“My Termen” by Eliot Flintushel

I’ll try to tell you about “My Termen” by Eliot Flintushel, the emphasis being try. For you see, the combination of it being one long “As you know, Bob” with a major overdose of Yoda-speak, makes the story painful to read. If the author was trying to display the Russian narrator’s inability to fully grasp the English language, then I’m sad to say the author has succeeded far too well. But such difference in linguistics is better suited as dialogue, not as narration. And the way it switches from present tense to past tense is exemplary of how not to set up a frame story.

Oh yeah, I was going to tell you what the story was about. Mikhail and his Termen, Lev Sergeivich, discuss Lev’s life and his innovations on harmonics. And that was all I could understand. Even the ending left me scratching my head.  And not in a good way.