The book is divided into five sections. The first requires readers to pick the term that doesn’t match the heading or the other terms. The second is about putting sentences into their correct sequence. The third is about completing the sentences (fill-in-the-blanks), while the fourth requires readers to eliminate a sentence or sentences within a short story. The final section is reading comprehension and offers some more substantial (though still only roughly 5 page) stories.
But Zambra is tricky. While there might be a bubblesheet to fill in at the back of the book, there is no answer key, nor could there be. The questions put readers into challenging positions and the stakes feel even bigger than actual standardized test questions. Consider, for example, the excluded term question for “Teach.” Readers are expected to pick one of the following that does not fit: A) preach, B) control, C) educate, D) initiate, E) screech. Now, I’d like to think that as a teacher I don’t “screech” but if I take that out it leaves “preach” and “control” still in the mix; there’s no good option. Similarly, some of the options double-up. Like for “Promise” the options read from A-E as complete / silence / promise / complete silence. Conversely, Zambra includes questions where all of the options seem good. For instance, the word “Letter” has the options for A) uppercase, B) lowercase, C) cursive, D) dead, and E) silent. Likewise, “Cut” allows for erase / annul / blot / expunge / wound. All of them are viable choices, and so it forces you to reflect on what your personal biases are. What seems most poetic to you?
Zambra is able to make use of structures to allow for multiple options, a choose-your-own-perspective with carefully crafted options. For instance, in one of the fill-in-the-blank questions, he provides the statement, “And if they have any ________ left, that’s what _____________ for.” The options offer very different possibilities for engaged readers. The options range for innocuous and innocent to politically charged to deeply depressing. Here’s what the options say if filled in:
And if they have any energy left, that’s what sports are for.
And if they have any hope left, that’s what reality is for.
And if they have any illusions left, that’s what the void is for.
And if they have any dissent left, that’s what the cops are for.
And if they have any neurons left, that’s what crack cocaine is for.
The cynicism and nihilistic mindset allows readers to choose their fate, but almost none of them are good ones. Each adds dimension in an interesting way.
When asked to sequence statements into a cohesive narrative, there are similar disruptions to our thinking. Some resequencing questions are standard and legitimate, but they all seem just a little bit off from what you might want to conclusively decide. For instance, in the piece “The second” you’re given the following sequence:
You try to remember your first Communion.
You try to remember your first masturbation.
You try to remember the first time you had sex.
You try to remember the first death in your life.
And the second.
The answers put you in a position where you have to “try” to remember something “and the second.” It feels a little bit off because if you’re remembering the second, then surely you’d remember the first, no? It also places you in a position that implies that you have to forget the others. For your reference, and to decide what selective forgetting you’ll engage in today, the available answers are as follows:
1-5-2-3-4
1-2-5-3-4
1-2-3-5-4
4-5-1-2-3
4-3-2-1-5
The sequencing questions really help to emphasize how the order of presentation can impact our perception of a narrative. Several of the pieces are essentially flash fictions, but flash fictions that offer multiple paths at once. For example, there’s a piece called “Two hundred twenty-three.” It reads as follows:
You remember the freckles on her breasts, on her legs, on her belly, on her ass. The exact number: two hundred twenty-three. One thousand two hundred and seven days ago there were two hundred twenty-three.
You reread the messages she used to send you: They are beautiful, funny. Long paragraphs, vivid, complex sentences. Warm words. She writes better than you do.
You remember the time you drove five hours just to see her for ten minutes. It wasn’t ten minutes, it was the whole afternoon, but you like to think it was only ten minutes.
You remember the waves, the rocks. Her sandals, a wound on her foot. You remember your eyes daring from her thighs to her eyelashes.
You never got used to being with her. You never got used to being without her. You remember when she said, in a whisper, as if to herself: Everything is OK.
Option D is to go 2-3-4-5-1. Reading it in that mode seems to create a greater sense of loss, an intimation of time passing, and the degeneration of a relationship. Reading it start to finish (option E) feels, in some ways, like a more complete story—although I feel like section 2 should be closer to the end. It’s difficult to make a choice.
In other sections, Zambra maintains a playfulness that makes this poetry test impossible to grade. In a piece called “A kick in the balls”, the statements are presented as follows:
You think of all the people, living or dead, near or far, men or women, from your country or abroad, who have reason to kick you in the balls.
You wonder if you deserve a kick in the balls.
You wonder if you deserve to be hated. You wonder if anyone really hates you.
You wonder if you hate anyone. You wonder if you hate the people who hate you.
Insomnia wounds and accompanies you.
Each of the answers, though, is mutually exclusive. You either get to choose 1-1-1-1-1 or 2-2-2-2-2 or 3-3-3-3-3 or 4-4-4-4-4 or 5-5-5-5-5. Despite there seeing to be a connection between the items, you’re only able to put yourself into a repetitive rumination. In “Rhyme”, the answers present uneven outcomes. The options are A) 5-1-2-3-4, B) 5-4-3-2-1, C) 1-2-3-4-5, D) 1-5-2-3-4, or E) 1-2-3-4. That’s a tricky one because it prevents you from selecting the statement that “you are not crazy”. If you’d like the statements for rhyme to try to the poem at home, here they are:
You search for words that rhyme with your first name.
You search for words that rhyme with your last name.
Your first and last names do not rhyme, but you search for words that rhyme with both your first and last names.
You search for words that don’t rhyme with either your first name or your last name, or with anything else.
You are not crazy.
Additionally, at least one poem in the sequencing section gives the same sequence for every option—and yet you might feel the resistance popping up in you that you want to revise, you want to create an option that isn’t there. The book is tricky in how it invites your contribution and then, when it doesn’t, you realize you’ve been trained the principles of rebellion: find the path you want, even if it isn’t there. In the poem “Scars,” the only option you’re provided is to read it sequentially, which goes like this:
You think about how the shortest distance between two points is the length of a scar.
You think: the introduction is the father, the climax is the son, and the resolution is the holy spirit.
You read books that are much stranger than the books you would write if you wrote.
You think, as if it were a discovery, that the last point in the line of time is the present.
You try to go from the general to the specific, even if the general is General Pinochet.
You try to go from the abstract to the concrete.
The abstract is the pain of others.
The concrete is the pain of others colliding with your body until you are completely invaded.
The concrete is something that can only grow.
Something like a tumor, or the opposite of a tumor: a child.
In your case, it’s a tumor.
The fatalism of the piece matches the fatalism of the options. You can only go so far, and yet…
At times, Zambra plays off this interactivity in a meta way. In one of the sections where you have select one for deletion, there’s a discussion of being a reader, a writer, a censor, all at once. Again, it’s a tricky one because the option is to delete none of the options. Every option after that refers to the previous option, meaning that no matter what you pick, you don’t get the power to delete any of these items:
I didn’t want to talk about you, but it’s inevitable.
I’m talking about you right now. And you’re reading this, and you know it’s about you.
Now I am words that you read and wish did not exist.
I hate you.
You would like to have the power of a censor.
So no one else would ever read these words.
I hate you.
You ruined my life.
Now I am words you cannot erase.
There’s another section that is about the relationship between writing and truth and whether we have the power to remove portions of the narrative. It’s a complex and playful interplay of the details.
In one of the short stories in the reading comprehension section, there is a whole section about Chilean students learning to cheat that feels relevant. Zambra writes, “Even if we did nothing but study, we knew there would always be two or three impossible questions. We didn’t complain. We got the message: Cheating was just part of the deal” (66). What is really compelling here is a critique (or reflection, at least) of the education system that demands compliance with correct answers. The reflection continues, though, into a meditation on individualism: “I think that, thanks to our cheating, we were able to let go of some of our individualism and become a community. It’s sad to put it this way, but cheating gave us a sense of solidarity. Every once in a while we suffered from guilt, from the feeling that we were frauds—especially when we looked ahead to the future—but in the end our indolence and defiance prevailed” (66). I think this book could really help us to connect to those feelings of individualism and community. On the one hand, we are all creating individual answers (there’s no answer key, so no standard) but at the same time we are in dialogue with an extant discourse over which we have no control.
Now that we have reached the end of the review, what would be the best way to summarize this text?
Which text? The review or the book?
Multiple Choice is a poetic experience that demands
Readers to engage with writers.
Writers to plan multiple avenues at once.
Happy reading for the audience of this review.
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