" The Cantabile of a Soul "
You certainly have a way with metaphors. In a short piece like this, having metaphors in basically every line is great. However, bear in mind that if it gets too long with language this flowery, you're definitely going to lose your reader's attention. But I'm sure you know that already.
There's little in this that I feel like I have the authority to critique. There's a wonderfully strong sense of place that you carry through the entire piece, there's great characterization of the narrator and the unnamed "you" even though neither are given names, and your metaphors are in a consistent food-like themed family which makes them easy to read and connect both with each other and Italy. So that's all great.
I suppose the only places where I started to feel like things weren't jiving quite as well were in the first and last paragraphs. In the first paragraph, your sentences are very choppy, you're already setting up your metaphor-heavy writing which is great but at every period the flow of the reading stops and therefore the reader's brain also stops for a moment. Because this is entirely unlike the rest of the piece, I'd say just make your sentences longer and weave them together. You barely have to do any work to fix that.
In the last paragraph, on my first read through, I had to pause and try to figure out what was going on. Why X-ray films? Who is Kris? Stitches? I didn't know what to make of all this (and honestly I still don't quite know what to do with it). Your stitch metaphor doesn't fit with the way that you described the Italian language just above it and the rest of the piece. I can't figure out what the x-ray films are supposed to represent, and I wish you hadn't brought in a named character when no one else gets a name unless this Kris is incredibly important. It's not a weak conclusion at all but it certainly doesn't have all of the strength that the rest of the piece possesses.
My advice, find a different metaphor and make it a bit more clear what is going on in the last paragraph. What exactly do you want the reader to get from the x-ray films? What is the narrator feeling? You've got a great handle on how to let your reader know what is going on without straight up telling us so I'd like to see that strength in the concluding paragraph as it is in the rest of your writing.
I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you for submitting!
- Dr. M
Type: Original Fiction Rating: T TW(s): None
