The Search for a Story and the Failure of Carmen Elcira

I took a different approach in finding a short story. Instead of completing a variety of stories, I decided to read the first and last three paragraphs of each story in this year’s special fiction edition of The Atlantic in order to complete my search. While in the end only one story had the correct overall qualities to win my complete attention, there was one story in particular among the running whose opening lines particularly caught my attention enough for me to finish the story, only later to be failed by its ending.

The story is called “Carmen Elcira: A (Love) Life.” What first caught my attention, as I scanned its pages to examine the length of the story, was its organization. The story is written in blurbs, each an individual tale divided by years. The story begins in 1969 and ends in 2001, with about six blurbs in between mostly centered in the 1970s. It examines the relationships of the main female character from her adolescent days until her marriage, focusing mainly on her “one true love” and making all the other men in her life side-shows to the main event of her past.

The focus of the story revolves around the main character’s young desire for sensuality and the power of love at first sight. From the moment she meets Diego, she is enthralled by his mystery and maturity, the “way he had approached her, leaning so close to her face before he left” upon their first introduction. Boys become her fleeting pleasure, but the presence of Diego in her mind is ever-present because no one can replicate his sensual beauty and his mystery. Even though she doesn’t learn his name until years later, his affect on her is no less strong. Upon their second meeting, the longing feeling strengthens in her heart and mind, further empowering the concept of love at first sight. He becomes her image of perfection, the one who serves as the comparison to all her other relationships, though their own never existed. Only for one summer of her life does anything between them occur: a summer of one-sided love and her final achievement of desired sensuality. But with the summer, any chance at a continuation of their love ends. He leaves never to return, by choice without regard for her emotions. And yet she blinded by love so much that not even his hurtful actions damage his innate perfection in her eyes. Years later when she married and settled with another man, Diego still holds a “tender spot” in her heart that will “never disappear, no matter if the tenderness is caused by bruising or by love or if, as is often the case, the two are indistinguishable.” Until the end of her life, she does not give up home of their reunion: the chance that their time will come to love once more.

Though the language was beautiful and the message strong, I found the one-sided love story pathetic. Even when her true love disappears, he’s still ever-present in her mind. She spends years moping about it to the point of sickness; even when she meets her husband, a new love, she cannot let go of the love lost. She loses track of the world around her, and loses touch with her family. The people surrounding her are lost to a man who abandoned her forever. Her marriage is almost jeopardized by the main character’s inability to forget the love of her life. Though the intention of the story was clearly not to judge the character because of her pathetic persona, I found myself almost forced to do so. Even in the ultimate lines, I felt no sympathy for the pathetic character of Carmen Elcira.

Most of the stories I skimmed, or in this case read in full, lacked substance or the power of persuasion. I didn’t find myself pondering the message of any story; instead, I was turned off by their trivial content. It may have been my inability to understand their deeply hidden meanings in the sections I scanned, or maybe it was just the magazine. (680)