Fishing For Jasmine

All comments much appreciated. (John Ravenscroft)

From its beautifully handled opening to its last searing breath, this piece held me in its grip. A powerful story told with admirable economy. Congratulations John. Katherine E.

Econonomical use of words. Nice flow. However the fisherman father is getting a bum rap. The narrator implies that the dad has, at best, sexually assaulted his daughter and, at worst, impregnated her. All of this based on the earlier situation with her own father and on a single word barracuda uttered by a half drowned girl. If evidence as thin as this were to be accepted in our courts, death row would look like a shopping mall. Why not have the girls one word be rapist. Still not conclusive but at least suspicious.

I love this story! I have read it three times and each time I see more in it, which is amazing for a piece of this length. I like the fact that we dont know for sure whether the patient Jasmine has been abused by her father or not. The only perspective we have is that of the nurse Jasmine, and she might be projecting her own problems onto her patients situation. This is very intense writing, the kind where every single word matters, and I congratulate the writer.

Nice story. I loved the fishing imagery.

Good story. But I feel like Im the fish and this story is the bait. I ended it wanting more. Please write more John!

I would have written more, but Fishing for Jasmine was a BBC Commonwealth Radio Competition entry, and the maximum word limit was 650. Out of my hands, guv. [John Ravenscroft]

I feel like the devils advocate having read the previous comments. I agree the imagery is effectively handled and the tone consistent, but... the whole barracuda suggestion is a bit heavy handed for me. The relationship that the woman invents between her and the coma-Jasmine is interesting enough for me without having to pump up the drama.

Wonderful - so much is said in so few words. I love the fishing imagery which holds the story together - nice one John. NM

The key to this story is in the lines "I remember salt water, hot sun, my mother shrinking on the shore. I remember the rocking of the boat, the screams of the gulls." This is so well done. Very impressive for such a short piece.

this is a beautifully written story that had me enthralled from the first word to the last period. I love it. Please keep writing. Your talent is amazing.

very well writen, but for my own personal reasons, 9absolutly nothing wrong with the writing) i cannot fully grasp themeaning of the story

Good. Doesnt waste words.

The story is amazing, you have a wonderful talent - dont waste it. Please continue writing.

Wonderful story. C. Arbogast

its like pedro almodovars "talk to her" with barracudas..... good writing but i saw the movie.

Hadnt heard of (or seen) this movie, but I looked it up. It was released in November 2002, apparently. Fishing for Jasmine won a prize in the Year 2000 Commonwealth Short Story Competition and was broadcast on BBC radio in 2001 - so Im gonna sue Pedro Almodóvar for pinching my idea! Thats a joke, by the way. (John Ravenscroft)

i loved the story. It didnt waste words. spell binding. and i think that the use of barracuda was well chosen. rapist would have been too... obvious for a piece this subtle. the story suggests and I think that that is what makes this story so good.

i dont understand this story...wat is the relationship????its kind of confusing to me. someone please tell me

Another beautiful piece, John, well done. I especially love the well-chosen sea-theme flowing through the story, giving it that haunting loneliness and rawness of nature. Keep em coming! Bravo! -Tracey, Australia.

I just loved the story!!!!! Congratulations! In a very few words you could express a total whole of life. Rodrigo. Brazil

Hi, I enjoyed this story like everyone else. Jasmine the patient is pregnant. Jasmine the nurse was raped by her own father and she had his child. Did she kill her own child because it was her fathers or did it die some other way? We dont know if Jasmine the patients father did anything to her. She could have simply worked on the boat because she liked it. It seems there were others around. Barracuda could have been the last thing she saw under water but it reminds the nurse of the bad time she had with her father. Thats why she calls the people leering at the patient barracuda. I think the nurse simple wanted to share her bad times with someone and have them relate to her plight. Who better than with someone whose father, the bane of her problems, has the same occupation and same opportunity. And someone who cant answer back to tell her shes wrong. She can put her own words in the patients mouth and make her swallow them.

John,thank you for such a wonderful story!I like it so much.I am a Chinese girl,and it is the first time for me to read an English short story online.What a terrific adventure!

Agree with most posts. Great economy. I thought that maybe the key line is We share so much, we are almost one. Perhaps the implication is that there is only one Jasmine. Jasmine in a coma is imagining another Jasmine looking after her. Just a thought. Loved it whichever way you read it. Jim

I hated it!

What did you hate about it? Saying I hated it without giving reasons doesnt really add anything of value, in my opinion. This is obviously a fine piece of work from a skilled writer.

I agree with Jim. I was under the impression that she was in a coma and craving companionship. Perhaps she created the other Jasmine so there would be someone who could say all the things she cant.

This was a great story I really enjoyed it, good size as well I dont know alot about writing but this was very good. B Homes New Zealand

Thanks to all for the comments, both positive and negative. If anyone would like to hear the opening of the BBC recording of Fishing for Jasmine, its possible to do so by following the link below. Cheers - John Ravenscroft. Link http://www.johnravenscroft.co.uk/45938.html

wondeful story ! apt selction of the words. Chanchaljeet

what talent! it was like a little glimpse into a world that i will never know, like being let in on a little secret that only they know about. you have to be really shallow not to enjoy this story. i loved it. i read some of the other comments and...was it really a movie once? i hope not, somehow in a round about way, takes a little bit of the magic out. --hes

I didnt like it for some reason. (sorry). I think the fishing metaphors were overused and forced the point a little bit. Also, what are the chances of such a situation arising? I didnt get the impression the situation was a figment of the characters imagination, and found it a bit hard to swallow - hook, line and sinker.

a very good piece or work. leaves a feeling of suffocation behind...the voice is barely heard...its beautiful in its subtlety.

Hi! Im Thai women who likes to read short stories. I read this great story for three times. I enjoy reading it! What a real short story! Not too much words, the author used. Most of all, I like it as this story doent reveal the full understanding. I have to think and imagine. Thanks for good story. Hongyok W. from Bangkok

Congratulations, Mr.Ravenscroft! You cant even imagine how much I enjoyed your work. A friend of mine asked me to read it with her since English is not our mother language and it got me thinking a lot! Im a Chilean translation student and I would be really flattered if you could share some lines with me some time, it would mean a lot to this wanna be writter.Thanks! Carola. [email protected] ps: I hope I really got the idea or my friend will fail!!

Good story Mr Ravenscroft.Theres a very similiar Spanish movie by the way. Its called "Talk to her" by Pedro Almodovor. It was nominated for the Oscars in 2003. Go catch it if u can.

Ive seen Talk To Her and it is an unfortunate coincidence, I feel so sorry for the writer because this is a cleverly written story. There are a lot of similar themes through both.

l read with expectation... felt let down after reading, to sum up, it would make a great introduction to a much fuller and complete story, sorry John... it left me deflated. write a novel, you have all talent to do that. rosemarie groves, South Africa

wow, this is my first time reading a story of this length (or lack thereof!) and coming away with such a thirst to read it again, analyzing every word in the story over and over again. thank you for the experience. RGR

Taut, well written. Economical. 650 words! Must be like being in a straitjacket. Tip me hat to you, sorr!

John, you bastard. This is positively brilliant and that boils my blood. I want to write John, I want to write like you. How very fulfilling it must be to possess such a talent, to earn such envy from capable and brilliant men like me.

hi john, i enjoyed ur story however i basically didnt get it, guess im still too young (seems like everyone on here is old or perhaps older im still a teen :) .just thought id let u no that im going to write down ur name and the name of ur story and some day when im older have another look and see if i get it then ..but it sounds great thanx for ur time

For the life of me, I cannot figure this silly comparison to "Talk to Her." Close your ears, John. Its absurd and unfounded. What I find alluring about your story is, yes, the absolute economy of words, but more so what you do not say. There is so much room for interpretation, and, to me, that is one of the greatest charms of short stories. I love the mystery, the sketchy allusions, and all the possibility waiting to be filled by the readers interpretation, based on their own life experience, in between. There is nothing wrong with this story. Dont change a hair of it, not if you care for it, my dear.

I thought this was beautifully written and loved the imagery. The only sentence Id get picky about is where the father carried "what he thought was his daughters body". Alive or dead, it was still his daughters body. I wonder if corpse might have been a better choice here. Great story anyway. Janis

This story definately pulls you in, absorbs you and draws you on but it ends without appearing to go anywhere (unless Ive missed the point)or to draw your own imagination on beyond the initial story.

I loved the way this story ended, the last line was wonderful (I watch Jasmines eyelids, waiting for her to bite.) and had me personally wishing Jasmine would do just that. Terri, 20, England

Wonderfully written. Congratualtions to you John Ravenscroft. I appreciate you sharing your talent to all of us readers. Thank you for your time! Tin2

boring.

Thanks for all the comments, folks. Even boring makes my day! Cheers - John Ravenscroft

no doubt he tried to kill her, notice: She "fell overboard, sank ,became tangled in the nets." i.e her father is a fisherman, he threw her in the net and threw her overboard. "some time before anyone noticed. Her father hauled her back on board and sailed for home. When he finally arrived, he carried ashore what he ---***thought***--- was his daughters body." (he thought she was dead but she somehow survived). yeah, good story. yuri