Resolving Dualisms in David Bergen's Sitting Opposite My Brother

Abstract: short stories in David Bergen's first book of fiction Opposite My tend to offer similar sets of characters, narratives and resolutions. stories often juxtapose male characters of spiritual conditions: one being a spiritual skeptic, the other an enthusiastic believer. ironist wins, often thanks to a kind of grace offered to him by a generous woman. Bergen redefines the Anabaptist archetype of the martyr and emphasizes the spiritual quest rather than its certain attainment. ********** three novels written by David Bergen--A Year of Lesser (1996), See the Child (1999), Case of Lena S. (2002)--have fulfilled the promise shown by his first published work, the book of short stories Opposite My (1993). (1) However, in their surface details the novels increasingly move away from the religious, and specifically Mennonite, themes and subject matter that are present, even if muted, in Opposite My Brother. One reason, Bergen says, is that big publishing houses dislike religious themes. Another is that he is interested in widening [his] scope, in exploring characters who do not necessarily come from Mennonite stock (although even Lena S. does). (2) But in the same way that critics find in Rudy Wiebe's later novels about Canadian Indians some of the same ideas found in his early novels about Mennonites, so, I think, Bergen's later novels are in obvious continuity with the characters and situations he depicts in Opposite My Brother. Although I will not analyze that continuity in this essay, I will identify the structures, characters and ideas in Opposite My that suggest the base from which Bergen continues to write. In one sense, the consistency of elements from story to story is perhaps the greatest weakness of Opposite My Brother--in fact, it is often difficult to distinguish a character in one story from a character in another story. recurring structures and ideas, however, become an index to the persistent concerns of Bergen and his characters. These repeated elements include juxtaposed opposite characters, women as savior-figures and sexual fulfillment as a saving grace. In order to make sweeping generalizations that will illuminate other stories in the collection, I will focus especially on the three stories that hold special authority in the collection, thanks to their strategic placement in the series: the very first story The Bottom of the Glass, as well as the title story Sitting Opposite My Brother and Where You're From, which is linked to Sitting Opposite My Brother by repeated characters, setting and issues. (3) title of the book, Opposite My Brother, calls explicit attention to the dualism of characters, usually male, at the center of most of these stories. In the title story and its link, the literal brothers are Thomas and Tim; in the first story The Bottom of Glass the figurative brothers are neighbors, Saul and Ted. dualism that these pairs of men represent, however, is not quite that of flesh and spirit that Daniel Born finds in Bergen's first novel A Year of Lesser. (4) Instead, they are dualisms of faith and enthusiasm as opposed to unbelief and despair. As June tells Thomas in Sitting Opposite My Brother: Timothy's so earnest ... you're such an infidel (92). Indeed, Tim has been a missionary aviator to Southeast Asia, and the two stories depict him back in Canada in his brother's household, at two different stages (both historical and spiritual) of his life. In The Bottom of the Glass the narrator is gripped by despair over the death by drowning of his five-year-old son; his is his neighbor Ted, in whose pool Daniel drowned and who has recently got religion and begun attending Saul's Mennonite church. As with many characters in this book of stories, symbolic names emphasize the spiritual conditions of these men. …

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