Response to "The last bit of home-made sugar" by Nate Lundberg

"The last bit of home-made sugar" is about a man who has grown up in a generation that is too uninterested in following the traditions of the previous generation. It bothers him, on some level, but it doesn't actually provide him with a purpose; what the narrator wants, I think, is to find this purpose. Through most of the story, there is no conflict, and the voice of the narrator reflects a kind of nervous waiting. When conflict does come, it's sudden, all encompassing, and takes all of the narrator's attention, but then it's gone again and we're left with the narrator standing alone in the dark, wondering if there isn't more.


An element I found really worked about this piece was the fact that the narrator had no purpose. It's a fine line to walk - one could easily make the entire story purposeless and lose the attention of the reader, but Nate manages to move the story along quite well. I also rather like the title (though it could use some capitalization) and how it fits in with the overall mood of the story. It isn't random; the reader gets to watch as the last of the Stir Off sugar is used and the container thrown away. The attention paid by the narrator to this detail and his mother's face makes the situation monumental enough for a title without being too heavy handed.

I have a bit of issue with the flow of this piece. One way to smooth out the kinks, I think, would be to reduce the amount of dialect used in the dialogue, especially by the grandfather. Following the language of the narration - very precise and without any regional dialect cues - the grandfather's language is a bit jarring. That being said, I think that the first couple of lines of dialect, such as "Hey, buddy, what do ya say?" instead of "How are you?" as an opener, work well to establish the grandfather's tone. Another way to smooth the difference between the narration and the dialogue would be to put more regionalisms within the the entire text.