. So, Sivanka, going back to the very beginning of the story, we start with two inheritances. Enrique Duval has inherited a lot of money, though he still lives with his mother. And the narrator has inherited a toy store from his father and has kept it and runs it. Why do you think we open with this idea of inheritance with these two men who have inherited something but still not escaped the people from whom they inherit. Do you know what I mean? That they're still living in the family lives?
- [24:24]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yes. I think they inherit different things to put them on the same plane and also to show us what they've done with their inheritance and how they live with what they're given. Because Duvel, you know, rides around in his car and seems to want the attention of a bunch of women. Whereas the toy store owner runs a shop, but it's not very successful because there's few people in the store. And when Duvel comes to work there, what he does with the toys draws people in. So we know that the person who owns the toy store does not arrange things such that it draws people in. So they have different pressures, but they begin from the same place, and what each has inherited is not of the same value.
- [25:27]
Debra Treisman
Yeah, it's as though they've inherited a lifestyle which may or may not fit who they are. Why do you think Enrique still lives with his mother?
- [25:38]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I thought it was because maybe he inherited so much money that he never really learned to live on his own or to discover what kind of person he is outside of family wealth. The joy that he took in the work that was so lovely to see him discover how to arrange toys. And then he really played with the toys in the store, whereas the toys. Toy store owner did not. He just sold these items and arranged them like the puzzles with the puzzles. But he didn't really take them out to play.
- [26:20]
Debra Treisman
Mm. He certainly wouldn't have organized them by color, which. It sort of becomes a kind of brilliant marketing tool, but doesn't make any sense for a store, you know, because the owner doesn't know where anything is. And people don't come in saying, I want green. They say, I want a puzzle or I want a car. So there's something that Enrique Duvel brings to the store, which is. I don't know if it's a child's view, if it's imagination, a sense of play. Whatever it is. It seems surprising from someone who's sort of a wealthy man about town. One doesn't expect him to have that kind of imagination.
- [27:07]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I wonder also, because he's lived a different life. If he understood better what other people would want. Maybe because he's lived or been around people who want all the time. So he understands want on a commercial level. That might be different from someone who actually owns the store.
- [27:30]
Debra Treisman
And there is something to the fact that this couple who owns the store are childless. They don't have a child who plays with toys. They don't witness that kind of play. Why do you think it's important to the story? You know, because that's a choice that Schwablin makes, is to have this couple not have a child.
- [27:51]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I think if they had a child, I don't think they would view him through the lens of their own want. It has to be that the couple can't have had experience with children as their own.
- [28:06]
Debra Treisman
Yeah, he needs to fill a gap. I did a Q and A with Samantha Schweblin about the story. And she refers to the three characters. To Enrique Duvel and the toy store owners as a triangle. It's a strange relationship that clearly fills a need for all three of them. So it probably was very necessary that they have that need. Even if they didn't articulate it or know they had it.
- [28:33]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
When he says, I made my bed, I finished sleeping. I finished what I had to do. The way he says it, Enrique makes these acts sound so profound. But they're just normal things. You know, when you're. When you're a child that you're supposed to make your bed. And if you make a mess, you're supposed to sweep. If you have things to do, you're supposed to finish what you had to do. And the way that he reports them, they feel so profound, both to him, but also to the couple who own the toy store. That when these things are said to them, they seem to be so valuable for them to witness in their lives.
- [29:22]
Debra Treisman
Perhaps it's that Enrique grew up not having to do those things because he's wealthy. And there was probably a maid doing them for him. So for him, it's maybe a new thing, too.
- [29:35]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
And in the beginning, he eats whatever Myrta, the toy store owner's wife, makes him. But then he later becomes picky.
- [29:44]
Debra Treisman
Yeah. Well, let's talk in general about what is happening with Enrique while he is in the store. Because even in terms of the toys he plays with, there is a regression, or there's a movement from adulthood toward childhood and then younger childhood, until at the end, suddenly, he's almost a baby. He's small enough for the mother to pick up. So do you think he's actually becoming younger? You know, is this a story of Benjamin Button who's aging backwards? You know, whether this is sort of magical realism or supernatural story, or, you know, is it a psychological regression for him?
- [30:32]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I think what's interesting or really lovely is it could be both at the same time. There is a feeling of something strange, like, on a science level, maybe that's happening, but we don't know for sure. I took it to be real. I think whatever age you are, you don't want anyone to hate you anymore. And when you say that sentence, whatever age you are, it doesn't matter.
- [31:08]
Debra Treisman
Right. Can we talk about his mother? Because in some ways, his taking up residence in the toy store feels as though he's, you know, asking to be adopted by another set of parents. He's looking for, as you said, a safe home, but also sort of escaping his mother, getting away from her control and so on. But in fact, she is the one who's kicked him out. She's locked him out of the house and kept all the keys. So there's a strange sort of dissonance between that moment of him arriving and then the moment where she marches in at the end and, you know, yanks him out of the store.
- [31:49]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
She has such a tiny little. I don't want to say a tiny little role, because she does take up a lot of space. But we don't get to see her in word much. And when we do, it's her actions start the story, but also end it.
- [32:11]
Debra Treisman
Mm. It's not a very happy ending. Would you hope for a different ending?
- [32:18]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I don't know. Or I guess I'm thinking of a Mavis Gallant short story where these two children are taken away by social services and the way that their lives are unfolded, Even though the original home is not a safe space, the story kind of suggests. Was it right to take. Because that is the original home.
- [32:49]
Debra Treisman
Yeah. I think it's called Orphan's Progress.
- [32:52]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
That's it.
- [32:53]
Debra Treisman
Yeah. The sisters are taken to a convent.
- [32:57]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yes. And the younger one grows up not to remember anything. And then the one that does remember, it's such a small memory. And the ending kind of makes me think of that story. Cause it does ask the Question, is his right place with his mom or is it with this toy store couple?
- [33:22]
Debra Treisman
Do you answer that question for yourself?
- [33:25]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I don't want to answer that question. I like that it raises the question and poses this question for you to live with, but doesn't answer it for you. Yeah, I like those kinds of stories because I feel like in real life you live those situations, and whether they're right or wrong, it doesn't matter because you live them.
- [33:57]
Debra Treisman
Yeah. I mean, for me, the sort of wrenching thing about the ending is that he's being hit and dragged off and clearly going back to a violent situation.
- [34:10]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yeah. I guess I'm also thinking of a personal experience in my own life where I understand that the situation is bad, but because that's how it unfolded, I have to live with it. And it's a different kind of inheritance.
- [34:35]
Debra Treisman
Right. So Enrique has managed to avoid his inheritance from his father by becoming penniless in this toy store where he's given a few coins by shoppers and he uses them to buy a cup. That's his only. That's his only interaction with money in the time that he's there. So he has gotten away from the inheritance from his father, but he has not gotten away from what he is inheriting or living with from his mother.
- [35:05]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Do you think he values money?
- [35:09]
Debra Treisman
I think it's possible that that cup is his first purchase that he's valued, Right?
- [35:14]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yeah.
- [35:15]
Debra Treisman
And he chooses it. It has a car on the side, and that car is maybe more valuable to him than his convertible.
- [35:23]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
And there's a moment where all the toys he's played with, he shelves them and he doesn't go back to them. Like, once he's experienced it, he doesn't want to re. Experience it, even if it's an act of joy for him.
- [35:38]
Debra Treisman
Yeah. I mean, there is a sense, as we discussed, that he's going from complex toys that require complex imagination to simpler and simpler toys for younger children. I mean, perhaps there's a way in which he's trying to undo. Undo the childhood he had by going backwards through it and maybe restart. Restart, perhaps as the child of this benevolent couple.
- [36:07]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
And because he's not really their child, he has to go back and they can't fight for him to stay with them.
- [36:16]
Debra Treisman
Yeah, that's interesting you mentioned that. I mean, Schweblin, when we did the Q and A, she referred to them as passive accomplices to his regression because they can't claim him. They have to be passive. Right. They can't be active but he also.
- [36:31]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Seems an adult, so he has a choice. But even with that choice available to him, he doesn't choose or fight where he comes from. Yeah, on the one hand, the mother is a symbol, but also real. And we don't really choose or decide which she is.
- [36:53]
Debra Treisman
I mean, that's something about this story, right? It doesn't make you decide.
- [36:57]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yeah.
- [36:57]
Debra Treisman
Like you said already, it allows you to have both stories happening simultaneously. The one that's more literal and one that's more figurative or allegorical.
- [37:08]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Their first interactions together. The way that he asks questions, but Duvel gives so little answers. Like, I asked him if he wanted me to gift wrap it, but he said no. I asked him if he was a collector, but he said no. It's such a tiny little act, but it builds and connects them so wonderfully in those two single sentences and so close to each other visually.
- [37:42]
Debra Treisman
How do you think it does that?
- [37:44]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
They both land on the last sentence of the paragraph that they belong to. And when he speaks, his no is described. We don't hear his voice directly, like within quotes. It's described to us indirectly.
- [38:03]
Debra Treisman
Right. I mean, I think in those sentences, the toy store owner is trying to see him as a normal customer who might be buying a gift. He's trying to understand why this grown man is buying a model plane. So first his mind goes to. It might be a gift for someone, so maybe I should wrap it. Or perhaps he's just a collector of model planes, which is sort of acceptable for adults. What's confusing is that it's not standard for adults to make toy model planes. So I feel the toy store owner feeling around for an explanation and Enrique refusing to give one because perhaps he doesn't have one.
- [38:53]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
It's not a gift and he's not a collector. Because it could have been written differently. Like it could have been told to us. It's not a gift, and he wasn't a collector when I asked. But then it doesn't hold that moment right.
- [39:11]
Debra Treisman
It doesn't set up this sort of exchange between them, this development of understanding. I suppose you have to get to that moment where Enrique is out on the street crying, and he says, it's best that I stay here. You have to be at a point where the toy store owner will be able to accept that.
- [39:32]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yeah. And then also when we come across the sentence, he made a confused gesture. We're not shown what that confused gesture is like. What did he do with his hands? Where did he put his eyes? How was his body positioned in that scene? Instead, we're just given that one sentence, and it adds to what we don't know, but gives just enough for us to understand them.
- [40:05]
Debra Treisman
The style of the writing, do you feel an affinity for that? Do you feel that you use similar tools when you write?
- [40:16]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yeah, I think that this story really resonated with me because of what the author does with space and what isn't there on the page. There's so many things that could have been selected to make bigger. Like, for example, Duval's life outside of the store. Where does he come from? Who does he belong to? Like a description of 20 years of his life before this moment to explain to us why this particular moment matters. And there's such a boldness and a courage to leave that out and to say, I'm going to circle this moment and I'm going to make this moment stand for you. I love that courage. And a lot of times we read things and then they answer all these questions and we're completely satisfied, but we don't remember it because it answered all the questions we could possibly have for the story. But that isn't done for us. And I think that's such a beautiful touch to let the reader do the work.
- [41:34]
Debra Treisman
Right, right. It implicates us in the story if we have to supply part of it ourselves.
- [41:42]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I love that. Like, when we're allowed to enter and to be part of the making.
- [41:49]
Debra Treisman
Mm. And it makes us imagine a gesture.
- [41:54]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yeah. Which this story, I feel, makes a reader come alive in addition to what's on the page.
- [42:04]
Debra Treisman
Yeah. It makes you inhabit the scenes because you're also sort of stage directing them. Or, you know, if you read a confused gesture, then it's. You supply what to you is a confused gesture. Do you think the story is saying anything larger, more sweeping about parenthood or.
- [42:26]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Childhood, that even when we think we're choosing that choice that we think that we have. I mean, I want to say it isn't a choice, but I feel like we're always choosing. Tuval's parents could have him, and they do. And the couple who own the toy store, they want him, but they don't have him. Even though in physical form and in this moment, when this story takes place, they do have him for a little while. Maybe even when you're not a parent, you're still parenting other people in the world. Or even when you're a child yourself, you're still parenting yourself. Because in some ways, Enrique showing up at the store and experiencing maybe this shelter, isn't that maybe a form of Parenting himself, choosing for himself.
- [43:34]
Debra Treisman
Right. Saying, it's best that I stay here. He's chosen what's best for him.
- [43:38]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yeah.
- [43:39]
Debra Treisman
Yes. He's finding somewhere he feels he belongs. And then I suppose he. Perhaps it's that he changes himself in order to belong there. Doing work, playing, building these toy dioramas. And it works well for a while. Perhaps he'll be better able to deal with his mother having had this experience.
- [44:01]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Right. Because he has experienced a measure or a form of measuring parental love and.
- [44:11]
Debra Treisman
Yeah. Yeah. What do you think the title the Size of Things refers to?
- [44:17]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
I think it refers to everyone's own view of the situation, their own frame of where they are. Like, Duvel is a grown up, but he doesn't act like it. The mother is a mother, but she doesn't act like it. The couple who own the toy store, they are childless, but they don't act like it, even without the experience of having parented their own child. Like Mirta says, we can't let him get away with things like that. When he was rude to another customer, another child who came into the store.
- [45:12]
Debra Treisman
Yeah. That's the moment where she's really claiming parenthood, isn't it? Yeah. Taking responsibility for him.
- [45:19]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
And is being a parent something that happens to you or something you decide yourself? I guess it depends on the size of things.
- [45:33]
Debra Treisman
There's also, you know, the obvious direct reference to Enrique's size. You know, that by the end, he can only. He's always crouched on the floor, but in that very last moment, he's small enough for her to pick up and he has tiny little fingers. It's a moment you can take literally or not, but he has shrunk in some way.
- [45:58]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
When I read that ending, I didn't think of it on a cellular level like I thought of it as, you know, when things seem that way and then you decide in that moment to make it that way. Like, he seems small, but because we're in the narrator's sense of things, we allow him to call it small.
- [46:29]
Debra Treisman
So he feels in that moment that he's now just a really helpless young child.
- [46:36]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Yeah.
- [46:37]
Debra Treisman
She probably said that she was 22 or 23 when she wrote this.
- [46:41]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Oh, so young.
- [46:43]
Debra Treisman
Yeah. Does that surprise you?
- [46:46]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
It does not. Because that's an age where you're so close to your memories and your experience of what it's like to be a child. But I don't know. I'm almost 50, and the memories of my childhood are so very clear to me. Like they happened yesterday, but it's Also, I've never had a child, so I've never had to be an adult to someone.
- [47:17]
Debra Treisman
Do you wish that you did, or do you feel happy that you don't.
- [47:23]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Very much like the story? A decision and a choice and circumstance had been made and lived through, and I accept my place in that and because that is how it unfolded, I don't long for a what if.
- [47:47]
Debra Treisman
Well, thank you so much, Sivankum.
- [47:49]
Sivankam Tamavangsa
Oh, thank you.
- [47:55]
Debra Treisman
Samantha Schweblin is an Argentinian writer based in Berlin. She's the author of five books of fiction, including the novel Fever Dreams, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2017, and the story collections Mouthful of Birds and Good and Evil and Other Stories, which will be published in English in September. Sivankam Dhamavongsa is a Laotian Canadian writer. Her publications include the poetry collections Light and Cluster and the story collection how to Pronounce Knife, which won the Giller Prize in 2020. She's been publishing fiction and nonfiction in the New Yorker since 2021. You can download more than 210 previous episodes of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast or subscribe to the podcast for free in Apple Podcasts. On the Writer's Voice podcast, you can hear short stories from the magazine read by their authors. You can find the Writer's Voice and other New Yorker podcasts on your podcast app. Tell us what you thought of this program on our Facebook page, or rate and review us in Apple Podcasts. This episode of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast was produced by Chloe Prenos. I'm Deborah Treisman. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of the New Yorker. Each week on the Writer's Voice podcast, New Yorker fiction writers read their newly published stories from the magazine. You can hear from authors like Colson Whitehead. Turner nudged Elwood, who had a look of horror on his face. They saw it. Griff wasn't going down. He was going to go for it. No matter what happened after. Or Joy Williams, her father was silent. Slowly he passed his hand over his hair. This usually meant that he was traveling to a place immune to her presence, a place that indeed contradicted her presence. She might as well go to lunch, listen to news stories, or dive into our archive of great fiction. You can find the work of your favorite fiction writers and discover new ones. Listen and follow the Writer's Voice wherever you get your podcasts from PRX.